- unconscious hair-flip meant to communicate 'I'm not green but -' - "depends how much the wizards can let us cheat at materials but we could give the emissaries parachutes - again, if this is actually a question of 'the Valar created these barriers to access but will tolerate their circumvention -'"

"I will have them ask Ulmo."

"Your gods are weird."

"You don't say. What would you need for airplanes -"

" - uh, it'll be a real hassle - maybe less of one if magic lets you somehow cheat or if you've got very good precision manufacturing for being Iron Age -"

" - what's very good -"

" - I'm not purple -"

"I really don't see what that has to do with anything."

He sighs and they start chattering about manufacturing tolerances.

"The hair color thing is kind of cute but separating inventing and manufacturing is the silliest idea I've ever heard of."

"It holds us back a lot, yeah."

"You just have to learn to collaborate," says Isama, "I didn't personally invent the assembler gadget."

"Yeah but it's like - added boxes on forms - people who are bad at collaborating or can't find the right other person -"

"But if someone's good at ideas and has unsteady hands or great at making things and bad at plotting them out having the norm that collaboration is normal helps."

"I suppose, but - most greens and purples don't know each other socially, the norm that you collaborate has to be stronger than the norm that you only work together at all in defined professional contexts - and most purples starting out on a business can't hardly afford to hire green -"

"Oh, I found one who wanted cover results to justify a robotics project."

"Sure but people shouldn't have to be as competent as you to get anywhere."

She laughs. "Fair enough."

"Now that you have colony planets you can try varying levels of stringency about the caste system - see what works -"

"Yeah I'm excited about it. Just have to get back home."

"Working on it!" he calls from over where airplanes are being planned.

Grey Peka goes over to Way Island.

"Hi Peka!"

"Hi! Where's Michael? I wanna ask him a thing."

"Out singing the kids magic songs, I think!" His wand twirls in his hands to point the correct direction.