"Can't hear us, though. Or at least it's acting like it can't, and needed to learn the language. You can come out, I think it's okay."

"Hi," says Ana, stepping out, "I'm Ana."

<I'm Eskillimi.>

"...why do I have an idea how I'd pronounce that?"

<I'm sorry, I don't know. I manufacture lighting for a living.>

"You don't need to keep apologizing, that sounds pretty important! Your society has electricity and stuff?"

<...yes? I think probably you need that sort of thing before you can invent translation chips. Is electricity new here?>

"It's new here," Ana says, "when we showed up and conquered the place we installed it."

<...okay?>

"- uh, here in this house everything's calm and stuff, we get along for weird complicated reasons, there's some lingering tension elsewhere."

"We can make sure you don't run into it."

<Um, thank you. You're being very nice considering I just appeared here uninvited.>

"Aliens are our friends if they don't conquer our planet. So just don't do that and you're all set."

<Andalites don't conquer planets, no.>

"Good for you!"

<Um, there are some aliens I guess I should tell you about as long as I'm here that do that though. They're called Yeerks and we're at war with them. They can go in people's ears and wrap around their brains and read all their thoughts and control them.>

"Yikes. Uh, is there a way to tell if there are any here?"

<Um. I don't think so without, like, seeing if they have any ships in the system.>

"Unless they'd be cloaked or something we'd have noticed those," says Ana.

<Oh, that's good then.>

Another person appears, short and bearded and bewildered and adjacent to a hydrangea. He says something in a normal, out-loud language that nobody present understands, sounding angry and alarmed.

" - wow. Well, okay." He will try some languages but not very optimistically.

The newcomer doesn't get anywhere with them.

Meanwhile, Hala rounds up other people from the house. Miranda emerges. "I hear there's - oh, there's two of them."

"Yep! This one has a magic translation chip. I guess we're learning the other one's language the slow way? Uh, Eskillimi, can you tell the new person that we're friendly and can get them anything they urgently need and stuff?"

<Oh, yeah, that's a good idea - these people are friendly and ->

The new person resumes angrily muttering in the middle of Eskillimi's sentence. <- I'm not sure they can hear me. ...the chip isn't magic, not that it matters much but it isn't. It'll pick up the language soon if they keep talking though.>

"Okay! Do you know if once it does that you'll be able to tell us what to say to the new one?"

<I don't know, I've never even used this chip before to read books from other planets, so I don't know how it performs in weird cases. I'd at least be able to tell you what they mean.>

The short person turns around on the spot, inspecting their surroundings for an explanation.

"Do we have any idea why people are appearing on the lawn?"

"We do not!"

Miranda summons his magic dictionary for when they start having any idea what the beardy one is saying.

The beardy one eventually decides there's nothing for it but to talk to these people and sighs and turns in their direction and points to himself. "Isun," he says.

Miranda points at herself, "Miranda," and at Minor, "Minor," and at Ana, "Ana", and doesn't have Eskillimi's name yet. Ana steps in to point at Eskillimi and say "Eskillimi".