"Mm-hm."

"Course, we don't stop the reds from writing. Hey Aitim, there's an idea. Can't complain about their treatment if you execute them for literacy!"

"The guests can't tell if you're serious, Telkam."

"Is that so. Who built a country so fucked up that could be ambiguous, because it wasn't me."

"You caught me, I singlehandedly designed the planet. Before I was born."

"I'm told it has very swimmable oceans, congratulations."

"There's been lots of social justice progress. Just - unevenly."

"...from what?"

"Abolishing slavery, enacting population controls everywhere, wars are way down, universal access to birth control and abortion, universal vaccination. Or do you mean on reds in particular. We got rid of the social workers and got 'em cameras to stop police brutality and arrest people who take advantage of them. They have internet access and can lead the same online lives as anyone."

"I did mean the reds." Sigh.

"That one's hard."

"I still like the idea of a magic that cleans them. I liked the idea even before we had magic, and you'd think magic would make it easier. - Maurabel's not credible on it, though -"

"Got someone executing little red mages so they'll have the legitimacy when you need it?"

"No. I don't."

"I assume my red students aren't either. Some of their classmates are better than others."

"It needs to come from someone who cares about pollution a lot, which isn't exactly the same thing as caring about reds or not. I'd be looking for someone with - benevolence at a distance and absolute scrupulousness about cleanliness - over someone who's friendly with them."

Sigh.

"Shapat'll see the benefits and has the connections, but I'm not sure it'd take in Cene, they're not a particularly socially innovative place."

"Who's Shapat?" asks Isama.

"There is one blue mage in the first batch. The green ones it's harder to guess their career trajectory and past that - some of the purple mages are incredibly talented but they cannot afford in any sense to stake out an eccentric stance on reds."

"Shapat has not exhibited any inclination to be distantly benevolent, although she's not a discipline problem either, I'll give her that."

"It's purple. And grey but only in the sense greys'll always be the bulk of your discipline problems. The farther removed you are from it the better you can cope when it comes up - it's hard to have a crippling phobia of people you only see through the windows of midnight garbage trucks..."

"And an improvement in the status of reds isn't threatening to a blue's capacity to feel better than everyone else."

"I like you," she tells Telkam.

"You seem all right."