Sure, he'll meet with Governor Avalor.

Here she is. Cobalt blue hair, looks pretty old both in human-recognizable wrinkliness and in local indicators like patchy fading of sun-exposure browning and darkened eyes. "King Dalvor, or do you prefer a different address?"

Dalvor has his wings out, but folded to his back.

"King Dalvor is fine. Hello, Governor Avalor. How much do you already know about recent events?"

"Very little; please assume I have no information."

"All right," he says. "I am the King of Aluvanna, which is one of two states belonging to my species, humans. Most of the inhabited planets in the galaxy belong to another species, the ruikni, who until recently were genocidally xenophobic and still have a lot of anxiety about interacting with outsiders. When the ruikni found your planet they came to me for advice, and I decided to guide their diplomatic efforts because I expected them to turn out badly if I didn't. We found your planet in the middle of that war you were just having, and solved the immediate cause by arranging for trade between the Tapai and the ruikni so the Tapai could get their food elsewhere. I admit to being very curious about how that situation happened in the first place; the Tapai did not provide many reliable details."

"An allocator - normally a minor, almost symbolic position - decided that it was time people relaxed about red pollution and in order to facilitate this coordinated the producers of every staple and many other crops to have reds involved at certain chokepoints in food handling and transport such that anyone who didn't want to go hungry or live exclusively on obscure vegetables would have to accept at least some risk that whatever they were eating had passed through red hands. The population was not as receptive as he might have hoped, domestically let alone abroad."

He sighs.

"Idealists."

"Quite."

"I plan to offer the wing contagion to every person living on your planet, but the ruikni Interstellar Hygiene and Safety Commission was happy to draw up procedures for doing that without giving anyone cause to be concerned about red pollution. Should I also assume you know nothing about the wing contagion?"

"Yes, you should. It's contagious?" She peers dubiously over his shoulder.

"'Wing contagion' is a ruikni phrase. They used to call it something ruder before their xenophobia turnaround. Wings are a feature of only some humans, and they come with a number of useful benefits, like immunity to old age and dramatically increased resistance to illness and injury. The ability to get one's wings is contagious; the wings themselves, with attendant benefits, only show up once you feel that you have achieved something admirable and worthwhile. The most straightforward way to catch the wing contagion is to visit a winged person's Sphere, which is a kind of personal universe that we gain access to when we get our wings."

"How odd. There are no other effects?"

"Other effects of what, having wings? Just the wings, the Sphere, and the near-immortality. There's also an unconfirmed theory that they come with the ability to use a certain kind of magic; we won't know either way until a winged nonhuman tries to learn combat casting, and combat casting is difficult enough that if the first few attempts fail it won't necessarily mean anything. Oh, and the wings are retractable for convenience."

His wings vanish, then reappear a second later.

"That is certainly more convenient than the alternative. I meant other effects of having entered a Sphere to pick up the contagion."

He shakes his head.

"Is that a 'no evidence for' or a 'tested extensively'?"

"Tested extensively by the ruikni. Humans have been living inside a Sphere for thousands of years and there are no living humans who weren't born in one."

Nod.

"No one from your planet has tried it yet, but since there's no longer a war on I'm happy to offer everyone the opportunity."

"I am sure a solution to old age will be well-accepted, especially if it coincides with an option to colonize other worlds - we are currently overpopulated."

"Any newly made Sphere has enough room for a reasonably-sized house, and they grow with age. Mine is not much smaller than a planet. The wing contagion will do a lot for your overpopulation, and although I'm sure the ruikni will be very hesitant about accepting immigrants, Ceir and Aluvanna are pretty badly underpopulated after our recent war with the ruikni and we get along with other species just fine when they're not trying to kill us."

"We're currently in a situation of everyone desperately restricting their citizens' reproduction and refusing to accept immigrants; having somewhere else willing to welcome immigration would do a lot from a morale perspective even if you didn't take many. One consideration is that the balance of castes is fairly delicate - if you let in a hundred purples that will make no substantial difference, if you preferentially import translators we may have a deficit of yellows until we can make up for it by selectively relaxing the population controls."

"There's no way you'll talk the Ceirene governing council into turning anyone away for reasons short of serious crimes, and they have more space and are the more attractive destination by far. Temperate, picturesque, twelve hours of sunlight a day, negligible risk of being eaten by the local wildlife. If the proportion of locals who want to emigrate is skewed somehow, you'll be best served by a solution that doesn't involve stopping them from leaving."

"Why is that?"

"The Ceirene will feel like restricting emigration based on caste quotas is wrong, and the Ceirene can get ever so annoying when they feel like someone is doing something wrong. They're already making noise about the red caste. I'm looking into helping you fill the gap with ruikni automation in the very likely event that Ceir takes all your reds. Also, restricting the movements of winged people or people with winged friends is generally a losing proposition in the first place. Anyone with a Sphere can make portals to it from anywhere they please, and the only possible obstacle is that if they try to make one from another living person's Sphere they need the owner's permission."