Radio transmissions: wireless internet, audio and video comms. The two biggest countries are at war. They are arguing with each other about who is responsible for the apparently alien ship (one country or the other one or aliens). It is the last installment of the international green-caste singing competition hit show Garden of Song and a lot of people are talking about that too.

This is the interstellar exploratory vessel Rain in Starlight, co-advised by Assistant Coordinator Sikyal Tegati of Ityen-6 and King Dalvor Iserra of Aluvanna. We would like to establish diplomatic contact with your planet.

Tapa replies first; Voa is having some radio problems. Where are those places? How many planets are already networked together? Do they have an opinion on the war? Do they want to land? Are they clean?

The linguists and the navigator take five minutes to translate their system of galactic coordinates into local terms; then they compose a list of the names and locations of all twenty-nine inhabited systems, and argue over how to explain the location of Aluvanna and how to translate the names of the respective species involved. Eventually they decide to just leave 'ruikni' ('people') untranslated for this purpose.

The inhabited systems are thus-and-such. Ityen-6 is the interstellar center of government for the ruikni, who inhabit all the twenty-nine systems; the humans live in two neighbouring polities, Ceir and Aluvanna, in a... place... called Suranse, which is... attached... to Tseiza-3. Here is a picture of Sikyal, a ruix, standing next to Dalvor, a human. He has his wings out and looks mildly exasperated. Sikyal is much perkier. They do not currently have an opinion on the war. They are willing to land if given appropriate assurances about their safety. Rain in Starlight, like all ruikni ships in active service, bears an up-to-date certification from the Interstellar Hygiene and Safety Commission, but perhaps the locals mean something else by 'clean'...?

They are probably okay. Tapa thinks they should land over there.

Sikyal and Dalvor and the braver xenosociologist and the linguist with the best command of Tapap all pile into a shuttle and land over there.

Some people are there to meet them! They look almost human - Ceirene, specifically - but none of them have wings and they have very interesting hair colors, all shades of blue and a few green and yellow.

"Hello!" says Sikyal. The linguist translates. The xenosociologist looks fascinated. Dalvor looks inscrutable.

"Hello," replies a blue. "Welcome to Tapa. Is there anything we can do for you to make your stay more comfortable?"

"I think we will be all right but I will let you know if anything comes up!" says Sikyal. "I am Assistant Coordinator Sikyal Tegati, and this is King Dalvor Iserra, and these are Specialist Tebrel and Specialist Miuka." (Tebrel, the linguist, translates the introductions appropriately.)

The blues introduce themselves - senators, mostly - and the greens, who include a linguist and a theoretical xenobiologist. They don't bother introducing the yellows.

Sikyal is pleased to meet everyone!! Are they interested in cultural and technological exchange?

"Of course," says Dalvor, "having landed in the middle of a war, we're obliged to make a fair assessment of the situation before we go advantaging one side over the other."

They are! They are interested in that!

"It's not one of those complicated wars," says a blue. "They poisoned their food exports; we don't have independent food security so we're annexing some farmland."

"And yet," says Dalvor. "All things considered, I won't feel comfortable meddling until I've heard both sides of the story."

Well, would they like to come back to the city anyway? They can look at things and talk to engineers and anthropologists.

"Of course!" says Sikyal. Dalvor nods.

Off they go to the city! It's a city. It is less advanced than the ruikni.

And everything's too bright, but that's a hazard of being on spherical planets.

Sikyal is tremendously excited and compliments their architecture and asks friendly questions about their governmental structure that are reasonably well-informed for an alien who landed less than an hour ago.

Senators and other governance jobs are available to anyone of more than six years of age and blue caste; all castes except red can vote, weighted by caste; many advisory and bureaucratic positions are held by greens and yellows.

The ruikni don't have social castes like that! The humans have a fairly stark division between Ceirene and Aluvai but instead of separations in function or status this has resulted in separately administered states. Miuka the xenosociologist is fascinated and asks what the various castes all do and how their votes are weighted and why.

Most people are purple caste. The purple caste is farmers, retail and factory workers, food service, construction, stuff like that. They're not super bright but there are lots so naive vote allocation would promote a mediocre understanding of purple interests rather than a good understanding of varied interests. Blues (governance) and greens (intellectuals, artists) are fewer but much more likely by comparison to know what's going on, so they get extra. Greys (law enforcement and military), oranges (caring professions), and yellows (skilled miscellaneous) all get the same.

Miuka the xenosociologist tentatively points out that there is a colour missing from this list.

Oh, right, those can't vote but they do have jobs, they handle the dead and sewage and stuff like that, but don't worry, they haven't touched anything the visitors will interact with.

"Oh, that's very good to know," says Miuka. "The Interstellar Hygiene and Safety Commission will want to send a representative to document the relevant procedures and exchange information, but they'll have to wait until they can find someone who's comfortable interacting with, um, outsiders."

"...the rest of us are quite clean," says the blue Miuka is talking to.

Tebrel tries to avoid glancing at Dalvor while translating this for the other two, who both simultaneously try to avoid glancing at Dalvor as soon as they understand it.

"Until about a season ago, public consensus among ruikni held that non-ruikni sapients were fundamentally unclean and needed to be exterminated on sight. They were making inroads on Suranse. Then I persuaded them to find a new consensus," says Dalvor.

Tebrel translates, somewhat awkwardly.

"...killing people doesn't make them any cleaner," the blue's yellow aide ventures. "It kind of does the opposite."

"Interesting argument. I'm glad you never had to try it on an invading army," says Dalvor. (Tebrel looks so awkward.)

