Of course not. I - I tried to stop her. It didn't work.

<Did you win your war?>

Not really. It's a long story.

"I got a dud of a Maitimo so I don't know if describing the Findekáno I know will be helpful at all."

<I think this is very interesting but it doesn't incline me to share much secret information about the war. Maybe if you end up participating in it?>

"Brain parasites sound very bad but this is sort of what we were worrying about when considering whether to look for more worlds, winding up with more problems than we have tools. Is there anything that's more costly in material objects or breaking the laws of physics than in logistics effort or design labor that you guys need?"

"We could also just talk to Matirin, if the crystal ball doesn't run down when we contact cooperative people we can always circle back."

<The Andalite high command could almost certainly use more ships. You could help us gear up factories faster? But it's not an emergency, we are at present winning the war.>

"If we get back to you after talking to Matirin there's a way to resist contact we'd be obliged if you'd not do so we can stay on the same page about whatever goes on."

<All right.>

Belmarniss almost says something and then doesn't.

And she lets the blue centaur alien fade. 

"Maybe all they weren't saying is that Matirin's on an important mission?"

"...standing in a field?"

"She said telepathying him is safe. She wouldn't have said that without caveat if he were doing something sensitive unless blue centaurs have the equivalent of a lot of attention blessings."

 - nod.

"Finleran stopped typing on his computer when we contacted him."

"So either she knows a lot about what he's doing and knows that at least right now it's standing in a field, or she doesn't know much and is being cagey instead of admitting that for unclear reasons, and Finleran's consistent there."

"Probably we still want to contact him but I don't like it."

"Why not?"

"Someone's clearly lying about something and I don't like going around striking up conversations when you know there's important missing information but not why you don't have it."

"...we don't have it because their world has brain parasites that are really hard to tell apart from the genuine article and they're accustomed to protocols that take that into account."

"...probably."

"I think that's a pretty good reason, even if it's slightly annoying to interface with!"

Nod. "So, Matirin again?"

"I think so."