"I have no idea what kind of tech level that implies honestly because none of the ways I imagine applying that word correspond to tech level per se, I don't really have a good grasp of how non-people stars would work."

"We're not even close to starting to think that groundwork on the problem might be tractable, in 2006," says Isabella. "But maybe this is just a third universe with weird star systems?"

"Who knows! --I keep wanting to go aww little baby at the protostars but they're probably actually inanimate, this is very weird, imagine walking through the forest and finding a random rock that looks startlingly like a sleeping human infant." 

"Do you actually see stars much? Since you live underground?"

"Admittedly the only star I have ever talked to in person is my grandfather but apparently the instincts are still there." 

"Anyway, I copied all the maps and we have cash now, let's step out and figure out, like, where we're sleeping tonight."

Nod. 

"This would be a great time to be somewhat older," she sighs, outside the shop. "I inherited some structures from my Messenger grandmother that--well, let them impersonate a building pretty well, there are actually people who live inside their shell and don't know that they're not just a weird piece of architecture. But mine aren't big enough for a human over the age of about five to be able to even fit in comfortably. Anyway. Do you want to try to find somewhere around here to sleep or try to see if we can make it to a city tonight." 

"I can probably figure out a tent as long as I don't try to exit it. It might be cramped since this would be an extension of my ability to make clothes, but if we can't find a hotel of any kind we could rough it. I don't like the idea of inhaling factory fumes so noxious that they were the first thing that guy thought of when he heard the word 'city', we'll get five kinds of cancer - like, you have healing magic but it takes a while to show up, cancer, and who knows if you'll still be around us when we're in our forties."

"What's cancer?"

"It's a disease? Caused by cells dividing out of their appropriate proportion. Lots of things increase the risk of cancer including breathing pollutants."

"Huh. Probably it's something we don't have much of in the Neath on account of the ambient Mountain-Light. Even as far away from my father as London is we still get pretty neat watered-down effects even when I'm not directly shining on someone. Anyway, I didn't know smog could do that, let's file it away under horrible things about the world. Do you want to try to get to a different planet or just hunker down here until I can figure out how to get somewhere with magic or what?"

"Maybe we should try to get to, uh, New Dunsmuir, and see if they have libraries or anything?"

"I don't wanna get five kinds of cancer but it's also possible the guy was just, y'know, making cracks about New Jersey."

"I guess? That wasn't my read on it but maybe."

"Maybe we should see if we can find anything else out about New Dunsmuir first, like, I do not prefer to assume that the absence of a specific hazard means an absence of hazardousness."

"I mean, we don't have a lot of guaranteed safe options. What I'd really like is to get on their Internet, assuming that if they have interplanetary travel they've got to have one, but this is a very small town without an obvious internet café. - the internet is a way to store many libraries' worth of information in such a way that it can be read anywhere by anybody with a suitable device."

"2006 delights and intrigues me. I'm not sure to what extent we want to trade off between information gathering and keeping a low profile--I'm sure there are lots of questions it would be really useful to have the answers to that we'd look insane for needing to ask. Whether they have one of those or how to access it seems like one of those." 

"Keeping a low profile is hard. I can get subtler than the wings, if I have to, but I can't get all the way to passing for unmodified human, and I have to be pretty to do magic. People are taking it pretty levelly so far but I think they're assuming the wings are fake."

"I'm pretty sure they're assuming the wings are fake. Fake wings don't especially look more out of place once you already have, uh, us," she gestures between the two of them, "no offense Xander but I'm pretty sure you're the most plausible person here."

"None taken."

"So I think sooner or later someone's likely to be really curious about us, and I don't think asking about the internet makes that a whole lot more likely."

"Okay," she agrees, and steps to the side and taps a passerby on the shoulder. "Excuse me, is there an Internet?" 

"--A what?" 

"Um, a--remotely accessible library?" 

"...Do you mean the Cortex?" the passerby asks, bewildered and suspicious. 

"Let us suppose I mean the Cortex." 

"Yeah, you'll have to go to New Huntsville for that, we don't have a connection here or anything." 

"Thanks!" 

"Can you point us to New Huntsville?" Isabella asks apologetically. "We're a bit turned around."

"Oh, sure, it's down that road," the passerby says, pointing in the direction they came, "we ship produce there every week, the next delivery's in three days." 

"Oh, cool, does the shipment take passengers sometimes?"