Editing Journal of an Alien Diplomat (section)

===Entry Twenty four===
Only a few days left in our Earth diplomatic exchange. The ambassador of the humans seems to have taken ill, somehow, he has been more and more uncomfortable in his dealings with us, in the physical sense. At the advice of his cohort, we have taken to keeping all of our meetings on Earth, so that he does not have to abide by the discomforts of the quick, but rough transit from the surface to the ship. Here he seems more familiar, if not more comfortable. He has explained to me the reason for his sudden change of topic all those days ago, after the asteroid incident. He said that he had wanted to know how our people treated its criminals, not in punishment for their crimes, but in our leniency to the excused. If someone commits a crime, for instance, but saves another’s life, do we let him go, or punish him fully, or punish him less? We told him then, that generally it depended on the severity of the crime, for some crimes can not be uncommitted. He explained that he had relaxed upon hearing that, because it was a value we shared, though not all of the nearly two hundred nations on Earth, let alone the six colonies, had justice in common.