"Hey sorry for Flooing in without notice, I forgot my -" Karen looks out the window. "- alien. - I didn't forget my alien, I don't own an alien, that was a topic change - hello? Who's home right now?"

Ana, carrying Jeremy, pokes her head into the room. "I'm here? Is there an unauthorized alien? I hope you don't mean me, I'm supposed to be here."

"I know you're supposed to be here, I -" Karen points.

Ana looks. "...alien," she agrees.

" - alien! Actually alien alien!"

"...is Minor home? Or Finis? To try to... talk to the alien? I know Kefin flew out with Pelape..." says Karen.

"Hala and me can kind of fake it, the language thing, if they're not, it was a good party trick in school," says Ana. "Hala! Hala where are you!"

"I'm coming!" calls Hala. "...alien."

"Yes, that's been more than covered," says Ana.

The alien is definitely looking at them with both stalk eyes.

"How did it get here? Did you see it arrive?"

"It was already here when I showed up, but maybe somebody in another room can see it from another window and didn't hear me hollering? I think the Amentans' wing would have a view of it."

"It looks a little...dangerous? That tail is bladed."

"It is at that. I mean, a shield charm should handle it? If we can find Minor?"

"I'll go see if I can find him," says Ana, handing Hala Jeremy and running off.

He is in his father's laboratory and comes anxiously to its door.

"- what now -"

"There's an alien - not one of us," says Ana, "a more alien alien, like a centaur, in your yard."

"What's it doing?"

"Just standing there looking at stuff with all four of its eyes. We think you should go talk to it. With a shield charm because its tail is sharp."

" - cool. Okay." And he follows her out.

She points out the alien to him when they come to the door.

The alien finally turns its head, a little bit. It doesn't have a mouth.

"...okay, maybe you can't talk to it," says Ana.

- he waves. 

"Hello?" he says tentatively.

<...I can't understand you yet. I'm sorry! I didn't mean to be here! I don't know how it happened!>

"  - woah. Can I do it back at you?"

Can you hear this, he thinks aggressively at the alien.

<I'm sorry, I don't know how long the translator chip takes to pick up something new, I don't know what's going on - did you bring me here ->

Headshake. - aliens aren't going to know what headshaking means. "No, we didn't. I doubt anyone here would have on purpose though it could've been a side effect of something. Do you need more words for your - translator chip? Like from a computer? Is it working normally here? Uh, I can give you words....the thing you just said was 'I'm sorry, I don't know how long the translator chip takes to pick up something new, I don't know what's going on - did you bring me here. One two three four five six seven eight nine ten. I am called Minor Finis Way. You are an alien. You are blue. I am a human. I am kind of pale pinkish but we call it white because we have racial categories and ours is the palest, except I guess Scandinavians. You have a tail with a blade on it."

<I really hope this is you trying to give me words and not trying to tell me that the grass is poison or something. ...if the grass is poison wave your arm.>

He does not wave his arm. "The thing you just said was 'I really hope this is you trying to give me words and not trying to tell me that the grass is poison or something. ...if the grass is poison wave your arm.' I have no confidence the grass is safe for aliens, though. I think it is for Amentans - not the grass, but, like, the edible flora - but Amentans are weirdly similar to us and you are, uh, not."

<I think it's starting to get some words.>

"That's really fast! Unless it has a way of leveraging the fact that I'm repeating the things you said back to you. Uh, you just said, 'I think it's starting to get some words.' This is grass. This is the sky. This is a human. This is a house. This is a tree."

<You're repeating things? It probably has a way to use that but I don't know how to tell it that's what you're doing.>

"Huh! Okay, then it's just really impressive, it doesn't really have much data at all. You said, 'You're repeating things? It probably has a way to use that but I don't know how to tell it that's what you're doing.' I'm going to keep repeating things because it's hard for most humans to come up with lots of words to say on demand. It's easier for me because I've practiced a lot but still kind of hard because with an alien there's a slight worry that if you say the wrong thing you'll ruin interspecies relations forever or something."

<Oh, I don't think I'm very important to interspecies relations? Um, I don't want you to do anything horrible to me but if there's just some misunderstanding I don't think there will be a big problem.>

"We won't hurt you. I mean it is possible that something here is bad for you by accident, if you're from an entirely different planet, it's a bit weird the air is okay, but we won't hurt you on purpose and can maybe help with that if we identify it fast enough? Uh, you said, Oh, I don't think I'm very important to interspecies relations? Um, I don't want you to do anything horrible to me but if there's just some misunderstanding I don't think there will be a big problem."

