"None of those, he's just selected based on having the best grasp of how to align Himself with Abadar, and then communicates with other shards of Abadar as much as that's permitted, and it's permitted more as He becomes more shaped like part of Abadar. ....I would also have confidence in Aspexia Rugatonn with this commitment, if that's a helpful comparison."

"Not as much as one might hope.  I would not feel particularly comfortable right now with Aspexia Rugatonn using a Detect Thoughts item on me but promising not to use the knowledge for anything, even assuming that she otherwise keeps her compacts.  There would be, for example, the question of what happens if Abrogail turns around and reads her, or Asmodeus, for that matter."

"But I'll take it under advisement.  If there was some way for him to not read me in the first place it would be a lot more helpful."

"You could....wear a veil?"

"Body language.  Tone of voice."

"Separate topic.  How do you think I am on safely leaving the Black Dome, for example to visit the Temple of the All-Seeing Eye?"

"We can send you with security that ought to be adequate to get you to safety from most possible attackers. There's nothing we can do if Achaekek shows up or something. In combination with an augury, I think we can be looking at less than a one in a hundred chance of something horrible happening, but it's hard to get it down much lower than that."

"Achaekek?"

"A powerful servant of the gods which kills those who aspire to divinity, supposedly. It was much scarier before prophecy broke, because it'd just occasionally show up, eat a helpless child who apparently had a great destiny."

Was he that obvious?  Probably yes.  There's all kinds of possible reasons why somebody in a palace library would ask a bunch of questions about the Starstone, but possibility isn't the same as probability.

"And people wonder why I don't want anyone reading my mind," Keltham doesn't say, because maybe it's a bluff.

"I suppose that could be part of the reason why Aroden put up defenses around the Starstone, though it'd be pretty impressive if that could keep a god out," Keltham says instead.  "I probably want to visit Ione today, I don't actually see the danger diminishing with time, as other countries hear about my being here.  How do I set that up?"

He's also been advised to visit Sothis's slave markets quickly before they can clean them up.  But it doesn't seem a wise thing to do to his brain, and - it does not necessarily - it may not, at this point, affect any of Keltham's other decisions, what kind of slavery exists in Osirion.

"Let me speak to the Palace guard. I expect they can escort you any time starting twenty minutes from now."

"...if I asked for the ability to wander around Sothis, stop in at a bookseller or two, would the Palace guard consider that also feasible?"

"I don't think that adds much to the risk, and it is of course your risk to take."

"I'll probably do that then.  But I should maybe get an explanation of the whole weird treatment of women thing, before I set out, in case I accidentally end up married to Nefreti Clepati."

"I apologize, but something about this conversation seems to be very not good for me.  Not sure why.  I'll go - look over the list of people who volunteered to answer questions for money, and pick, I don't know, one of the palace concubines maybe.  Then set out for the Temple of the All-Seeing Eye after that... no, poke around Sothis first, being seen going to the Temple of the All-Seeing Eye might alert somebody and then it'd be more dangerous to wander the city."

"I would also suggest having me talk to a Very Serious - to somebody on the regional management committee about the Project v2, before the international representatives all get there tomorrow, but it's your administrative region."

"I can send someone this afternoon to explain to you who to expect, what their interests are, and so on." He is very concerned about Keltham and not particularly concealing it.

Keltham isn't going to say anything reassuring, or even misleadingly reassuring-sounding.  He doesn't lie, and defeasibly prefers not to deceive; if he must deceive he prefers smaller deceptions to larger ones.

He'll give them the brief dath ilani departure courtesies, and then depart to check over his list of question-answerers.

The most generous bids are all from priests of Abadar, but not all of the bids that offer to pay him are; there are some smaller-sum offers to pay him ten gold, from a palace concubine, or six silver, from a palace cook, or a baby dinosaur, from a palace three-year-old.

...he will check later on this word that translates as 'dinosaur' to make sure that's not an actual dinosaur.

Keltham will select a concubine who wants to be paid five silvers.  He does not want to be paid himself, and worry about whether he's delivering what the other person thought and hoped they were buying.

Someone will send for her! ...Keltham will be meeting with her on one of these beautiful balconies overlooking a courtyard full of fountains and overlooked by some other balconies, if that's all right.

"If I'm tagging along for this too then we could do it privately as that counts as chaperoned."

A sensible person might worry that they'd get less straight answers from a palace concubine if there was a prince standing nearby.

This would rely on the person in question having grasped the concept of 'power distance' on any intuitive level whatsoever.

Narrator's voiceover:  Keltham hasn't.

"...you know what, sure.  It seems like a waste of your valuable time, but I guess it's more of me speaking Baseline, if you haven't run out of Share Language yet."

"I haven't!!!"

- if Keltham has still not grasped the concept of power distance at all, then he might be slightly confused when the woman whose bid was accepted walks into the room, takes in Fe-Anar, and immediately and gracefully kneels. 

"I'm going to give you Share Language (Baseline) so I can pick up Baseline vocabulary while Keltham talks to you," he says cheerfully, and taps her through her sleeve. "It's a very good language! They invented it themselves!"

"Keltham out of dath ilan.  Why'd you suddenly kneel, 'kneel'?  If all women have to do that every time they enter a room, I'm giving up on Osirion and moving this operation to Rahadoum."

" - it's because that's the Prince Fe-Anar, uh," she struggles for an honorific and isn't turning up any, "powerful-person. Men would kneel too."

"I really hadn't read Fe-Anar as the type."