"Probably - they could travel the distance but they wouldn't have a way to find them or even a reason to be looking -"

"And 'the distance' can be 'insert absurdly large number of miles here', infinite means it."

"Then I think that sounds safe. Ristrell might have an even better solution, though, that is why I wanted to loop her in." He finishes writing his message to Bella - a summary of events, notification that he is back on planet and finds the alts believable.

He sends it.

They sprung you out of jail?

They did. Apparently there is an alternate universe version of you who was from a civilization with a similar policy and who went around sneaking tech to new civilizations. I thought I would have mixed feelings about it but we can end the Empire by the end of the week and my feelings are not very mixed.

Marvelous. They didn't tell me I had alts, Finleran had to tell me that he recognized somebody they brought him to meet.

Island expressed indifference as to whether our alt "Midnight" experienced horrible torture as is apparently typical for versions of me at some point in our lives, and lots of summaries of traits typical of my alts had a 'not counting Midnight' disclaimer. Tentative guess: there are bad alts and 'Bell ruling a radioactive planet after having commandeered and used its nukes' was worrying.

Oh. Well. I'm glad they checked, I guess.

You would think with ten of me around they could find a less clumsy way to do it. If that's even it. Anyway, the human with Island is an alt of you and there is one named Loki who will have resurrection in some decades and there is one named Cam who fed a planet into a black hole and those are all of them known to me so far. 

Oh, is that why he wasn't talking, he thought I'd notice he was me? The one Finleran recognized is apparently called Golden and looks like me but scary and maybe a vampire.

Apparently most of me are Elves or humans. I find the thought vaguely disconcerting. You should acquire an Elf morph, the senses are astonishing and you probably would not have the problem with the vague yearning to be somewhere much prettier and also to sing.

That's an interesting set of instincts. Do I come in Elf?

"Kib, is there an Elf Bell?"

"Nope. We speculate that we require free will."

"...what?"

"Elves technically do not have free will, which is mostly not relevant on a day to day basis but means that there can be reliable prophecies about them and that they can swear metaphysically binding oaths. Standard-issue Ardas are all identical until somebody from outside the universe shows up and kicks it."

"What." (He writes this to Bella).

"I really don't expect this to present a problem while you're morphing one or I would have mentioned it! Elves act entirely like regular people as long as they don't make any oaths and aren't patched into an undisturbed Arda."

"Does the oaths thing work while I'm morphed an Elf?"

"You ask as though I would know!"

"Can it safely be tested -"

"You can say "I swear for the next minute I will not say 'elephant.'"

"...I swear that for the next minute I will not say 'elephant'. Elephant.

...I am relieved but on the other hand that would be a useful ability to be able to turn on at will, we could have credibly negotiated with the Yeerks."

"Yeerks'd have to believe you about it and it's also a really risky tool."

"Yeah."