<The grass seems all right. I guess maybe it's missing an important nutrient and I will die of selenium deficiency in a few years if nobody finds me. I'm not sure there's anything to spare to go looking for me even if there were a reason to think I might be stranded on an undiscovered planet.>

"I'm sorry. We will try to take care of you if we can. We have advanced aliens here who could maybe do something about selenium deficiencies - how are you eating. You don't have a mouth. Uh, this thing - we use it to eat."

<Andalites eat through our hooves. I don't actually know how to tell if I'm deficient in anything. I don't even know if I need selenium. I work at a lighting company, it's not a related skillset.>

"Makes sense. Well. We will do our best. Or the Amentans will, this one is more their skillset I think probably."

<Amentans?>

"Other aliens! Less alien aliens. They look like us except their hair is brighter colors, they mostly suck but they're working on it, and they're in charge. Kind of. They conquered us. Then we secretly conquered them back but no one knows about it."

<...secretly conquered them back?> There is the slightest of tailtwitches.

" - it's a bit complicated. We have magic and they didn't."

<Magic?>

- he pulls out his wand and floats a flowerpot.

<What makes you call it magic and not just a weird ability your species has, or a technology that's shaped like a stick for some reason?>

"You can't use the principles you use to describe how Muggle technologies work to explain it. Or at least no one has figured out how yet."

<The chip doesn't have "Muggle".>

"People who don't have magic. Is the chip just picking up what I say or does it have some other sources?"

<I don't know how it works. I make lightbulbs.>

"I guess. How does it tell you what it has?"

<When you say things it either gives me a translation or not.>

"Word by word?"

<I'm not sure what you mean? Sorry, I really don't know how it works and I've never needed it before today.>

"Uh, to me it sounds like you're talking in distinct words. Like, "I'm" is one - mostly - and "not" is one, and "sure" is one, and I was wondering if that is the unit in which it provides or fails to provide a translation or if it's something else."

<I can't hear a difference between the gaps between words and the middles of words when you talk.>

"Huh. Okay. Does everyone where you're from have translation chips?"

<I don't think everyone but they've been available for civilians for years now.>

"Is it dangerous or not, Minor?" says Ana.

<Oh, I'm not going to hurt anyone - sorry, I didn't know you wanted to be in this conversation ->

"- oh boy it's telepathic."

"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".

"House. Grass. Rock. Gate."

The short person sighs. "House, grass, rock, gate."

<If you just teach them your language I won't get enough of theirs.>

Well he can point questioningly at the grass.

Isun gives the word for grass, and can continue to be prompted for vocabulary, but this isn't very helpful for the chip, which appears to work better in the presence of grammatical sentences.

That makes sense. He can...attempt to demonstrate this by talking to Eskillimi again?

Isun appears to assume that this just means he has something to say to Eskillimi.

Miranda tries demonstrating verbs and prompting Isun about those, which gets short sentences.

<It's getting bits now, yeah, they're saying 'you walk' and so on ->

You give this rock to Miranda? You give this grass to Miranda and then take it back?

<I guess if I have to translate anyway I should morph somebody who can make sounds.>

"Morph? - uh, you just said 'I guess if I have to translate anyway I should morph somebody who can make sounds'."

<Andalites can morph. If I touch somebody and acquire their DNA I can turn into them. I haven't done it much and don't know how to do the kind where I blend a few samples to get something that looks different, though.>

"- woah. Magic or technology?"

<Technology. Not everything's one of those, though, thoughtspeak isn't.>

"Does it harm the person whose DNA you acquire?"

<No, it just makes them sleepy for a minute.>

"Huh. Okay. You can clone me if you want."

"Or me, if you're a girl alien. ...who cares about gender. Amentans don't."

<I'm a girl alien. I could try mixing you up so I don't look exactly like either of you, I just might not do it right because the time I morphed before it was to try flying and nobody can tell kafit birds apart.>

"...sure, try it."

Eskillimi tries it, going very slowly. Soon there is a naked light brown human woman standing in their yard.

