"No. I speak a version of the language spoken in this country because it's spoken in another world we know."

<And the ones on the computer?>

"None of them."

<Do you suppose any of them are related?>

"First and fifth."

<Which is your favorite.>

"I don't really - if one of them has spectacularly cool grammar or something I wasn't picking up enough to notice. There were, like, six words that repeated in most of those clips, that's not enough to go off. For my species. - not just for my species, actually, that's not enough from an information theory perspective. Though Minor did say Eskillimi's translator was unreasonably good - is it piggybacking off the telepathy -"

<You don't seem very like the you I know> he says to Pelape.

"It's the magic drugs and possibly also the dystopian upbringing. Miranda, our other one, she's probably more like yours, or would at least act more like it. So would I if I weren't on a massive overdose of Felix, it's not a matter of my not being human. I didn't take it to help with your thing, I only learned about your thing today, I did it to find colony planets for our people, Amentans."

<Do you feel like you have any insight here> he asks Butterfly.

<Well, the trouble is I know there's such a thing as aliens who can read minds, I don't really see how she can prove it.>

"Yes, that does rather ruin the option of having me do something simplistic like recite the three questions if you're hoping to guard against the possibility that I'm a hostile telepath. How about this.

When I took my first dose of Felix, the luck potion, I wasn't there to do that. We'd considered the idea months earlier but our FTL method takes too long for a one-day safe dose to let us get all the way to a new planet. And it's addictive, very addictive, I'm going to be in an awful state whenever my friends decide to stop paying my brewers' bills and tackle me to wait out the comedown. We think I'll live but we don't have a ton of data. I was at Miranda's potion expert friend's house trying out my nonmagical immunity to mind-affecting magic with a truth potion and then she was called away.

And we needed planets.

Amentans, that's what we are, have a - not actually uncontrollable but extremely compelling reproductive drive. Whole lot of us under strictly enforced population control because it's better than constant war for territory. Kefin and his dad built the first warp engine in their basement and pretty early on we find an Earth, a different one, early nineteenth century, secret wizards. And we find nowhere else with - y'know, air.

We steamroll the place.

A lot of what we did needed doing. They had, like, a thirty percent child mortality rate. And some of it was only stuff we were doing because we were preparing for the possibility that this was all the living space there was for the foreseeable future, that if we did everything else we'd be letting down millions of people who heard 'faster than light' and thought 'finally, finally we can have a baby'. Population controlling the humans, say, which - they don't like babies as much as we do but they can resent government interference with the best of them. Secret wizard alts of Kefin's family showed up in his brother's house in the middle of the night to pull an invisible coup and were surprised at the resemblance; and we are working things out from there. They're trying to terraform Mars for us, a terraformed Mars would be better anyway, but it's not going that great.

The only reason we weren't using Felix for this was - one, we weren't sure it'd work. And two it wouldn't be great for the personal actualization of whoever was on it. That was it, really. Might not work and might not be good for me.

Left a note, took it, stole a month's worth, stole a spaceship. It works. It works fine, it works repeatably, and even if it hadn't it would have made sense to try, because there's only one of me, but - it does luck for whoever drinks it and I don't know if it'd work for most people, if most people would want planets for everyone, planets to make the Amentans relax about ruling the humans, instead of just to personally have a dozen children. Instead of just to make ruling the humans go really smoothly, instead of just to make terraforming Mars work out so our country can keep it rather than having to share all the planets with all the other countries, instead of just to make a billion ni and satisfying personal relationships and be insulated from all the things going on -

- well, it works for me."

<.........okay. Maybe she's me.>

<Fine.>

The ship lifts into the air.

<If it looks like we're going to get captured I"ll kill us all.>

"Noted. Bear west a bit please."

He does this.

"So what are your names, I'm Pelape Milath."

<Bella.>

<Matirin.>

"Kefin. - oh, and we have my one-older brother, if you were wondering. He accidentally got dragged to our universe which is how we know about you. He's doing diplomacy on your homeworld now."

<I see.>

"A bunch of him, and a bunch of somebody three of him are married to, and a bunch of the sibling-in-law associated therewith, appeared at Miranda et al's house! We don't know why but here we are making the best of it."

"My you rules the planet right now. He's pretty good at it."

<I see.>

"I voted for him!"