Amentans continue to derive satisfaction from hearing about elementals freed from slavery. Aitim arranges for the stories to get lots of publicity so people have a harder time getting their own ideas about slavery.

"Thanks."

"Of course!" He's having a kid this spring; the mother is eating lots of clams even though it's still winter. "How's preparing your curriculum going?"

"Pretty good. Might all fall apart when I have students, though. I'm probably going to want to hire some oranges for kid-wrangling parts that aren't directly about magic."

"With that many students? Yeah, I bet."

"I'm slightly worried about whether I will be able to find local oranges who can handle red students fairly. Or, uh, handle blue students fairly."

"There are oranges who teach in blue schools and they are not intimidateable into not giving us homework or anything."

"Sure. But this will be a mixed caste class."

"I don't think you're going to find anyone who'll treat the reds fairly. 'no favoritism among clean castes' seems entirely reasonable and not hard to get."

"Suppose. Well. The reds are my weird alien project, I can just give them extra attention if they need it."

"They probably will - you do know there are marked IQ differences by caste -"

"On the occasions I have talked to random purples they seem smarter than random humans, honestly, I think I'll cope."

"We've been selecting for intelligence in almost every caste for generations. They'll be fine. But if you're expecting to get equal results from equal opportunity, it won't work that way."

"I know."

Anitam's colonization project is making exciting progress! Some Earths and Woods could maybe keep some plants alive if they wanted.

Some of them will come do that.

Other places want colonization projects too! If Maurabel won't help they will try to corrall Shadows themselves. Some of them are effective at this.

Maurabel's usually willing to help but if they can get Shadows to assist on their own that's fine, she doesn't own them.

Will Maurabel assist Calado.

She will sell them air artifacts at the standard rate.

Will she help them find Shadows.

She will consult on Shadow-finding, she can't really be personnel manager for every country on the planet.

Eventually Calado has a planet with four competing arcologies. Two of them attack each other with no survivors.

The northern hemisphere has a crop of mage babies. Chemists figure out what exactly the bioactive compound is and get it in pill form.

Good for chemists. The first batch are one now! How are they doing?

They are doing well, aided by their elemental caretaker/assistants! The one with neglectful parents now lives with Grandma, who won her custody case. The Calador expat has lots of friends and really likes Anitami food. Some families did muster the money to send their children to the blue one's estate, and she gets along splendidly with her new yellow and green friend and their accompanying elementals.