"Cir, this is a family friend of mine, Ambela, Ambela - did you get from the briefings on Godspring that they pretty much practice a very tidy kind of sexual slavery because I did not interpret it properly at all!"

"Uh, they have prostitution for money in a scarcity economy - that's pretty common in human societies -"

"I don't like human societies!!!!! Also I think usually they don't get picked when they are four and it doesn't steal their memories and capacity to form new ones."

"- the redmages? Are -? Oh that's obvious in retrospect."

"Yes it is but it was not obvious until in retrospect!!!"

"...okay. So what happened -"

He sends the conversation he had with Cir and how it ended.

"- ah. Well. Welcome to Milliways, Cir, I'll make sure everybody knows to give you space."

"Thanks," says Cir.

He closes the door behind them. "If you open the door it should open to your home," he tells Cir.

Cir tries it and sure enough it leads to his house. His little sister is startled.

"Oh good! So you should be careful not to let it close with you on the other side - wouldn't be a disaster or anything, but we don't have anyone else who can open it to there for you - and then you can see them whenever. I will get you a room and then I want to talk, if that's okay -"

"Of course!" Cir says, waving at his sister and shutting the door.

And he asks Bar for a room.

Here's a key!

Upstairs they go.

Follow follow.

Here is room #39000. "Will this do okay?"

"It looks nice..." He peers into the ensuite. "...if I can figure this stuff out..."

Plumbing: here is how it works.

"Okay, that makes sense."

He sits down. "Okay. I - know you know a lot about me, but I don't know much of anything about you, and I would like to. Especially because we're going to want to make some decisions - do you want to be immortal, do you want to play a role in diplomacy stuff, do you need - more physical contact than I've been offering you - are there other things like the memory aid that'd be helpful - you must have a lot of questions -"

"...being immortal sounds probably nice? Especially if I can have one of those necklaces because being immortal would be a lot of chances to accidentally bump into people. I don't know that I'd be any good at diplomacy stuff without redmaging them and that doesn't always work, Tse Simfane tried it and that was a disaster. I'm pretty sure you'll get used to me and it's okay if you're not touchy in the meantime. How many people who look like you are there?"

"...hundreds of millions but you aren't going to run into most of them, hopefully. Of the ones who are around, Timothy's like me but human, Midnight you met, Mingling is like me but - the equivalent of a human four-year-old, Dawn is me but a thousand four hundred years older and married with children..."

"Huh. ...Kids aren't always good about keeping back from redmages, do I need to worry about that?"

"He's pretty mature for a kid but I can make sure there's someone with him until he has demonstrated non-impulsivity. Also we don't control who walks through the magic door so you might not want to spend too much time in the main bar - or I can ask Cam about making you some kind of impenetrable clothing solution -"