"It's also necessary for the reds to exist so they can handle unclean tasks for us," says the blue. "But I suppose that part wouldn't apply to other species."

"Now," says Dalvor, "who wants to explain to me in more detail about the poisoned food?"

It transpires that the poisoned food was handled by reds, whereas previously that would never have happened.

Dalvor sighs. Tebrel and Miuka seem to find the sigh subtly disquieting.

"Suppose that we arranged for you to get your food from the ruikni, who I assure you have exquisitely thorough and effective hygiene practices," says Dalvor. "Would that solve the underlying problem well enough for you to stop invading your neighbour?"

"Do they eat similar things? Being aliens?"

"Human and ruikni diets are surprisingly intercompatible. We'd have to have the specialists look into it, of course."

"There are some sympathizers on the Voa side - they've been giving their own people the same food - but it really is mostly about Tapai food security, so that would certainly be enough reason to seriously consider withdrawing."

"And withdrawing would remove most of the complications getting in the way of technological exchange," says Dalvor. "Sikyal, can you get it figured out?"

"Yes, absolutely!" says Sikyal.

"Thank you!"

"I'm glad to help!" says Sikyal earnestly.

"Yes," says Dalvor. "It's good when things work out this nicely."

Sikyal is happy to discuss the logistics of figuring out how the ruikni can sustainably feed the Tapai.

Sikyal is referred to some people who do that sort of thing.

Regrettably they have only one translator along, so Miuka will have to save their xenosociological questions for later, this being clearly the higher priority. There will be more available on the next visit.

That is okay. The anthropology types can prepare a report?

Miuka will be delighted to read their report, and will happily prepare one that discusses human and ruikni culture!

Hurray!

And once Sikyal has concluded their conversation with the logistics people, the delegation can go back to their shuttle and leave, promising to return in a few days with better translation and answers to questions about food compatibility.

(Dalvor leaves behind a closed portal to his Sphere, because you never know when a thing like that might come in handy.)

The Tapai do not notice the portal.

Good for the Tapai.

Sikyal has the food thing covered. Dalvor focuses on the rest. He explains that he doesn't want to offer to distribute the wing contagion until after the war stops, because introducing it beforehand would tend to give the Tapai an unfair advantage and he doesn't want to do that. He suggests that there should be a formal agenda for aid, trade, and interstellar diplomatic agreements. He calls a meeting with the Ceirene governing council. The Ceirene governing council is a bit put out that he went off and made first contact without them, but accepts his subtle hints that he was heading off a probable ruikni catastrophe.

The Ceirene governing council is alarmed to hear about the plight of the red caste. Some of them want to demand that the people of Kadrixi-4 abolish their caste system before receiving interstellar aid. Dalvor points out that they're not likely to do that. He suggests instead that there be a general freedom-of-movement agreement allowing anyone from any society to emigrate to any foreign polity willing to take them in. If Ceir wants to help the reds, Ceir can host red refugees. Ceir says they'll think about it.

Miuka and two dozen other relevant specialists work together on compiling an extensive report describing the differences and similarities between human and ruikni societies.

Ruikni have much lower crime rates, probably thanks to an underlying psychological difference! Humans have much higher cultural diversity, for related reasons! Neither of them has castes! Ruikni are very very serious about hygiene and safety! Humans have much worse technology (although they're catching up fast) but much better-developed magic; there's a theory that contact with humans is the only reason why ruikni picked up any magic at all, which ruikni theorists find unsettling for reasons of lingering xenophobia, but the fact that there doesn't seem to be any magic on Kadrixi-4 supports the idea pretty strongly! For an in-depth explanation of magic, see Appendix 1! For a condensed history of the human-ruikni war, see Appendix 2!

Here is an explanation and comparison of the ruikni post-transition government, the Ceirene governing council, and the Aluvai hereditary monarchy! It mentions that King Dalvor is a little over five thousand years old by his local calendar, approximately twelve hundred and fifty by Kadrixi-4 reckoning, and references another appendix which summarizes biological differences like lifespan. Humans live about a hundred Suranse years, each of which is about one Kadrixi-4 season. Ruikni live about a hundred and thirty Old Homeworld years, each of which is also about one Kadrixi-4 season. Members of either species who carry the wing contagion and successfully get their wings (see Appendix 1) will remain healthy adults indefinitely, although they are still susceptible to accident, violence, and sufficiently serious illness.

Appendix 2 explains that the ruikni found Tseiza-3 tens of thousands of years ago, drove the humans into hiding in a network of Spheres (see Appendix 1), and then carefully explored the maze of Spheres through the remaining portals until they finally found their way in to Suranse, where by that point the humans had forgotten they ever lived on a spherical planet. (See Appendix 4 for an explanation of Suranse cosmology.) They continued their efforts to exterminate humanity for another hundred and fifty years, until King Dalvor suddenly acquired an immensely powerful magical ally and terrified the ruikni into near-total civilizational collapse, whereupon the Cult of the Destroyer on Ityen-6 took over in accordance with their private prophecies and established reasonable diplomatic relationships all round.

Equipped with this report, a representative from Ceir, Sikyal's handpicked logistics team, four competent translators including Tebrel, and a more concrete diplomatic agenda, Rain in Starlight returns to Kadrixi-4.

The Tapai are delighted to see them again, of course. They have prepared their own report, with more in-depth explanations of the castes, some items about the history of Tapa and what makes it The Greatest Nation On The Planet, and some tentative suspicions about what they could export in exchange for the nice clean food.