"...I'll go get her clothes," volunteers Ana.

"Thank you," he says, not looking. 

Ana comes back with a robe ("it seemed simplest") and puts it on Eskillimi, who seems confused by it.

Isun, supervising this whole business, looks extremely bewildered, and this isn't helped when Eskillimi starts talking to him in his language very haltingly and with a lot of repetition of sounds.

He listens intently and takes notes for his dictionary. 

Isun is induced to talk more. Eventually Eskillimi says, "He says - sez sez sez sez - he wants to know why he's here. But I told him I did not knowwwwwwwww. oh. oh."

"We do not know either! We're, uh, pleased to meet him, though."

Eskillimi tells him this. "He says," she translates, "- ez ez ez - he says he wants to go home right away."

"Is the repeating things a thing the chip does -"

"Oh, no, it's just - they're fun to say."

"We do not have any idea how to send him home."

Isun doesn't like this answer. "He says he has a company to run-un-un-un-un," Eskillimi reports, "and that he can pay you a lot if you can get him to where all his money is."

Giggle. "Okay. Do you know what kind of star your planet goes round?"

"It's yellow. Or do you mean his -" Jabber jabber. "- his is yellow too."

"Does it have any other identifying traits?"

Jabber jabber jabber. "Uh, he says that if you ask the braids... I think that's another species on his planet... if you ask ask asssssk the braids they will say it's made of fruit."

"Fruit?"

Eskillimi confirms this. "Yeah, fruit. His people are called Khazad and are not so sure about the fruit thing. They live underground and don't look at the sun much though."

He Accios an apple off a tree and holds it up questioningly. "Like...this?"

"He says that looks like a fruit to him," Eskillimi confirms. "He says if the sun's a fruit it's a magic fruit. He wants to know if those sticks are for sale."

"In principle yes but they only work for us."

"You should get Aaron," he adds to Karen. 

Karen has been listening from the door and goes looking for Aaron. "Aaaaaron!"

"Yeah?"

"Aliens who are not Amentans appeared in your yard for no reason and Minor told me to get you, probably because one of them asked if he could buy a wand."

- shrug. He comes on outside.

"I just think you'll get along with this guy!"

Eskillimi translates for Isun, whose response is, "Why, what's so great about him?"

"He...likes solving problems with money?"

"Everyone likes solving problems with money, just not thinking about why the money solves the problem."

"The shapeshifter says that he says the stick won't work for me."

"Probably not, though I don't know for sure, maybe your whole species is magic."

"We're magic-resistant, a bit, that's why I can't hear Eskillimi when she does telepathy."

"- I don't think that's why, thoughtspeak isn't magic," editorializes Eskillimi.

"Well, then you definitely won't be able to use a wand."

"Khazad can make magic jewelry, though, and I think the ones who can sing can use that for magic too," Isun says.

"Singing in particular?"

"Singing magical songs," Isun says. "Braids write most of them."

"I don't think we have those. - if we did the Amentans could make copies of them and use them everywhere, unless that doesn't work."

"Make copies of them?" wonders Isun.

"They have technology for recording sounds and copying them and playing them back. It's very fancy."

"Is that for sale? I still want to go home but I'd like to have something to show for it."

"Yes though making the Amentans aware of the existence of your planet has disadvantages."

"Why's that?"

"They will try to conquer it to live there themselves and civilize you."

"We'll do that if you have a thirty percent infant mortality rate," says Ana tartly.

"I get the sense this is complicated," remarks Isun.

"Definitely learn more before you tell them where you live. They do have lots of really cool stuff."

"I don't know where this is," Isun says, "so I'm not sure how I'd tell anyone where I live, honestly."

"We call it Earth."

"That doesn't tell me whether I'd want to travel east or west or what have you."

Eskillimi and Isun have a bit of a conversation of their own, and finally she translates his concluding remark, "Well, I certainly don't know how to tell you in terms of star charts."

"Sorry. Maybe whatever dropped you here can be replicated, or bribed, eventually."

"At least my brother carries plenty of insurance against anything happening to me."

"How does that work?"

Another man appears. This one looks human, and maybe African or Middle Eastern - he's wearing gold robes, and he reaches for a gold pendant as he startles at appearing.

<- um hello if you talk a lot my translation chip can learn your language but we don't know what's going on either.>

- blink.

