"Which direction regarding - what, sir -"

"Whether to play music."

"I... don't have a policy on that, sir."

"...I think if you don’t express an opinion I’m going to play it because it’s not permanent and wouldn’t make it harder for you to say you hate it. But I think you should express an opinion."

"I - don't think - it is irrational to be afraid - sir."

He laughs bitterly. "Of course it isn’t. Yet. Making it irrational to be afraid is going to be the work of decades."

Silence.

But that was sort of like a no on the music.

"...So, do reds have computers and if so do you still have yours?"

"My pocket everything is at home sir."

"Want a copy of it here?"

"...that would be very impressive sir."

He sends a message to the demon they brought with them.

"You do really hate just saying 'I want you to do this' or 'I don't want you to do that', huh."

"As you say, sir."

And someone else arrives. She looks more alien: she has big black wings and she's got a cool scaly design going on around her temples.

" - You're really being ridiculous, you already agreed to clean everything you send them, didn't you? Hey, red guy, do you want your own spaceship, because I can do that," she says as, with no obvious connection to anything about her behavior, Nelen's pocket everything appears on the bed.

Wow that's startling. He manages to startle in a way that doesn't touch anything else out of pure reflex even though he's loose in this sealed compartment. "- thank you ma'am."

"Cool, what kinda ship do you want?"

"I - thank you for the offer, I don't know how to - fly a ship..."

"That's fixable! I can get you a manual. Or a simulator. Or both."

"Pretty sure he's trying to turn you down."

"You want to turn me down, you say 'no thanks, I don't want a spaceship.' Did he seriously already teach you to say everything in subtext, I don't think that's a good first priority at all."

"...ma'am I don't understand."

"You've been talking to a Sesati for, what, five minutes? And you sound just like them? I know that's not how people talk in Anitam."

"I'm - sorry - ma'am??"

She raises an eyebrow at Valan.

"He was like this when I got him!"

She sighs. "Okay, well, you can talk however you want, I guess."

"- yes ma'am."

"Hey. Val. Get out of here, I need to ask him if you threatened him."

Valan vanishes.

"Actually, I don't really care whether he threatened you or got all subtexty about not threatening you or is a perfectly lovely person and you just don't like his hair. I just want you to know that if you want to wake up somewhere away from all this in a high-tech high-magic society with universal basic income, I can make it happen."

"- ma'am????"