"- well, breaking the law is really bad. There are so many Amentans and we live so close together that we all need to follow the rules we've made that let us coexist comfortably and be sure that we're all doing that together. So they preferred you to show up back here and say 'they were scared of me!' because then we assume none of them tried to touch you or take anything from you or anything like that, that they all left you alone. If you came here and said you'd made friends with some of them we'd have no idea what had happened in enough detail to know if they'd done something they shouldn't or not, not without sending someone to talk to them for more information, and they don't want that, they've got other things to do."

"... Is it breaking the law for them to touch me?"

"Not necessarily, actually! But it'd be much more likely to be against the law than if they don't touch you, so since they want everyone to be sure, they didn't touch you."

"I'm confused about why there are laws about this and why they just wouldn't agree not to touch me without everyone having to get really worried that they did."

"I don't think anyone's very worried that they touched you. You just told us they were scared of you, which I'm figuring means they gave you lots of space and didn't even come close. But the place they live could be very dirty so we were worried about that."

"It wasn't though. Also I knew they were scared of me cause they wouldn't talk to me and ran away."

"It might not have looked dirty, but a lot of the things that can make people sick aren't actually things you can see by looking like that."

"Are the people with red hair sick?"

"Sometimes, yes. And even people who aren't sick can carry diseases."

"Are you saying that the people with red hair carry diseases and that's why they have to be away from everyone and are scared of touching?"

"It's a little more complicated than that but it's a good simplification."

"Please could you tell me the complicated version. I think it's probably important."

Tish yawns, but then sighs and nods. "Okay. Reds are polluted. That's a lot like carrying disease, but it isn't literally the same thing. Things they touch are also polluted. So are poop and pee and dead bodies and vomit and pus. Reds' jobs are to keep all that pollution away from everyone else. You can wash pollution off, like you did today, but they can't, so they live separately and make sure that anything they touch outside their district is marked and we know to get it cleaned. It's illegal to spread pollution, it's one of the most serious crimes on Amenta."

"That sounds super sad! Why aren't people nicer to them?"

"- pardon?"

"They seemed scared like they expected people to be mean to them! And also the delivery person who made me take the first shower called them names and hurt one of them without saying sorry or apol-o-gizing."

"Well, I don't know that deliveryperson or what was going on with them, but they were probably scared because they didn't know if you would be cooperating with helping them follow the law."

"Do a lot of people not co-op-erate with that?"

"Almost everyone is very good about following the law. But since you're not an Amentan and you're new here, people don't know as much about what to expect from you yet. Probably everyone there thought that probably you would go out through the shower and head home once you were told to, but if you'd done something else instead it could have escalated really scarily, and they didn't know you well enough to predict that you'd do the right thing."

"I said I would promise to and they still didn't trust me! Also I sort of got the impression that the police were mean to the red haired people too and I'm confused about that. Also also why weren't there any on my planet?"

"They also didn't know you well enough to know you could be trusted to keep your promises! It takes time to build up trust like that. There aren't any reds on your planet because we have enough technology, now, to make it safe for purples and oranges to do their jobs without any part of the city having to be polluted like a red district, and we didn't want to make your planet dirty."

"Our planet's already dirty, there's dirt everywhere. That's mostly what it's made of on the top parts."

"I mean we didn't want to make it polluted."

"Oh. Okay..."

"So the next time I go and visit the red people place can you or Haemi come with me and tell people you know me and you're not an alien and I'll definitely shower when I leave?"

"- so a thing about pollution is that we don't like it and don't want to be near it. I would have come to help you if you were having trouble with the shower and you needed me, but I don't actually want to go to the red district, and Haemi won't either. We could send someone with you but they won't like it and they're not going to be friends with the reds or anything."