He holds the pendant up and says something unintelligible. 

Then he says "where are we?"

"You're in our," she gestures at herself and Aaron and Minor, "family's yard, but we don't know why. She got here first and usually looks more alien but can shapeshift, he got here second and is immune to her thoughtspeak so she has to translate, and the one with green hair is an also-alien houseguest who is complicated for unrelated reasons."

" - I meant the country, but all right. Hello."

"Country's called England."

(Eskiliimi translates all this for Isun as best she can without getting distracted by sounds more than a couple times.)

He looks even more confused. "All right. Thank you. And you're from -" he asks Isun.

"Khazad-Dum. I'm going to guess you haven't heard of it."

"I have not. I...suspect this isn't my planet."

Eskillimi now has even more translation work to do, but she sets herself to it whenever anybody says anything.

"What's your country called?"

"Osirion. The planet's Golarion. Material plane, but you look human and I don't think we live on any other ones."

"We're human. But she isn't, she just looks like a human apart from the green hair - also she isn't, she just turned into one with some kind of space alien technology - so I thought maybe you also weren't?"

"I guess this is more complicated than 'various nonhuman aliens appear'. Doesn't tell us what is going on though."

"I'm human. Do you have Polymorph or are you just a shapeshifter?" he asks Eskillimi.

"My species has a technology that lets us pick up DNA from animals we touch and turn into them," says Eskillimi. "There's a time limit though so I guess if we're all still here in ninety-seven minutes you'll have to do the translating for Isun because he can't hear me when I thoughtspeak. Eeeek. Eek."

"My spell will wear off sooner than that, actually."

"Oh. I guess I can re-morph. Ffffffff. I can't do it very many times before I'll get too tired though."

"I have Restoration prepared, if that helps."

"What is that?"

" - it's a spell that removes fatigue. It won't help if you can only do it so many times per day but if it's accumulated fatigue it'll address that. Do you not have clerics where you're from?"

"No, we don't have magic at all."

"We have magic but we're called wizards and witches, not clerics."

"We have those, too. Cleric magic has a different source, and we can do different things. More healing."

"I can do healing."

"I think witches can usually do healing? I don't know very much about witches, though."

"Witch is in English just the feminine of wizard."

"Ah. In that case I wonder if your wizards are like ours either."

"Maybe not. We use wands to do stuff including healing and levitating stuff and turning things into other things, what do yours do?"

"People can use wands but don't have to, what they do have to have is a spellbook. Wizards are prepared casters, they decide in the morning what spells they have access to. They learn spells through study, you have to be smart to be a wizard and more intelligent people are better at it."

"Smart people are often better at magic but don't... have to decide what spells we can do in the morning? That sounds very limiting. We have textbooks and references but not 'a spellbook'."

"Is your kind of magic hereditary?"

"Yes, usually."

"Huh. I think we call those sorcerers."

"We use that word too but not nearly as often."

"If you don't have clerics, do you know of your gods?"

"Wizards as a culture are not very religious."

"Clerics get their power from one of the gods. I'm not - very sure that's responsive to what you said but it seems like an important piece of context."

"I guess gods would seem pretty likely to exist if they gave you magic you wouldn't otherwise have."

"Is it unclear to people here if any gods exist?"

"People manage to be awfully confident about it but that's how I'd describe it."

"The people who think there's any usually think it's just one, at least around here."

"Oh. Well, there's dozens but maybe only one who is active here, or none who are active here and legends about one."

Elsewhere:

"I want to see my brother in law."

"Which one?"

"The one I have to ask permission about, if I wanted Masaharta I know where to find him and if I wanted Telcar I'd just be out of luck, now, wouldn't I."

"It'll be conveyed to the pharaoh that you asked."

"It's time-sensitive."

He frowns at her assessingly. 

"- it'll be conveyed immediately."

"Thank you." Pace pace.

He enters a few minutes later. The guards prostrate themselves. 

"Ismat. And... Baqir."

One guard stays. Everyone else leaves. 

From the floor: "Your grace, Merenre just vanished without a trace in front of my eyes, I think the obvious explanation is an inside job since that's supposed to be impossible through the dome and ought to be damn hard from inside, and I think the obvious reason is someone's got it in for you and means to fiddle with the succession first."

