<Only a few seconds.> Pause. <Obviously I have given thought to making all of our forces here morph-capable, or at least many of them. We can discuss it as an option further if you would like.>

"...It would burn bridges with your home world. Right? That is the tradeoff here. For the Gates you could plausibly claim I discovered it on my own, there is not proof against that..." 

<Yes, that's the tradeoff. If I thought it was a significant strategic impediment to winning the war that would be more important, but - it seems somewhat unlikely to be, and it would be very hard to maintain even the thinnest veneer of plausible deniability about. But - relations with my home world are a thing we can spend, if we need to.>

“That makes sense. I think - now is not the time to spend that, but we ought perhaps make plans to do it very quickly, if - something unforeseen happens.”

He nods. <The ship has the means to do it. People could go there or we could move the means, it is portable. It takes a minute. Morphing and demorphing can treat injuries sustained already.>

Nod. “I can set up a contingency plan to have all the mages at other locations rotate on Gating back for it.” Sigh. “Only for if the situation becomes dire. Hopefully we will not need it.”

<I think that good outcomes are likely. The Yeerk infestation is proceeding, but it is not very advanced, and we have many resources that they did not anticipate. - thanks to you.>

"I am glad to be able to help. This world - has so many things on it worth fighting for." 

<I think many of my people will enjoy it here, once it is safe for us to come as tourists. - and some of them will dump all our science papers on the internet. It just won't be me.>

They acquire for Nayoki the forms to fill out in order to get a credit card. 

They map known Yeerk activity and stake out some appropriate rural roads.

Since they'll be Gating to the interview with the candidate nurse anyway he decides to attend. Having an alien present seems most useful for demonstrating that there are aliens, and also he's trying to take every human-interaction opportunity available. TV was helpful for a while but now he's at the point where he notices that people are acting and it makes it much less instructive. 

Nayoki continues to be really impressed with the television acting here; it's much more - realistic, natural, than theatre acting in Velgarth. But of course she can't interact with the people herself, or mindread them, which makes it less instructive. 

She really hopes the Canadian nurse isn't racist. Nayoki is getting so tired of American racism. It's not that she's never gotten odd looks before, but it's so relentless and repetitive here. 

Leareth's other mage does the Gate so that neither Leareth nor Nayoki will be tired. They decide to bring a Healer as well, since a medical professional might be particularly impressed by that Gift, and they're probably the best equipped to assess her actual skill. 

Nayoki leaves the hotel room to go wait downstairs for Marian to arrive. She asks Matirin to come with her. :Just in case she is racist and does not want to come in if it is just me: 

Matirin puts on the human outfits assembled from the most expensive round of human outfit shopping, that look like the clothes official humans wear on television.

He goes down with Nayoki in case the nurse is racist.

The nurse isn't racist. She only absently notices Nayoki's skin colour at all, her mind flashing to memories of a nursing colleague of hers. Mostly she is so so nervous, because she really really wants this job even though applying for jobs is awful and this one in particular has been really confusing. She's smiling but it's a tense smile. 

She looks very young. 

Nayoki smiles at her and asks "are you Marian Daly" and passes what she's reading in the nurse's thoughts to Matirin in Mindspeech. 

"Uh, yes, I'm Marian." Is this a hotel? She had just looked up the intersection it's on for the train directions. Honestly Marian has very little idea of whether doing a job interview in a hotel is normal when the company is from Alaska. Maybe it's because of the bureaucracy problem they mentioned. 

"Hello Marian! Thank you for coming. I'm Will Jones, we spoke on the phone the other day." It's a line from a TV show but not one of the really overwrought ones. He starts walking over to the elevator, confidently, like this is perfectly reasonable.

(Nervous nervous nervous butterflies in her stomach aaaaaaah) 

Marian follows him, fidgeting with the hem of her shirt. 

"So have you lived in British Columbia for a while, then?" Nayoki says, while they wait for the elevator. 

"Uh, since I was six." Where's her accent from, it's not a strong one but it's odd... "Are you from Alaska?" 

"No, Ethiopia." 

"Wow! You came a long way then." Ughhhh that's probably an awkward thing to say - is that racist - she can't tell if it is or not...

The elevator dings, thank god, standing around waiting for elevators with strangers - who are about to interview her for a job she really wants - is nerve-wracking. 

He presses the button for the eighth floor. "I hope your travel here was uneventful?"