...Matirin, maybe? That's all he told you?

"We were using the spying-and-wordcount-limited option with him. He replied in sign language but we think he's being observed; he kept it to a few words and didn't seem to want to react visibly."

It's probably Matirin. He was here during the war. Against the Yeerks, which I mentioned, the brain parasites. We were both involved in that. The rest of his people took him offplanet once they got here but some Andalites still live on Earth.

Where is he now? Is it safe to reach out to him with a setup like this, to communicate with him?

I'm not sure what planet. This should be safe.

The Maitimos make expressive faces at each other. 

Are there procedures for identifying people affected by brain parasites? 

If you have impolite mindreading that'll do it. An MRI will do it. Two of them don't fit at once so if somebody morphs one and can't go in the ear you know. Every three days a Yeerk has to come out to feed in a special pool bombarded with special radiation so if you stalk someone that long you know. The imitation and control is nearly always perfect but can slip for a second or two if the host acts suddenly and the Yeerk is distracted. Uh, the Yeerks living on the moon, in pools marked "Amicus Terra" in Europe, and in humans wearing locked indicator bracelets, are friendly - they aren't a monolith - but any outside our system, or hiding on Earth, or in any ships in the system that aren't on Luna, should be presumed hostile.

"...can you name one human with and one human without a Yeerk, if there's some who have friendly ones, so we can test a procedure for it?"

Josefa Iglesia, my assistant Yue-Yue?

Cam checks. He gets one Yeerk. "Josefa has one?"

Yes, she hosts Ristrell who runs the moon polity of Yeerks. Consensually.

What's the overall state of the Yeerk war?

We got them off Earth. Um, which we did by irradiating the entire planet and then handing out morph to try to reduce the impact of all the cancer. Most Yeerks are much more vulnerable to radiation than Earth life but there's a family of them that can cope so there was some mop-up after that and that's also who's on planetside Amicus Terra. Outside the Solar system the Andalites are continuing to fight them, they continue to have any humans they got out of the system and also all the Hork-Bajir, Taxxons, and Gedds minus the handful that were on Ristrell's ship when she took it over. Earth'll be well positioned to help in not too long, we're getting into position techwise to have our own military presence in space. For the moment there's no action here though.

Does your universe have any magic, as far as you know?

I am not an engineer but understand it all to be a matter of high technology or alien biology as the case may be, not magic.

"If you're too busy to visit who would you send?"

Uh, Matirin might also be too busy but possibly Finleran.

"Is that Matirin's husband or boyfriend, by any chance?"

...yes? How did you know that, it's not public information.

The alternate universe versions of people thing. We'd like to meet him, is he going to be safe in an Earthlike sort of environment?

Yes. Should I warn him you're going to talk to him? Do you have alternate versions of everybody?

Matirin seems to repeat with his family. You have siblings sometimes but not always, never kids yet...

I have a twin sister and no kids.