" - huh. Stand up. Get Eisa and Hamid," he adds to the guard. "Did you see anything else -"

"He came in to my workshop right after I'd flipped the sign, I had barely opened my mouth to say hi, and he was gone."

"We can try to scry him when the guards get back."

"Thank you your grace."

"We're glad you came to us." He takes his pendant, closes his eyes.

And she disappears.

"Merenre!"

" - Ismat! How are you here - are you all right -"

"I - seem fine? - I just told the pharaoh you'd vanished and that I thought it was some succession-diddling assassin plot, what would a plot like that want with me, I'm not pregnant -"

"There are a bunch of people from different planets who've appeared here at random. I haven't the slightest idea how but I don't think it's anyone Osirian -"

"How bizarre - perfectly inexplicable - what's going on among us randomly appearings, then -"

"You being not pregnant has what to do with it -"

"Well, no reason to kill her to manipulate the succession. - this is my wife. And I am a prince of Osirion."

"I suppose someone might think I'm pregnant, or just not want to chance it. Anyway, your brother knows you're gone and I was in the room with him when I disappeared so hopefully he's on it."

"I didn't prepare Sending. Can tomorrow but it might be too late." 

"Well. Welcome to our house. The short one is Isun, who is from a different planet, and the one translating for him is Eskillimi, who is from an additional different planet, and the rest of us plus everybody crowding at the windows normally is around here or lives here but that one's from another different planet that made more systematic contact months ago."

"We are always delighted to learn of new worlds and of new peoples we can have friendly trading relationships with."

"Well, at least it's a top notch selection of aliens."

"Aaron, if you have been summoning aliens here against their will so that you can sell them wands and buy their lightbulbs, you should stop that, it's very rude."

"You never let me have any fun! - I'm kidding. I have not done this. So everyone's clear."

"Sell them what now? Buy their who?"

"Lightbulbs are devices that produce light with electricity," says Eskillimi.

"Wands are sticks that let our kind of person do magic."

"What's electricity?"

"Uh, the thing lightning is made of."

"Huh. We'll buy some of those, if someone's selling them."

"This is great but we still don't know how to get any of you home."

" - I mean, presuming the pharaoh holds on to his crown they'll have people here for us shortly."

"I'm very concerned about whatever it was that acted through the Dome!"

"Me too. But I expect they'll find us."

"They'll have magic they can use to come to you?"

"Yes."

"Do you think it could send the rest of us home too? I can pay for it, though no one's going to be amused if this turns out to be some kind of racket, of course."

"Probably nobody here wants Andalite money, do they."

"If there are some barriers to setting up a currency exchange we take gold, and gemstones, and plausibly lighting, I'd have to know more about it and why it improves on permanent magical lights."

"I guess it might not, permanent magical lights sound pretty good."

" - right but maybe yours are cheaper, or more customizable, or - I'd have to know more about electricity to guess, really."

"I've never tried to explain electricity to someone who didn't know anything about it before. Are magic lights really expensive? Electric ones aren't unless you need ones that are hard to mass produce for some reason..."

"Magic lights are reasonably expensive, so maybe we'll want to buy electric ones."

"Oh. I'm not actually sure if we're allowed to trade with aliens but I guess when I pass quarantine they might think about it."

"Quarantine?"

"To make sure a Yeerk didn't get me while I was gone."

"Why would you not be allowed to trade with aliens?"

"In case something goes wrong like with the Yeerks, I guess? ...I make lightbulbs, I don't know much about how the council makes decisions."

- nod. "What went wrong with the Yeerks?"

"Uh, they turned out to be evil. And now there is a horrible war."

"Oh. I guess that'd do it. You can verify we're not evil, though, if you want."

"...how?"

" - well, we have a spell for it. I guess if you do not have any divine magic you might not."

"How does a spell tell if someone is evil or not? We have spells that can only be cast with malicious intent but that's not even all of the nasty ones."

"The spell is called Detect Alignment. It's not very accurate on the individual level because some people will read evil for reasons who don't say much about their character, but it's fairly informative about whole populations."

"I'm not sure the council will want to assume that will tell them if somebody is like a Yeerk or not."

"That's fair."

Another person appears. He's the same sort of person as Isun, and Isun recognizes him. "Hey - Kimli - walk over here -" Isun calls. "It's safe, I think, but nobody knows why we're here. Or at least nobody's admitting it. Speak Sindarin."

