After meeting all the important people, Vanyel is back hiding in his apartment, making notes for himself for the talk. 

Matirin stops in with the fanciest dinner it was possible to scrounge up in Skytree, which is fairly fancy because now lots of Andalites have mouths sometimes and an interest in food, though their judgment on flavor profiles is very questionable.

Vanyel is very intrigued about the food! He didn't realize interesting restaurant food was a thing here yet; he's become quite a fan of fancy restaurants on Earth, mostly because Mardic and Donni and Nayoki all are and they keep dragging him out for dinners with them. 

:Matirin: Yfandes nods to him and goes on eating the grass floor. 

<How are you finding everything so far?> he asks both of them.

"It's - kind of a lot, but the city is pretty and everyone's been very friendly so far." 

:I like this apartment. A lot of buildings back in Velgarth don't really fit Companions, I appreciate getting to sleep next to my Chosen: 

<It is very strange to me that they build everything so narrow in Valdemar! Maybe it is because they are jealous of people with a sensible number of legs and don't want to be reminded all the time.>

:Heh! I think it's not that, probably, just that building is expensive and most of the Palace is really old. And previous to that there were horses, which weren't people and lived in separate stables, so I guess that stuck as a practice?: 

Vanyel is cautiously sampling the food. 

The Andalites have apparently tried to replicate sushi, only with a lot of barbecue sauce and mint and cayenne pepper dumped on top for no real reason.

This is certainly not the flavour mix Vanyel was expecting to be putting in his mouth! He scrapes off some of the cayenne pepper, overly-spicy food makes his eyes water in an irritating way, but he finds the mint and barbecue sauce actually make an intriguing combination.

:Anything in particular I should know for preparing for my talk?: he asks Matirin. Mindspeech is very convenient when one's mouth is full. 

<I don't think so but I can give you general context on the university and on what they know about Velgarth so far.> And while doing this he can also explain about how they think Alloran might mention that Velgarth is low-tech and they want to head that off if possible.

:Right, that makes sense. I - can probably slip in that most of our 'tech' isn't obviously visible to people without Gifts? The Web, for example, the focus is right there in the Palace but it'd be invisible to Alloran: And maybe he won't mention that they have, like, ten mages right now. Probably no one will ask? They know Leareth has hundreds. 

<Yes, that seems like a good thing to mention. And - I am probably going to vaguely imply that many people on Velgarth prefer a low-visible-tech lifestyle, which will not be surprising to Andalites because most Andalites do too, and it would be useful if you didn't actively contradict that.>

:Sure, I can avoid contradicting it: Vanyel accidentally gets a chunk of cayenne pepper and starts coughing. He reaches for his water. :It's sort of annoying to have to do all this misdirection, though. I hope it won't be forever: 

<I hope not as well. But I think Andalites will need some time to come around to - it ever being a good idea to grant a new species access to the galaxy, and it'd distress them to learn that they did that in this case.>

:That makes sense. And I suppose there'll be less to hide, eventually, once we have the satellites and more local tech: Pause. He frowns. :...Assuming the gods don't interfere about it: 

<The satellites I am hoping will be hard for them to interfere with. But - yes. If they do interfere maybe we'll do something about it. I think it is a terrible thing to prevent scientific progress.>

:I'm sure Leareth agrees with that very hard: Sigh. :All right, I'd better get back to making my notes. Thank you for getting me some context: 

<Of course. Thank you.>

He heads back to Leareth's to spend the night. <There are also herds by floor of the building, if you want to sleep in one of those.>

:Hmm. I think I would like that eventually, but maybe not tonight, I do not really know any of the Andalites here yet and so it would feel - odd, having the Andalite-instinct of safety there when it is not...yet based in anything real. If that makes sense: Leareth heads over and leans up against Matirin. :I am glad you are here, though: 

Lean. <I am glad I am here. Thank you for thinking of inviting Vanyel to give that talk, I think it'll be helpful.>

:I hope so: Leareth stretches out his tail to coil around Matirin's. :I am curious if the Andalites will actually end up interested in sharing that technique. Your tech can do much of what our wards do, but I am unsure if it fills all the exact same functions: 

<Well if nothing else we don't have any surveillance for magic at all right now, except the bits that incidentally look like something else. I would expect we'll adopt ways to do it.>