Oh, if exposure to crafting material might do it, that's a lot more scalable. And honestly supports the 'alien nanotech' theory.

"Thank you, that would be great," Vesherti responds. "Do you think people who are more Crafter-like are more likely to pick it up later? Because we have some people who are more or less solitary, more or less capable of recognizing people, and maybe other Crafter traits."

He doesn't think so - when he said it was more or less a species trait that's one of the ways it's less, it seems to be purely a matter of intelligence and Crafters are just the only species on their world smart enough. He wouldn't expect it to be genetic, either, or at least not mostly that.

It is also the case - crafted objects don't have to wear out; they do by default decay over time like natural objects but it's not especially hard to fix that. If they want him to make several thousand of whatever thing over the course of the next couple years that doesn't entirely fix their problem but it should help, even in the long run.

"That would be a good backup option," Vesherti agrees. "The thing we're most likely to want of that is —"

He stops and crosses out the partial sentence.

"We will need to think about what not-wearing-out things are most useful. Probably if you can make a crank-shaft that will turn itself against very high loads and never break that would be useful. But we will think about it, in case there are better choices."

He flips through his checklist again.

"Do you want me to show you how to use the phone —" He includes a picture of the object he means. "— to get books from our library? They are mostly not in Crafter words yet, but there are people who like (writing things from one way to another way) who will put more things in Crafter words for fun. The phone can also send letters to people, in case you want to send a message after we leave."

He can make arbitrarily strong and indestructible crankshafts like the one on his lightning experiment, sure; if they know what other traits - size, density, whatever - they want them to have he can get going on that while he's on the way to the city tomorrow. It'll be most efficient if they're all the same, or only a few different types with a simple ratio for how many of each he should make. They'll also want to keep him supplied with stuff to turn into crafting material, that's going to be the main bottleneck on that kind of thing if he's doing a lot of it.

He's not much for reading, ironically enough, but it'd be good to be able to send them messages, yeah.

Vesherti nods.

"We will bring more material to Craft with in the morning," he promises. "And some initial designs to experiment with."

He puts a copy of the phone interface up and shows Traveler how to send messages using it. Since they haven't got Crafter glyphs added to the encoding standard yet, this involves tapping on the name of the person he wants to contact (there are two existing entries, one for Vesherti specifically, and one for whoever is available in his group) and then drawing on the screen with a stylus or one's finger.

He also points out the battery symbol ("Place it on the charger to refill it; the charger eats sunlight") and the Network symbol ("It should be able to talk from anywhere you go except caves, but if there is a problem with it talking, it will show here"). There's also a way to indicate whether he wants the phone to make a dinging noise when he gets a letter, or not.

"Lots of people want to send you letters — probably too many. So right now we haven't given anyone else your mail code. But if you want, you can give it to people and then they can send letters too."

By way of demonstration, Vesherti sends him a letter with a map of the local area between here and Largest City, with their current location and where he proposes meeting up both marked.

That all seems pretty reasonable. Is there a way to set it up to only ding if the person sending the message says it should? Is there some specific aspect of sunlight that the charger needs, or will any bright light in the visible spectrum do?

Good questions!

"Yes, you can set up custom rules for when it should ding here —" he explains.

They didn't have time to wrangle up a completely new phone interface for Traveler, so it's a stock þereminian phone. That is to say: while the basic interface is simple and minimalist, you can make it do arbitrarily complicated things if you're willing to dig into the advanced settings.

Luckily "don't make noise unless it's really important" for some value of "important" based on whether the message is marked as such and who its from is a common preference, so there's a preset for it.

"The charger can eat many kinds of light, but more blue light is better. The very best light is the purpler-than-purple part of sunlight that makes people get tan, but bright blue light is fine. If you feed it only red light, it won't go," Vesherti explains. "If you want, we can bring you a charger that just wants a wheel to spin fast, instead. People who want to travel a lot usually like the light-eating chargers because they are small and have no moving parts that break."

Oh, he can make things light up, that's not a problem at all, and he can do ultraviolet in a box for it if that's what it works best with; that's easier than having to set it up in the sun.

(He appreciates the help with the settings; he's not really up for learning the complicated bits of a new technology right now.)

Vesherti nods.

"Lots of people don't like how complicated phones are," he agrees. "And it's normal to not do everything with it that it can do. But having a standard sending-letters and commanding-machines device is pretty useful."

He glances over at the sun. It's not dark yet, but they've also stored up a decent number of action items that will need to be taken care of overnight.