Kimli walks over to Isun and gazes with bewilderment at the assembled. "Hello," he says.

"That's Eskillimi over there, who's translating," says Isun.

"Nice to meet you. This is Earth. People've been appearing here."

"We have," agrees Ismat, "it's very dismaying. Our people'll be after us in a jiffy though, and can probably get everyone else where they're going too."

"It's... nice to meet you all," says Kimli.

"How do you two know each other?"

"We're brothers."

Blink.

"What is it?" asks Ismat.

"I'm not sure. If I'm surer I'll say something. Uh, does anyone want - chairs, or anything to eat -"

"What's a chair?"

He will conjure a red velvet armchair with claw feet. And sit in it, to demonstrate.

"Oh, that's clever."

"Can you eat while you're shapeshifted?"

"I think it's safe."

"It's near dinnertime in Osirion."

He snaps his fingers for an elf.

"Master Aaron is wanting an elf?" says the elf who appears.

"What is that?" says Isun.

"Magical slave," says Ana. "We're informed very emphatically that they like to be slaves."

"Don't like the smell of that," Isun remarks.

"Can you bring out refreshments for all of our guests? And maybe more, I don't think they're all here yet."

"You said you weren't doing it, so why do you think they're not all here yet?"

"Well, we haven't had a really big gap yet."

"And we've got two from Osirion and two of them -" he gestures at the Dwarves - "but only one Andalite."

Eskillimi looks unaccountably nervous.

Another person appears.

His tail snaps around until the blade is at the nearest throat, which happens to be Ismat's.

"AAAAAAAH!"

<- they, they're friendly, they're not bringing people here on purpose ->

<What makes you think that?>

<I've... been here a while? We've mostly been talking about how to translate for the short ones who can't hear thoughtspeak and how everybody's magic works because they all have different magic and about how they might want to buy lightbulbs. ...I work for Filament. The lightbulb company.>

<Many humans are Controllers.>

<Oh. I guess it doesn't really help if I tell you that they haven't tried to put a Yeerk in me. Or that I didn't see them put one in her either.>

Miranda has a wand aimed at the newcomer by now. "Hey, Eskillimi, does his chip need to learn separately from yours?"

"I don't know! I've never used this thing before today!"

<I can understand you. Drop the weapon.>

Miranda drops her wand.

"Nipsy," she says, "this person's threatening our guest."

With a CRACK, the new Andalite is well across the yard with a house-elf looking very sternly at him, arms folded.

Miranda picks up her wand.

- the new Andalite takes a few unhappy steps back from the house-elf. 

He takes a step closer to his wife.

"Augh!" says Ismat, sagging back onto her husband. "What was that for?"

<If you are not a Controller and not involved in abducting me I apologize for the inconvenience and you can demonstrate it by getting me a phone.>

"A phone?" says Ana. "We might have a spare pocket everything around from when Minor was experimenting on them to get the wards fixed but how is that going to help you?"

<I guess you'll find out once you get me the phone.>

"Who do you think you're going to call? Nobody you know is on this planet if you don't know Eskillimi."

"I've never seen him in my life."

<That's a woman. She wouldn't have been here.>

"...so, nobody you know is going to be on the planet, it's all humans and Amentans and magical creatures? Unless you people have been buddies with centaurs for ages and they never told us which I guess would be fair but I'm pretty sure centaurs don't have phones."

"I would be happy to resolve this by giving you a pocket everything if I were confident you weren't going to call a wrong number and leave some very puzzling message in some random person's inbox. This isn't the planet anyone else was expecting to be on apart from those of us who were here this morning, so I don't think it's the one you were expecting either."

His eyeball stalks twitch. "Earth? Somewhere in the northern hemisphere, you have funny accents but you're speaking English, maybe Britain?"

"This is Britain but we haven't invented phones. The Amentans have but they call them pocket everythings."

<I've travelled in time?>

"Oh, excellent, you can settle whether humans develop good governance on their own once they're richer."

"Do you know what an Amentan is," says Ana.

<No.>

"Then you haven't traveled in time from a time when humans invented phones because we very loudly conquered the whole planet a little while ago."

"I mean maybe we make you all leave."

