"It's the queerest thing. I have a good deal selling Isama upholstery now though."

<Maybe after the war we'll relax our opposition to trade with other peoples.>

"You don't trade at all? It isn't just the technology thing?"

<The technology thing doesn't allow for much. The Yeerks were the first other peoples we ever met.>

"Wow, rough first impression."

<It inspired a lot of cynicism. If we win the war I think it'll get better eventually.>

"D'you want to come inside even if you aren't going to turn into Aaron yet?"

<Sure. Thank you.>

In they go.

Eskillimi scoots closer to Ismea.

"Nice to properly meet you," he says. "Don't be rude and strain all our marriages, please."

<I haven't been,> he maybe slightly snaps. <You have magic that might be useful for the war?>

"Yes, though there's some chance the gods can't see us in this dimension or something which would complicate logistics a little."

"Ismat hasn't been gone very long, how often will they re-check? Will they look for you more than her?"

"They'll look for me more, yes. I suspect they'll check at least a couple times an hour unless my brother's very short on people he can trust in which case it's possible they burned through all the checking they can do today and we'll have to wait for tomorrow. Unlikely, though, because he could rope in family."

"You could wait with her, then, if we're in a hurry, which we might be because of limits on the translation availability if nothing else."

"Sure. We could all relocate out, actually, if people're done eating, and then I can do that and talk with Caranth about his war."

"Sure, why not."

"Do you happen to know if all Yeerks are Evil and what percentage of your humans are?"

<I have absolutely no idea, in the technical sense of Evil. All human-inhabiting Yeerks are evil in ...most senses? Some of the ones in pools are probably innocents.>

"And are the humans, you know, pretty usual humans, some crime caused by poverty and some caused by bad people, do they kill their kids sometimes..."

<Not that they mentioned but it does seem the kind of thing people don't mention.>

"I don't think it's especially usual to kill your kids."

"That's good."

"What's this useful for -"

"There are spells and objects that have effects on all Evil creatures, and if Yeerks all were and humans very rarely were you could have a very fast way to screen people but if humans are frequently evil this will have a lot of false alarms and if Yeerks sometimes aren't it'll have some false negatives too."