"I cannot think of any way that you could no matter how extraordinary your ignorance libel anyone in that fashion."

She bites back the temptation to try. "Does the same apply to claims which, if made incautiously and unreservedly, might be interpreted to be criticisms of the Pharaoh's policies?"

"I think that wise people tend to be cautious and reserved when making claims that might be interpreted to be criticisms of the Pharaoh's policies. They often disclaim, for example, that they can see only some and not all of the consequences relevant to policy decisions, and that the concern they note might well be well-answered even if they in their ignorance haven't seen the answer …do you also have a radio show?"

"Not yet." She is so tempted to say 'I'm waiting for Television' but it reveals secret information and isn't even true so she holds her tongue.

"If one doesn't have a radio show, then in nearly all cases if a person considers themselves wronged by false claims you're making about them, their family and yours will sort it out; it's a law, so they can bid for our intervention, but they almost never would, assuming anyone involved possesses some common sense. The radio show complicates matters because a falsehood spoken on the radio is heard by many thousands of people. I do not think you need to worry about what you say to your fellow foreigners in private; they'd have to ask us to intervene for us to end up doing so."

"I can see only some and not all of the consequences relevant to policy decisions, and these concerns I am noting might well be well-answered even if in my ignorance I have not seen the answer, but it sure seems to me as though this policy toward speech is ill-conceived; In making it impossible in principle to know whether acts are legal or not it makes it unnecessarily difficult to be a law-abiding citizen, which probably has deleterious second-order effects. On top of that I imgaine it has a broader chilling effect on speech and hence on innovation which is making this entire country poorer."

 "If anyone ever asks me what kinds of political opinions we miss out on by not listening to women I will pass that on."

"I can see only - you know, just take it as said. - That attitude towards women having political opinions is probably also making the entire country poorer. I have statistics on that one but they're classified."

"That's enough," Jeres says.

"I am not in your army." She stops there, though.

"Do you have questions," the local expert asks Jeres.

"How much do the libel concerns with the radio show apply when speaking of people outside of Osirion? Does Freedom need to be more careful with what she says about Abrogail Thrune?"

"In principle, Abrogail Thrune could try to bring us a cause of action about Freedom saying falsehoods about her, if she knew that Freedom were here - my understanding is that everyone is trying to avoid her learning that. In the typical case she could pay us to investigate if the claims were in fact false, and demand they be retracted if so, and then Freedom would either have to correct the falsehood on the radio or pay a fine. In this case, matters are …geopolitically complicated… and probably if Freedom is lying on the radio about Abrogail Thrune and Abrogail Thrune is asking us to investigate the truth of the claims and they're in fact false we'll just ask you to take the girls somewhere else, or take away their radio."

"I do not have any more questions at this time. Thank you for your patience."

"I'm not the one who has to find them husbands. Good luck."

He'll leave.

"Insert legally mandated caveats here but that is in fact a profoundly stupid set of libel laws."

Iomedae squeezes her hand. "I guess I'm unclear on whether it ever comes up in cases like you named or if it's just broad so the government can take cases in a wide range of situations but still mostly decides on them reasonably. Though they didn't otherwise seem all that reasonable."

"Even if it's the latter, that seems bad for people's Lawfulness. And caveats caveats caveats but I don't see that this policy has any advantages over the one where you're allowed to say that the god-emperor does unconscionable things with ornamental dog breeds."

"Alfirin. Stop."

"He's gone and that wasn't illegal and you are not, actually, my father. My father is dead and would not have objected if I said that about the god-emperor, let alone just talked about it being hypothetically legal in some places to say it."

Iomedae tries to imagine what her father would have done if she'd decided that Taldor ought to have freedom of speech and started talking about the Emperor and ornamental dog breeds and unconscionable things…he would not have been okay with it. He would not have been remotely okay with it. "I can think of advantages to making it illegal to make knowingly false claims about the god-emperor," she says. "Even in America I think the thing you just said would be illegal if it was taken as a serious claim rather than an expression of strong emotion, and I'm not sure that's a good way to design libel law either -"

"Well, it's obviously false, the god-emperor is literally Abadar and that means that under the Osirion legal regime anything he does with ornamental dog breeds is not just conscionable, but necessarily the best thing possible to do with ornamental dogs."

Jeres looks about ready to claw his eyes out. "If you are going to keep being like this, go somewhere else and do it in private. Freedom, your friend is a bad influence. Dismissed."

Iomedae watches him go with some distress. "They're going to send you back to Vigil and I'll be worried sick about you - is 'it's illegal to criticize the god-emperor' a wise fight to pick while we're staying in his palace -"

"Love, you haven't seen me start to pick that fight - you're right, though. I will be more restrained. The very picture of women-should-be-seen-and-not-heard civility whenever Osirians are around."