"In interactions where people aren't willing to murder you for seeming worryingly agentic it's probably wiser to get out right away."

"I didn't know what she was saying. I could rule out 'you're red and exist', but - if I could've figured it out and just solved the problem -"

"I can try to teach you the language but it might be slow going, has some phonemes Anitami doesn't and that's hard on adult language-learners."

She nods.

If he also thinks statistically speaking she's probably not that smart he doesn't say so. Here are the twelve words he picked up today for clothing negotiations.

She repeats them carefully.

Combinations! "Foreign, not child. Child not foreign. Not shirt, pants. Shirt or money. Shirt or pants." Also he's pretty sure "blue" is such and such because people were asking about his hair, but they were just asking about his hair - "if they do caste I have no idea how they signal it. Could even be something we can't see."

"Has anyone seemed to be drawing conclusions about yours?"

"'Foreign' is definitely overriding whatever else it might communicate. We can see what they think once there's no accent and foreign clothes confounding it - though by then I might be green -"

"If they don't signal caste by hair color I can't imagine it will matter what color yours grows in."

"They could be doing something subtle - don't see in color but saturation means something, say - but I don't think so. They're also more differentiated by sex and I have no idea how the robots work or what material they're made of but it's something we don't have. They look like stone statues when they're still, but they move like whatever it is is extraordinarily flexible."

"The animals are - something. People keep talking to them. It sounds like commands."

"The farmer assumed I was familiar with it. I have no idea - they can also do something with light - little lights racing around everywhere - if not for the walled city I'd think maybe the animals are robots too, made replacement for people who wanted pets that weren't gross like the real thing -"

"I am pretty sure not all the feces in there belonged to people."

He gestures at the walled city. "Yup. Bona fide preindustrial society that inexplicably has robots and can command animals, here."

"What are we doing for a place to stay?"

"I'm not sure how much money is reasonable for a room somewhere but I think this'll get us through until I speak the language and can ask about where the robots come from - and perhaps about who's in charge, the local rulers might not have indoor plumbing but you can probably substitute for a lot with servants - or robot servants -"

She doesn't even shiver this time. She nods.

"I want to know more about the local leadership before we try that but I'm optimistic currently."

"Why?"

"No one dragged us off to meet them at once, they were happy to give us as much food for the baby as they could keep cold even though we were doing something highly irregular, didn't see any violence in the marketplace. Charity, unobtrusive reasonably effective law enforcement and nobody desperate to come to the favorable attention of their government are all good signs."

"Because it means they have - spare money, rule of law, and not a permissions system?"

"Yep. And no present pressing cause to be suspicious of foreigners, I think we'd have gotten a less friendly and more urgent reception if they were at war or anticipating it." 

She nods. "And nobody's tried to take the baby or demanded ID. Except that one angry person but she didn't seem like she was official."

"That they wouldn't check that is a bit bizarre, really, but maybe they're just presuming our nation of origin will hold us responsible."