Ruan abjectly hopes that Bloom will be back soon and didn't want to offend her and certainly didn't expect her to be a cannibal but was obligated to make sure to keep his people safe and hope she understands and etc. etc.

The emergency theology conference is supposed to have an answer in the next four days but is more likely to run long than short.

...Seeker hangs out even when everyone else leaves, thoroughly exasperated by the setback to his plans that the bad PR represents. He tries to bribe that manufacturing company to rush his batch of parts, and also asks Amseli if she can find someone to arrange for him to buy batches of various metals while the theology conference is ongoing.

"...probably, why?"

I am deeply annoyed at the moment and don't want to deal with it myself. I can pay for the work, I still have a lot of tap from the first and second round of healing rods.

"If you tell me what you want specifically I'll get it procured."

Whole bunch of things like Neodymium, Molybdenum, Boron, Zinc, Gallium, Tungsten, and so on. He's not super picky about purity or format, he has machines to deal with that.

I deal with annoyance by throwing myself into work.

"That's reasonable.

There's some risk my resignation will be called for, depending on what people think of the apology. I'd like to introduce you to the person who'd be stepping into my shoes if that happens sometime in the next couple days, whenever's convenient for you."

Fine. It may as well be now.

Some people are going to go 'They don't want to ever set foot on our planet? Good! How can we make sure that state of affairs continues?'

"Some of ours are going to go, 'they didn't even know cannibalism was wrong? What else might they do, they can't possibly be trusted' -"

We can literally directly sense pathogens. But of course, saying you shouldn't be disgusted because it's fine for us is hypocritical.

Trust is dangerous, and difficult, and fragile, and oh so very precious.

"I'll remind the theologians of that point in case there's some way to argue it's different for your species, I suppose.

My colleague Mata Miamoto is going to take over for me if I resign, you may have seen her around - Mata, over here -"

Mata jogs over. "Hello, I wish we were being introduced under better circumstances. Miamoto means 'nexus'."

-Of people? Interesting take.

I hope you both realize I am not a politician by nature. Or perhaps I am as much a politician as our nature allows, and not one by your standards. For example, I have managed the situation and spent secrets so that I am no longer the junior member of our clade of Elders but an equal, a fourth driving force pulling in a different direction but not any lesser, as it were.

"We're aware Draak don't go through blue school and have government internships and so on," says Miamoto.

We are not nearly as social. That changes things, too.

"You've been accomplishing a lot in spite of the learning curve."

Times of change demand frantic motion, learning, and hard decisions.

I'm going to go back to my workshop for now. Do let me know if theologians want to talk to me.

"Of course."

He works on things. After three days emails Amseli asking for an injured animal or Amentan volunteer for his simplified Rod of Healing prototype. Which has been autoclaved.

They can find a purple with a sprained ankle not too offput by cannibalism rumors.

It works fine. Not quite as well as the ones he gave out before but perfectly serviceable.

These are one-shot and non-rechargeable. But they are going to be much, much easier to make, unlike the intricate clawcrafted works I sold before.

"Some of the logistics of using them are probably simplified with disposables," Miamoto observes.

Yes. I had to make a lot of sacrifices in the name of manufacturability, but manufacturability is a new and intriguing art so it's exciting instead of limiting! I'm investigating the possibility of refurbishing them. If I can make a machine that opens it up and replaces the central needle, it could work. Whether that makes any sense to attempt depends on how the economy of scale works out, which I still don't have an intuitive feeling for.

"It probably depends on how recyclable they are otherwise," says Miamoto. "And how expensive the materials."

I suppose we will see. 

Has the theology conference produced anything actionable or shall I go back to one of my other projects for another few days? I'll want to take the news home if they come up with something so nobody gets too many bad ideas about what this means. And I also assume the plan to build a place for Amentans to stay on our planet is totally bust...?

"They're not usually told they have to work at this pace; I don't think we should expect speedy turnaround even under pressure," says Miamoto.

"It's not necessarily completely bust - we can ship them hazmat suits, they already would have needed the capacity to get a decontam shower in case of accidents - but it imposes very different criteria for who'll make a good visitor," says Amseli.