"It is a strange thing to talk about on the train and people who heard us would be confused."

"They shouldn't listen to us."

"It would be rude to be trying to listen but it's pretty normal just to hear words if people are saying them in public."

"They could just be confused, then, since it's not their business."

"I would rather not confuse people. And some of them might be bloggers who would write a scolding blog piece about how they heard some blues on the train convincing their poor daughter that she's an alien, or something."

"...what is a blog?"

"It is a place on the internet where people write about their lives."

"Why does it matter if someone writes a blog that has us in it?"

"Do you want to stop at a sorbet place before we go home?"

"I don't know what sorbet is. And you didn't answer me."

"It is a cold sweet food."

"Is it the kind of food I can have?"

"Yes, it doesn't have animal products."

"Okay but answer my question."

"Once we get home. The sorbet place is across the street."

She tastes pineapple sorbet. They have not been insisting she eat so much today and it's pretty good and she will finish a kiddie cup.

Then they can get back on the train.

She impatiently pages through a book.

Then she'll know about the moons by the time they reach their stop.

Yay moons.

They go home. "Thank you for waiting until we got home."

"I don't know why you can do the things you can do. You could be an alien. You could be the product of some kind of secret genetic experimentation. You could just be a very strange coincidence. If there were aliens observing Amenta and sending aliens to live here in the form of Amentan children, that would cause a great deal of concern all over the world. The government would want to do a lot of things to figure out what was going on. I don't know what they would decide to do with the alien children - they wouldn't hurt them, but they might not decide it made sense to leave them with families, or in the general population, or with unrestricted internet access, or around people who haven't been screened."

"Why?"

"Aliens would almost by definition have a means of travelling between worlds. Figuring out what they want and how to keep them happy might be the best hope of ever getting off the planet ourselves."