"I can talk more if you want, or we can leave you to sleep, and I'll see you in the morning to give more things, or at the city when you get there."

He's about ready to start winding down for the night, yeah. First, though, is there anything he should know about what to expect at the city?

Vesherti considers the question.

"The place I suggested we meet is a fast-machine endpoint. We can walk through the city, but it is a long walk, so we could take a fast-machine to see different parts instead. We have told the people in the city about you, so everyone will know you are coming to visit, and be ready for it. The city is separated into territories for different activities — I thought you might want to start with seeing our food and day-to-day routine areas, but there are also the making things area, or the learning things area, or lots of different megaprojects for different things."

"The (showing what happened in the past so we can learn from it) megaproject and the (demonstrating physical principles so we can learn from it) megaproject are both things I think you will like to see. But you can pick what to see. I will point out things that might be interesting, and answer your questions. I think there is more to see than just one day, so we can do separate trips for separate things."

"Does that help, or were you asking something else?"

Hm. He intends to use a walking vehicle like the one he's in in the city at least at first, it has several benefits including that he's not going to get physically tired out, or be touched by accident, or get sick as easily. He's not expecting that their fast vehicles are designed to take another vehicle inside, but if he builds his vehicle light he can compact it down to go in theirs as generic matter, if that's still warranted - he can get it down to one and a half times his weight without compromising too much on stability, and it can be whatever shape and size they need when it's compacted.

He's definitely interested in seeing their megaprojects but he doesn't expect he'll be ready to appreciate them properly right away, he's not going to have enough background knowledge; the food and general public areas are probably better for that. It might be good to get through some of the effects of everyone wanting to see the interesting new thing, too, to start, and he's not sure what exactly to expect from them there, even with Crafters that'd vary from place to place.

"A walking vehicle should be fine," Vesherti agrees. "Not all of us can use our legs, so we have personal-moving machines, and the fast-machines are able to fit them up to a standard size."

He draws a box on the ground the size of a large personal scooter or wheelchair.

"But using a walking vehicle to cross the city without a fast machine is fine too," he continues. "Most people use the fast machines, but there are also machines for moving bulky things that people use."

"People are excited to see you, but there is a —"

He searches for the vocabulary. What he wants to say is that there's a ... civilizational honor, in handling this well, and that if they broadcast a message asking 0.55 of people to pretend that it is a normal day with nothing unusual happening, most people will actually listen and the remaining crowds will be manageable.

"People are excited to see you, so wherever we go some people will follow just to see. If you want to, you can give a lecture to the people who show up, about Crafters or about you or about anything you want to say to us, and people will listen and write letters about it. People would be happy if you did, but you aren't expected to."

Huh, that's quite a small footprint, he's going to have to experiment to find a design that'll be that narrow and still be stable enough to be comfortable. He'll plan on not having access to their vehicles until he does.

He's much more comfortable conversing with people than doing solo presentations, but if they want to figure out the best half dozen or dozen people for him to have a group conversation with - or sequential ones or whatever, he's not picky - and let everyone else listen in, that's fine. With the caveat that his communication range is only moderately above average, forty feet or so, so he can't project to a whole crowd at once.

"One good thing about talking with sounds or hands, and not with Crafting, is that we have machines that can write down the talking and play it back for people," Vesherti ventures. "There are people who like to find interesting people, and having a conversation that gets written down, and then other people read it. For example, there is someone who finds people who study different areas, and talks with them about what they're studying, and people like to listen to learn about areas of study they don't know about."

"If you wanted, I could ask someone like that to meet us to talk with you. Also, if you do need to talk to a crowd, you can just talk to me and I'll say what you say with my hands, and everyone who can see us will understand."

Both of those sound like they'd work; he's fine with whichever one would be better for satisfying peoples' curiosity. He does expect that he can pick up a gestured language, too, just not quickly enough to be very useful in this situation.

"If you keep traveling, you should learn eventually. But there is plenty of time. I will send a dictionary in Crafter glyphs when it is written," Vesherti writes. "Do you have more questions about what I expect in the city?"