They are, uh, curious about the powerful magical ally?

Sikyal and their logistics team are excited about Tapa's proposed exports! They definitely think they can make this work.

Dalvor explains that his powerful magical ally is very shy and spends most of her time in her Sphere since the end of the war. No one should have to worry about her unless they launch an interstellar invasion.

Well, nobody here is going to launch an interstellar invasion, but they would still be a little more comfortable with more information.

"Information such as what?"

Where is she from, what can she do, what is the nature of her alliance?

"She's from another world, she can do most anything she likes, and I can convince her to help me with things if they're as important as ending interstellar wars but she otherwise strongly prefers not to be bothered."

Does anyone else get to try convincing her of things or is he the only one with access?

"She spends all her time in her Sphere with all its portals closed. When I want her attention I try to open one of the preexisting portals between her Sphere and mine, and if she feels like talking to me she'll let it open. There are a few other people with the same setup, but she is not open to conversation with arbitrary petitioners."

Hmmmmm. Well, anyway, about those trade arrangements. Also their linguists want to learn the alien languages.

Dalvor listens to the discussion of trade arrangements without saying much. The Ceirene representative does likewise. Sikyal is friendly and helpful and efficient.

The ruikni linguists are happy to provide materials with which to learn the alien languages, and offer some quick lessons! There is one main ruikni language, plus a lot of dead ones and some holdouts that have maintained bilingual populations since ruikni civilization was unified on Old Homeworld tens of thousands of years ago. There is one main human language, which comes in two groups of dialects with more intra-group than inter-group variation which are nevertheless known locally as two separate languages, Ceirene and Aluvai. Yes it's a bit silly. The humans also have some holdouts but they're less widely studied because their speaking populations have been reluctant to meet with ruikni linguists for very understandable reasons.

Perhaps they will talk to these green linguists, who would be delighted to serve as go-betweens for that sort of thing!

The ruikni linguists think that sounds like a great idea and should be one of the first items on the agenda when they establish regular travel between Kadrixi-4 and other locations!

"What are the obstacles to regular travel?"

"The Interstellar Hygiene and Safety Commission needs to understand your species' hygiene and safety requirements and revise its standards accordingly before our ships can be certified to carry you, and their representatives won't be ready to visit your planet for another several days at least," a linguist explains. "The only other method of interstellar travel is through Sphere portals, which are private to individual Sphere owners."

"We can have a writeup ready of how we contain reds and the things they handle but exact details vary from place to place."

"That's all right! The Commission will appreciate as much information as you can provide!"

"We appreciate their willingness to help interface on this!"

"Of course! The Interstellar Hygiene and Safety Commission does one of the most important jobs in the universe; they're very serious about their work!"

And when they show up they can have a detailed report about how the reds and their interface oranges interact, and about shoe covers and gloves and soap and the return of valuables from bodies and motion detecting trash cans and disinfectant and how doctors and nurses whose patients die decontaminate and the sequestering of cemeteries.

And in return the Commission representatives explain extant ruikni hygiene and safety practices, and how those practices have been adapted for humans because humans don't have a near-unbreakable taboo about following proper hygiene and safety practices as mandated by the appropriate authorities, and some preliminary thoughts about how they will incorporate this new information into their procedures and standards.

Extant ruikni hygiene and safety practices are not founded on the same premises as those of Kadrixi-4, but goodness are they ever thorough. Thorough and well-researched. And effective! They have supporting statistics!

This allows the natives of Kadrixi-4 (they call it other things, but different things per language) to feel very secure in the cleanliness of their new friends! They appreciate that.

Trade agreements regarding food go through. The first shipment arrives. No one in Tapa will have to go hungry this week, at least not if they handle distribution well internally.

Dalvor would like to know where the Tapai stand on the subject of that war now.

Withdrawing is a little delicate but they're in ceasefire and pulling back bit by bit.

Good, good. He would like to give everyone on this planet the opportunity to catch the wing contagion and he is not going to do that until none of them are at war.

The Tapai stop jamming the Voa's communications when the withdrawal is complete. Then Voa would like to know what's up please.

Sikyal is offplanet at the moment but Dalvor can arrange a diplomatic visit to explain matters in person if they like.

Certainly. Their capital is over here.

And now Dalvor is also over there! He's been learning the local languages but he takes a good translator along anyway.

Curious people look at him on his way to the governance complex. Governor Avalor would like to meet with him.

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."

"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?"

"I would be downright astonished if whatever they came up with was unsatisfactory by local standards. They haven't released their preliminary report yet, but it should be coming in the next couple of weeks."

"Lovely."

"I respect the Commission. They're good at what they do."

"Are the Ceirene likely to be moved by the argument that no one is likely to begrduge them all the reds they can handle if and only if they wait for the automation?"

"I'll do my best. Some of the latest generation of councilors aren't bad."

"How many reds can they handle?"

"How many reds are there?"

"Certainly more than fifty million worldwide."

"They'd make a splash landing on Ceir, but not an unmanageable one."

"I don't know how much use Ceir has for unskilled labor in that quantity - they are heavily skewed towards the traditional occupations and a few other things to make their neighborhoods function internally. It sounds like a nightmare to me but perhaps they could handle it."

"About half of Ceir right now is excellent farmland going to waste because the people who used to work it are dead. If they're remotely sane about handling the transition, they can easily set up fifty million reds in a collection of self-sustaining communities."

"I am routinely assured that farming is skilled labor, but I suppose any yield exceeds 'none'."

