The land that stretches out below them is not very forested.

Directly below them, there are scattered copses of trees. But by far the most noticeable feature of the landscape is the set of large, boxy buildings surrounded by long, black, flat roads visible on the horizon. It would be noticeable even if those were its only visible characteristics, because the land is otherwise fairly dull, but it is also marked by having several large, loud, fast flying machines of unfamiliar design taking off and landing.

Also, someone has pointed a bright light at them from the top of the tallest tower, and is flashing it in a repeating pattern.

...He didn't think there were any megaprojects like this around here? For that matter he didn't think there were any plains around here; where is he? And what's that flashing about?

Figuring that out is less important than getting out of dangerous airspace, he has no idea if those aircraft are agile enough to avoid him or guided in such a way that they'd even realize they ought to. He's not in the path of any right now, he doesn't think; he takes down most of his ship's flotation bag, rendering the remainder into a makeshift parachute that'll keep the ship oriented properly and stop it from going into complete freefall, and begins converting the freed up crafting material and the bottom of the ship's hull into a squishy buffer that'll hopefully offer enough protection when it hits the ground and straps to keep him from being flung around. The crows squawk in protest and abandon ship when it begins to fall; he's too distracted to explain what he's doing or warn them about the other aircraft, they'll have to figure it out for themselves.

The other aircraft are, in fact, flying nowhere near him. Departing aircraft are taking off almost directly opposite him, and arriving aircraft are coming in at a ninety-degree angle to him.

Nobody wants mid-air collisions, even though þereminia does its best to put airports in places that won't be seriously inconvenienced by crashes. So when the airport picked an unknown object up on radar, they routed flights well clear of it.

But you can't really stop air traffic into and out of the largest airport in the world every time there's an unidentified radar blip in dense cloud.

His landing is rough, but the ground here is fairly soft, and no permanent harm seems likely to result.

Yet a third style of aircraft takes of vertically from the set of buildings, and begins flying in his direction.

He gives himself a few moments to catch his breath after the crash, then goes to check on his dog - banged up and unhappy, but with no obvious broken bones or anything - and sets about reworking the ship into a walking configuration so that he can get out of this apparently-claimed patch of land. It'll take maybe half an hour; he could go faster if he could rework the whole thing at once but he can't do that while he's on board and can't leave the ship in someone else's territory.

Helicopters go somewhat faster than that; a team of people wearing black and purple robes land approximately forty meters away, and then quickly make their way over.

The one in the lead shouts something — but in a concerned tone of voice, not an angry one. Between them, the people are carrying a stretcher, and a set of pouches with a purple square on them.

He looks up when shouted at, and recoils in startled confusion when he sees them, but he recovers quickly and goes over to the railing nearest them.

They all get the impression, from no apparent source, that he's sorry for intruding on their(?? he's assuming based on their weird matching color schemes, but he's never seen anyone match like that before and is just guessing at what it means) airspace and territory and intends no claim by his presence, he got caught in a bad storm and blown here or something (he will figure out how he got from a mountainside to plains without noticing later); he's getting his house into a walking configuration now and will leave as soon as he can, and he'd appreciate it if they could point him to the nearest edge of their territory. Also ideally at the nearest public meeting area so he can get help getting back to his other things.

They were expecting a crashed balloonist who had blown far off course. They were not expecting telepathy.

The three figures stop and confer for a moment. One of them steps back, pulls a flat, rectangular device out of their robe, and starts speaking into it in a low voice. The other two stand and think hard at him, but when this doesn't generate a response, they begin pantomiming a scene:

One figure acts like they're floating, and then suddenly falls to the ground and clutches at his arm. The other figure mimes spotting him, and then comes over and pretends to splint his arm.

Then they both stand up and make questioning faces at the telepathic alien and his balloon crash.

When the one touches the other he looks very concerned.

He's fine, they get the impression, but he's concerned that they're not, if they can't communicate with outsiders (not surprising, exactly, but he thinks it's a bad sign for their mental state) and don't know how to Craft away a simple injury like a broken bone (much more concerning). His best guess is that they're stuck in some kind of bad situation that's causing both of those; he can make part of his house public if any of them want a lift out of here.

As they get the impression that he's offering to make his house public, the color drains out of the ship under his hands, leaving a grey patch that continues across the hull until it covers half the ship. Then a section of railing on the grey side flows and shifts into a ramp leading down to the ground a little ways away from them.

