"I haven't personally but it may have come up. We're perfectly happy to start using telepathy if that's what the locals prefer, but we have to pick something as a default."

"Hm. And I suppose it's not consistently the case that there's a specific identifiable underclass where you could ask a few members if you can read their minds until one says yes and use that and still be sure no one will tell the government - you could just contact the government and then say you don't know much and would like to take a month to learn from each other before you start making deals, or insist on sticking to just the shops for a while, but then you'd miss out on best-case scenarios like Azan - I suppose it was never going to work out well to have the easiest and hardest countries to work with next to each other and at war, huh?"

"When I last spoke to my wife about work she proposed that all the least difficult people in Sesat would have been gradually moving to Azan for years and years, exaggerating the problem beyond whatever its original proportions," agrees Tarwë.

Feris smiles wryly. "I've never wanted to move there but I have wanted to move to Niazon. - You know who you might want to resurrect, actually, are the pirates who started raiding years and years ago because they were so fed up with all the kings and countries around here and wanted to live at sea but couldn't manage it without supplies. Azan enslaved them all and I haven't heard of Azan having any slaves around lately so I assume they're all dead now but that's no problem for you."

"I'll make sure they're on the list."

"I almost wish you'd come fast enough to save them, and yet I bet if you get any of them back as people and not as broken things they'll hate you. Anyway, that aside - can you offer me any help placating people whose pride is insulted by slaves getting restraining orders right now?"

"...I guess you could tell them that it's very silly of those ex-slaves to do something like that since now if they wanted to harm them they know where to find them and could just send someone else. As long as they aren't actually going to do that, it would escalate."

"...They might do that. They might do it even without my saying so. - Can you warn the ex-slaves to drop the restraining orders and move right now? Because I can't guarantee I can prevent that kind of behavior without concessions you aren't otherwise giving me and you're right that that would be disastrous."

"I can try. I can't make them."

"You should try and if talking with me is delaying you trying you should go do that, but I should stay here and pretend we're still talking for a while longer to give you time to work."

"All right. I'll sit here while I work out a bus route and so on, shall I." He does this on his computer.

Feris can get back to reading about unusually cleanliness-focused cultures while he waits.

And Tarwë whisks off to try to talk down Abolitionists Without Borders.

And Fere hears about another consulting gig. And this time the delegation to Sesat is involved! Cool! She hopes it's about freeing the slaves this time.

Nelen picks her up in person. "I have not been doing very well with Sesat," he confides, "I've fallen really short of my own expectations and the results my counterparts in similar countries are getting, but my teammate Tarwë thinks this will really help - he's the one who put out the bulletin, but he actually wants you to talk to our Sesati contact if that's all right with you, and he's not here himself any more, he had some offworld errand that couldn't wait."

"If your Sesati contact murders me for being a slave I want a resurrection but if you can promise me that then I'll do it."

"If you want, I can stay with you the entire time and be ready to teleport you out at need. If you don't want that I also have resurrection budget sufficient to cover that."

"You know, I got offered that last time and it was a mistake to take them up on it because it would've been easier to talk without trying to do it for a foreign audience."

"Then I can step out. Do you want a security golem?"

"Ooh, maybe. What do they do?"

"They interpose themselves in altercations and restrain anyone being violent."

Sigh. "Probably a good idea. As long as they don't listen in on things."

"They can hear, but they can't speak or write or, really, think, so they won't be able to tell anyone what was said."

"...I, uh, you know, I trust you and I want to accept it but also the way you put that just really reminded me of how Sesatis talk about slaves and now it'd just feel weird. It's probably fine anyway, right?"

"If you'd like to meet one that can talk or someone who programs them you can. But it'd be understandable not to want golems around, I took a while to get comfortable with the idea myself for similar reasons. I can put a silencing illusion over my ears, so I can't hear what you talk about, and stay in the room for safety, if that would suit."