"If it's an important part of how you think and you're not wildly unusual then someone needs to figure out how to explain. Would you feel the same way if I had somehow gotten her to the same place you did in the same amount of time?"

"No. I think I'd be - I want to say 'proud of you' but probably if I say that you'll make the face you did when I mentioned 'knowing better'."

"And is that because you hold me to lower standards than you hold yourself to?"

"- well, that sort of depends on whether you think of it as standards for ethical behavior or standards for rate of improvement."

"Is there an even better thing I could hypothetically have done if I were capable of getting some slave out of Sesat like that?"

"I don't know. It would depend on the details."

"The thing that's confusing me is that - you said you didn't know if it was how she wanted to leave but it doesn't quite seem like it can actually be about what the slave wanted, because it would be absolutely baffling if you actually thought there was any chance she wanted something else - even setting aside that that was part of a deal I made with her, even if it had been a complete surprise, did you actually think she could have wanted something other than to leave as fast as possible?"

"I don't doubt she wanted to get out of Sesat! Though maybe I should, námor vary a lot, I could imagine one who was very attached to the country or had a free loved one they'd been managing to see regularly or something. But maybe she would have wanted to go to Azan. Maybe she would have wanted to go to a homestead planet instead of the city where I dropped her. Maybe she didn't dare ask me about the welfare of her family and now can't check up on them. I don't know."

" - She definitely didn't dare ask you about the welfare of her family, no one would dare ask you that. I... I guess I do see why you'd be bothered. Though if she wanted to go to Azan, it has open borders with everywhere, presumably including wherever you took her, and I imagine any homestead planet you could just have taken her to on no notice must too."

"Yes, but it may be hard for her starting from nothing and probably illiterate to figure out how to get to either place without being overwhelmed."

"Also, you asked her preference, I heard you, so the only way you should've done any better is by making decisions for her, which I suppose perhaps you should have but it doesn't seem to me that you normally think you should do that to people."

"- yes, I think I did the best I could, but I know from experience that it is very hard to communicate sincere preferences to someone who has that kind of power over you! And I'm distressed about her having been in that situation! With me! Of all people!"

"Why is it important that it was with you of all people?"

"It's this - vertiginous feeling - that I'm not in a utopia after all, it's only a dystopia that's the other way around. I know that Amentan caste politics don't extend here, that's just what it feels like."

"Well, you're not in a utopia, since you willingly and knowingly traveled to a foreign country that you chose specifically because you thought it was horrible and needed to be fixed. And yes, since you came to us with overwhelming force to try to make Sesat a vassal state of Vanda Nossëo, I think that's a very accurate feeling for you to have."

"I don't live here. I'm just here on a work assignment. I'll go home when we're done," says Nelen absently. "You know I don't think of it as a vassal state situation. We're not going to conquer you."

" - Right, but - first of all, you're only temporarily graciously refraining from letting your people come in and steal our things, I know you don't see it quite that way but - second, yes, there are such things as arrangements where one state sends another tribute but is allowed to keep enough of their pride that they can claim not to be conquered, and it's an important difference but that is still fundamentally a relationship based on coercion. I appreciate that you want something other than our utter destruction, I am glad you're giving me so much time to try to give people something to tell themselves so they can live with themselves, but it's not as though there's a path forward from here that doesn't involve us being subordinate to you. You don't need to worry about telling me a story I can live with, giving up on that is part of my job here."

"- we're also not expecting tribute? We'll pay you, once you're citizens."

"No, no tribute from us, only all our slaves and causing all our coins to become as worthless as mist in our hands and of course the small matter of having us institute laws you approve of."

"I don't know what you want me to say, here. It used to be murdering me would be prosecuted as interruption to essential services if at all. I'm glad someone came and saved me. I think all the other Amentans are fine now too. - we will buy your coins, incidentally, we don't want to crash your economy."

"...You understand how coming here and making our coins worthless and then offering to graciously buy them from us is not uncoercive, right?"

"- are they worthless already? I wouldn't expect them to be, even if your neighbors have a lot of our cash around it's mostly electronic and wouldn't spend here..."

"They've never actually been worth the face value, they've always been impure, and the only reason they're still ostensibly that valuable is because someday you'll replace them. When you're satisfied enough to do that, I suppose, and if we told you to leave..."

"- if it would help at all I think we can do the coin buy without any strings attached? It would be weird, but not in a particularly delicate way, I think."

"...Ah. That might help. - What else can we arrange without joining you?'