"Well, given how Mioleens used to be red it's not really surprising. Greys hate reds," he says, making a face.

"Cops hate reds, and not even all of them, but yeah, sampling bias abounds." She wrings out her hair.

"Yeah, sampling bias is right, from their perspective they just get in trouble whenever they run into greys and are not properly deferential and 'sir' and 'ma'am' a lot and even then it's a game of chance."

"Yeah. My dad grumbles about it, he's a cop. Anyway I don't think they have a problem with stats bloggers or sex workers but the ones who'd rather be grey in Anitam than casteless in Miolee are few and far between and then I'd have to swap back, you know?"

"Yeah. I haven't looked much into it, are many people swapping to Miolee?"

"Some but mostly purples."

"Huh. What's in it for them?"

"They get to do other-caste stuff? And most of the Mioleens have purple-compatible skills, same as most of the ex-reds here did, a lot of them can drive and stuff, so when they want out of permaspring they declare purple."

"Aha. Makes sense, yeah."

She sighs and shrugs. She starts changing into non-swim clothes.

Sigh is right. He also starts changing.

"Would you in fact try to swap into Miolee if there were more grey swaps?"

"Probably, yeah."

"Seems like a great injustice that there aren't, then."

"It might pick up once Miolee's gotten more batches from other countries, who knows."

"Am I guessing correctly that you'd go either yellow or green if given the choice?"

"Orange'd be fine and I can do the accent and have the relatives and everything, but yeah I'd strongly consider any of the three."

"I think all things considered I'd like to be blue—politician, maybe judge—but that's an outside perspective, maybe there are hidden horrors I haven't thought of."

"I'd like to be blue too but it'd be an extra handicap I don't need to try it on no assets, which is what I'd get if I tried going through Miolee even if someone from Miolee wanted to be grey in Anitam and also someone blue in Anitam wanted to be casteless in Miolee."

"Yeah, just pipe dreams. And I'm not sure I'd have preferred to have been born blue, I don't know what the effective isolation from other castes would've done to my worldview."

"I think I would've been all right, although I suppose I might have estranged my blue extended family and wound up handicapped that way."

"Might you?"

"I am not naturally tactful."

"Ah, I see how that might be a problem. Maybe they have lessons on this?"

"I assume they do. I'm not sure how much that masks actual political disagreement and have no idea how blue families handle it when they have those."

"Maybe they're so used to it they have cultural norms for decoupling work from social?" he suggests.