"Do you actually want to come aboard or were you just substituting for not knowing how to respond to a hail?"

"It would be convenient to talk in person - harder for my government to spy on us, for one thing - but I can send the things you'd need to know remotely if you prefer it."

"I can open the airlock."

"We'll come on over."

They do that. All three, this time.

It's a little cramped for four in here. "Hello. I'm Isabella T'Mir."

The fairy keeps translating. "Hi. Far as I can tell you're the best person in the universe."

"Um, thank you."

"What do you need in order to keep doing it longer?"

"The problem I'm anticipating is the Federation noticing that there's too many civilizations achieving warp in close succession. I've covered my tracks but I'm not especially good at it. While more resources are certainly desirable in a general sense I don't actually know that they'll directly apply."

"I could do this openly. If that'd be advisable, I mean. Amentans aren't aiming for Federation membership, for some good reasons and some bad ones, and they won't care who we give warp. I don't know enough about the Federation to evaluate whether that's a good idea."

"I've preferentially dropped warp on civilizations that would qualify or could with some likely-palatable changes because I think I have only a finite number of times I can do it before I have to stop altogether and the Federation is an enormous leverage multiplier. I'm not sure how they'd react to a third party handing it out."

"What are some possible reactions?"

"I'm a little worried they'd change membership criteria. If they suspected why you were doing it."

"To disqualify civilizations that got given warp from consideration? Permanently?"

"Probably not permanently."

"So then it might be worth giving to places that wouldn't get it for decades anyway. Or figuring out how to compete with - why's the Federation so rich, could a non-Federation consortium pull off the same thing -"

"Uh, I don't understand all the economics of it. Lots of automation is involved."

"Huh. Okay. If too many places get warp at once, does the Federation stop being as much leverage, because they're at their capacity to offer aid anyway?"

"New members eventually net produce value after some investment but not immediately. So if you do it too fast, yes."

"Are you part of an organization or doing this on your own."

"Just me. You didn't notice that while spying?"

"I don't dig into peoples' communications unless they're Oahkar mafia assassins, I just checked where you were going."

"Oahkar mafia assassins?"

"As a specific instance of the category 'people who murdered someone recently and might do it again soon'."

"Ah. Well, just me."