"But he didn't make you get lo- If you don't want to talk about this you can just say that."

Sigh. "I'm sorry."

"...but you do have to be clear one way or the other."

"I'd rather not talk about it. For—now, at least."

"Okay. Um. Seen any good movies lately?" she asks lamely.

"Yeah, I actually saw one before dinner yesterday, me and Alex sometimes find movies that have the same start time in each town and sync up. It was that one about mages in space? The special effects were really good. Alex kept complaining about the romance."

"Not the romantic type?"

"He's really not. Admittedly, the actors had no chemistry."

She grins. "Did the movie deal at all with extraterrestrial eclipses?"

"Nah, the entire expedition team was already mages, didn't touch it."

"Just mages? No psions?"

"Not in space. One on the ground doing communications and tech."

"What were the mages actually doing there?"

"Initially, exploring Venus on a lower tech budget than regular astronauts would need. In acts two and three fighting aliens."

"Of course. Aliens in Venus." She giggles.

"Yep. Aliens with weird alien magic."

"Weird how?"

"It was sort of unclear but they seemed to manipulate luck."

"That... sounds really far-fetched."

"Yeah. I didn't say it was a great work of cinema."

She giggles. "So how come I'm your first—prospective sub?"

"I find plans to make everyone immortal intensely attractive."

She beams widely. "Thank you, ma'am. But surely that's not the only thing you find attractive? Otherwise our meeting is even more serendipitous than I'd previously assumed."

"Sure, I find other things attractive. I don't find most other things motivatingly attractive. I like how you look at me, but it wouldn't be a qualifying feature on its own. You're cute and the gender-swapping thing is rather imagination-provoking but that wouldn't do it either. But you want to make everyone immortal and you have my attention."