"What would constitute a successful experiment, to your mind?"

"If the reds can find work they like and a community to be a part of as their new caste, and everyone else is comfortable with it, then we'd be really pleased with that result."

"If you can turn into daeva and are planning to supply daeva to a ton of species that way, it'll be a little awkward to keep to caste-relevant work."

"I can't imagine insisting that daeva belong to any particular caste, though of course you might still notice that they have different preferences and interests."

"Regular daeva do too."

"Exactly. I think Amentan daeva will near-universally be payable with the chance to foster or spend time with babies, otherwise we won't be unusual in the slightest."

"That's how the Martians do their power grid. Alien babies will do?"

"Are they cute and snuggly and soft? Do they giggle and try to grab your nose?"

"Well, human ones do. I'm not sure nose-grabbing is universal and sometimes they're cranky."

"Ours are also sometimes cranky. Or so I hear, I'm an only child and haven't saved up enough for a credit yet."

"How many will you have if it turns out you can turn into daeva?"

"Five sounds nice. Five or six. Or seven."

...Plum laughs. "I guess you probably have fewer marital arguments about whether to have kids."

"There are dating sites for people who don't want them! But it's an unusual preference. We have marital unhappiness about whether we can afford one, sometimes."

"- I think I've forgotten to ask your name and how you want it spelled in the Roman alphabet."

"Isilme Asa." He spells it.

"How do names work in your culture?"

"Different countries do different things, but in Anitam Isilme is my given name at birth. Your career name you pick when you decide what you want to do with your life, and you're encouraged to wait until you're reasonably sure but you can definitely change it. 'Asa' is a diplomatic or liaison role."

"How did you settle on that?"

"In school we had lots of people come in to talk about what they did, and I found the ones who talked about jobs like that really exciting, and I asked my teachers if they thought I had an aptitude and they did, so I chose that track in school - which meant more language lessons, more history, more politics, more practice at public speaking, lessons on different countries' etiquette and procedures and so on. I studied international relations in college. When I graduated I worked in our embassy in Ilyat. I liked it, so I started going by the name consistently - previously it'd have been situational."

"How old were you?"

"At my school we picked tracks when we were two and a half - ten of your years - though people change quite a lot, at that age, and it's easy to switch tracks if you're determined and willing to make up some work."

"Is this background why you answered the door?"

"That and I speak English, most of the people here don't! But yes, we wanted to have someone around prepared to talk to anyone who came by."

"Are you planning to stay here or move to the colony planet?"