It seems like I could spend years exploring one city and not see everything. But I want to go home when Seeker - the big one that visited first, comes the image - does, for the Grand Moot. That's probably thirty days from now.

A purple wants to know what besides concerts she wants to do while here!

An obstacle course! Food. Talking to people. Gardens? Swimming and flying? Talking to city animals? Maybe learn things from a wise teacher? Learning things is good. I need to turn the concert money into gold or art or something before I leave, too.

What's your job? Becomes her standard question when she can't think of anything specific.

This orange is walking her dog! Would River like to talk to the dog? Is that really a thing she can do?

River's head tilts at the dog.

Most animals don't have as much to say as Draak or Amentans, but your dog loves you and she's healthy and she's suspicious of me because I'm big and toothy and smell scary.

Amentans applaud! The orange hugs her dog.

She tells Mahkemiken, I don't think I like the idea of pets. It's related to the thing I couldn't explain to Amseli.

You said the dog loves her, though? And is healthy?

Yes. It's not that the dog is suffering. The fact that pets are a thing isn't even bad... I don't know how to explain it or I would have already.

All right, well, I'm listening if you think of anything else you want to say about it.

It's a pattern. It's multiple things that make a confused mess of feelings. It's philosophy.

Each plant and animal has - a little bit of agency. A single insect changes the universe forever by existing. It consumes a leaf, or feeds a frog, or pollinates a plant. It has an effect. It feels like Amentans see animals less smart than them, and plants, and the whole universe, and sometimes each other, as - tools or potential tools.

Everything that lives acts according to its nature. It'd be wrong to blame a rabbit for eating grass, or a Draak for eating a rabbit, or an Amentan for wanting a baby. But everything that lives shares a nature as a thing-with-agency, as a thing that will predictably change the world in some way great or small, as a thing that the universe would be different without.

It's not that things would be better if people never existed. Nature's always changing, anyway. It's not that people shouldn't make tools and get themselves what they want. It's not even that species should be kept from going extinct! I don't have any idea what a perfect universe would be like if I could make this one! I don't think perfect is a thing.

I guess... Plants and animals are less important than Draak or Amentans. But they're not unimportant.

...Oh. Our compassion extends to plants and animals, and even to species or ecosystems. I don't assign that dog, or that decorative shrub over there, to a different category than you or me. I'd preserve me before you and us before them, and the dog before the plant, but they are in the same category. Yes, I think that's it.

- then how do you decide who to prioritize consistently if they're the same category?

I suppose I feel it. I could probably tell you what I'd do if you described a situation, but I couldn't always tell you how I decided it.

Huh.

Mahkemiken calls on another purple who offers River a dish of sorbet.

I think that's the biggest thing, but we think in a lot of different ways, it's not just that.

...It smells like mostly sugar, I don't think I'd like it particularly but I'll still try it if you're offering, she says of the sorbet.

She's offering! She has a sorbet cart so that's all she's got.

She tries it. Eating something cold is neat and the flavoring is neat but sugar really doesn't do anything for Draak!

"Thanks for giving it a try anyway!" says the sorbet cart purple.

Thanks for giving me something new to try! Tasting many things is even in my name!

"You're welcome!"

A yellow wants to know what Draak computers are like.

I don't have anything like that. Mostly people who really like math make them? I've never seen anything like a pocket everything before today!

- but you have spaceships!

Seeker of New Truths is a genius and he has a spaceship.

This puzzles the Amentans.

A grey wants to know how fast she can fly!

She sends a memory. That fast in short bursts! Slower for endurance. She's never measured it in numbers.