"The other representative is busy elsewhere with projects I could not help with, whereas this meeting only requires conversation and discussion, tasks which I'm capable of doing."

"What other projects?"

"What are the aliens called?"

"How long have aliens been aware of Amenta?"

"What are the aliens' intentions?"

"How many of you are there?"

"We would rather not disclose what this other project is at this time. Our species is called 'vampire' but most people where we're from are from a species called 'human.' We have been here for a few weeks, and our intentions can be summed up as 'enabling the flourishing of all sapient species.' On this planet there are currently only the two of us."

"How many species are there?"

"Why only two?"

"Is the other project military in nature or in cooperation with any Amentan nation -"

"What is your technology like?"

"Are you really butterfly shaped?"

"We have met several hundred species. Two of us is enough for our purposes. The other project is not military in nature and not in cooperation with any Amentan nation. Technology from our world was behind yours in many ways and ahead in some others, but we've run into worlds with various different technological backgrounds. I am really butterfly shaped."

"What are the prospects for contact with those other worlds -"

"Or empty worlds."

"Isn't it a bit coincidental that an alien looks like a butterfly?"

"What are your purposes?"

"It's extremely coincidental that an alien looks like a butterfly, yes. We have run into similar coincidental regularities, and some even less explainable ones, but that's a digression best left for greens. Our purposes are, as I said, to help you—and in this case, finding you empty worlds is in fact something we intend to do."

"How should we make greens available to receive information -"

"How many worlds, how quickly, disbursed how -"

"What are your resources?"

"When Aitim Neli said alien, it may have been implied that we're from another planet in this universe; that is not so. We are from another universe altogether, and our interuniversal transportation method is such that most places we can land are hard vacuum. For exploration, we can open portals anywhere in space, but where a portal leads to is a deterministic function of where it was opened from, relative to this planet's gravity well, so the constraint here is finding a portal that does not lead to hard vacuum. It's doable, we expect it to take a few years to do, but it means such doors will not respect country boundaries. We will not favour any nation over any other so we're precommitting to completely blocking access to a world should conflict arise due to a portal. We will leave the logistics of preventing a war to you.

"In addition to this, however, we can teach you magic. We will do so, as well as explain the details of everything else in more depth, to a group of greens that must be balanced so as to not give out political advantages to anyone. The logistics of assembling such group we also leave to you; once this group is assembled, we can go anywhere in the world to teach it.

"As an example of what our magic can do, we're turning the poles habitable and will soon be able to season them, so other worlds are not the sole resource we have available to deal with your population problems. We also intend to make everyone who wants it immortal, and we are not planning to leave you until we're confident that, with the resources you have available, you will not run into population problems before you figure out your own methods of colonising new planets.

"I will reiterate that we will not favour any countries and anyone attempting to cheat this or get any sorts of advantages over anyone else will find themselves with much fewer privileges than anyone else. I trust that you will not make the mistake of expecting me to have disclosed every resource available to us and to be easily tricked, fooled, or worked around."

"You realize that punishing any conflict whatsoever with something of that magnitude means anyone who thinks they'll come off badly in peaceful negotiations can threaten to start a conflict, even one they'd inevitably lose and would otherwise never attempt, and ties the hands of anyone who could normally answer threats with a promise of defense, be reasonable -"

"If it is random where the doors are they could simply belong to whoever owns the territory -"

"Leaving international waters, of course - the search procedure is itself not necessarily neutral -"

"And if it were it would favor countries that have space even if they have fewer people."

"Balanced by population, by green population, by equal numbers from each country -"

"We will not of course punish anyone who defends themself should someone else attack them. We'll naturally fully investigate the affair—magically, if need be—to ensure we are not being unfair. We do not want to give any countries any advantages over any other countries—our objective is to help your species as a whole, not merely its luckiest subset. If you can all agree on a search procedure and a portal access protocol we will of course obey your wishes."

"What's the default -"

"Do you require unanimous agreement?"

"It makes sense to withhold some information about your resources but if you could explain for would-be clever cheaters an example or two -"

"The default is that, after we are done with our side project, we will pick a random location on the planet and spiral out from it, and once found will allow immigration rates proportional to population sizes. We do not require unanimous agreement to take your opinion into account when making a decision, and lacking unanimity we will hear everyone out to understand why it's lacking, but we only commit to completely follow what you say if you can all agree on it.

"As for giving examples, I apologise but that would defeat the point. I believe I have already demonstrated capacities sufficient for anyone to feel hesitant to try to double-cross us."

"Someone is likely to think you're bluffing and check and ruin the future of their whole country and this probability increases with population."

She sighs. "We can scry and past-watch, the other representative can shapeshift into anything and has enhanced enough senses and enough magic to flawlessly impersonate anyone and infiltrate anywhere, if you wish to describe a hypothetical cheating situation so I can describe how we'd respond you can."

"Why do you and the other representative have different powers?"

"People from the other representative's world sometimes have idiosyncratic magic powers, and theirs is generalised biokinesis. The enhanced senses I also have."

"You're from different worlds?"

"You said 'our species', before -"

"It's complicated. They and I are not, strictly speaking, different people—I am a physical representation of certain aspects of their consciousness and personality which one might call a 'soul.' Nevertheless, I did not exist independently until we visited a world where everyone's souls are physically separate like this from birth, so whether I'm from their world as well is debatable and might be just a semantic difference."

Confused muttering.

"Are there any more questions?"

Many, but those were the substantive ones.

In that case can Aitim wrap this up soon?

Hardly. But it can disintegrate temporarily for people to make calls home.

"What are the next steps?" she asks him.