<Humans hadn't had contact with spacefaring civilizations when the infiltration began.>

"Yeah, exactly, even if you make us all leave I think he'd know what we were. People like Aunt Isama'd keep pestering you about keeping trade routes open even if you kick us all to Mars or we all move to someplace Pelape finds because it's got friendlier natives."

His tail swishes in a deeply unhappy sort of way, not that anyone who isn't accustomed to Andalites will notice.

<What year is it?>

"1809."

<Huh. I've never heard of Amentans.>

"We're a lot like humans, from, uh, your perspective."

<...is that your actual, not-morphed shape?>

"Yup. We don't have that thing. It's pretty neat though."

"They're so similar that sometimes for no obvious reason humans and entire human families have Amentan duplicates!"

"How do you mean?" says Isun.

"For instance," says Ana, "I'm here because my parents are the mysterious Amentan duplicates of those guys' brother and his wife. And my cousin in the window there is his alt and his wife's alt's kid. It's totally bizarre. But it got us secret research grants!"

<I think I still don't understand.>

"You mean like...twins?"

"No, twins have different personalities, or can. We and our respective alts have the same personalities, similar names in many cases, mostly but not invariably matching families out to varying distances, lots of weird coincidences - except they clearly aren't coincidences, it stacks up way too much to be coincidental, we just don't know why it happens. We found out when we went to pester the Amentan who was running things post-conquest about how he'd conquered our planet and he looked like yet another of my many brothers-in-law."

"I've never heard of anything like that."

"Neither had we!"

Swish swish.

"Do you have clerics, because if so I can probably prove I'm not under the control of a mind parasite."

<I don't know what that is.>

"Ah, too bad."

"We don't have magic at all. - I'm the same thing as him. I'm just in morph so Isun can hear me. And Kimli. Because they don't seem to hear thoughtspeak."

"Is thoughtspeak not magic? Osanwë is magic, that's what the Elves do to talk without speaking. And they can't use that on us either."

<What do you even mean by 'magic'.>

(He'll repeat that for the Dwarves). "Your world doesn't have any?"

<No.>

"Ours either," says Ana.

"Do you have afterlives?"

"Our kind of wizard can turn into ghosts but they're not very high quality ghosts, so no, not really."

"We don't know. Braids say they do, but braids say lots of things."

<What reason do you have to think anyone has an afterlife?>

"I visit it every couple of weeks."

"Is it that often? What, if people aren't escorted they'll pull a smash and grab in downtown Aktun?"

"We're trying to optimize the touring routes! Figure out what speaks to people most, what if anything produces persistent lifestyle changes..."

"One of these days you need to take me and I'll put something by for Khalil, I'll probably outlive him and I don't think dying is liable to fix him."

"Of course."

" - so when you die, you just ...go to this other place...and it's exactly like not having died?"

"Not exactly. People get sorted, when they die, based on how they lived their lives, and Axis is the most like still being alive but not perfectly like it. Magic works differently for petitioners and they're harder to kill but if they do die they can't be brought back, and many of the afterlives have some subtle psychological effects that eventually accumulate into a completely new personality. Axis doesn't have that."

"Plus you can't have more kids. People have all different opinions on that one."

"Why... would it work like that. Who set it up."

"The gods. By some accounts the material plane is primarily a system with buy-in from enough gods for sorting souls into afterlives fairly."

"Fairly?"

"Well, many people argue that the typical citizen doesn't have access to enough information to be an informed participant in it and also astonishing numbers of people get tortured eternally, so there's a reasonable case that it's not fair if you include any of that in your fairness criteria. It is fair specifically with respect to the interests of the gods who set it up."

"...what interests?"

"Some of them wanted to get to torture people eternally and some of them wanted to get to build cool cities and some of them wanted to get to fight evil and some of them wanted vast wilderness never to be touched by civilization and some wanted to eat people."

"...and the ones who wanted to fight evil were like 'okay, you guys can eat some of the people'...?"

"Yes."

"That doesn't seem like particularly quality evil-fighting."

"I don't really know that much about their bargaining position but certainly it'd be nice if they'd done better."

"Well. Around here as far as I know it's just ghosts but if you want the theistic perspective Michael married a Catholic."

"Which," puts in Ana, "is still really weird, my mom's not religious at all."

"What is a Catholic?"

"Flavor of a broader religion called Christianity. If you do want to get into it I'm sure Rebecca's around somewhere."

