"I'm sure it's a lovely place to live."

"Eh."

"Weather's nice."

"This way."

Elves follow.

Senator! "I apologize for the abrupt escort," she smiles.

"That was not a very good idea, someone could have been hurt. It's nice to meet you all the same. I'm Mólie."

"Datna. Were the greys not careful with you?"

"I mean if you'd been mistaken about how our shuttle was constructed, or about how fragile our species is. Our escort was very friendly."

"I'm glad to hear it. So what is your interest in Calado?"

"The interstellar consortium we represent is making contact with every Amentan government to offer food aid, discuss the criteria for membership in our consortium, and set up lines of communication."

"What form of food aid?"

"Apparently there was recently a crisis. We'd be happy to provide food and assist with distribution if Calado's citizens are suffering as a result of that crisis."

      "If Calado's citizens are just going hungry more generally, for structural reasons rather than situational ones, we can help with that too but it requires more care to make sure we're not disrupting the local markets and so on."

"The food markets are functioning fine. We didn't import much from Voa but of course the price of everything's gone up. I can get you someone to talk to in the industry if that's what you need."

"I think the decision we had reached was to depart for a week and learn more to try to approach Calado in a manner more in keeping with its distaste for centralized authority."

"Not sure what you mean by that."

"We were getting contradictory explanations of where to go and who to talk to. We decided that we should leave and come back when we better understood how your government works. This assessment was not changed by our shuttle being dragged out of the sky."

"How were you planning to learn about it?"

"Perhaps some of our colleagues in other countries have met some locals who could provide insight and advice."

"That doesn't seem very charitable, hearing about us secondhand."

"We did try to come here first."

"And I invited you down and you said you weren't coming after all."

"We received a lot of contradictory communications, including some requests to leave."

"Well, now you're here."

"With all due respect, it seems uniquely unwise to have our point of communications with Calado be the person within Calado who was willing to attack our shuttle."

"They didn't hurt you."

"I don't think they even damaged the shuttle; it's still flyable. It has been nice meeting you."