Nod. "And lot of the military's hurry-up-and-wait but hopefully there won't be any wars any time soon."

"It's not all that common to see them coming, though of course I hope the same. - there's a problem there in that the world's getting more peaceful and it'd be tempting to consider that reason to have fewer greys but if you do that you might inspire someone else to pick a fight."

"Miolee's okay so far," says Isama, "without any anybody except - 'some Miolee person' -"

"We, uh, might have threatened involvement if anyone gave them trouble. Evalee wanted to land as soon as the decontaminees did, shoot everyone. Anitam doesn't really want to go to war over it but we'll posture on behalf of our business interests - and that's why Father -"

"It was very rewarding in its own right! But yes, the reason a horde of Anitami greens descended on Miolee was so murdering the locals would be complicated and internationally sensitive."

"I thought it was to witness a founding of a new country or something," says Isama.

"I mean, we wouldn't have gone if it wasn't fascinating intellectually, but they wouldn't have let us go if -"

"Traditionally if a country you're on friendly terms with says you might not want to grant your citizens visas to another country where they're planning military action you tell your greens that yes it's intellectually fascinating too bad stay home. We, uh, had a terrible problem with the left hand not talking to the right and they all got granted their visas."

"A terrible problem," snickers Isama.

"I heard Assemble was setting up a factory there and it seemed such a shame for Evalee to go around gunning down its employees!"

She cackles. "A Miolee fellow came up with a very clever idea for a product line expansion, even if it weren't a good place for cheap labor it'd have been worth it for that."

"Oh?"

"Prefab houses and buildings, stick an Assembler on all the joints, magnet-hooked wiring and pipes that snap together - R&D says it's years out but still."

"Ooooooh, that sounds wonderfully useful. Anyway, Miolee's doing great but partially because other places are willing to project power as necessary - but treating your grey population as a credible signal of willingness to pursue your interests abroad isn't the same thing as matching your greys to the need for jobs -"

"You could quantify how much value they're providing by virtue of being around predictably willing to enlist if needed, give them the money - if you explained that it's an effort to compensate them for value they're constantly silently providing it probably wouldn't come across as charity -"

"And we should figure out more peacetime grey jobs, ideally."

"Maybe Tapa was so willing to start that war because the oranges take all the sex work jobs."

"We were pretty excited about that war too, honestly. But I do think you get pressure for wars if you've got more greys than jobs - the problem is, it's not obvious what emerging industry could get considered grey with the right social pressure -"

"Make private pools fashionable again and get everyone hiring swimming instructors?"

Giggle. "For the good of the country! But they went out of fashion because children kept drowning and I don't know many blue estates with margins comfortable enough to hire a lifeguard full time."

"Space travel," says Isama. "They've already got it, anywhere with moon shuttles, there just aren't a lot of positions for it yet, nowhere to go."

"I actually think faster-than-light travel will turn out possible but perhaps not in our lifetimes."

"If any amount of money or energy could make it happen faster -"

"I'm hardly going to tell you not to fund the universities but there's no specific project I'd point to."

"Anyway I like that. Space exploration can be grey, same way sea exploration was."