"It is such an unreasonable thing to ask. If we get married and we invite them we can put this person and Nefreti together at a table in some dark corner."

"We can. I love you. I'm sorry that this apparently causes your love life to get mad priest attention. …if I'm willing to talk to the defector I leave with Cansellarion in an hour and I didn't ask if I'll be back before Wealday when I'm reassigned to Osirion. Probably I will be because I have to hand off a lot of work tasks. But if we want to talk about that we might want to do it now.""

"I wish we had Google here and I could just look up Osirion and tell why we need chaperones and how much power a legal guardian has over us and if I'd just be able to leave and whether they hate gays."

"Well we don't have Google but I have been told that I am supposed to treat my secretary like very slow Google and it has mostly worked so far."

"I guess. We'll see if he's fast enough." Alfirin can ask her secretary to get her the answers to those questions, clarify mortifyingly that 'gays' means 'people who habitually engage in homosexual acts,' and then return to Iomedae. "I think as long as I'm free to leave I want to go with you. And if I'm not - that's a lot scarier but I'll also be a lot more scared for you, waiting out here -"

Squeeze. "You'll hear me on the radio. And I can listen to a frequency we set in advance, if you want to talk to me and probably not have the whole world hear. We don't have time to develop a proper code but I think Tongues won't be very helpful if we communicate entirely in Earth literary references."

"I love you. If I wouldn't be allowed to leave we can talk on the radio and at least I'll know if you're okay."

Alfirin's secretary gets back to them before the hour is up with some fairly basic facts about Osirion. They need chaperones because they are unmarried women, who do not have independent legal standing in Osirion. Their legal guardian is responsible for interfacing with the Osirian government for them, is accountable to the Osirian government if they behave badly, and has…this was not clear on limited research but probably more power than a commanding officer in Lastwall has, because Osirion like all of the unfortunate countries in the world that aren't Lastwall doesn't have a well-developed body of law around illegal orders. Lieutenant Jeres is of course still subject to Lastwall's rules whatever country he's in.

It's kind of unclear if a person can leave Osirion as a matter of law over the objections of their legal guardian? Probably not? Alfirin could of course ask Jeres for assurance he'd let her leave, and Osirion won't otherwise attempt to keep her.

Okay. Well. In light of the fact that Osirion is the sort of place that requires all unmarried women to be chaperoned, she'd really like to know whether it's illegal to be gay there.

Her secretary is not sure why that would be an issue or what those facts have to do with each other?

On earth some people think it's evil. It's somewhat correlated with being the sort of obsessive about sexual purity that leads to requiring every woman to have a chaperone.

…it's not evil. He can go try to find out if Osirion takes issue with it for some other reason.

Please do.

"Sounds like I'm going with you."

Iomedae hugs her again. "I'm glad. If that's what you want, of course. You don't owe it to me. It's probably going to be pretty frustrating."

"I'd rather be there with you than out here worrying about you and about being kidnapped. Assuming I'll have space to work, there. Probably even if not."

 Iomedae will go find Cansellarion at the end of the hour.

"You're coming to talk to the defector, then?"

"Yes. I'm only willing to follow Clepati's instructions if they make sense once I've talked to them but maybe they will. And Alfirin will come with me to Osirion."

They Teleport.

Lilia has been meticulously selling out all of Cheliax's agents everywhere else. They don't have many in Lastwall but they have enough, accomplishing enough, that she got a few suppressed distress-reactions out of the paladin interrogating her. When the door opens again she is not surprised to see Cansellarion and quite surprised to see him followed by -

"I'm not particularly interested in appearing on the radio," she says. 

"- it'd have to wait anyway, I assume your being here has military implications and we keep those matters off the radio. Nice to meet you - how did you identify me -"

"Extravagantly splendour-wearing teenage girl working for Cansellarion but out of uniform. What do you want, if it's not to ask me to make propaganda for you?"

"Oh, I did want to ask for that. I'm just guessing, all the time, what will be compelling to people. The people who can guess best are the people who, themselves, left."

"I do not think that most people decide whether to be loyal to Cheliax or not for my reasons."

"Sure, but you'll have a better guess than I do of what their reasons are."