<Huh.> he says and then decides to think through the ramifications of that later. <What terms do you intend to offer them, if you win.>

"It's not all ironed down yet, obviously, but - Karis gets the throne and we leave the border where it was before all of this happened. Probably we agree to help them rebuild some of their infrastructure, and offer them food and supplies, they've had a couple years' of crop failures in the northern region because their damned priest-mages keep using blood-magic everywhere, it'd make Karis' new reign a lot more popular if we addressed that." 

In principle he should talk to the other side here, too, and keep in mind that these people are reading his mind and can tailor their answers accordingly, but - <All right. We will help you drop off a force in Karse in order to achieve that end.>

"Thank you. I'll - try to get everything we need set up for that as fast as possible, and we'll let you know if we decide to go ahead with it and when we're ready." 

<Thank you.> 

And then if that's all their bases covered he and Vanyel can get in the shuttle and head north again.

Vanyel is very quiet on the (brief) flight, staring vaguely out at Valdemar whirling past below them. 

<Am I right to understand that you might have your shared dream with Leareth tonight?>

:Seems plausible. It tends to happen when I have new information, and - well, it's been one hell of a day for that: 

Nod. This one is a little closer to a human one. <It occurs to me that I could assure you under a Truth Spell that I intend to keep the terms of the proposed meeting, and you could assure him of that if you do speak.>

:Hmm. Still relies on him believing me about that, Truth Spell doesn't work in the dream, but - yes, I think that'd help: 

<We can do that now or later tonight, whatever is more convenient.>

:Might as well do it now: He casts the Truth Spell. 

<I am not planning to kill him at the meeting, unless he attacks us first. As I understand it it wouldn't do any good aside from maybe putting the person he is wearing out of their misery at someone else's expense. I want to work with him if it's possible, even though most of what I know about his goals sounds awful, because I think we can win on Earth with mages and I doubt we can win on Earth without them. My people won't act without my authorization.>

Vanyel nods. He writes down the exact words, planning to review it before he goes to sleep. :Thank you: 

Back at the Dome a different group of Andalites is practicing being human and the engineers are still trying to repair the damaged parts of their ship. Scouts report it has been quiet.

Vanyel offers to watch some of the Andalites attempt to morph into Masha with mage-sight and try to figure out what's missing, for about a candlemark before he needs to sleep. 

That sounds valuable. They'll morph Masha for him.

Vanyel opens his Othersenses, and goes into their head, the way he would to check a trainee for Gifts. Is there anything that looks like mage-channels there, even malformed ones? 

Not really. The brain has all been faithfully copied over, including the brain regions that'd interact with the channels. The channels themselves - no.

Hmm. Can they demorph and then do the morph over again, and he'll watch with mage-sight and can try to share what he's Seeing with a bystander? Morphing already involves something that looks vaguely like shoving things in and out of other planes, so they just need to figure out how to end up with a particular thing in the final plane - he can look at Masha too, alongside the creepy duplicate-Masha-but-not-Gifted, and show them 'where' her channels are. 

They want to go fetch one of the engineers who knows something about how morph works from over where he's working on the ship, but once they've done that, it sounds really valuable to know what exactly is failing to come through on a morph.

Then Vanyel will watch with mage-sight and project what he's seeing to them and hope they can make any sense at all of it. 

There is excited conversation which they don't leave Vanyel out of exactly but very few of the concepts come through at all comprehensibly.  

(Elsewhere, a note is left in the dropoff. It reads:

Leareth,

We can meet you at this location with someone capable of a Truth Spell tomorrow at noon. We have no plans to kill or capture you during the course of our conversation, unless attacked by you or your forces first. It remains our sincere desire to see whether the described obstacles to cooperation can be overcome.

War Prince Matirin-Ashal-Nelinfir)

The letter is collected (via Fetching), and checked for traps, and then read, somewhere far away. No reply is sent before nightfall, though. 

Eventually Vanyel starts yawning, excuses himself, and asks Matirin where he should sleep.