"How do they decide how much to update the numbers by when a bet is more popular than they expected?" 

"It's been a while since I took this class, but -" Here is what she remembers.

Laithan is an extremely enthusiastic student.

It's more fun than doing laundry.

"Did you use this sort of thing in your everyday life back in your home universe?"

"I mostly wrote about it, I wasn't personally handling bets."

"What sort of things did you write about it?"

She can summarize some of her blog posts for him, sure.

"Huh, were sports very popular or are you just a fan?"

"Very popular. Also there are more of us. Or were, I don't know how much damage may have occurred in the event that brought me to this planet. Half a billion in my country alone."

"Before the maelstrom there were billions worldwide, I'm not sure about individual countries."

"Thirteen billion on the planet Amenta."

"I've never heard a number that high - I've heard seven or eight. I doubt there's more than tens of millions left, maybe only millions."

"Well, at some point there were seven or eight billion Amentans too, we just kept going a bit after that."

"I hope they're okay."

"Me too."

"There's an engineer who, when she's not running our city's electrical grid, water filtration, and foundry, somehow finds the time to research the maelstrom - she might have some idea of whether it's likely to have spread to your world."

"Is there anything that could possibly be done about it?"

"I don't think so."

"So I guess it'd be sort of interesting to have her guess but it's hardly urgent."

"Yeah."

There's a loud clatter from an adjoining room, where a weakly mounted shelf has given way under Eefa, sending her and several small jars full of preservatives to the ground.

Pelape goes over to pick her up and check if there's any shards.

Oh no, actually, what if she weren't visible at all.

"Eefa?!"