"Yes, the ideal way to set it up would involve some integration with the surviving locals so they can learn what they need to know."

Nod. "What's the time horizon on automation?"

"The Commission has to finalize their decisions on relevant hygiene and safety procedures, which will take at least a few more weeks from here, but I can spend all that time organizing supply with Sikyal - Assistant Coordinator Sikyal Tegati, the single most useful ruix to know - and have robots ready to be certified almost as soon as there are procedures to certify them. It would speed things up considerably to have a precise idea of the work that needs doing and the way it needs to be done."

"I can put you in touch with some of the orange social work types who interface with red neighborhoods."

"That'll help."

"Do you have locally compatible email -?"

"As of very recently, yes."

She gets him a list.

"Thanks. And I'll forward you all the xenosociology reports. Anything else you want explained?"

"I would like more information on the war and how stable I may expect postwar relations to be."

"You can expect postwar relations to be extremely stable," he says. "Ruikni social structures are built to last. When they originally found us, about five thousand years ago by your calendar, they believed that it was morally wrong to condone the continued existence of non-ruikni sapient life. The humans of the time fled their home planet into the biggest Sphere available and closed all the portals they could find after them, which wasn't quite all the portals there were, and the ruikni patiently explored the maze of abandoned Spheres until they found the one that still had humans in it. Then they resumed trying to kill us all. We held them off for a few decades - a century and a half in our years - and then one day a strange girl with unprecedented magical powers appeared out of nowhere in my kingdom, and I convinced her to help me end the war, and several inhabited planets self-destructed from sheer terror but at the end of the week all the surviving ruikni agreed that genocide is wrong. If there hadn't been an exquisitely well-engineered doomsday cult waiting to overthrow the social order once it started to collapse, there might not be any surviving ruikni."

"Thank you, that's reassuring."

"Riya's an idealist but she's aware enough to realize how destructive that can be. She got her wings along the way and now she spends all her time in her Sphere with all the portals closed; I could coax her out for another interstellar war, but short of that she's not going to bother anyone."

"How exactly did she end the last one?"

"Teleportation and the ability to survive everything they threw at us. We were expecting it to take more than that, but we got lucky. Once it was obviously impossible to kill us, their entire society fell apart at the seams and the Cult of the Destroyer took over and got rid of all the unsustainable moral imperatives."

"Cult of the Destroyer. What an evocative name."

"As doomsday cults go it's certainly the most efficient and practical one I've ever seen."

"Not a metric on which they are typically ranked."

"No," he agrees.

Most countries, including the big two, agree to an arrangement where individuals under the auspices of the Interstellar Hygiene and Safety Commission who are appropriately careful about reds may sponsor small numbers of nonessential relocations to Ceir or Aluvanna, and allow visits to their Spheres by larger numbers of nonemigrating citizens at their discretion.

Dalvor calls for volunteers and sets up a thoroughly efficient system for getting every interested person on the planet into and out of a Sphere as fast as possible. The volunteers are divided into one group who will be handling reds and another, larger group who will be handling everyone else.

Every winged member of the Kevarsin family volunteers. Ashras goes for the red group.

A Commission representative comes through first to distribute explanatory pamphlets and answer any questions from the locals. These are the effects of the wing contagion! Here is what you may expect if you get your wings! The volunteer from Suranse will be here at thus-and-such a time, and the intake portal will go here and the outflow portal will go there, and all parties interested in potentially acquiring wings are to form a queue and step into the intake portal and walk through to the outflow portal in an orderly fashion!

The volunteer from Suranse arrives early. He sets up his portals at the marked locations, ten feet apart in the middle of this small plaza, and then stands in between them swishing his tail and listening to the Commission representative's earnest reassurances about the safety of the procedure.

In the second story of one of the nicest houses in the neighborhood there is an open window and a pink-haired young woman with a baby sitting by it.

"Fucking self-righteous aliens, yeah, sure," she mutters, "stop the war, that won't have any unintended consequences, make people immortal like that'll help when they take her -"

...That sounds like a problem. His tail stills; his ears swivel in her direction.

"Weh," says the baby.

"It's ok- it'll be - shhh," says the pink haired girl.

"WAH."

"Shh we'll think of something baby we'll think of something and then it won't matter what the fucking aliens do."

...yeah.

He walks over to stand under the window. "Excuse me," he calls up to her, "do you know anyone who'd like to emigrate?"

"- are you asking me, sir?"

"Yes."

"I'm not sure I understand the requirements sir."

"The emigration requirements? The magic word is 'nonessential'. My personal sponsorship allowance covers up to two adults and three children, but I have family members who haven't used theirs yet."

"- and then where do you take us -"

"Aluvanna, initially, but I can get you diverted to one of the Ceirene farming villages without much trouble if you're very fond of sunlight."

"I like how I look pale. - how's this work with child credits -"

"There are no population controls in human territory, we've got rather the opposite problem; once you're offplanet, child credits stop being a thing you have to worry about."

"I want to go and bring my baby."

"Happy to oblige. My name is Ashras Kevarsin, what's yours?"

"Peka Atan and this is Katin."

"Lovely to meet you both. I can take you home with me this afternoon once I'm done sending the neighbourhood through my Sphere, if that suits."

"Okay."

He grins and waves and heads back to his portals to help direct people through them.

That afternoon she and the baby are waiting with luggage outside the house.

"Hi!" he says. "I can take you home through my Sphere now."

"Am I liable to suddenly sprout wings?"

"You might! Depends if you've accomplished anything you're especially proud of, more or less."

