"I can move my ship to your district, or at least to the edge of it, if there's somewhere with enough space to land."

"...I don't think there is."

"Savo, how difficult would it be to get red caste people freedom of movement to come take ships to Endorë -"

"- nobody's taking me seriously on policy now - you need to wash your hand -"

"I may have failed to communicate how utterly contemptible I find this taboo of yours. I don't need to wash my hand, it's all smoke and mirrors, there is nothing wrong with any of them."

"You probably actually should," says Davar, "if you don't and you touch anybody else they'll be horrified."

"My mother has red hair. My brother Maitimo has red hair. They decided when they saw him it was, ah, 'blood orange', because this bears no correspondence to reality in any way and it wasn't convenient for them to apply it to the alien royalty. But it's fucking red."

"You're an alien," says Davar. "If you even have an untouchable caste the hair colors wouldn't be the same. I appreciate the thought but you should probably wash your hand."

"If you people were resurrectable I would just destroy the planet and then resurrect you all with black hair," he says, and goes over and washes his hands.

Davar points out which soaps he is supposed to use in which order.

"You realize, I assume, that if there was at any point in history someone who mixed up the orders or skipped a soap or didn't want to explain how they'd touched a red in the first place and skipped it, then everyone in the entire society would be totally contaminated, and that this has obviously happened dozens of times, people being people?"

"It's not quite that contagious."

"What's the official level of contagiousness?"

"I don't have to keep track of it."

Snort. "Okay. We'll see what we can do. Are you done panicking, Savo - you must have realized before you did the food thing that it's all nonsense -"

"I know it doesn't make the food unsafe that doesn't mean I would touch one directly!"

"- okay. I will consult Nelyo about how to do the diplomacy bit at this point, I guess."

Savo sighs.

"Do you want anything first?"

"- like?"

"Well, I came here assuming you would want, like, a description of us and what we're doing and so on."

"- yes. That would be good. Although maybe I should just introduce you to someone else."

"As you like. I will probably like them less than I like you, though."

"You've been really clear on the disapproving of the war thing..."

"Oh, the country you help administer is a shitshow and everyone involved in it has some kind of appalling deficit of empathy. But at least you fucking tried something."