The rest of the day Rui spent was a bit of a blur. He quickly set up meetings with the aquadites, leaving the dessandrites to the Pluralist Faction as promised to Divine Mother ooo—o-. One of the challenges of selling the method to Transcendent impunity to the other civilizations was to sell it off as quickly as possible without sounding desperate or suspicious.
If he sounded desperate, then the aquadites would realize that they had leverage. And they would use that leverage to squeeze him as much as they possibly could. They could prolong negotiations, gaining an even greater upper hand where Rui would ultimately be forced to make a losing deal.
The key, he realized, was not to offer to sell the method of Transcendent impunity. That was the same as telling them that they had reason to sell Transcendent impunity and somehow the humans benefited if the aquadites got their hands on it.