"Unless we think mad Christianites kidnapped us that seems like a waste of time. Isn't there anything you can do to speed up the rescue?" Isun asks Merenre.

"Are you in a particular hurry?"

"If I disappear and I'm presumed dead and only then reappear the insurance will be a tremendous headache."

"I expect they'll be here any minute, possibly unless the pharaoh disappears too. Your society does death insurance?" He sounds very approving.

"How else are my assets supposed to be divided? And it'll be even worse if my brother's missing too."

"Well, if we're not found by morning I can do a Sending and I can attempt one to your world too. 25 words to a person of your choice."

"I don't know that I should expect that to work better than any of the other kinds of telepathy."

"Then I don't think I can help. Though I do expect a reasonably prompt rescue."

Hala creeps out of the house.

"I was wondering what kept you," Ana says.

"This is kind of stressful! I wrote my parents first. And uncle Aitim. Um, hello everybody, I'm Hala."

"She's an anthropologist," says Ana.

"I have really no idea what to make of this living situation we've landed in and don't even know what questions are rude."

"I mean, we're not going to get offended? Or not very offended and we won't be irritated with you about it."

"I don't know that I've successfully called to your minds all your sensitive cultural taboos!" says Ismat.

"In school we had to do taboo desensitization," says Hala. "And haven't had much trouble here. I guess I don't know if you'll bother the ones with tails or the ones with beards."

"Wizards don't go in that hard on cultural taboos that don't involve any magic or any touching people."

<I have encountered humans before.>

"And in your extensive acquaintance you didn't learn not to put your blades to our throats? Anyway I'm just puzzled by the household structure -" says Ismat.

"The family of the household is a married couple, their sons, the wives of two of the three married sons, the stepdaughter and children of the married son who has those, and the house elves like Nipsy over there," says Hala. "Karen is dating one of the sons but they aren't married and she doesn't live here, and Aaron's wife lives in another country with her sister. Ana and I moved in to study their magic and culture from an Amentan perspective, because our parents are alts of in my case Aaron and his wife though they don't have kids themselves, and in Ana's case her alt is yea high and in there. They're also hosting some other people you haven't met for their protection but they're not really part of the household. For a while Miranda's alt lived here, on the books as my and Hala's bodyguard for tax purposes, but now she's doing stuff in space instead. Other people like my grandfather are in and out as called for by various projects."

"Wow," says Ismat, "and I thought disentangling my finances after I spent ten years in drag was a mess."

"You what?"

"I -" begins Ismat.

"I wonder why more households don't have ghosts of their ancestors," muses Ana. "Portraits, but not -"

A ghost appears. It's sitting on the ground and startles at the change in environment and leans forward disbelievingly and flops facefirst into the ground like a ragdoll or a newborn.

"- ghosts," finishes Ana.

"Ghost!" says Karen. "Hi ghost! - Muggles can't see ghosts. That's going to make the translation issue worse. Uh. I volunteer as ghost translator if Eskillimi can't do it and if Merenre can make me able to understand this ghost."

"Is there a ghost?" asks Merenre. "Detect Magic. - oh. Huh. I can't cast Tongues again until tomorrow."

"Okay, then, Minor, you have to be the ghost translator."

"This is so many languages I'm going to be really impaired at learning any of them. Hi," he says to the ghost.

The ghost is trying to make itself sit up. It seems very startled by being directly addressed and shakes its head slightly and then manages sitting.

Miranda looks at the ghost. She looks at Aaron.

" - are you thinking he looks kinda like me."

"He looks more like you than I look like Pelape even when she's been sunning herself."

" - I was just about to ask Ismat to tell me more about the thing where she dressed as a man for a decade."

"Does this have something to do with the ghost? I wanted to get an apprenticeship and start a business. Chopped off my hair and wore boys' clothes and did very well. Got blackmailed about it so I had to cut it out."

"Has something to do with the ghost because my wife did the same thing."

"I'm confused. ...also I have to demorph in ten minutes, do we have any other way to talk to the Khazad? Um, I guess he could do it if... anyone wants to let him that close. Or I could re-morph."

"I've got some words."

<What are the requirements for a morph to talk to the Khazad?>

"Just have to be able to make the mouth sounds."

Tail-swish. He does not volunteer.