"Okay. And she didn't say why she wanted you to do that?"

"I didn't ask. It seemed - not likely to be terribly harmful. I assume she must have known something."

"We can ask her once I am 300 meters away."

"Sure."

They descend to the surface of the Earth; as they get closer Cam keeps a lookout for hostiles.

It's clear for a while. At some point three smaller ships appear and fly parallel to them. 

Someone on the ground starts broadcasting at them over emergency frequencies, asking Cam's craft to identify itself.

Cam's ship recognizes some of those as emergency frequencies, what with being an Earth-inspired model. "This is the Atriama," he says, "I need to land, is there a good place for me to do that?"

The people on the ground would like to know where exactly the Atriama is flying in from.

"Orbit. I've rescued a bunch of - slaves? Slaves in practice even if they aren't technically called that - from the Alteri."

The people on the ground want to know if he could maybe keep circling for a few minutes while they contact people who are better equipped to deal with that. Shouldn't take long.

"I can do that but I'd like your assurance that you aren't going to use my patience to fire on the ship, that's what happened last time I waited patiently for something and I have to say I wouldn't recommend it."

The people on the ground claim to have no plans to fire on him. Mostly they're concerned about the fact that kidnapping Alteri slaves is extremely illegal, and they don't immediately know what to do about people who need to land because they're doing extremely illegal things that are likely to cause serious diplomatic problems.

"Why is rescuing slaves illegal, pray tell, what did I miss?"

"I suppose you probably missed the part where the Alteri can blow up planets," says the voice on the other end.

"That did actually come up but I wasn't aware it had such interesting effects on policy."

The people on the ground want to know if he has enough fuel to make it to St. Louis and whether his ship is capable of vertical takeoffs and landings.

"I can and it is."

The people on the ground instruct him to report to the Carthon embassy in St. Louis. They've expressed interest in receiving him. The embassy is also technically not US soil, so he at least can't be breaking any American laws if he sets the ship down there.

"Does that sound okay to you guys?" he asks the rescued Alteri slaves.

There is some hushed discussion and obscured signing. 

"It's less likely than our other options to get any of the Earth Liars in trouble," reports Imrainai, eventually.

"How much of an uphill battle do I have trying to convince you to call the species 'humans'," sighs Cam. "Yes, I can land at the St. Louis Carthon embassy, thank you," he tells the folks planetside.

"It just sounds - really unnatural and pretentious? But I guess if it's important to you...?"

"I mean, I don't want to be a dick about it, you're presumably all used to 'Liar' and it's short and stuff, but encountering it for the first time just today was really startling."

"It's - I mean I guess it's not meant to be complimentary, but it's hardly inaccurate?"

"You told me the Alteri were fully capable of bullshitting me."