"Are you - I don't quite know how to put this - it seems like, with a lot of important questions, your answer is 'Sing will figure that out because Sing is very smart and Sing will probably be nice but there's nothing we could do if it weren't so we might as well just let Sing do things', and it seems very - like it might be true, but I feel like I'd be a different person if I lived like that."

"Usually I don't think about it very much. Sing almost never - talks to people, does things as itself as opposed to by making little nudges behind the scenes to make sure everything works out. Usually I have my spirit guide turned off and I just focus on human-level stuff. This is just important enough that we have to be thinking some about Sing-level stuff. But usually I'm not trying to negotiate the integration of a pocket universe full of magical people. I don't go 'Sing will make it work out' about basically anything I do the rest of the time. I know that's why I have the resources I need, but I still have to use them myself."

"That sounds better. I guess I've never negotiated the integration of a pocket universe before, either, but I have helped decide whether to conjure more earthworms. Is that the kind of thing humans on Mars decide for themselves?"

"Sure, I have friends-of-friends who work on ecology management!"

"...Supposing I want to work with them on that, assuming we do end up in contact with Mars, how feasible would it be for me to do that?"

"I'm sure there's an ecosystem with an opening."

"Do they have education requirements, would they want a character reference, what kind of working hours are normal on Mars...?"

"I assume they vary, everything else does. I've never been into ecology myself and don't know what groups there are running things except I know that Hummingbird Dance does the vertebrates near where I live. Sometimes I report to them about what animals I've seen near my castle."

"You have hummingbirds! Our ancestors debated those but didn't end up making any."

"They're very popular in my area. They'll land on people sometimes."

"I bet Donna'd love that. Did you go with them instead of insects or do you have both?"

"We have both."

"You must have so many different kinds of flowers. It'll be great to see them."

"Yeah! It's beautiful there."

"We'll get you home. In the mean time if you're staying for dinner you should let me know your preferences."

"I'm not picky."

"Convenient. Figure you also want to stay the night with us? We sort of have extra bedrooms."

"That's convenient for me if it's convenient for you!"

"Yeah, we're not expecting any more people in the house until after you're back on Mars. And we're in a convenient spot if you want to talk to more mages, obviously - which you probably should, honestly."

"Should I especially? What about?"

"Well, for example, I keep thinking about whether we can use the magic, which is smarter than us, to confirm that Sing really does mean well, but personally I've been working with the magic for two years and I specialized in making things colorful, so I think at this point someone should ask one of the more than a hundred other people who have also devoted their lives to communicating with the magic. Or for another thing, if we're going to try to keep anything disastrous from happening as our ecosystems come in contact, mages are all theoretically trained in ecology and it's not like I haven't worked in the field but I'm not who the buck stops with, you'll want to talk to the people who have the final say on animal populations and so on. Not just mages, I do think you want to talk to historians because they'll have context on civilizations interacting, and farmers because there are a lot of them. Maybe even some other profession I'm not thinking of. But definitely other mages."

"You realize I don't make that kind of decision, right? I'm an acclimator on sabbatical who does recreational swordfighting."

"If I had a representative from Hummingbird Dance to ask instead I would do that. I could try to kidnap one but even if I didn't land in your sun by accident, either Sing would be able to catch me or I'd leave all their friends to wonder what happened to them."

"Well, I can give you my best guesses. You specialize in making things colorful?"

"I am the only mage who's done that for generations! It's on top of keeping the world from ceasing to exist - it's generally understood o go without saying that all mages who work with the magic at all do that - I do, say, new eye colors for people who are willing and able to drop as much money on that as it costs to fix a broken bone, or when people want conjured textiles, I can get a better price for mine because I'll do colors you can't get from natural dyes."