Well, he's expecting to get there tomorrow evening and pick a place to leave his house, and then in the morning he'll make a walker and wait for Vesherti or someone else in blue to come get him. He'll have as much crafting material with him as he can reasonably build into the walker, for tools for himself or things to give out, and he'll have enough water for himself for the day and seeds and dirt with him for food for himself, as a backup, or to give out. He might bring his dog with him in the walker depending on how she's feeling about everything, and there's a chance he'll judge it best for the new chicken to bring her, though he doubts it. He's not going to be able to aim for a walker design that can fit into their vehicles but he's going to go for a slim and agile design that will hopefully be okay in their buildings, and he'll have parts of it greyed to allow for being touched - is their red signal discrete enough that he can mark a greyed part with red for 'please don't touch this' without designating himself entirely not to be interacted with? He does want to get a feel for how big of a risk that's going to be for him.

In the city, they're going to see the food area - he'll have a light breakfast before they go, so it's fine if this doesn't go entirely smoothly - and hang out in public watching people and probably having some conversations with them or joining in on other activities if the option presents itself. He's going to want to see inside some of their buildings if that's on offer and doesn't have much of an opinion on which ones besides what he already said about their collection-places; he'll ask his guide what's available to go see when he's ready for that if they don't volunteer options as they come up. They'll probably have it set up for someone to talk to him and publish the conversation; he's assuming that's not going to be first thing in the morning, and even if they're ready for him then he'd rather have more time to see how they live before he tries to answer questions about the differences between their species. He's assuming he can let them know he wants to head home at any time and he's going to want to be back a few hours before dark even if the day goes well.

He's assuming that the guide will know where he's allowed and not allowed to be, and be generally authorized to take him places he's allowed to be, and that they'll understand not to touch him or to let people touch him or his walker in non-greyed spots, and that they expect to be fine spending the day with him or that they're prepared to find him another guide if they need to leave or go red for more than a few minutes. It won't be a complete disaster if he's left alone and has to find his way out of the city, probably, but it will be very stressful for him and he's depending on them to not let that happen.

"Yes, that all is correct," Vesherti agrees. "Since you're using a walker, I'll bring a personal transport vehicle too, so I don't get tired walking. I expect to be able to accompany you all day, and if I need to go I'll call for one of my colleagues first. We can be done whenever you want, but I'll plan on being done a few hours before dark. I don't know which buildings we will go in yet, but we'll ask overnight, and I'll know in the morning."

"I'm not quite sure what you mean by marking a grey part with red — do you mean leaving it grey so that it can be touched, but outlining it in red so that people don't touch it? Our red signal doesn't work like that, but you can make small parts of your walker red without people stop interacting with you. We're already telling people it's very bad to touch you; we can also tell them some more complex rules for color-coding if it is needed."

Hm. So the issue he has here, with the red, is - so for Crafters, if part of his vehicle is indigo-and-gold and part of it is grey, that means it's perfectly fine to touch or use the grey parts and the indigo-and-gold parts aren't available for other people to interact with, and if someone touches an indigo part he's liable to lose the whole vehicle. He wants some parts grey here so that he's at less risk of losing the vehicle, but he also wants to see how good the locals are at not touching his things without the instinct for it, so he doesn't want the 'it's just entirely fine to touch this' part of the greying, and he doesn't have a pre-established marker for that, he's trying to invent one on the fly. If adding red to the grey doesn't do it he's inclined to go with something in the Crafter model but he's not sure if he should be trying to teach the locals how Crafters do things or just going all in on going native, and if he's doing the latter he's not sure how they'd signal it - if he's going with the Crafter model he'd probably tint the grey with indigo and sparkles to a degree where it doesn't register to him as his but it's not properly public-grey either, or maybe go with grey spots or something if his instincts turn out to play badly with that.

Vesherti gets a look of understanding.

"I understand now. Since we don't have a strong touching instinct, we are going to need to tell people how to interact with you anyway. So any signal is okay, as long as once you tell us it stays the same and people can learn it. I think grey-with-red-spots would be easy to remember. I think tinting the grey would be less good because not everyone has good vision, and they might not see subtle changes."

Grey with red spots will be fine; that's unambiguous for him, too. Is there anything else?

He shakes his head.

"I think that is everything we wanted to say. Thank you for talking to us. We covered a lot."

He'll see them the day after tomorrow, then.

He spends the rest of the evening getting the rest of the supplies stowed in the house; if they're still watching from a distance they'll see him construct a screw pump to move the water they brought into a collection tank with its intake on the roof. He has to go looking for his dog, walking his house along behind him, but she shows up when he's just a little ways away from where he'd been settled before, and they head in for the night after a little bit of gentle roughhousing.

The contact team piles back into the truck and returns to the airport.

And everyone else has a very busy next day.