He mostly conceals a grimace. " - might help but it's not really about the hair, there are reds for whom it grows in something else -"

"I know, but this would at least soften the first impressions, and after that I'm not sure there's much I could do that wouldn't terrify them so I'd at least try to be terrifyingly helpful."

Nod. "I think once the immediate safety of Olvala's red population is assured you should start doing things in Anitam. I know I would say that but we're big enough to matter if we throw our weight around on red welfare internationally or other concerns of yours, flexible enough to in fact do that in exchange for magic help for our people, and stable - we can experiment a bit without worrying about undermining the whole state or inviting international trouble or provoking a sudden civil war. And there are already people here trying to figure out what can be done for reds, if there are any elsewhere I don't know of them and I actually think I would. I work in foreign affairs and it's something I pay a lot of attention to."

"Yeah, I was going to ask, what's your angle? Seeing a blue bring a bunch of reds sandwiches was... unexpected." As an afterthought she changes her hair back to green.

"The next few years are going to be trouble. I was pretty pessimistic about things before you arrived, honestly. Everyone wants them gone very very badly, and they've successfully put that outcome off only by rioting whenever anyone suggests it. Lots of them die but so does the politician who brought it up - sometimes they'll just burn down the house - and it goes back to quiet muttering. And now Olvala's gone and done it, and unless it's a disaster lots of places will copy them, and even if places are willing to send the reds somewhere there's nowhere to send them. Anitam doesn't have an unusually strong faction in favor of mass murder but if everyone else is doing it we'll absolutely get on board eventually - there are sixty-five million of them globally -"

"And it's admirable that you care but I'm still confused on the why."

"Maybe I like being admirable."

"Everyone does. The only person doing the admiring here is an alien that literally appeared out of nowhere, though."

"I know some people who'll smuggle Anitami reds weapons, if it looks about to come to that. I - desperately want it to not come to that. This is my country, these are my people, I've got some time and some room to maneuver in and I want better than that."

She nods. "Who's the politician you want me to dump youth on?"

"Voan, not here. She won't want Voa to be your test case, too conservative, but she'll make things happen stably and cleanly there and I've much less confidence in her successors and she's thirty-nine. Governor Avalor."

"Do you think I should tell her or should she just be mysteriously healthy for her age all of a sudden?"

"I will call ahead as soon as I have a clearer picture of what to say when I do."

"I'm not in principle opposed to it being known I exist, although I expect the situation to become​ politically delicate if it looks like I'm working with Anitam in particular."

"I actually expect that to work much better than most alternatives - people won't expect us to suddenly get assassination-happy or expansionist or reckless given new underspecified resources, an alien on its own and indignant about reds is likelier to invite someone to be stupid in a variety of ways. But 'no one knows at all except as necessary to convince them to keep their reds safe, at least until we have planets to send people to' is one of the probably-superior alternatives."

She nods. "I feel it's crass to make threats but I hope you realise I'll be very put out if you turn out to be misleading me. You have this 'too good to be true' vibe going on."

"Do you want hostages or something?"

She looks as horrified as she can while still being mostly emotionless. "Of course not. If that turns out to be the case I'll just stop working with you and possibly stop whatever it is you're doing instead."

"...okay."

"I was completely honest in everything I said, if you really are what you look like you are then you're a ridiculously lucky break and it'll be so much easier to improve things, but these past few weeks have given me the expectation that everyone here thinks some people fail to be people depending on the colour of their hair—I have excellent hearing and I was in a university, I heard incredibly intelligent greens arguing that reds could maybe be considered people from a moral uncertainty standpoint—"

"- I am not confused about your surprise, it is in fact unlikely that you'd find someone who agreed with you or even someone opportunistic enough to go along with you by randomly wandering Anitam a few weeks. The thing that confused me was, ah, that you said you hated to make threats and then threatened to, uh, be annoyed and stop working with me. That's not really the kind of threat most people hate to make."

"—no, the part of your suggestion I objected to is bringing​ other people into it, my 'just stop you' was 'destroy your political career and perhaps you' as opposed to 'take hostages and hurt them.' I do hate threats in general but if I need to make them I'd rather be as precise as I can be."

"Oh, all right. Consider me appropriately notified. Do you want a plane or something to Olvala, it'll go faster -"

"...yeah, actually, that would be very kind of you."

"It's going to take me a little while to get you papers that stand up to inspection unless I take this to the council and I am undecided on that. But I can get you something good enough to fly with." He pulls up his computer.