"People who were richer than whoever they wanted to hurt."

"They'd have to be richer than the entire customer base who'd switch to a company that didn't let people do that."

"People who can protect themselves, then."

"Is that any different than the way it works in a system of law? If you're prepared to immediately flee the country and then never have contact with civilization again, you can get away with murder."

"But they wouldn't have to do that, just pay money."

" - no. There's no one you can pay enough money to not get in trouble for murder. You can try to hire a private army instead of interacting with the contracts at all, but that goes about as well as it does in places with a state."

"I guess I didn't understand the explanation."

Avalor finally opens her door. "Allocator Idiot, so good to see you. And -?"

"Prince Morifinwë Carnistir of the Noldor, we're the aliens who landed here a few weeks ago."

"Landed on the Tapai, you mean. Well, are you here to demand our unconditional surrender or what?"

"Here to say that we're endeavoring to bribe them to stop the war, and we'd like to bribe you also - to stop the war, to stop executing prisoners, to cooperate with a couple experiments with repatriating reds somewhere nicer and with giving some of your citizens money so they have leverage for better working conditions."

"A la carte or package deal?"

"Latter two are open for negotiation but the angle that might get somewhere with me is 'this will have unintended negative consequences which you could avoid by instead...', not 'oh, we don't do that here."

"Unilaterally withdrawing troops gets us Tapai steamrolling unopposed past or through defenseless farmers until they can stuff themselves on our crops. If we look helpless enough they keep going till they've conquered us like they conquered Hafar, or as it used to be called Arpiqa."

"Sure, leave troops there for a week, that's when the Valar get here and can make it clear to Tapai where we stand. There's a ceasefire now, right?"

"Yes."

"I think we have a shared interest in maintaining it."

"They can't keep what they've got. They have to pull back. We are happy to let them do so under a ceasefire and then peacefully resecure our border if you can convince them to do that."

"Great. I am certain we can presuming Yavanna shows up and will communicate where things stand if she doesn't."

"Do we receive bribes now?" wonders Governor Avalor dryly.

"Are the other things I wanted no problem?"

"Are the experiments one thing or two? It wasn't clearly phrased."

"Two. Let some reds come and go, and if we give people money and they use it to quit do not force them to continue working."

"So the executions are nonnegotiable. There's some preexisting support for life in prison instead."

He flinches. "- nope, that doesn't work either. We'll take them off your hands if you like."

"Why doesn't it work?"