"I appreciate the automation help. Have you made portals here?"

"One, not within your borders, in case I needed to reach this planet in a hurry. I haven't had to use it so far."

"Do the Ceirene realize that if they prematurely remove all the red caste we will be without essential services?"

"Idealists," he explains.

"They get so many people killed." She sighs.

"Yes. If you want a demonstration of the portals, or to be the first person on the planet to catch the wing contagion, I can open one here, but then I will have a portal to your office."

"Perhaps you could put it on the roof near the helipad."

"Sure. Now?"

"At your convenience."

He shrugs. "Now is convenient."

She gets up and shows him to the roof.

He opens a portal.

It's flat, vertical, approximately rectangular, with slightly blurry edges; not a thing in itself, but an opening into another place. On the other side, a vast expanse of short dark grass stretches to a distant horizon. The sky above it is a soft misty grey. The dew on the grass is pristine, and there are no landmarks of any kind in sight.

"It's lovely."

"Thank you," says Dalvor. "Step through if you like. I think I would prefer if you did not die."

She inclines her head in acknowledgment and takes a step into the Sphere.

There is a dramatic pillar of light. Her wings match her hair. She looks at them as though she considers them vaguely undignified and puts them away.

"Congratulations," says Dalvor.

"Thank you." She steps out again.

"I look forward to working with you." He closes the portal.

"Likewise." Back down to her office. "By what mechanism will the Ceirene most likely attempt to abduct the red caste if they attempt to do so before we are ready to package them up and send them away?"

"They'd try to force free emigration as a diplomatic concession if they had a strong enough bargaining position to make it work. Since they largely don't, you mostly have to worry about well-meaning visitors sneaking people home on an individual basis out of sympathy. But that can get out of control fast if someone gets their wings on the way in and goes back for all their friends."

"That would at least probably affect only a small community at a time. We could spread them thinner than we currently do. It would just have to be a transitional step, not sustainable."

"I can also do my best to redirect all their generous urges through official channels, but only if I have official channels to work with. A provision for individual concerned citizens to sponsor so many individual refugees each, or some such thing, with supervision to discourage them from coming back to run off with entire neighbourhoods in the middle of the night."

"There will be problems if they want to go talk to reds and then don't abide by standard decontamination procedures before moving elsewhere on the planet."

"Oh, they'll stand by whatever the Interstellar Hygiene and Safety Commission has to say on the matter; you don't leave human territory if you're not willing to listen to the Commission."

"And what does the Commission think about reds?"