<I - really appreciate having more context on it. I know he's been very stressed, these last couple of weeks, and - repeatedly infested with a Yeerk, that'd be awful for anybody ->

:It's been such a bad few weeks. Also the alternate-universe younger version of him who's a Yeerk enslaved a ton of people, he's probably upset about that: 

<He has mentioned that it bothered him, yes. I think Mhalir is also really scared and unhappy, though less huggy about it.>

:Pfft. He's a Yeerk: Yfandes scuffs her hooves on the floor. :Anyway, that's all I'd wanted to talk about: 

<I appreciate it. I will try to pay more attention to it when he comes back.>

:Thank you: Yfandes has no idea if that accomplished anything. It - would probably be fine either way? Leareth is a grownup. (The most grownup person out of any of them, by some metrics.) He can look out for himself. Right? 

...He seems like he must be so lonely, though, even if he barely shows it most of the time. 

Matirin passes along to Vanyel the communications they're getting that are curiosity about Velgarth rather than about Andalites. People want to know if they can be magic, and if it's heritable, and what sorts of things magic can do, and whether there's been a scientific study of its properties, and what Valdemar is like, and what he thinks about Communism, and school prayer, and gang crime, and Roe vs Wade, and have they heard the good news of Jesus Christ on Velgarth.

Wow that's a lot of questions! Vanyel does his best to write up answers. 

Gifts are heritable in Velgarth but he doesn't think anyone on Earth has Gifts even in potential, he's checked a lot of people. These are all the kinds of Gifts, most of them do one or two things except mage-gift which does a lot of things as long as you know the technique for it. There's been some study of it but their scientific method isn't quite as far advanced as on Earth. (Though Leareth knows a lot.) Valdemar has a population of half a million and is run by Heralds, who are people Chosen by magic intelligent horses, usually people with Gifts, and also by a Council of hereditary nobility; Valdemar's tech level is much lower than present-day Earth and their economy primary agrarian, although having magic adds some differences from comparable tech-level periods of Earth's history. 

He doesn't have much opinion on Communism, it sounds complicated and like he should read more first? School prayer sounds - fine - but does Earth even have gods, they don't seem very interfere-y the way Velgarth gods are. They have not heard the good news of Jesus Christ and now he's kind of curious (but mostly tired, there are already enough things.)

He has to look up Roe vs Wade, and...wow that seems really complicated, but, shrug, Thoughtsensers can confirm that embryos are undetectable before five or six weeks (and no thoughts or emotions to speak of for months after, just something-there-at all). In Velgarth no one gets very worked up about Healers doing abortions, in the places that have Healers to do this (which he admits doesn't include much of Valdemar's rural population), though of course it's really upsetting if it's because the mother is too ill or the child too deformed to survive birth and the parents wanted the child badly. He's confused that Earth seems to have such strong contrary opinions on this topic. 

Earth has ONE god who is the creator of the world and of humans and he died for them to save them from eternal torment and they need to tell everybody in Velgarth about this, it's very urgent.

(Earth has ONE god but those other people are entirely wrong about everything about him except the fact that he died to save them and that they need to tell everybody in Velgarth about this.)

(Earth has ONE god who is also three gods, it's complicated, and -)

<My recommendation is to not argue with the humans about religion> Matirin says. <Our intelligence report says that there do not seem to be any extraordinarily powerful entities who consider Earth their primary domain of concern though it's entirely plausible that someone made a run of it a couple thousand years ago and then died or wandered off.>

"Honestly I'm not a fan of arguing with people on Velgarth about religion either." Sigh. He decides to give his best brush-off answers to any religious questions in future; he does write back and specify that Velgarth has lots of gods who have pretty much all the territory divvied up already. 

Elsewhere in z-space, the next day Leareth can try morphing for Cayaldwin some more and boosting him to various other planes for a view. 

He thinks he's piecing together what he needs to do and it requires an adjustment to how morph works, but a perfectly stable and workable adjustment. After two runs he immerses himself in his dimensional diagrams and tells Leareth to go away.

Leareth goes away. He tries his tiny half-Gate again, checking if the ship is reachable now. 

Not yet.

He'll go back to updating notes and doing some of his accumulated background reading on Earth; he's not sure he can usefully making progress on any further contingency-plans and it's not like he can inform his people on Earth of new orders anyway. 

It takes Cayaldwin a full two days more, and a couple occasions of asking Leareth to morph something for him while he watches from a different vantage point. But then he canters over looking very pleased with himself. <I think I have the adjustment. I want to try giving the altered morph setup to someone more expendable first but I can do it for you assuming it works fine for them.>

"Incredible." Leareth lights up. "Good work. They can acquire a Healer-Thoughtsenser to morph first as a test, neither of those Gifts is very dangerous even untrained."

Mage-gift is bad enough; someone morphing Nayoki and throwing around her powers without any control sounds very awkward, even though more Nayokis would in general be great. Maybe they all have to morph Yeerks and infest her first to get the procedural memory... He's getting ahead of himself. Check if it works first. 

He gets an Andalite volunteer and they acquire a Healer-Thoughtsenser and then try it. 

The Andalite reforms shakily into an imitation of the Healer-Thoughtsenser. <How do I tell if it worked.>

The Healer-Thoughtsenser in question gives a description of what it feels like to them to try to unshield and open Thoughtsensing. 

"I can check if we got the channels this time," Leareth suggests. 

Leareth can check that and the Andalite can try to unshield and open their Thoughtsensing.

Leareth reaches into his mage-sight and then peers past their head, at the non-physical space nearby where, if it worked, there should be channels recognizable as the right shape for Thoughtsensing and Healing. 

There are lots of minds nearby for the morphed Andalite to read although many are shielded and will just show up as a glow of something-present. (Leareth can shield out even that, if he's trying, but it makes him impossible for other Mindspeakers to find so he only does it under battle conditions.) 

It worked! He has figured out how to reach for it and mindread people but he's trying to mostly not do that because it'd be pretty rude. 

Cayaldwin is bouncing back and forth across the grass in triumphant glee.

Cayaldwin SHOULD be! Leareth is really impressed. 

The Andalites should acquire some mages too - Leareth doesn't have the strongest Gift here, but he's not sure whether different morphed bodies will come with different amounts of procedural memory, and he is the most skilled. Also it seems useful for them to acquire Nayoki but he's especially worried about practicing safely with her Gifts. 

It's actually possible with experience to do a composite morph, like what they did to get generic-looking humans who were not any specific human, and it ought to be possible to do a composite morph of all of the Gifts you've acquired morphs for and then have ALL THE GIFTS. Maybe they can start by seeing if they can morph their normal generic human forms but Gifted. 

(This is hard, and no one gets it right away.)