The humans stared in surprise. "I'm sorry, perhaps we misunderstood - I thought that each sentient species got a single senator?"

The gelatinous alien wobbled. "Yesyes, quite right quite right. One senator one senator. Everyone gets one, everyone gets one."

The feathered, multi-eyed creature standing next to it nodded slowly. "As my colleague explained, you are correct. One senator per sentient/sapient species, regardless of planets settled or ruled over."

One of the humans - the one named George - whispered, "Do... do they mean whales and dolphins? Chimpanzees? Did we miss something?"

The leathery humanoid, Lange - incidentally the only creature with a human-pronounceable name - chuckled. "No, no. While you have an impressive number of creatures on your planet, none but the Humans are worthy of a seat on the council."

Ambassador Humphries cleared his throat. "May I ask... why are we being given this singular honor? Humanity is only a single species, and yet we get four senators?"

Lange burbled another chuckle, joined by the other two aliens. "You humans are so inclusive! It really warms my hearts. No, as I'm sure you understand, even though you see yourselves as a single species, you are of course four. Unless... well, there was some debate about Hot/Dry Humans and Hot/Wet Humans?"

Humphries blinked in surprise. "I'm... sorry? Are you calling humans different species based on... climate?"

Lange seemed confused by the question. "Well... yes? I suppose we should have clarified, but - here, look."

She pulled out a holographic projector, and pulled up an image of a young woman in a thick winter coat. "This is one species, the Cold Human. This one is from 'Michigan'. Er, we use the term Cold Human, your inclusivity must have eradicated the different terms generations ago. And this one" - the image changed to that of a middle-aged man in shorts and a t-shirt - "is a Hot/Dry human, from 'Marbella, Spain'. And this one... and this one. Cold, Hot/Dry, Hot/Wet, and Temperate. Ah! Maybe you call them Arctic, Desert, Tropical, and Plains? Though some of the plains undergo rapid temperature shifts..."

Lange trailed off. Humphries cleared his throat, twice, then eventually found his words. "That's... those are all just humans, though. We wear thick clothing in cold temperatures, thin clothing in hot weather, and while, yes, most of us prefer one climate or another, we do move around a bit. I was born in England, but moved to Florida, in the United States - temperate to hot, er, wet. We adapt to almost any temperature, but we're still all the same species - surely the blood tests and DNA matching would have shown that?"

The aliens gathered into a huddle, squawking and gesturing wildly. The blobby alien turned a sickly-looking shade of yellow-green, while the feathered one shed more than a few feathers. Lange, clearly the most level-headed of the group, still looked quite shaken. Finally, they turned back to the humans.

Lange cleared her throat with a delicate squeak. "We... you are correct, of course, about the blood tests and so forth. But there is quite a bit of... shall we say, climate hard-liners? Our planets, much like your own television shows, largely a single climate, or only populated in a single climate band. My planet is temperate." She made a short engine sound, followed by a loud cowbell noise, gesturing to the goo-creature - " comes from a planet that is mostly water, dotted with tropical islands. And" - a horrible static noise, this time gesturing at the bird-person - "is from a dry, dusty planet of intense heat. He wears a thermal regulator to visit your temperate facilities, here. But... you live all across this wild planet, with its intense heat and cold?"

Humphries nodded. "We do, yes; as I said, we humans are adaptable. While we thrive in temperatures from -40 degrees Celsius to over +40 degrees Celsius, we can survive much more extreme - I'm sorry, is your friend all right?"

The blobby creature had gone fully green, and was shaking so hard its rolls of goo were making tiny clapping sounds. Lange glanced in its direction, then shook her head. "No, it will be fine. We are just... shaken. Are you telling us that you refuse four senators, and choose only one? And that your choice of senator will come from... any climate?"

Humphries nodded, somewhat mystified at the odd reaction. "Of course. We may have our differences, but outside of preference, we don't argue over climate. Much, anyway. As far as I know, we've never gone to war over climate! Ha ha!"

His joke fell flat. Lange, her face unreadable, replied only, "We have."

The coming months were eye-opening, to both the varied aliens and to the humans that visited them. Icy worlds were met with, "Gee, it's a bit chilly! Almost as bad as winters in Alaska, but you've got a lot more daylight," and desert planets were greeted with, "Oh, no worries, it's a dry heat, just stay hydrated. And you don't have any scorpions!" The alien worlds were unprepared for the constant downplaying of the climate - no world humans visited was as hot, as cold, or as inhospitable as the climates of Earth. The hardliners scoffed that their world was much more extreme, but soon found that the more harsh they claimed their world was, the more humans flocked to it. "You call this cold? At least the atmosphere is breathable, at the top of Mount Everest you have to were oxygen tanks!" or "This is hot, yes, but one summer my family visited Death Valley and cooked hamburgers without lighting a fire, this is nothing!"

Lange smiled to herself as she read through the morning's reports. The climate extremists - hot and cold, for the first time in history on the same side - were calling for a ban on human travelers, though their reason why was mostly angry grumbling about "showoffs." The vote to remove a number of extreme temperature planets from Parliament was called off, because humans had somehow managed to take up permanent residence on almost all of them, calling them "not that hot" or "only kinda cold." There was even the beginnings of a tourist trade among the somewhat less extreme planets; a Khorthian, known galaxy-wide as a hater of "warms", became the first of his kind to visit Noomoobooloo, one of the colder planets, albeit on the middle of a heatwave. And the human clothing! It had taken the galaxy by storm; parkas and Hawaiian shirts sold like coldcakes. Even their food was extreme! Ice cream and hot coffee! Eaten together, at times! They even had "frozen hot chocolate", an oxymoron that nonetheless was becoming popular with many cultures.

Lange unlocked the bottom drawer of her desk, and pulled out a report: "Earth: X7 rating. Death planet. Extreme climates, dangerous lifeforms, long-term toxic to most life forms. Natives invented atomic energy and immediately used it as a weapon on themselves. Avoid at all costs."

She flipped the page to the other report, the one she had submitted to Parliament. "Earth: M5 rating. Four distinct climates, each with its own lifeforms. No sign of inter-species war. Some extremist views."

A scrap fell out from between the pages; written on it was a quote from a famous Earth author, Mark Twain: "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."

Lange carefully tucked the scrap back into the folder, and locked it away again. Travel, indeed.