He seemed really nice. Played violin, always said it wasn't cool when people talked about pulling one over on summoners, that kinda thing. I guess I didn't know him that well, he lived off by himself in his own gravity well.

Did lots of basement dweller Elves, drug experiment type things, I guess he couldn't figure out how to knock 'em out because he stranded the kid on another planet. It looks like a nice enough place, I guess, very pretty.

I think he remade the entire planet after he holed it, I didn't keep looking after that, morbid much?

He picks through it all. He goes to his boss. "Showed up, made them spaceships, tried to figure out how to safely put them in a coma, couldn't do it - stranded his summoner on a planet he made way out in intergalactic space, presumably informed that if he sent the demon home no one'd ever find them - nice place, with lots of other people, can't have the summoner decide it's worth it - goes to Elf Planet #2, where they're fighting a low-tech war, gives one side marginally better tech than the other side has but not anywhere near enough to end the war, talks to some people, rigs some cities to explode, puts chip-operated killswitches in millions of people, flies off and holes Elf Planet #1. On the bright side this seems to have caused the survivors on #2 to get over their differences."

       "I suppose it would."

"Aitim Neli thought there'd be something exonerating?"

       "Aitim wants him exonerated. Not the same thing."

"This was very deliberate. All of it. It wasn't - in the middle of a fight or while carelessly doing a bunch of forensic conjurations or the minute he arrived just to see if he could, anything like that. He figured out how to stay there indefinitely and then he - yellow, not gray. I know they're aliens. He did it from the edge of his range, with a telescope for precision."

       "That part doesn't surprise me. Impulsive mass murderers you don't work with."

"A planet."

       "I know."

"What're you going to do?"

       "Still haven't decided. Thank you for this, though."

"Of course." He also forwards his report to the Safe Summoning Authority.

The SSA appreciates it. They recommend that the GCP step up the circles just in case.

Eventually the GCP's liaison to the Anitami colony planet visits home. Invites Aitim over for dinner. He shows.

         "How're you finding Earth?"

"We live on Mars, actually. It's lovely. I like the people at the GCP, they're very competent and have good priorities. We dug into the case of the demon who holed a planet."

        "Oh? Turn up anything interesting?"

"If I wanted to terrorize billions of people and then commit one of the greatest atrocities in history there is not a thing I'd have done differently."

        "Is that so."

She summarizes.

        "Did you figure out why I -"

"He's the one holding the door to Revelation when we go through, right?"

       "Correct."

"He could step through any time?"

      "Also correct."

" - and, what, the circles offend him?"

      "No."

"Is this some kind of test, Neli."

      "This is a dinner conversation."

"Are we in danger if I can't pull it off."

       "No."

"Are you completely sure of your read on him - read the report - I know you're rarely wrong but it might not be never, not with aliens -"

       "I am not relying on my read on him."

She frowns. She changes the subject to the cuisine. It's Martian. The cook's been taking classes. 

Aitim reads the report and gets back to work.

Cam notices the extra circles next time he's conjuring to see if they're still there and he wonders why and finds the report and mopes very quietly.

" - is something wrong -"

"Nothing new, really."

"You are newly gloomy."

"Yep." Cam sighs and hands him the report.

He reads. "- not what I imagined the first step in getting them to drop it would look like, admittedly."

"Leads me to suspect he can't even pull it off."

"He can pull it off. But it's not much fun to have thrilling wrongheaded reports thrown around in the meantime."

"This is what it looks like and the key insight is a dire secret."

"It looks hard. But he has six hundred million people, it can be a problem that only one person in ten million could solve and he'd have had his choice of 'em."

"I doubt very much he's met them all."

"As long as you're filtering okay that doesn't matter - don't know if the caste system helps or hinders, there -" sigh. "Worst-case there are lots of ways to circumvent it but I hope it works."

"I mean, Ganymede isn't that bad, comment about maggots notwithstanding, as long as they all get put back first."

" - no, see, that's definitely not happening. If we haven't gotten anything else figured out by the time you want to go pick up the kid we can draw a couple hundred thousand circles of our own, get near-certainty we get you, right?"

"They're up to seven hundred now but you could in theory just out-circle them, yes."

"So if diplomacy doesn't work we do that, we do not send people to the gag prison."

"Are you going to do that for everybody else they have circles out for? There's a fairy who tortured seven people to death."

"They don't gag fairies, right?"

"They do not. There's a demon who blew up a space station."

"It's not at the top of my to-do list but, yes, given the choice I'd grab that one ourselves too. ...we could grab them ourselves and send them home, even."

"Yes, that's possible."