She nods. "I promise that I will not tell anyone anything you tell me in confidence."

"The Emperor of Scandinavia is possessed by a demon."

"What makes you say that?"

"When I was first brought to Scandinavia the emperor was - in a different body. Anyone else would tell you he was a different man. His manner was different. His interests were in some ways different. He had no children younger than twenty, and so he amused himself by tutoring his younger captives. He loves children, the emperor. He died when I was fifteen, and the realm passed to Dyre, then Jarl of Skane. They never had a chance to speak to one another about me. But he knew, he knew things about me, things I'd said to no one but him, things he would betray in offhand comments. I noticed his English was bad in the same ways that the other emperor's had been."

"I told him I knew what he was, knew enough to know that he had killed the Jarl of Skane and that now he wore his face. And he laughed at me. I thought how stupid I'd been, that he would kill me then, but he didn't. He just laughed, and - he told me that he was Scandinavia, that as long as it had been a nation it had been his, that as long as it existed and was held by Yngling hands then it would be his. He told me that whenever he died he passed into the body of his heir. And he told me that I was a fool, that he could kill me now if he wanted, he simply happened not to want to. That no one would ever believe me anyway. But he had an audience now, he had someone who could appreciate the particular dramatic ironies of various situations. So he left me alive, knowing. And so I know."

" - I see. Thank you for telling me. It would be very good for my people to know that, so they could protect other people, but I understand why you would not want to tell anyone."

"I'm not against telling people in full generality. I just - need to figure out how to stop him and am not at all sure how to do that."

"How to stop him from doing this to another person?"

"How to stop him. The fact that he kills his heirs is objectionable, but it is hardly the worst thing he does, and if he can't be destroyed - or removed from power and prevented from returning to it - or changed somehow - then he will continue doing all the terrible things he does forever."

"Do you think what we're doing right now will not be sufficient to change him?"

"No."

"Do you want to talk about that?"

"He'll play your game. He'll free all of his slaves and brand himself a reformer. He'll stop his human sacrifices and call it righteous obedience to the gods. But he will always, as long as one of him draws breath, be biding his time and nursing his ambitions and plotting some way to restore his independence, so that he can heighten the glory of Scandinavia and do as he pleases and prey on the weak once more."

"And we don't care, and that must seem to you like the height of foolishness, or like we could only care so little about his ambitions if we'd care very little if they were realized."

"No. You don't care because he's a child to you. Because we are all children to you, because each of us is a frightened toddler with a knife, and we can hurt no one but ourselves. You suppose that you will take the knife and swaddle us, leaving us unable to do anything of consequence, and that will be justice because there is nothing of value in our ambitions in the first place. Either you are wrong, and you are in danger, or you are right, and there will never be a superior alternative to the emperor anyway. You'll only send us to a larger castle with more competent guards and fill it with more elaborate toys."

- oh, darn, she wasn't going to argue this time. Why is she so terrible at not arguing.

"My world made contact four years ago. I'm twenty-five."

"Then perhaps you can imagine why the knowledge that everything that matters to you will henceforward be decided by either a muzzled ageless demon or a collection of worlds with incomprehensible foreign values might be slightly upsetting."

"They showed us movies to get us up to speed on how they work but I guess they can't do that here. Or they could but it doesn't work as well. I'm just saying that you will get infinite opportunities to spend the rest of eternity hurting yourself, if you want, and that if I'm not worried about the demon of Scandanavia it's not because I think he's a child. 

It's - I am not actually the best person to explain this, I didn't grow up with it - 

So not all people are human. On some planets there are other kinds of people and some of them look sort of like us and some of them look like animals and some of them look like odd monsters. One of the founding species of Vanda Nossëo are the Quendi. Quendi are all good. They do not break any laws. They do not have any bullies. They all want to make the world better and they all keep their word.  Something like... five percent of humans end up joining Vanda Nossëo and doing humanitarian work? Seventy percent of the Quendi do. It's only that low because they're obsessed with staying home while they have children. My job is mostly Quendi, because they can make a magically binding promise never to repeat anything told to them in confidence, and who'd trust someone bound only by their honor, when there's that? 

Quendi planets work by assuming everyone is good. No one locks their doors, no one ties up their horses, no one enforces the law, no one breaks it. They're supposed to be very nice. For Quendi, because anyone else would break them.

The other planets are nice too, but they can't be nice the same way. Because humans aren't good. To make a human planet nice it has to be nice even though lots of the people on it will be evil, it has to be nice even when some of its people are trying to break it, it has to be nice for people who aren't, and aren't trying to be, and don't plan to start. Everywhere in Scandinavia right now, the crops are thriving, because fed people have more options and are less tired and are more able to fight for what they want. Everywhere in Scandinavia right now, they're doing songs and theatre, about us, so we seem less foreign, so people are less afraid to look to us if they want anything. Everywhere in Scandinavia right now, there are shuttlebus stops taking people bouncing all around the universe. Just to get them acquainted to the idea it's there. Just to get them acquainted to the idea that if they ever wanted to leave, there are grassy green fields three hops away where they could settle. If your Emperor starts to prey on the weak, someday, the weak will be strong, and they'll have spent their childhoods exploring the stars, and they'll know half a hundred places they can go. If your Emperor starts to prey on the weak, they'll have made friends, who will notice.

We didn't do that because we knew he was an immortal demon. We did that because we thought he was human. And making places nice for humans means making them places that will be nice even when their rulers are selfish and cruel and clever. That's not something extra we have to do now that he's an immortal demon, that's what we have to do everywhere for everyone, because a paradise for humans can't just be a paradise for nice people, it has to be a paradise for horrid ones."

She starts tearing up at humans aren't good, because, after all, they're not. 

"You can't make a paradise for horrible people. But I suppose it's sweet of you to try."

"I don't think you could make a paradise that was all horrible people. None of them would think to try, for one thing. I think - you can make a paradise that horrible people can't break, and that's for them, too. It's not easy and you need a lot of miracles, but we have those, and a lot of people working very hard, but we have that, too. But you don't have to believe that it's a paradise, that doesn't seem like something one decides by argument anyway. Just that it has its share of clever evil tyrants, and that none of them can prey on anyone."

"That sounds very unlikely."

"I assume you're not allowed to attend the theatre presentations that are telling our story to people?"

"Not at the moment. But it seems very unlikely, whatever your story, that you can prevent any person from preying on another. Not if you leave your people any meaningful decisions at all."

"Hmm, I think there's different kinds of - you've been staying here. So you know we're the kind of world that lets you stay here. People stay in situations that are bad for them, all the time. Until they're done, and they leave, and they're immortal, and have all of forever still ahead of them. There really is a lot you can do just by making sure that everyone can leave, and knows they can leave, and then building everything they might need if they choose to, and then, well, trying to listen."

"I suppose if they have forever to get it right," she says, laughing weakly. "You make people immortal?"

"Yes. Well, people who aren't already. I don't think it's very good for people to feel like they're running out of time, or have already missed everything."