"Not really."

"Maybe later," he says cheerfully.

"Who knows." She adjusts her hold on baby and luggage.

"Over here," he says, leading her to his pair of portals and opening one so they can step through. "I can't help you with your luggage until we're in Aluvanna proper because of Commission regulations, but it seems like you've got it handled. My family will be delighted to meet you, they've been assuming I'll find a way to apply my sponsorship allowance to some kind of horribly thorny political problem and instead I'm bringing home this perfectly nice girl with a cute baby. You're not secretly a horribly thorny political problem, are you? Well, I guess I'll find out."

"I don't think I am."

"Good enough for me!"

The portal opens into a short purpose-built hallway in a very ruikni architectural style, metal and plastic and round corners and muted colours; he leads Peka and Katin and their luggage down the hall to the end, where another portal takes them through to Aluvanna.

The second portal opens onto a field of dark grass in front of a sprawling mansion built mostly from stone. Above, most of the sky is a flat black dome painted with constellations of dim city lights, encircled by a high and jagged horizon, with huge tangles of green vegetation floating up there like clouds. Between the teeth of the horizon coming up and the teeth of the dome coming down, some actual sky shows through; past that, on each side, a vertical bar of shining silver stands next to a diagonal line of glowing gold, each set exactly opposite its twin so that all together they look like two rings of an enormous gyroscope.

"- wow."

"Welcome to Aluvanna!"

"Thanks. It's - wow. Am I going to have a way to communicate back home, should I bother taking pictures - will I be able to charge things -"

"We've got electricity but it's ruikni-style - I'll bother someone for a converter. Long-term open portal setups to link the communications networks of different planets are an ongoing thing, but it might be a couple years before we fold in Kadrixi-4 since all your standards are different. In the meantime if you want to visit or send messages you can ask me, I'm going to be traipsing back and forth on a daily basis for the next month anyway and by the time I'm done I will have portals in every red district in Tapa."

"Okay. Thanks."

She takes some pictures of the... scape.

"Happy to help!" he says cheerfully. "That's my house," he nods to the huge stone mansion a short distance away, "we have a small village's worth of guest space and you're welcome to stay as long as you like."

"Not going to get you in trouble with the Commission if I stay in your house?"

"Nope! The Commission doesn't regulate inside human territory, so I have to do the annoying decontamination procedures whenever I leave on official business regardless of who I live with. As far as Aluvanna is concerned you're just another citizen."

"- does that mean I can just wander around wherever -"

"Yep! Not many people will speak your language, but I'll help you learn Aluvai if you like, and in the meantime my mother and I both speak pretty good Tapap. How's my accent?"

"It's kind of cute."

He beams.

Giggle.

"Want to go find a guest room? I can help carry your stuff."

"Yeah, thank you!"

He helps carry her stuff.

The house is big and impressive and dimly but evenly lit, and there are brighter areas here and there. Guest rooms are mostly clustered in one wing of the building.

"If you get lost easily I recommend picking something down this hall," he says when they get there. "Otherwise, depends what you like. Pretty? Well-lit? If the dark ends up bothering you I can get you a pair of those slightly goofy-looking enhancement goggles the ruikni use."

"It is pretty dark but not too dark to get around and if I'll be able to charge things I have an old pocket everything that'll do a flashlight. But if the rooms come in well-lit that might be good."

"'Pocket everything' is one of my favourite phrases, it's so evocative - yeah, I'll find you someplace well-lit. Nice view of the sky sound good? Visitors to Aluvanna either really like the sky or really don't, in my experience, and you seemed like you were in favour."

"It's neat!"

"It is!"

So he finds her a suite on a higher floor with big windows, strong lighting, and a balcony.

"This is gorgeous."

"I'm glad you like it!"

A sound she can't hear prompts him to flick an ear toward the balcony. "Oh, I think my mother's home, would you like to meet her?"

"- sure, why not."

He goes out onto the balcony and waves up at the sky.

A woman with huge white feathered wings swoops onto the balcony and lands. Her feathers look soft. She enfolds her son in a hug, then lets go.

"Hello," she says to Peka. "I'm Kyralaine, Ashras's mother. From the luggage and the guest suite, may I assume you're Ashras's sponsored immigrant?"

"That seems to be the idea."

"Welcome to Aluvanna!"

She glances between Peka and Ashras with a thoughtful smile.

"You can let me know if you need anything, assuming Ashras doesn't get there first, which he probably will."

"Um, I know the - more alien aliens - their food is fine for us but I don't know if infant formula works so somebody might have to make runs for that -"

"I'll take care of it."

"Thanks. Um, do I need to keep shaving her hair, here - it came out orange -"

"Not at all. There are no caste-related rules of any kind among humans."

"Okay."

"I very much hope you'll like it here."

"I'll settle for nobody killing my baby."

"You can be very sure of that."

(Ashras looks away from the conversation with an expression as of someone who strongly disapproves of anyone killing anyone's babies.)

She snuggles the baby, pets the shaved-down peachy-colored fuzz of her hair.

Kyralaine smiles at the baby.

"Bah," says Katin.

Awww.

"My sons are triplets, so I'm well acquainted with how much work raising a small child can be. I'm happy to help out if you need it."

"She's a really easy baby, honestly, my little siblings were way more work."

"Good to hear. Still, if you need anything."

"Thank you!"

She looks at Ashras. "I don't suppose you've seen your brothers since you got back?"

He shakes his head. "You could try the palace if you need them urgently for something, I think last I heard Elarron was visiting Rokarai."

