>Two months into a job at the Extrasolar Visitation and Visa Program.
>Used to think working on the Moon would be glamorous.
>Turns out filling out other people's paperwork is still just dull.
>Even if they aren't all "people" in the conventional sense.
>Box 16b. Why exactly do you want to visit Earth?
"Because I'm a human. This is our homeworld."
>Look up.
>Stare for a bit.
>Sigh.
"Ma'am, this is not the time for jokes."
>She shuffles uncomfortably.
"Uh. I know how this might look..."
>Ma'am you are ninety feet tall. Our planet barely accommodates brief visits from any species of your size class. There is no recorded resident of your stature twixt Saturn and Sol.
"Oh you don't need to worry about that, my physiological augmentation psionics will compensate for any strain on my system."
>Ma'am. You are twice the height of a Brachiosaur. Nothing of your kind has ever set foot on the surface of the Earth. You're lucky our post-contact world managed to set up any facilities at all that could accomodate you, and that only because the Council required universal hospitality facilities in exchange for subsidizing maintenance on our space elevator.
"I am aware. Did Earthmen never look too closely at why the Council was so firm on that, or what contingencies might exist in the REPATRIATION clauses?"
>That didn't seem like anything special. Children of lost colonies, responsibility for piracy, nationless renegades, cosmic wanderers,
"--and what I believe Earthmen refer to as 'diasporic management.'"
>There is no human diaspora.
"Tens of thousands of human abduction cases have been actively prosecuted in galactic court. It should all be in the volumes of legal and diplomatic precedent provided to Earth upon contact."
>No human could read through that much data, it was all handled by large language processors.
>None of which are returning anything coherent about a "space human diaspora."
>And even if they did, you're not a fucking human.
"Human enough."