"I'd like someone to refer the police to if they're investigating alien activities. I'd like an introduction to a military strategic advisor who can exercise suitable discretion. And I'd like a line of funding appropriate to foreign intelligence operations."

       Sigh. "That all sounds fine."

"Thank you very much," Aitim says. 

      "I hope for your sake it works."

"I hope for all our sakes it works."

     "Should I presume it to be always - listening in on you -"

"I asked Crystal to stay with me to save time in persuading people I'd witnessed alien activity."

"And I would prefer you use 'she' pronouns."

"Of course," she says. "Lovely meeting you."

"Likewise."

"The weather's really something, isn't it," he says, moving the box for Crystal. 

       "Terrible. And they say a harder winter means a stronger spring -"

"Do they? I hadn't heard that one. What a shame."

       "I think there was some kind of study. Prices of aftermarket credits against weather patterns."

He sighs. "Maybe in a few springs everyone who wants a child can have one."

        "Wouldn't that be lovely. You take care."

"Thank you. I will."

And when they're safely outside: "I find your government's priorities strange."

"Oh?"

"...perhaps that's not the best way to phrase what I mean, but—it seems to me that the point of governing is trying to ensure your citizens have the means to lead fulfilling lives and that looked more like caring about attaining certain states-of-the-world that are proven to be reasonably satisfying to most people rather than caring about the end goal itself."

"Idealistic people usually make the world worse. Have you heard about the war in Voa a little while ago? The best way we know to ensure our citizens live fulfilling lives is to carefully pursue the few states known to stably produce that. Aim at the achievable and you achieve it; aim at the perfect and you get disaster."

"That is reasonable, but one would expect some rethinking to be done in light of unforeseen resources."

"I agree with you, of course, but I think deftness with unforeseen resources is a different skill than the ones mostly required to run the country well and so the people who govern us are not particularly likely to have a gift for it."

"I suppose. We consider ourselves very lucky or very fooled to have met you.—or, if our hypothesis is correct, very led."

"Hmmm?"

"The magic that tells us where to go next might have arranged something like this."

"Does it frequently do things like that?"

"Yes. It has landed us on a few worlds that benefitted from our help, although they were more—straightforward to help than this one."

"I expect you'll be able to do extraordinary good here. It just might take some work to get there."

He goes back to his office. He calls Avalor.

"Please hold," says Avalor's secretary.

Avalor answers two minutes later. "Aitim."

"Hello. This evening I met an alien who claims to possess magical powers. She's coming to visit you day after tomorrow but I wanted to talk first."

"...and this person doesn't merely claim the part about being an alien?"

"She demonstrated abilities consistent with her story. Shapeshifts; looks Amentan at present but might in her native form resemble us hardly at all, I'm not sure. Can conjure things out of thin air. Doctored our computer records without touching a computer while I watched to give herself a legal identity. Opened portals to random locations - they mostly open onto deep space, of course -"

"That sounds hazardous."

"I am not sure if it was by the beneficence of the alien or the safeguards in her technology that my office was not sucked into interstellar space but we are all safe and well."

"And she is visiting me because..."

"Her wants are delicate and the situation could easily be mishandled and I'm keeping it internal, but she can make people immortal and in indefinite good health and I said while that broadly seems like a project for once we are on better terms and have in her eyes earned ourselves a planet there is one case that'd be worth it now. If there are going to be delicate complicated alien situations I want Voa to have you."