"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."

Sigh.

"You've been trying to evaluate if we're the kind of people who'd enslave elementals if we knew how."

"- uh -"

"We won't. I haven't told anyone I don't completely trust not to be stupid and there's absolutely nothing stopping you from leaving and we won't. - we might have. If the first visitor had been someone from your government who said 'oh, they're more like forces than people -' not even because we'd have believed them, just because it would have been enough to make it not something we had to think about. Two planets and then a moral revelation, that's how lots of people work."

"They don't even have to let them talk. You could've just never found out."

"I think I'd have noticed. But I don't run this country yet, couldn't've done anything - is there any chance they'll do planetary transit for ice cream? This is not even remotely a dangerous secret if we can sell it as 'elementals will give us planets for reasonable payment, except the humans are enslaving them, let's bribe the humans to stop and then bribe the elementals for planets'. It is a dangerous secret if they won't want to help on their own."

"You're more like humans than like elementals and humans have just - it took years before Penumbra would even talk to me -"