One of the figures scratches their head, and they give each other stumped looks.

The one who faked a broken arm holds a hand against his chest and says "Shavami". The other one holds a hand to their chest and says "Đorestat". Then they point at each other and say the opposite words. One of them points at the telepath and looks questioning.

In the background, a large wheeled vehicle leaves from the collection of buildings in their direction.

He doesn't know what that's about - or, he has a guess, are they doing sound symbolism like writing is visual symbolism? Can they craft at all? Uh-

Two patches of the ship's hull lighten and darken respectively, settling into a white circle and a black one spaced a couple feet apart.

He'll understand them to mean yes if they indicate white and no if they indicate black: can they craft at all?

They look relieved, and the one who might be called Đorestat points at the black circle.

Well shit. Where is he.

Crafting is more or less a species trait, he explains; babies learn it like they learn to walk, where he's from. It's not completely unheard of for someone to never pick it up but only if they're pretty badly cognitively disabled and that's clearly not what's happening here. He has no idea what to make of people who can't.

He's still going to need to get his house into walking shape, being stranded like this is making him anxious, but is this a territory he needs to get out of?

Ðorestat shakes their head and points at the black circle again.

They point at the buildings, and mime a plane taking off over their heads. They point up at the sky, nod, and point at the white circle. Then they point down at the ground, shake their head, and point at the black circle again.

Aircraft belong in the sky and not on the ground? Yes? - are they still thinking of his house as an airship - it was one but he took apart the airship parts with Crafting when he needed to get out of the sky and it's just as easy to turn it into a ground vehicle now as to put those back; he doesn't intend to try to share the sky with their aircraft.

That appears to satisfy both the purple people. They step back and sit down on the grass, speaking softly to each other and watching him make repairs.

"They don't even have the concept of spoken language; the linguists are going to be so worked up," Đorestat remarks to their partner.

"I'm more interested in the fact that they said the 'crafting' was learnable. I mean, maybe it's only their species that can learn it, but what if it's not? Once we've actually gotten some form of shared language, we should ask if they're willing to teach a baby," Shavami suggests.

"The airport is sending out some other folks for confirmation, and a big screen to help with language learning," the person who hung back to call this in interjects. "I'd normally want to try more introductions, but in this case it might be better to wait on a specialist."

The others nod.

He goes back to fixing his house, though the first thing he does is to turn it back to sparkly indigo and take the ramp back in. He turns various sections of the hull transparent so they can see what he's doing as he sets up the walking mechanics on the underside of the structure; they're a combination of straightforward gearwork and much less familiar tubes and blobs of material that reshape themselves - or sometimes recolor themselves or do other things - in response to various stimulii.

That is fascinating, although the þereminians are all a little unclear on why he wouldn't just use wheels.

A few minutes later, the truck that set out from the airport arrives, demonstrating that wheels work just fine over this sort of terrain. Another person in purple and black gets out, and then helps an older woman wearing a blue robe with pictures of birds get down. They unload a large screen, and set it up close enough that their visitor will be able to see it, while not getting too close.

The woman pokes around on the back of the panel, and then pulls up a map of the world on it, with a spot on the eastern coast of the largest landmass highlighted.

...okay that makes things dramatically more confusing; that's the same set of continents he knows from home. ...almost; there are a couple of areas they have marked as water that he knows as land or vice versa. And he's been to this region at home and knows people there can Craft, and also there's no way he got to this region from the other continent in the couple days he was stuck above the clouds.

The woman nods; yes, this situation is pretty confusing.

She toggles on the 'population' layer of the map, showing stick figures of people proportional to population spread out through the whole world. Then she shows a little video clip of him changing his house that Romafiŋ captured earlier, and says the word for "craft". Then she points to the people gathered around and says "no craft". She points to all the population centers on the map, including on the smaller landmass, and again says "no craft".

He belatedly realizes he ought to put back the yes and no dots, and does that, adding a set of primary colored ones underneath them for more complicated questions as well, and then asks for confirmation that they know nobody on the planet can craft.

Also, just to confirm, they have no idea how he can get home?

Yes to both of those.

Okay. Well, he has his most important ansibles in his emergency kit, he can get some people at home working on it, but he's presumably going to be here for a while. Are they the right people to talk to about what he's going to need in the short term? He can trade Crafting or something for the help; if they can make aircraft without Crafting they can probably do a lot of what he can but there's probably something useful he can do.