"It might. I'll have a better idea once I see how it reacts to this batch, I can tell how desperate it is at least."

"Well, I guess it's a means to cultivate patience."

"Yup."

They give Anintu a couple of days to talk to the others, and then announce that transportation has been arranged in a week for anyone who wants to go. Runil's family is among the first to announce that they're leaving.

Trevor thinks about it then decides to visit Runil and his family.

Runil's father answers the door; he obviously has to make an effort not to panic when he sees who it is. "Yes, sir?"

"Please, no 'sir'. If you want to call me annoying birdman I would mind that less. I heard that you are planning to leave."

Blink.

"...yes?"

"Which is an entirely understandable, even obvious, course of action and I came here to apologize over keeping any of you this long and ask if there are things that we could do... or could've done."

He relaxes, just a hair. "No, no, you've been very... very kind."

"Very kind slave-owners, yes. Not that you own me honesty or anything. I'm just going around at least offering apologies to the ones leaving... I did came here first because of Runil, he is not in trouble, he caused us some worry for his well-being."

He blinks again.

"Would you like to come in?"

"Sure, if it's no trouble."

He lets him in.

The apartment is spartan, designed to minimize the rumors of sudden wealth on the planet - just a sitting room with a hallway leading back to two bedrooms and a bathroom, sparsely furnished. They've rearranged the furniture to make it a little more homey, though, and the beginning of a blanket is draped over the back of one of the chairs.

"Sit wherever you'd like," Jass waves him toward the chairs. "I'll go get them."

Trevor sits.

And after a moment Jass returns with his wife, who's leading a rather subdued Runil by the hand.

"Hello, Mariili. Hello, Runil. Did Jass explained why I'm here?"

Headshake.

"I wanted to apologize. I'm sorry for keeping any and all of you this long, owning you and keeping you in the dark and unable to even guess what your future is going to be like. Keeping you worried. And I can't offer anything better than 'there is a reason, trust me' which is true, but so opaque and uninformative that I will understand if you are offended that it was featured as party of the apology. I'm not asking for forgiveness, I'm not asking you anything. I just think that when someone does something like this they should at least acknowledge it."

"Well, tha-"

"See, they're nice," Runil interrupts.

"Thank you." He says uncomfortably. "But it would be okay if you didn't think that."

"But you are, and I wanna stay and find out what the secret is, and I don't wanna go someplace new!"

"I'm sorry, sir, I'll just -" she tugs Runil back toward the bedrooms.

Trevor does not sigh.

"It's alright." He turns to Jass. "Really, it's alright. I know you are just humoring me. But the apology was something that needed to be said."

"No, it's - it's just been hard on the boy, sir...thank you for coming."