DZ takes a picture. "So how've you been doing?"

"We're good! We were an outworker family so we're retraining, we are just not gonna need that many undertakers. All sharing a farmy-gardeny-thing and Apef's building houses and I'm doing sex work. Shahn's learning Evaleen."

"Sounds like you're doing really well! I'm trying to figure out what comes next, personally - I kind of want to stay, really."

"Uh. Wow. Cleans aren't gonna love that."

"Yeah, cleans can go rot, frankly. They aren't goona know, though, I can make it look like a navigation accident."

"...navigation accidents look like something?"

"Yeah. They can't track a stealthed ship, but regular ones leave a trail, I'd just make it look like I got too close to a planet or sun or something. They're losing a couple scouts a season that way, it won't look too suspicious if I'm trying a new route."

"I dunno, it's the kinda thing that's nerve-wracking to do without being on the up and up even if they're probably not gonna notice."

"Well, I don't think so, but then I've always been able to get away with more than you have. Like, you know I've still never taken one of those stupid five-hour showers? They can't imagine someone actually not caring, if they're not red, and since I kept up a pretense of going along with it, they just assumed I was following all the rules."

"No I mean for us, having you here would be one of those things."

"Yeah, that's the part I'm not sure about. I really don't think it's dangerous; they're not going to see 'flew into a rock' and think 'ah-ha, she must be with the reds'. But if it's going to stress everybody out, well."

"They might land researchers or something here."

"Wouldn't be a problem, I have like three different ways of dealing with that just off the top of my head even if they don't warn us."

"...okay but is that dealing with it like getting into a fight or like not that."

"I wasn't even counting getting into a fight. I have magic; I can literally just tell them they never saw me and they'll believe it. And that's if things go that wrong in the first place; really I'd notice them a couple miles off and just stay away from 'em, if I decided to stick around at all when the sensor array I'd set up noticed their ship coming in."

"But they don't have to get near you to notice you're here if some one year old miles away mentions you."

"Yeah, so I'd want to stay near enough by that I could get to 'em and do the mind trick if that happens. Not insurmountable."

"...we're spread out over a ways already."

"Not so far that I couldn't get someplace I needed to be, yet, but I suppose you're right. Maybe I could go live off in the woods someplace, not let the one-year-olds know I'm here at all."

"...I mean, we can't exactly stop you from hiding on our planet but I think everyone would be more comfortable if you did it openly."

"Cleans really aren't going to want someone who knows how to build a spaceship living here, I don't think that flies."

"Then it doesn't fly. But we'll be anxious if we're hiding you."

"Yeah." She sighs. "All right. I'll keep an eye on things; maybe I'll be able to come back someday."

"That'd be neat."

"Yeah."