"Politically weird, terrorism weird, yeah," Jim says, because there's no point in hiding it. There's really no chance something bad won't happen in the near future, given the escalation between cities, anyway. And the briefest look at recent history exposes those sins immediately. "Terrestrial ills, I suppose. The dimension-hopping, threatened worlds kind of thing, so far it's only been a factor in our appearance here."

Boy, Jim loves politics. (No he doesn't. But he's got experience in being a passable space cowboy diplomat, at least.)