"To the red?"

"Who else? This is going to go much better with the red's cooperation."

"We should come up with a good containment plan and then tell the red what it is, suggesting things will just confuse it."

"..."

"I understand that there's nothing similar in your world."

"No, see. The problem is that it's too similar to somethings in my planet."

"Who's the red? Maybe we can start with that."

"I will disclose the red's identity if the red so chooses."

"I see."

"I am... aware that it is not reassuring."

"I think you might be underestimating how much of a catastrophe a problem with the red's dimension would be. A few years ago there was an incident with reds where they weren't supposed to be. Three countries went to war and a hundred thousand people died."

"I admit ignorance, but I still don't feel motivated to take an action I can't reverse. What happened that a war was justified over it?"

"One of our neighbors allowed reds to touch their food."

"...I don't see why the other countries went to war over it?"

"They exported food. So their neighbors saw sudden severe food shortages and had to implement strict rationing and had to quickly figure out how to be independent with respect to their food supply, and they couldn't do that without taking some territory."

"But... was the food safe? What do you mean with touching? When you said that the reds are allowed to touch it my first impression was thinking that they were allowed at supermarkets or something."

"They were allowed to handle the food during packing and shipping. The food was disgusting, such that no one would eat it, preferring to starve. It's not a safety concern except insofar as suddenly starving your populace poses all kinds of safety problems."

"Their own people would rather starve."

"Like I said, it doesn't really seem like your world has anything analogous."

"Maybe not in the particular. But not necessarily in the... class of behavior."

"We're happy to work with you on the safe handling of the situation. But not knowing who the red is, and not knowing whether safe solutions we come up with will actually be implemented, just isn't a sustainable situation."

Felix turns his face away.

"I appreciate how committed you are to protecting everyone."

Slow nod. "There might be ways to solve this and I just haven't figure out," he wishes Fenris was here, he would've already have solved this.

"Everybody in this world wants to work with you. We'll be willing to move mountains to get you what you want, given how significant the stakes are for our people. You don't need to worry that we'll deliberately defy your wishes on the handling of the situation. But without full information there's just so much that can go wrong."