"It's important that we realize Penumbra is a person, Penumbra is scared, and she wanted the book about slavery. I think there's a way to control elementals and that it's popular back home."

" - huh. But, I mean, why control them when we can just bribe them with ice cream -"

"If she's the only one that does interworld transit, and wants to do it occasionally but not on demand..." People walk into the room. He shuts up. 

         "You're handling foreign inquiries, Neli, right?"

"Yes." He goes off to do that.

"Wow, ice cream, huh," says Penumbra.

"Ice cream!" agree Maurabel. "There were also these hot things - maybe they wouldn't have kept well - dipped in something bready and then cooked in a whole bath of hot oil -"

"Oooh."

"Maybe you should come with next time."

"There's so many people, here, it's even worse than the cities back there."

"It was a bit much. I think they'd back off if you asked."

"Still."

Afen dutifully translates, though by now several other people in the room can do it.

"They're really nice. I mean, probably mostly because we're exciting, but they - had niceness lying around?"

"They're rich."

"They're unfathomably rich, I suppose that could look similar."

Penumbra makes a noncommittal noise. Maurabel picks up the book on workers' rights.

Alik wants to work. Anat wants to hire her. Why should the government have anything to say about it? In some countries, they say that the government shouldn't. Everyone can decide if they want to work, and no one should get in trouble for it. In practice, though, sometimes a government might want rules. What if Anat lies to Alik, and says the work is safe, but it's dangerous? What if he locks the exits to the room where she's working so she doesn't sneak out, and then when a fire starts she has no way to escape? 

In Anitam a long time ago, workers got angry about things like that and demanded that the law protect them. They had strikes and protests and petitions. Sometimes, factories hired private security to fight the strikers; people died fighting to get better work conditions. This brought public attention to the unacceptable conditions they were working under.

Today, the law is that work environments have to meet safety standards. Workers cannot be forced to work for more than ten hours at a time, and they have to have access to breaks and water and restrooms. You are not allowed to misrepresent how much you will pay someone, deduct mistakes they make at work or costs of work from their pay, or assess them penalties that decrease their pay below a minimum. Workers cannot be fired for reporting workplace safety violations, reporting harassment, or reporting anyone at their job breaking the law. Salary and pension plans must be reviewed by a board that makes sure they are explained clearly and not misleadingly so people know what they'll get. Contracts are not enforceable if they are misleading or unconscionable.

Discussion questions: adding new workplace protections is expensive: companies have to spend money on compliance, and will hire fewer people. Some worker protections might sound nice but would be far too expensive, like requiring that no jobs have any risk at all or requiring that all jobs pay enough for everyone to afford a baby every year. How should we decide which protections are a good trade?

Should it be legal to hire private security to break up a strike, if they don't use violence?

Should it be legal to nullify contracts for being unconscionable if everybody understood them and agreed?

"Everything is in terms of kids. How would all jobs affording a baby every year even work, if they're limiting how many total -"

"I can't read Anitami," Penumbra reminds her.

Maurabel starts haltingly translating.

Blues tell all their neighbors that the aliens have been told ambassadors are eager to meet them and that Anitam has no additional comment. They practice the language.

Maurabel asks questions about the worker's rights book the next day. Her world has not invented striking. It being illegal to fire you sounds like it would make things mighty awkward. Not forcing people to work more than ten hours at a time seems to just overlap with the slavery thing? What is an unconscionable contract?

" - we're pretty far outside my area of expertise, do you want to talk to some blues."

"Sure."

So he goes across the hall and introduces her to blues!

"Hi Maurabel! Hi Penumbra."

"Hello again!"

"What can we do for you?"

She repeats her questions, which she has written down.

"Oh, the book's not describing overtime law very well at all - if someone works more than ten hours you have to pay them extra past that point, it's not disallowed. The rule against retaliatory firing allows for monetary damages - uh, they have to pay you if they fire you unfairly, they don't have to let you come back to work."

"Okay. Unconscionable contract?"

"If someone says they'll do whatever you want forever in exchange for ten ni then we just won't hold them to it, because it's not reasonable. Judgment call by the courts, but the general principle is that agreeing to something doesn't absolutely categorically make it all right."

"If and only if somebody goes to court about it, right?"

"Well, what would usually happen is that they would breach the contract and then their employer would have to take them to court to get it enforced and then the court would look at it and say 'no'."

Nod.

"I don't expect it'd work in a place where literacy is pretty new - lots of rights only work if people know they've got them."

"Yeah, I have a hard time seeing this implemented at home. Like - people were waiting to learn to read till they were adults and then someone said they didn't think children could and my mother said 'that's not true, my daughter can already read' and now she teaches people's kids, but 'kids can learn to read' was new information."