Words are inelegant. That would be better than nothing but I would feel like I was looking at something through thick layers of dusty glass. I don't see why I should speak properly to six castes but not the seventh. It would be like... Studying a tree and ignoring the birds that nest in its branches. Incomplete. Ignoring an important piece of the puzzle. Wrong.

My guess is Doet will be best placed to find reds for you to talk to and I hope you find what you're looking for there.

Thank you. I appreciate the efforts you have gone through for me. This would have been much more frustrating with a less competent welcome. If I announce my intent on ourPlatform and say 'send your responses to Tapa', will that be clear enough for other countries?

It's probably better to be specific enough that a real government can aim its messages more precisely - "send your responses to the Tapai Department of Global Affairs care of your diplomatic team" would work.

I do not understand bureaucracy, he replies amusedly, Yet, I hope. I will use that phrase. Anything else before I return to my ship for now?

I don't think anything else is pending right now.

So he goes and makes an ourPlatform account and emails the handle (SeekerClawVoyagerEyeSilent) to the same address that sent him the first news articles. He follows the instruction to upload a picture of himself, then the first post is a big stained-glass-and-gold sculpture of a tree. The second is a truly enormous diamond, cut flawlessly. More pictures of shiny treasure follow soon after. Each has a short and plain sentence describing how he got it for a caption.

(He's learned that frauds are common on the internet and this looks like one of those. Presumably Tapa is going to make some kind of announcement that the account is legitimate. He waits a few hours, reading some history ebooks.)

Tapa does make an announcement to that effect! Millions of people from all over the world "approve" and "curate" his pictures. ("Approve" just increments a public number indicating how many approvals the picture has, "curate" mirrors the picture to other subsets of ourPlatform besides just "everything SeekerClawVoyagerEyeSilent has ever posted".)

And then he puts up a text post with his full grandiose title that says, in very plain but grammatical Tapai, that he is the alien, that he is not giving Amenta any tech yet but will be talking to other aliens about that, that Tapa has been explaining things to him but now he wants to meet other countries to make sure he has a wide perspective, that other countries can explain why they should be met first, or at all, and send the responses to the Tapai Department of Global Affairs care of your diplomatic team.

And some more pictures of shiny things.

And a slideshow of an egg and pictures of a progressively less gangly and featherless baby alien on a backdrop of alien plants! He even has some babyish traits despite the body plan difference - soft and round looking body, big eyes, round face.

The baby alien pictures are very popular.

Tapa starts forwarding him other countries' invitations about half an hour later. Calado's is subtitled We recommend skipping this one. The country's very disorganized in a way that leads to people taking unilateral dramatic action whenever anything irregular's going on.

...Well, he can do some reading - they certainly would be a unique perspective, but, uh... It sort of seems like he'd end up needing to kill someone or blow up some boats if he went to Calado. That would be unpleasant. No.

The three biggest countries, at least one equatorial and one southern hemisphere and one non-democracy country, at least one respectable-seeming small country, Doet, and anyone except Calado whose pitch is unique enough, preferences for coastal countries. What do those pitches look like, so he can pick one to go first?

The three biggest countries are Tapa, Voa, and Cene; the next largest, if he's counting Tapa as been there done that, is Tuviri. Doet's not far from the equator. Baravi's in the southern hemisphere. There are plenty of unremarkable small coastal countries without obvious dire problems. Tuviri is apparently highly isolationist and points out that he won't be able to learn much about them if he doesn't visit. Most of the pitches identify what signal they tried sending him when they spotted him in space, mention some tourist attractions, suggest a bit of ocean he might like to land in (Tuviri's got an inland sea), and list some of their big names who want to talk to him in case he'd care to look up these people's work.

Tourist attractions don't really interest him unless they're big natural areas, or maybe a sufficiently huge botanical garden.

He'll look up people who other countries specifically mentioned in their applications. If they're being promoted like that they must be impressive somehow, no?

His list tentatively looks like: Tuviri, Doet, Voa, Cene, Baravi, and then two small coastal countries, leaving for Tuviri's inland sea some time tomorrow, travel time will be short. Can Tapa please give those countries his number-string email address? He's starting to realize private, secured communication that doesn't get overwhelmed with noise on this planet is something difficult and best left to the local experts.

People are mentioning their artists and musicians and xenologers, but also some nongreens - they're downplaying blues, actually, but they scare up accomplished yellow architects and programmers, orange physicians and educational innovators, grey dancers and ship captains, purple engineers and entrepreneurs. Doet says they'd be happy to bring him a red if he wants a red, what exactly would he like to do with it?

Tapa gives out his email address. He gets itinerary suggestions and inquiries from all those countries.

I want to talk to a red with telepathy because I want to understand each caste. Preferably one who is representative of the red caste. No touching is necessary.

There are so many of these people that he feels - itchy - for learning tidbits of their reputations and nothing more. He knows every single Draak that's worth knowing in his estimation, but that's probably just impossible, here.

He's pretty reluctant to go anywhere very far from his big starship, or land the ship too close to shore, but a few of the itenerary items that are natural areas would work. He plans an arrival place and time with Tuviri and tells everyone else that Tuviri's first, then Doet.

(Meanwhile, he keeps working on the tech compatibility.)

There is internet kerfuffle about Tuviri being next. What's Tuviri going to do. They don't talk to anybody. Nobody knows what they're like.

All the more reason to give them a visit, really.

When his more powerful computer arrives near Shi Alassei, he goes out and sends an unverified installer to it from his pocket everything and installs the program and now the laptop is receiving tons and tons of high-res photos of exoplanets which can then be sent wherever Tapa wants them! The photos were easiest, all the other data he collected will have to wait a while longer.

Tapa is delighted to have exoplanet photos to publish on the Department of Space blog.

And now it's about time to go. He asks Amseli if there's anything else Tapa wants to say to him in person before he takes off for Tuviri's inland sea.

We hope you have productive and informative visits! And you're welcome back here any time, or you can email us if you need anything.

I will.

In that case, he's off to Tuviri, climbing high into the atmosphere with a bright lightshow from the largest circle on the ship, before going horizontal over the planet and coming down gently in the designated place in Tuviri's inland sea.

Tuviri sends boats. They're of a very different style than Tapai boats and run quietly. "Hello!" says the blue standing at the prow of the lead boat. "Welcome to Tuviri!"

The alien tilts its head at the lead blue and lifts a silver rod, which says, "Hello. I only know Tapai. I can use telepathy instead if you are willing."

"Yes, I am," the blue says in thickly accented Tapai.

And thus,

Hello. I am sorry if I am rude for not learning your language. Languages are difficult and not something I am used to when I can just do this. I am glad to visit Tuviri and look forward to learning what you might tell me.