"No, no. Just wondering."

"I think I'll have a nap, I've been keeping Ceirene hours today and it's catching up to me -" he glances at Peka and explains, "Aluvai don't keep fixed sleep schedules, we usually sleep multiple times a day, so I'm not used to being awake for this long."

"Huh, okay."

"See you later!"

Off he goes.

She settles into the guest room and unpacks. She eats the snacks she brought and feeds Katin. She tentatively explores the house.

It is a big pretty house. Much of the furniture is cozy. No one jumps out from behind any corners to reprimand her for touching things.

She can see pictures of the family, if she looks - Ashras and his two identical brothers, Kyralaine and a man who is presumably her husband, both parents and one triplet, father and children and another man who might be an uncle...

What a nice house. And she seems allowed to be in it! Although she keeps her hands to herself mostly anyway.

She lets herself out to see what's in the immediate house environs, pocket-everything lighting the way.

Immediate house environs contain grass and a few low hills. Way over thataway, out back of the house, is some kind of animal pen. The animals look fluffy.

She brings Katin over to look at the fluffy animals.

The fluffy animals have long shaggy fur in muted colours, and short curved horns, and short shaggy tails.

A winged Aluvai is in the middle of feeding them; he pauses to smile at Peka and Katin, and says something friendly-sounding in what is presumably the local language. Looks like the maybe-uncle from the family pictures.

"- um, hello to you too?" She waves Katin's hand for her.

"Hawa," says Katin.

"Ah." He gives Katin an appropriately tiny wave back, then looks at Peka. "Ashras?" he guesses.

Nod.

He nods. A goat gently headbutts him in the ribs; he pats its nose and offers it some mixed grains from his bucket.

She doesn't feel quite up to pushing her luck by gesturing an offer to help. She and the baby just look, and then continue their walk.

The local vegetation is bizarre: usually very dark but sometimes very pale, or a mix of both. A lot of it is pretty, though. There are some weird-looking flowers.

The sun comes - uh, down - while she's out, a brilliant golden disc sliding along its golden line and into view. The moon makes a simultaneous appearance coming up its silver trail on the opposite side of the sky. It's really something. The green clouds of the floating jungle are lit from both sides, and they look beautiful that way.

Ooh!

There are winged people in the sky, going from place to place or just out for an idle flight, and assorted aerial vehicle traffic, zipping busily between its assorted destinations. The light of the sun and moon makes them all more visible than they were a minute ago. People take off from the ground and land on the sky-ceiling or vice versa.

This is a neat place.

When she returns to her room, there is a box on her balcony with a note taped to it. The note says, in legible if unpracticed handwriting: Power converter! Let me know if there's a compatibility issue! -Ashras

Ooh! She attempts to figure out the workings of the power converter.

The power converter is reasonably easy to figure out. Now she can charge her devices!

She does that. And sleeps.

The bed is very cozy. No one bothers her for as long as she'd like to sleep.

And in the morning (and several times in the middle of the night), she feeds her baby, and then goes looking for food for her.

"Hello again!" says Ashras. "Have you found the kitchen yet?"

"I identified something that was probably a kitchen but I didn't recognize most of the things in it so I'm at a bit of a loss for breakfast."

"I have read all the reports on interspecies food compatibility and I am qualified to solve this problem! Let's go see about that." He turns kitchenward.

She will look over his shoulder to know what's what in the future!

He produces several breakfast options - "in case there's local foods you turn out not to like - don't worry about rejected items going to waste, we have goats - speaking of which, I hear you met my grandfather! He says your baby is adorable."

"- that's your grandfather?"

"Yep! His name's Faidre and he's older than he looks. Wings do that."

"Wow, maybe I should accomplish something."

"I support this ambition! One day I hope to live in a world where everyone has wings."

"How much accomplishing needs, um, accomplishing?"

He shrugs. "Depends more on your own personal standards than anything. Some people write a book, some people stop a war. Some people grow a really spectacular vegetable."

Giggle. "What'd you do?"

"Diplomacy! When we were still figuring out human-ruikni relations, Dalvor urgently needed people to talk to them who were nonthreatening, hard to offend, and really good at seeing things from new perspectives. I was one of the first people to pick up their language - turns out I learn fast under pressure - so I helped. The wings came in when I got the news that some of my work had probably prevented a riot."

"Neat!"

"I like to think so!"

"I dunno if you have much, like, music, here -"

"We're still getting used to the concept of recorded music, but we do have some!"

"If we didn't have castes I would've tried to be a singer - it's a green thing, there's not zero exceptions but it's never red, nobody'd want to listen to me -"

"Now is an excellent time to try to be a singer in Aluvanna!"

"- how do I go about that -"

"Good question! I have no idea but I'm not sure anyone else does either so at least there's nobody getting out ahead of you! I mean, there are preexisting ways to be a singer, but they're all from before we had commnets, so now the situation is that audiences who want art and artists who want audiences are both still figuring out how to find each other and nobody's got a good solution yet. You could be our first celebrity!"

"Wouldn't that be something. I only know music from my planet though."

"So it'll all be new and exciting!"

Giggle.

"This is going to be fun," Ashras says happily. "I have the next few hours free, I could go find you some recording equipment!"

"If it'll have better audio quality than my pocket everything!"

"That's the idea, at least! And if it doesn't we will have learned valuable information about how the technology compares. And it'll still be easier to get it on the local commnet without messing around with data conversions."

"Thank you!"

