"It's kind of a nerve-wracking subject, but there should be, like, an informational pamphlet!"

"Eru should definitely have sent us into the world with little notes about how it and we work."

"Seems like basic courtesy. I mean, we don't get any of those either but we don't have oaths as a species feature."

"I don't know. Maybe they'd be raised by talking golems made by crazy survivalists, or something."

"And nothing you do affects the rate of appearance? Has it always been the same? Is the population growing?"

"Population's been growing since storks started helping and also as we find more ways to avoid dying. I have no idea if the rate of baby appearance has anything to do with the population."

"Is your world going to run out of space once we end dying? Since babies keep appearing?"

"Maybe. Not instantly. And, hey, turns out worlds are plural, if we can access mine well enough to end death on it maybe we can find and colonize someplace empty."

"One hopes. It'd be barely the blink of an eye here before your world has billions of people, if the babies scale with the extant population at all."

"Yeah. And billions isn't a physical space so much as a density problem but it wouldn't stay that way for long from there, we should definitely have an eye on colonization options. If it indexes to population maybe we should do our best to evacuate my planet except for some people to generate as many babies as seems like the right number."

He nods. "I wonder if your people are sterile or if you would start producing babies the way other species do once you left your planet."

"...No offense but that sounds really horrifying and I say that as the gender that wouldn't have to do the incubation part."

"Well, people who found it horrifying wouldn't have to do it."

"Animals on my planet do not have restrained breeding. I would not be quick to assume that if humans started breeding at all that it'd work voluntarily like Elves do."

"Involuntary breeding would be extremely awful, yes."

"So... careful colonization with... very brave humans... testing that."

Someone knocks tentatively on the door of the workshop. Fëanor says something in Quenya and he comes in, with sandwiches. Curufinwë, he says to Kib, and to Fëanor I have the biology articles you wanted though I have not finished reading them and biological decay happens on Tol Eressea in the way needed for experimentation so we can do tests there if needed.

Pleased to meet you, Kib says to Curufinwë. Are we taking bits of me to see what happens to them in various environments now?

With your leave, he says. We don't know what aging is so it's hard to start doing anything about it.

I don't need all of my blood. Or all of my skin or fingernails. Or all of my hair, although reportedly that's weird here. I require my extremities and eyeballs and such, if there was doubt on that matter.

Hair's all right if it's for science, Curufinwë says firmly. Some people don't think so but they are undervaluing science and also the sampling process hardly requires any sensuous raking of hands through hair. Have you seen a microscope? Let me show you how a microscope works.

Kib is fascinated to learn how a microscope works, has more than enough pain tolerance to give a few blood samples and a few hairs without complaint, and is generally a very good experimental subject.

This eats up the whole of the afternoon and the evening and dinner is more sandwiches because you can eat them one handed while working and it is long past the Mingling when Maitimo walks into his father's workshop and says 'has your research enabled you to determine whether humans sleep? Because I think they do, and you should let this one do it.'

Kib laughs. "Humans sleep, I don't think research is needed on that matter."