"There won't be any need to advance in Imde as long as we've got food at home covered."

Nod nod.

He smiles. "I'll get in touch with some growers. Do you need anything while you're here?"

"If there's nothing more urgent we should probably start learning Tapap, it has been impressed on us that using Oahkar is not a recommendation most places."

"It sees some use in international matters because multiple nations speak it but it's not ideal. What kind of instruction would best serve you?"

"Oahkar we mostly learned through a combination of one-way translation and reading children's books with a one-year-old."

"...we can probably improve on that. Who knows you're here?"

"The people we landed on, who prefer to remain anonymous. Two purples from the Republic of Manitem, who we asked for directions. And everyone in the hallway where we appeared."

"- I can assign you Entaf here to teach you if that's agreeable."

"Sure."

"My office is just up a floor," smiles Soptan.

"Okay! I don't actually prefer to teleport, though, so if you could show us where the stairs are?"

"...we just have the elevator."

"--Oh yeah that's a thing, right. We're lower tech than you. Considerably."

"Well, the elevator still works if it's unfamiliar." He leads them to the elevator and up they go to his office.

"How does it work?" Illia asks, examining the elevator delightedly.

"There's a shaft and there's cars - big heavily trafficked buildings have more shafts - and the cars swing out to let others by, that's relatively new, used to be one car to a shaft and you could be waiting a long time."

"Ooh, okay, that makes sense. What makes the cars go up and down, though?"

"Cables. I don't know the details."

"Fair enough."

Office. "I don't already have any kids' books handy but I can download some."

"They're good for simple vocabulary and sentence structure."

"I bet." He gets an assortment. The Countries of the World, Ocean Animals, Nami Goes On A Coaster, First Day At School, The Chocolate Shop, Paint!, the Tapai original of Going To A Moon, Numbers and Amounts, Color Color!, Shapes Everywhere, Tatmi's Kitten.

Odette smiles when she sees Going To A Moon.

"You know this one? I think it's been translated into every language more popular than Erethani."