"You're welcome!" He opens a portal. "See you in a bit - I apologize in advance for the confusion if you run into one of my brothers while I'm out -" and he's off, closing his portal behind him.

...she goes and practices songs.

When Ashras returns about half an hour later, he has several boxes and two brothers to help carry them.

"I found recording equipment and my mother found infant formula! And these are my brothers, Inlaith and Elarron."

"Hello," says Inlaith. It's not at all difficult to tell him apart from his brothers; they may be physically identical, but he moves completely differently.

"Hi," says Elarron. "I hear you're going to be a famous singer."

He speaks Tapap much more hesitantly than either of his brothers, and with a worse accent. His smile is somewhere between Ashras's radiant cheer and Inlaith's quiet solemnity.

"We'll see if people like my singing, I guess. Katin does but she's a baby. Thanks for finding stuff!"

"Your singing is great and you're great," says Ashras. "And no problem, it was fun. Let's see if we can get this stuff figured out."

Peka gamely attempts to fathom the recording equipment.

Ashras helps! He is so helpful!

Inlaith leaves them to it.

Elarron sticks around to help unpack everything, but then also leaves.

"Where'd you find this?"

"Oh, the palace is in a constant state of having more imported ruikni technology than they know what to do with, I dug through the pile for things with likely-looking labels and asked Rokarai if I could have them - she's the King's granddaughter, she's allowed to give away his stuff."

"...wow."

"It's handy being family friends with the King! Anyway, I think we've got this hooked up right - time to sing something?"

"Mmhm!"

She sets Katin down and sings.

Well, she has at least one appreciative audience member!

And was she successfully recorded?

She totally was! Really well!

"Okay so now all we have to do is solve the distribution problem that's been stumping the rest of the kingdom for a year. Easy."

"In Tapa there's television but also indie internet distribution..."

"No television in Aluvanna, just the commnet, and most people have no idea how to use the commnet. But we're surrounded by all these examples of how great it's going to be when we've figured it out."

"Is it very different from our internet?"

"Same basic idea, different implementation, I think. It's all ruikni technology, and the thing about ruikni technology is that it's all really efficient and standardized but kind of built on the assumption that everyone who uses it is going to mostly follow the rules. I hear the Tech Commission is reviewing all their standards based on analysis of your internet because there are all kinds of ways people harass, inconvenience, annoy, and endanger one another on it that the ruikni plain hadn't thought of."

"What, like all the mass mailings that go out every winter?"

"Yes! Ruikni wouldn't dream of doing that! Their crime statistics are amazing. Population of three hundred billion, average six cases of fraud a year - their years, that is, which are a little longer than your seasons - ours are a little shorter."

"I hear near the equator there are just mass mailings all the time."

"I admit it's not obvious to me why the mass mailings are seasonal."

"- oh, uh, we conceive kids in the spring, so anything that feels sort of like meeting new people is something people are mostly in the mood for in wintertime."

"Ah. Logical. In that case humans will probably end up with non-seasonal mass mailings if anyone manages to send some before the ruikni figure out how to make them prohibitively difficult."

"How equatorial of you."

"Equators are an interesting concept! Has anyone explained to you how this planet works?"

"No, but I bet it's wild, based on the sky."

"Okay, so the silver line is the moon-circle and the gold line is the sun-circle. The sun and moon each take exactly twenty-four hours to make a full circuit around their respective circles, and they start out at the first dawn of the year with the sun in the east and the moon in the west and both circles perfectly aligned. But both circles are constantly rotating; the moon-circle's axis of rotation is vertical through the middle of the planet, which is why the moon-circle's lines are always vertical, and the sun-circle's axis of rotation is horizontal between east and west, which is why the sun-circle's lines are always changing their angle. The sun-circle takes a year to finish one rotation, and the moon-circle takes a month. So on the outside of the planet, it more or less sort of works out like days and months and years on Tseiza-3, but on the inside we see the sun once every twelve hours for varying lengths of time depending on the angle of the sun-circle, ranging from barely half an hour when it's vertical to a full twenty-four when it's completely horizontal."

Pause.

"Also, the reason why the sky has geography is because that's the other half of the planet. We're on the inside, so gravity points outward, consternating physicists everywhere."

"That is in fact pretty wild! How do the halves hold together?"

"They just kind of float in place! Same with the sun-circle and moon-circle! We've had people go and measure everything and it's all extremely tidy and mathematical, the celestial circles are perfectly centered and there's an even amount of mass on both sides of the planet despite the chasms and jagged edges and so on, but as for what makes it all work this way the best anyone can come up with is 'uh, magic?'. Apparently this is just the kind of thing that happens if somebody's Sphere gets big enough to fit a planet in. Ridiculous little magic solar system."

"How even? Like, people can go to the other side or import stuff unevenly- right - "

"Yeah, it's, like, the underlying landscape that's even, not whatever we put on top of it. I think the dawn side is a few tons heavier than the dusk side - dawn side is the one the sun rises over on the first dawn of the year - but that's crumbs compared to the mass of the planetary shell as a whole."

"How's the atmosphere work?"

"Bunch of air hanging around! There's weather and everything! Gets kind of weird around the floating jungles - they don't get rain so much as sort of collide with clouds."

"So like fog?"

"Yeah, more or less!"

"Are there like - beginner guides to - what am I saying they wouldn't be translated into Tapap yet - but for our internet you can get introductory stuff on how to make a website, it's supposed to be pretty simple."

"I'm sure they exist somewhere - might not have been translated into Aluvai yet, but that's a surmountable obstacle, I speak the ruikni language just fine."

