<That's correct. I think.>

"Does that constitute an arrest with passing legitimacy?" Belmarniss wonders.

"Yeah. I mean, I think he did the right thing, but in doing so he broke a law that was not an obviously ridiculous law to have and then he went to jail for it and you do not, generally, get to break out of jail because you had a good reason for the original crime. I'd rather negotiate his release, if we can."

"Is that likely?"

<I don't know. It depends who all of you ...are... and whether you make sense to the Andalite government and are capable of being diplomatic at it and want to help with the war.>

"We said who we are!"

<You did not say the things that I'd want to know in order to guess whether you will be able to build a good diplomatic relationship with the Andalite government.>

"...well, what do you need to know to guess?"

<How big are your polities? Do they have faster than light travel? Do they have glaring social problems embarrassing them, like, I don't know, slavery or poverty or inadequate access to medical care or overpopulation or infirmity? Are they going to look visually modern to Andalites - do they have brain-computer interfaces, do they have morph or some other way to avoid having to wear bulky spacesuits when meeting, do they have spacious starships, do they select their leaders in some fashion that rewards a career of responsible public service?>

"Do Andalites have to worry about overpopulation?"

<Before the war we permitted two children per family. Now families may have one daughter and as many sons as they'd like.>

"...because only men are soldiers?"

<With rare exceptions, yes.>

"...okay, so apart from not having morph, chip Elves pass. Between the two worlds of us, since they have lightleapers and we have a little more polish elsewise, I think."

"You can have morph if you want it, it's not magic, right?"

<It's not magic.>

"We have magic that'll do the same thing, too, if needed."

"But you have embarrassing social problems. Uh, daeva pass. So do the humans from my Earth depending on what you mean by infirmity exactly, they still, like, age."

<Andalites do too, they just try very hard not to make this very visible to outsiders. In that case I think one of the civilizations that Andalites will be impressed with would probably succeed at making diplomatic contact and allying against the Yeerks and then asking for me in particular if they wanted.>

"Inconveniently we don't yet have it confirmed that any of those is close enough to reach. We were going to check where I was from but it doesn't have a government. I suppose the chip Elf Maitmos are government representatives."

<There's really not much hurry. I'm not being mistreated.>

"They're very impatient."

<Bella, too, but she's very young and also has been at war for a long time.>

"I'm old and have spent about fifteen minutes in a war zone and I'm still impatient."

<Well, I am intrigued by the idea of not living out the rest of my life in prison but will not be distressed by another week. Especially if you have the telepathy set up so I can talk to people.>