"- I'm not actually involved in this except for provoking people who might be racist about orcs. Jio?" says Magalt.

"I didn't half follow that," says Jio, "which I suspect was intentional, is there anything you can tell me in your capacity as a cultural consultant about why he stabbed Magalt or whether he's going to stab more people if he gets annoying customers as a professional teleporter?"

"So I don't have magic lie detection and it's cheap to tell me how much you believed in ~universal flourishing~" (jazz hands) "before it was cool, but I think... not on purpose he won't?" She chews her lip for a second. "I'm kind of halfway guessing here but I think every single free person in Sesat has to hurt people, not just can or does but I think... has to. And slaves aren't supposed to do that but also slaves do everything differently, all the time. If he wasn't bullshitting me I think he'd rather be a slave than hurt people and I guess that'd be a no on stabbing annoying customers but, man, I really didn't think anyone who mattered was going to need taught how to live here without acting like you're nothing."

"Has to how? Like, we know there aren't magically binding oaths flying around on your planet," says Jio.

Shrug. "Like otherwise you could die, or otherwise everyone would think you were worthless or something. Otherwise somebody'd steal your stuff. Otherwise you'd really be worthless. Whatever. Different reasons. You could maybe get away with not doing it one time but not every time."

"And you think he... understands now that he doesn't have to do this, here?"

"I think he won't. If he wasn't bullshitting me. Didn't really get the impression that he thought it'd be... a life he'd be glad to live, or anything, but I didn't get the impression that was something he wasn't willing to sacrifice, I guess. I'm gonna try to write up something about it later. Maybe get some friends to help. Doesn't matter to you if I do or not, though, he'll do what you told him to. If, again, he wasn't just bullshitting me."

"So you think it would be safe to have him able to teleport, and he'll be able to handle it without incident?" says Jio.

"Nobody told me I was getting hired to figure out who's going to do teleportation crimes! I don't know what kind of incidents even happen with teleports! I don't think he's going to stab anyone, maybe just till he goes home where everyone expects him to, he's definitely going home - I bet he'll be really scrupulous about specifically not using magic you give him to hurt people even once he does go back to Sesat. At least not directly, I expect he'll hurt people in the sense of putting people out of jobs or causing them to have fewer people around to take advantage of. Why do you think I'm qualified to tell you if he'll cause any other incidents?" Does rescuing people from Sesat count as an incident? Well, she's not specifically going to say no, just in case.

"I'm just unclear on how to interpret him and I'm accountable for it if he takes a job porting things for Dwarves and then a Dwarf is brusque with him and he stabs them." Sigh. "Thank you very much for your help."

"I don't think that will happen. Or anything very much like it. And you're welcome."

Jio heads back into the office. "You need a bit longer by yourself or are we good to pick up again?" he asks VAlan.

"Don't really expect to be any better later. What else is there?"

Jio flicks on the truth song. "Do you feel like you understand what happened today and why?"

"My understanding of what happened today is that you assumed my default response to Magalt's actions coming from an average person would be to - do something different than what I did, probably just take it meekly and hope he let me go, on the understanding that people who do that here are still pretty likely to let you go - so you picked Magalt in particular because he used to be garbage and you wanted to know if I was capable of understanding that he's definitely not, because that matters itself and because it's a decent proxy for how I'd treat Sesat's slaves, or, I don't know, reds or something. Except I missed that because I did not have an expectation that someone who does things like he was doing is very likely to knock it off on his own, and did not have an expectation that it was considered unusual or blameworthy to escalate. So instead we had a long conversation that would honestly have been easier to have if it wasn't right after a fight. I keep not being sure if I've done anything else wrong, you keep seeming annoyed and I'm not totally sure if it's that you generally find it annoying when people stab other people or what. I'm pretty uncertain about questions like whether Ulami was actually in league with you all along. So in that sense I don't know what happened today or why. But I think you're trying to get at something with that question where the answer is basically yes, I think, unless I'm wrong about something."

"Ulami wasn't involved. He did the mindreading version last week. I did ask his sister to accost him at the bus stop to get you alone. Uh, do you currently believe that anyone is presently garbage - the consultant, for instance, or orcs in Ardas we haven't discovered yet -"

"The consultant as she presented herself to me is an exceptionally brave woman whom I would seriously consider marrying. Melkor is garbage, Melkor is the worst entity I have ever heard of and makes me want to invent something worse than slavery for it but probably taking its orcs away and redeeming them is the best we can do. I wasn't totally sure until this second why you rescue orcs instead of killing them but now I am. But yeah, any entity that has a compulsion to serve Melkor instead of an independent will is - arguably an inanimate object, or maybe just part of Melkor."

"- we don't rescue orcs to get back at Melkor and orcs are still moral patients before their oaths are broken, just logistically difficult to treat well."

"...Oh, your otherworldly organizations have exactly the opposite of Melkor's values - you hate torture no matter what and like it when other people make great things and like it when there are other decisionmakers but don't think agency matters to how much you don't like torture - I suppose you probably also like for people to definitely know whether they're in Angband, that seems nice. Anyway, I used to be sure I knew what it meant and that it was an objective fact to say 'that's a moral patient' but I don't anymore. Just. If I cared how they feel when their feelings are under Melkor's control that'd give Melkor a way to get at me. I have no interest in interacting with them at all, and if one somehow came to where I was I would - actually probably mistake it for a redeemed orc because that's what I expect the overwhelming majority of orcs I ever run into to be - but if I didn't I'd want to bring it to someone with the resources to get it into the next free will batch, ideally nonlethally, don't know if I'd actually manage that. I don't think you'd want me to do anything different, and if you would it'd be because you have a better idea for achieving the same end goal, so I'd do it your way. If that's not good enough - I'm very tired of caring about hostages and I don't think I could make myself care about the oathed orcs for any reward in all the worlds."

"I don't think it's exactly opposite but it's close. Uh. Okay." Jio runs a hand through his hair, thinking. "You can stay in the class. There may or may not be further tests."

"Okay. That's good. What exactly am I supposed to say if anyone asks how my night went or if Ulami wants to know what happened?"

"You can tell them, it's not a secret now that it's happened."

"Thanks."

Jio goes off to have dinner in the cafeteria.

He's probably supposed to leave, right? Well, if not, he supposes they'll belatedly tell him so once he does.

This seems like a good time to go to bed, seeing as none of the people he'd normally touch base with after a fight are in this entire universe and if he does anything else it might turn out to be yet another test.

His sleep is uninterrupted.

(When Fere heads out of the building to meet her ride home, Magalt is there, crumpling up the paper cup his sno-cone came in to throw out.)