Giggle.

"I have to go distribute wings again in a bit, but when I get back I'll see about websites."

"Thanks! I think I have this figured out enough to record more things now."

"Have fun!"

And off he goes.

She records a few takes of everything in her repertoire.

And Ashras comes back several hours later.

"All right, let's figure out websites!"

"Okay!"

Ruikni documentation is very clear and well-organized. Provided you can read it in the first place, which Ashras can, following the instructions is pretty straightforward. Soon they have a website with all of Peka's best recordings on it. Ashras emails it to everyone he knows who has email, which turns out to be quite a few people.

Peka bounces Katin with delight. Katin goes AWAAAAA with delight.

Awwwwww.

Yes! Awwwwwaaaa!

"I think usually there's at least one picture of the singer."

"We should take a picture of you, then! Should it be a fancy picture?"

"What do you mean fancy?"

"Oh, I don't know. Wearing fancy clothes, standing in fancy locations... depends who you want to impress, I guess, there's people who'll be impressed if you're standing in my front hall and people who'll be impressed if you're next to the palace and people who'll be impressed if you're hugging Grandfather's goats..."

"I can hug the goats?"

"You can absolutely hug the goats! It is safe to hug the goats as long as there's a member of the family around to direct you to the ones with more huggable temperaments, and you are allowed to hug the goats because Grandfather likes you."

Giggle. "We barely spoke -"

"He thinks your kid is cute. Which she is."

"Thank you."

"Anyway. Thoughts on fancy pictures?"

"All the things you listed sound fun."

"Then let's do those! Hmm, fancy clothes - I wonder if we've got something in the attic that'll fit you, there's all kinds of centuries-old junk up there and some of it is fancy dresses... could also just go clothes shopping, if you prefer..."

"Ooh, dress-up with vintage foreign attic things or shopping, that's a hard one."

"Both is a possible answer but we'd at least have to do them sequentially, as last I checked there was not a clothes market in my attic."

"What kinda lousy attic is this? Attic first I'd feel bad about spending money if there's perfect stuff up there - I don't even have local money -"

He giggles. "Sure, attic first."

Attic! It is upstairs. It is up so many stairs. Such is the nature of attics. The lighting is even worse than in the rest of the house, but luckily Peka has her pocket everything.

She does! What have we in this attic?

So many things!

Ancient melee weaponry! Ancient magical weaponry! Paintings and tapestries! A snake skull bigger than the two of them put together, with fangs as long as Ashras's arm!

Huh, the magic weapons are neat-looking.

"Oh, that reminds me," he says, looking up at the giant snake skull. "The local wildlife can be a bit terrifying to outsiders, I'm not sure if anyone's warned you. You're safe within sight of the house, or if you have a member of the family with you, but I don't recommend going on a long walk in the woods alone. Sorry I didn't say anything sooner, I forgot it wasn't obvious."

"- uh, okay. I'll be careful."

He smiles at her. "Good! I would feel terrible if you got eaten by a giant snake because I hadn't said anything!"

More attic objects! Old books! A bucket of beautifully carved wooden dice!

And, over there, a bunch of big heavy boxes in the same hard pale wood as the dice. Ashras starts opening them. Some contain fancy clothes. Vintage Aluvai fashion apparently involves a lot of intricate embroidery and tiny glass beads.

Pretty!

Ashras delightedly unpacks clothes. He shows things to Peka when he thinks they might fit her. A lot of the colours are too dark for her eyes to see clearly, but there are pale colours too, and all the shades in between.

"Ooh," he says of one dress, "matches your hair -" and he holds up a sleeve sparkling with tiny pink pearls.

Giggle!

"Want to try it on? Oh, wow, there keeps being more of it," he says, pulling a seemingly endless amount of skirt out of the box. "I'm pretty sure it'll fit you - the skirt might be a little long but you could stand on a box or something if it threatened to drag... it's not nearly as bad as it looks, this part's supposed to wrap around a bunch of times, there's buttons."

"It looks amazing, I so want to try it on."

Ashras beams. "Okay, let's find you somewhere to change - I think there's a room nearby with a really big mirror - help me carry the dress?"

There is enough dress that even when he has it folded up very carefully for transport, he still can't carry it all by himself.

"Wow, I wonder if I'll even be able to walk in this." Carry carry.

"It's a little ridiculous, isn't it? But in an amazing way."

Carry carry. Room with a giant mirror - an unused sitting room attached to an unused bedroom, it looks like, with dust covers over all the furniture.

"I think all those buttons and laces are meant to be a three-person job minimum," he says, "but I bet you can get enough of it done by yourself that I won't have to blush too much helping you with the rest..."

"You're the blushy sort?" she wonders.

"Was this an unwise admission?"

"Why would that be unwise?"

He giggles. "Some people might hear that and try to make me blush!"

"And here I thought you found pink a fetching color."

"Not on me!"

"Are you sure?" She tosses a corner of skirt over his head.

He bursts into helpless giggles.

"See, that's adorable," she pronounces. "I know adorable, I have the cutest baby."

"You do have a very cute baby," he admits from beneath his enveloping cloak of skirt.

She collects the skirt back up into her arms. "Well. If you really don't want to blush now's the time to scoot."

He scoots.

The dress is indeed reasonably easy to figure out, and mostly reasonably easy to put on. The laces up the back of the bodice need to be done up and tightened by someone other than the person in the dress, and the long wrapping overskirt with its many layers and numerous buttons is going to be a logistical challenge even with help. But gosh is it ever pretty.