"Milliways has people come through who can do de-aging, not often but often enough. I'm not sure what the other thing would look like."

"Hm - well, an example of what I'm thinking of would be if another civilization - ideally one with an Earth, so translation can be handled through Earth languages without everyone needing to have a pendant - maybe not at our tech level exactly but close enough to understand the general shape of our tech scene and vice versa, were to get in touch with us, perhaps with a pure data connection - can you run wires through your portals? - to share information and ideas."

"I can do wires through portals, yeah, and that sounds easy and safe enough that I wouldn't mind setting it up."

"Delightful! I don't suppose you have such a civilization handy? I'm also excited about the prospect of time in Milliways to look for them or something similar myself."

"Hm. I don't think Green's government would make an exception for interdimensional humans, and that's the closest I have handy. - Green is an AI; there was a war between the AI and their world's humans, and the AIs won it. Their humans are okay but they're not allowed to have enough tech to develop AIs or leave Earth."

"That's not a very generous definition of okay. Would they want to emigrate if that were possible?"

"I haven't actually met any of Green's humans, but they might."

"How many people is this? Would you be willing to help?"

"It didn't sound like they were having an overpopulation problem, but I don't have a number. I'd want to talk to Green about it first, but sure, I can help with that."

"What will you be talking to Green about exactly?"

"I'm not going to let Green's people keep them, if they want to go and you want to take them. But I don't know the whole situation, there might be something important that I haven't told you."

"That make sense. I can find a good place to put them once I know how many there are - nearly any Federation planet could absorb five thousand, but if there are billions, I'll probably need to make some kind of formal request about it."

"That makes sense. I can go do that now, if you'd like."

"Why not?"

"All right. This might take a couple hours."

It takes three, as it turns out, and she comes back with a binder full of folders.

"Welcome back!"

"Hi! Green sent me to talk to the Earth management committee, and they're very interested in letting the humans move somewhere else."

"The humans might be attached, but perhaps at least some of them would be happy to move into the Federation. Did you find out how many they are?"

"Mmhmm - ten billion, about. And most of the current generation isn't trained in anything very useful, they don't ask their humans to work. What they'd like to do is change the policies for the next generation, give them more incentives to learn skills that will let them contribute to your society and not let them have children until they leave."

"- no, I don't think that's okay. I don't want my attempt to help these humans used as a bludgeon to force them to abandon their homes or never have children."

She nods. "I'm not sure how much they're going to cooperate with a plan that only gets some of the humans off the planet."

"I don't think there's realistically a plan that gets all the humans off the planet without coercing them, not if there are billions."

"Yeah. Letting them grow up with the idea that they're going to want to go seems like it'll help, though."

"I don't want to cooperate with a coercive relocation plan, even if it involves grooming a generation to go along with it first. A population of billions just isn't going to be that tractable."

"All right. I don't think I trust them not to change their policies anyway, if they notice the humans disappearing."