"Yeah?"

"I would basically not worry about my own safety if I wanted to talk to the king. If I bothered him he would tell his secretaries not to schedule any more meetings with me. The worst thing I've heard of him doing to anyone any time this past millennium is having them put in a prison covering about half a square mile and containing its own library. He did worse before that but for reasons that aren't true anymore. And so when people learn things he'd very much like to know, we tend not to be afraid to tell him, so he learns what he needs to know and things run more smoothly than they would if he didn't. I want to be like that, because I want what he has and because I would want anyone who answered to me to have what I have, which is - not being afraid all the time, and being able to make plans to make myself better off instead of just to avoid things getting worse, and having people I can ask for help."

"Maybe the Yeerk leadership needs more secretaries?" says Atsinni uncertainly.

"Maybe! Do you know anything about their staffing?"

"Not really, just who I'd have to take orders from."

"Oh? Who?"

"My direct supervisor and anybody with a Visser or Sub-visser before their name."

"I see! At some point I'll want to talk to one of them but I hope to do that without putting you in danger."

And out of the orchard there's a barn and a house, both of them sturdy and intricately ornamented and well-maintained, and between them an arbor and several benches where two people are waiting for them, one of whom has wings.

It seems like a perfectly nice place. "I'm not sure how you mean to do that."

"Yeah. My current bad plan is for you to move here - I'm pretty sure I can keep you alive, but not nearly as cheaply as I'd like - but if you don't want to then I'd need to do something else. Anyway, these are Theo and Jess," she says, gesturing at the other people; Jess seems to be the one with wings. She raises her voice a little. "Everyone, this is Atsinni and I didn't get the human's name."

"He sort of doesn't have one."

"The human incorrectly known as Stan Peters," she says.

Jess waves. "Hi, it's nice to meet you, I'm excited about aliens."

"Are you... not... an alien?"

"I guess if there are people from at least two planets then everyone's an alien from some point of view! I'm from Earth originally. I guess normally I'd say 'you can get wings too' but I have no idea if you can, and, um."

"He could get wings maybe, I don't think it'd work on me."

"They're certainly an option if he wants them. - Your situation really looks like slavery but if people started introducing me as a slaveowner I'm not sure I'd feel confident about contradicting them and I haven't even puppeted anyone."

"I mean, it isn't unlike slavery, but this one in particular really can't take care of himself, I think he'd probably just curl up somewhere and hide and starve and avoid sleeping."

He does not want wings and he's trying to catalogue notable observations about these people and this place because internally screaming about how this is crushingly important and he has no idea whether any of it is true doesn't seem useful and might be distracting and he really shouldn't distract Atsinni.

He would kind of like to be offended right now, though, if that were remotely reasonable which it probably isn't. Probably he should just acknowledge that Atsinni is right and be ashamed of himself. But then again perhaps Atsinni is totally wrong. How could he possibly be sure. It's not that he wouldn't do that but it seems important that it wouldn't do him any permanent damage even if it might in some sense temporarily hurt. He's not better off for being physically healthy, he doesn't think, but then again what does he know.

"Which to be fair would not permanently impair him. He doesn't want wings."

Awwwww, the theory that Atsinni cares has not yet been falsified!

"That's not unusual. I don't off the top of my head know the exact number of similar cases New Jerusalem deals with annually but it's a few."

"- what, people who just want to curl up and do nothing? What do you do with them?"

"There are resources available to them, which they can opt out of any time they want - I'm guessing he's from Demon U, there are residential programs for people from there and different ones for people from any of the hells people come out of not knowing how to talk, but if it's more a case of, just, flinching at everything and feeling like doing things is hard and pointless, that's what public housing and food deliveries are for. Also libraries."

(Sara looks like maybe she would have put it differently but she doesn't contradict Jess.)

"I don't know the name of the place. - also he could probably talk though admittedly I haven't asked him to try."

That sounds tremendously stressful. Which isn't a no.