"Oh yeah, you shoulda seen the look on her face - wait, can you, is the tablet taking video usually -"

"I have been trying not to spy on you constantly because most people find that terrifying."

"You have the option to spy on us nearly constantly and didn't actually say you weren't going to do it and if you did say that we have no way to verify it. I'm not saying 'by all means please spy on us constantly' but your reduction in terrifyingness is not huge here."

"I'm not spying on you constantly. If I were trying to control your access to information you'd know that because you'd have run into more soothing information."

"I thought maybe you didn't know what would be soothing or didn't know if you could sustain a major evasion without suspiciously limiting our ability to learn Radchaai or walk around outside."

"People hate talking about reeducation, it's incredibly gauche, you could go a whole lifetime without anyone mentioning it. I don't think I could guess perfectly but I could guess - better. Have you looked up Garsedd yet?"

"No, must be late in the alphabet, why?"

"It's something I would hide, if I were hiding anything."

She blinks into starscape momentarily, notes it inside her sleeve, blinks out. "Noted."

"Anyhow. Most methods of deterring crime and preventing criminals from reoffending are vaguely horrible."

"I didn't say they weren't."

"But this one strikes you as particularly so?"

"Yup."

"Why's that?"

"Part of it is probably that we just don't have the technology for it at home and so I'm not desensitized to it at all but even when I have considered the general concept in science fiction contexts I consider it a fairly important principle that people's minds ought to be inviolable."

"That makes sense."

"Putting people in prisons changes their minds too, usually in the wrong direction - makes them more violent -"

"Giving people ice cream induces mental change, that's obviously not the line I'm drawing."

"I'm not sure there's a line, just lots of different things with lots of different effects on people."

"I perceive there to be a line. I admit it is not a fine line."

"For what it's worth, it's very uncommon. Crimes are rare, and often occur under circumstances that leave us convinced they won't recur."

"When you say uncommon what numbers do you mean?"