"You seem kinda scared and from what they told me they didn't so much ask if you wanted to be here but the other place was planning genocide. Seems like a situation where you’d want more options."

"...ma'am, I was abducted from my home by armed police and thrown into a nearly decommissioned space shuttle to be brought here. I don't understand what they want from me but I assume that if I try to go home to my family by any means I will encounter the police again."

"...I thought the police were a different color and wouldn’t go anywhere near you but I bet I can talk Zatar into telling them we’re done and don’t need you anymore."

"They'll go near us. They'll just be very unhappy about having to the entire time."

"Okay so like do you want me to convince Zatar or do you have a way to secretly ask your family if they want to go to space or what."

"I... don't know if my pocket everything will get service. Here." He can check. "I don't think they want to be... kidnapped."

"Do they want to be secretly teleported up here and then back down? Do they want to move to another world and learn magic? Do any of them want a spaceship?"

"They don't know how to pilot spaceships either."

"And none of them can learn new things?"

"Ma'am I am so confused."

"...How confused - has anyone filled you in on anything?"

"Not - unconfusingly? -"

She starts pacing. "Okay, so there are these different universes. They can be next to each other and you can move from one to another if they're next to each other but not straight from just any world to just any other world. It - kind of looks to me like the thing that makes the map is something to do with what the people in them would think of each other? The neighborhood's full of humanoids and compatible fundamental physics and people made of similar enough materials that they can use each other's technology. The worlds that are so similar they'd bore each other aren't next to each other but they're next to worlds that are next to each other. It might not work that way, who knows. It just seems like that'd explain why, like, the other Amenta is next door to a world with lots of black-haired humanoids who think the most important thing is that nobody ever lose custody of their kids and don't have very many of those in the first place. It'd be boring if the other Amenta were your neighbors, or if the black-haired aliens were next to themselves-but-it's-a-generation-later, which there are like six of all scattered around. And then it'd also be boring if their neighbors were arguably-living crystal things that don't really have politics. But anyway I completely made this theory up, it might be bullshit."

She runs a hand through her hair and sighs. "My point is I don't know if that'll let you guess what we'll find next but it should let you make the right kinds of guesses about what we've already found. There's another Amenta. It's later there but there was probably a time when it was literally identical to how your planet was before we showed up. There's a Nelen from there. Used to be red. Looks like you except for the hair. Lotta Sesatis blame him for some shit that went down a while ago. See, he works for this huge... kind of a federation, Vanda Nossëo - they're collectively big and rich and powerful and they go around meeting small and poor and weak planets and saying 'hey, sign up and enforce these laws we like and we'll pay you. In our currency, which we'll take payment in for resurrections and new planets and stuff, and not your currency, which is worthless now because we can counterfeit your primitive gold coins as much as we want.' Tends to go over okay, new planets and resurrecting the dead and healing all ills covers a multitude of sins. You'd like it, and I can get you there, and I can get your entire family there." And she sighs again and rubs her face. "Didn't go so well with Sesat. They put your alt - the Nelen - two people who were the same for most of their lives in parallel universes are alts, plus some other alts who are just kinda echoey. Anyway, they put your alt in charge of talking to Sesat, didn't really give him enough leeway to change course or, like, enough information to know what he was getting into. He got sent there as training on the theory that if he screwed up it’d be fine and he'd - " (jazz hands) " - learn from experience. Spoiler alert, it turns out it barely matters because Sesat has all these taboos about half of Vanda Nossëo's laws. But it matters some because Nelen Utopia fucking loves Vanda Nossëo and every time he hears about one of them he says 'oh, it’s okay, I’m not judging you because you’re too primitive to have invented ethics yet.' By the way, that’s super offensive. I guess on your planet you’re not allowed to learn that unless you have blue hair." She makes a face.

"Anyway, so long story short they invited me to disappear with them and go looking for a new place to live where Vanda Nossëo can’t find them or more power or both. And then they brought you here. Lotta people talked about that, they had a bunch of things they wanted. There's..." She pulls up a list on her computer. "Some of them want to ask you what the fuck you think your alt could possibly have been thinking. One guy wants to hurt you, I don't think he's allowed and I will pitch a fit if he does it anyway. The guy you were just talking to wanted you here because he thinks if we just do whatever we feel like there will definitely be a genocide and if we try to do anything to be nice to reds without asking any reds any questions we'll do worse than nothing - Vanda Nossëo maybe did worse than nothing with Sesat, see, got some people tortured, and they weren't a model of smooth diplomacy with the other Amenta, either. And nobody can say the other Nelen is some kind of coward or too stupid to say anything useful and some people already have a little practice reading him. And then someone wanted you where we knew where you were in case you got up to anything annoying. And someone wanted to talk to an Amentan in case there was something we wouldn't notice the blues were lying to us about that you'd mention. And someone actually thought your alt deserved better and wanted to make sure you personally didn't get killed. And someone else said maybe if Sesatis talk in a weird idiosyncratic way then Amentans might too and we should get a local to run stuff by. And we could totally sneak you back to Amenta if that's what you want - we can teleport, we can change your face and hair, we can do a lot."

She flops dramatically against the window. "So yeah. That's how we got here. I will totally take questions now."

"I have - I have no idea what the blues have been saying to guess if they're lying to you -

"- Utopia..."

"Oh, right, is that a proper noun? It means a perfect place where everyone wants to live."

"Yeah. That's - well - that is not my job name right now -

"I don't know that I am actually right now a good person to talk to about, uh, anything, especially not if a lot of these people are - mad at me -"

"I’m gonna make fun of them. 'Oh, you wanted someone to consult with about first contact, so you picked Nelen Utopia's alt with even less diplomatic training? Smart. Instead of grabbing an Amentan who might or might not be qualified, pick one where you know for sure!' Wanna watch?" 

"If you like, ma'am!"

"I kinda do but I didn't ask 'do I want you to watch?' Whatever, tell me your email and I'll figure out how to send you a recording."

"Blazartumblr at thirdspire ma'am."

"Thanks. I'm gonna tell Valan to come back because when we stop monopolizing you you might meet someone else and I think maybe you don't want to. Unless he really was threatening you."

"...he could have chosen to be more threatening ma'am."

She bursts out laughing so hard she would probably double over if she weren’t already leaning on the window. She does hit it a couple of times.

........probably this doesn't presage something awful.

"D'you want Mr. You Tried Star or should I just sit on the floor and see how long that keeps people away for?"