"Since you have it already, I'm allowed to be here; since you're not with the Federation, they don't have the ability to steamroll over you if you seem inclined to shelter me. So yes. I could also have prevailed on one of the planets I gave warp to that didn't go on to join the Federation but it's nice to have an invitation in hand."

"Given our own history we're very sympathetic to giving pre-warp civilizations warp." Someone brings drinks and snacks. "Not alcoholic," he says, taking something. "We're acquainted with Cam and Iobel."

"Thank you, I appreciate that." She samples a thing.

Thing is perfectly tasty. "Can I answer some questions for you before we head up to Lina?"

"My ship isn't designed to accommodate multiple people; an escort in separate ships would work fine, as would transferring me to a different vessel, which do you prefer?"

"Oh, I was imagining we'd fairy over, it's five minutes that way."

"...not to Lina, I mean when distributing more warp."

"Ah. Whichever suits you is fine. The crew probably won't speak much English."

"Separate ships seems easier then."

"Is it likely they'll attempt to arrest you while you're out scouting or contacting new worlds?"

"Whenever they find out what I've been up to they'll want to catch me wherever I am until they find that I have company, although they'd avoid attracting excess notice from the prewarp civilizations in the process."

"And when they find you have company you expect them to abandon this?"

"They may try to convince you to extradite me. I do not expect them to start a fight."

"Unless there have been significant misrepresentations about the nature of your activities Anitam is committed to ignoring extradition requests."

"My activities are as described!"

"Then they are very commendable!"

"Thank you."

They walk train-wards. "How much did you have a chance to look up about us?"

"Cam recommended me some reading but I'm sure I'm missing considerable detail."

"I'd be delighted to fill you in if there's anything in particular."

"I have no specific curiosities in mind but I'd love to hear how you're inclined to describe it."

"Amentans have a higher birthrate and want children more intensely than most species past their demographic transition. As a result, we've been close to our planet's carrying capacity for a long time and until recently every country in the world was implementing coercive population controls. Now we have colony planets, and have delightedly relaxed them. The access to other worlds has been good for us in other ways - the colonies can take immigrants, which means there's a potential outlet for would-be revolutionaries and for pilot projects with different systems of government and for people displaced by national disasters. The governments here are very conservative and risk-averse - an artifact of working in a world where hundreds of millions of people depend on you and there are few peaceful checks on poor decision-making - and we're hoping we can change now that there's literal and metaphorical space to experiment. We have a caste system, and among the experiments are experiments with various kinds of caste flexibility. Caste provides a lot of people with a sense of identity, community membership, culture and history, and caste abolition polls very poorly. We're a democratic society and we're not going to end the caste system in the face of massive public opposition, which means we're anticipating charting a course separate from the Federation. Though we eagerly anticipate the opportunity to trade with them."

"I think they'll probably get along fine with you, you just wouldn't slot neatly into their existing governance structure," she nods.

"With so many worlds it makes sense to have heuristics that might fail to apply in some cases. The prohibition on caste systems seems perhaps to be one such heuristic, the ban on contact with pre-warp societies less so."

"Many Federation members have unpleasant intra-species histories of colonialism which was deeply oppressive to the colonized with tragic results. I believe that we've grown beyond the inclination to behave that way - slightly too far - but it's the opinion of the Federation that the risk is unacceptable and a bright line is required."