"What do you mean?"

"How to guarantee someone from, say, Calado gets access to another planet if Voa's the only country with access to demons is an instance of the problem."

"If you had ever been to Calado, you might find the prospect of their having access to demons very concerning."

"—it was an arbitrary example but, uh, why?"

"Calado, most likely because they practice permission-based population control, has something of a culture of - high variance strategy."

"Strategy... for getting permissions?"

"Permissions are awarded in different ways per caste. Among blues it requires agreement from high-ranking other blues who are not related to oneself. So the strategy that sometimes works, as opposed to never working, is to draw attention to oneself in ways that, if successful, would make one look clever and valuable to the right people. This is inimical to caution."

"...yeah I can see how that would interact badly with having daeva available."

"Credit systems work on money, which is at least predictable."

"Anyway, uh, point was that I don't love the idea of giving only one country access to other planets and this is not the kind of secret that's easy to keep for long and I expect international cooperation in general is probably very positive for colonization projects."

"Why do you expect that?"

"Well, for one because then the other countries don't have incentives to try to spy on you or sabotage your efforts."

"I do not intend to keep it a secret forever. I think having a precedent and proof of concept will make it possible to establish a template which will prevent disastrous attempts from less conservative forces."

"And give your country a political advantage."

Avalor raises an eyebrow. "If you would like to choose a different country - not Calado, please - I will happily recommend you a competent blue there and tell them how to summon you and wait."

"The point was giving every country's competent blues someone, but..." She shrugs.

"Perhaps something like that would work if there were more consultants like you to distribute. I do not recommend spreading yourself thin."

"Yeah, I don't either, and I don't... really know other daeva I'd indicate, like that."

"If you would like me to refer you to another country I can do that. You came to me."

"I wanted someone who could—use me properly. Allocator Savo indicated you might be such a person. And under the circumstances, I'm not sure it makes sense to be extremely picky—other than the war thing over his mistake your history seems pretty spotless and your personal history, uh, better than that."

"And my recommendation is to have a planet ready to go, quietly, so that no one is unduly tempted into doing anything foolish when they could simply copy the procedure. If you will cooperate with me on this I am inclined to cede Imde province to Tapa without further contest so that they will not impede me but I would very much regret having done that if you abandoned the project subsequently."

"No, that sounds like a good plan, I can definitely work with that."

"Are you sure? Do you have other reservations I should address before I set that in motion?"

"...well there's also the part where I would very strongly prefer this not cause millions of people to die because their hair color happens to be red..."

"I think most countries would prefer to kill them. I believe Voa may be on a very short list of countries that can credibly promise gradual non-fatal transition to reds living separately, and once ours have established a colony we can carefully make sure that it is easier to add reds to it than to kill them and then there will be a much shorter list of places that simply want them dead badly enough. It will be very hard to sell anyone on teaching them to summon - they might pollute the daeva, who would then I take it mix indiscriminately with the rest of the daeva population, not to mention the general concern about allowing them any kind of power - but the planet can I take it be set up to give them a pleasant transition to living on their own, learning to farm to replace initial supplies, etcetera."