"Some people cope with it okay. It's definitely something we would have to warn them about, given that you don't have running water. Shame to send a infrastructure and medical team who is debilitated by it."

"Yeah, that sort of thing."

"But people do vary. There are social workers who spend a lot of time in unclean areas and they tend to acclimate over time."

"What do social workers do?"

" - people are - hesitant to discuss this with you too bluntly because if you decide to leave it would be hard to live with having cost our world so much."

"...Penumbra found a neighborhood of red haired people today."

Nod. "Social workers are formally supposed to be the interface between red communities and Anitam, but the reds don't like them and we've phased them out in some districts."

"Why don't reds like them?"

"One common complaint was that the social workers didn't want to hear 'this is unfair' or 'we need help' or 'you're mistreating us', and would get upset with people who implied that, so everyone felt pressured to put on a convincing presentation of happiness when they were around. Another common complaint was the social workers not treating them as equals."

"Are they?"

"In a couple decades there'll probably be a cute childrens' book that summarizes it as 'people used to be mean to reds. "But why would they do that?" asks Timali. The answer is that they felt sick to think about them and they didn't care enough to try to overcome that feeling'."

"We talked about failures of democracy? If you put it to a vote people would want to drive them all out."

"But you don't vote like that."

"We don't. It's our job to do better than 'whatever people want, even if it's horrible'."

"What will Penumbra find if she goes and watches reds all day?"

" - we have to replace the carpet and anything else she's stepped on. They're poor, they're tired, they'd be terrified if she showed herself because they expect that, should she want to kill them, we wouldn't intervene to protect them, and that she might want to kill them because they're reds, lots of people do."

"She turns invisible and is not going to remember everything she might have stepped on."

"They'll cope with just the carpet, maybe all the furniture in the room. I have seen a lot of good, smart people try to do something about reds and not taking seriously enough how much pollution matters to people is where they often fail."

"Try to do things like what?"

"Get them paid better, get them treated better, punish people who hurt them, invent technology that can do the disgusting jobs..."

"What, would your number money get icky if they had it?"

"Your purples will get upset you're giving their hard-earned money to reds and throw a brick at one the next time they see one."

"And the rule of law doesn't actually work?"

"The police aren't great at investigating crimes against reds. I know someone who bought all the reds cameras and we made a law that no one could tamper with those and that made it easier to identify troublemakers even without police cooperation, but some crimes are legitimately hard to solve if all the witnesses saw nothing."