How convenient. 

They want to come up with a schedule for Leareth's stay so they know who to have where when, can they set up some times for discussing the war and some times for working out the tech-sharing agreement and some time for sightseeing, if he'd like that?

That's an excellent idea and Leareth is happy to discuss scheduling next. 

:...Matirin, did you already inform them what humans require in terms of food and sleeping accommodations?: he checks. 

<I didl The fabricators turned out some artificial skin and blankets that seemed satisfactory to me and food has been acquired with considerably more difficulty than that and I have aspired to underschedule rather than overschedule you in case we need some time to secretly conspire.>

:Excellent: A surge of warmth in his mindvoice. 

Leareth works out a schedule for the next while, and asks about food once he's noticeably hungry, and then pleads tiredness at a point when he definitely could keep going but has kind of had enough of being very careful while talking to aliens. He asks Matirin for directions to his sleeping accommodations. Not that he's tired enough to sleep quite yet, but sightseeing can wait until a day that he didn't start with a ridiculously long-range interworld Gate. 

They have set aside a top-floor apartment with an absurdly high ceiling and views from all four directions. It has - furniture, as obviously invented by people without material scarcity but also without much of a concept of humans. There is a bedframe three feet off the ground and made of some extremely intricate geometrically-patterned plastic that doesn't look remotely thick enough to support the weight of the mattress atop it, which is much taller than any Earth mattress to the overall effect the bed is sort of hard to get up onto. There are twelve neatly folded blankets in different textures. There are vases with flowers, both native ones and scrupulous replicas of Earth ones, on most flat surfaces, including some of the floor. There are six chairs, each of them in different materials and styles, placed in various corners of the enormous room. The floor is grass, but with a very nice rug over it.

Leareth stands at the entrance to his room and chuckles for a while. 

:It is very thoughtful: he says eventually, heading over to touch all the blankets and check which texture he likes most. 

<I showed them some Earth television but the materials science is hard to infer just from that! They wanted to put in an entirely decorative kitchen since all the houses on Earth television have it but I said that if they were going to be bringing meals then there was not any need.>

Some of the blankets are extraordinarily soft and fluffy and some are like Andalite fur and some are like Earth blankets and some are a little beyond description.

:Thank you: It's all very adorable, Leareth thinks, selecting a furry blanket and then attempting to boost himself up onto the bed and checking its comfortableness. 

The mattress is not actively lumpy or pokey though it's obviously a mattress made by people not 100% clear on what mattress desiderata are; it's unusually firm and it conveys movement across the whole surface much more than you want a bed to do that.

Well, he's pretty sure he can manage to sleep on it, which is the important part. 

:I think that was a reasonably good start: he says to Matirin. :Though I definitely find this kind of work more tiring than talking to Cayaldwin about morph research all day:

<I appreciate you doing it anyway. It's much easier to sell the things we want as concessions to you. As I said, I don't think this will be very difficult. Our people are mostly decent and reasonable people who really want the war to be over and who - endorse wanting good things for the Yeerks even if they're mostly terrified of them and believe them to be inevitably inclined to enslave people at the first opening.>

:I can understand that. And they did all seem like decent people, trying hard to do the reasonable things. I liked them. Especially the researchers, talking to them is enjoyable in itself: 

Matirin - misses his father, suddenly. He doesn't usually do that and lately when he does it comes with more complicated emotions than it used to. He tail-nods. <I should let you rest.>

Leareth nods. :I will see you tomorrow: 

He heads out.

Leareth rolls around a bit on his weird bed, then collects one of the absurdly fluffy blankets as well and cocoons himself and settles in. He puts some wards on the room before attempting sleep. 

He feels a very, very long way from known territory, but - mostly safe. Also very tired, and sleep comes easily enough. 

In the morning he obtains food, which is adequate, and follows his schedule. 

The scheduled week of activities proceeds mostly as planned and is not very hard to manage, when you have the advantage of being able to read everybody's thoughts. 

Andalites (well, Andalite top politicians and scientists who Matirin set up to meet with Leareth) are - more careful than humans to have consensus when they speak, disinclined to admit any errors but accordingly in a hurry not to make any, and overwhelmingly overridingly glad that the war will be over. Almost every single one of them has lost a brother or a father or a son to it, and they hate the Yeerks, and they're so very tired.

Leareth wonders if they realize he's reading most of their thoughts much of the time. They know Thoughtsensing is a Velgarth capability, one of the key advantages that led to their victory on Earth, but it's less clear that they've put the consequences together. They don't seem either very self-conscious or to be trying to hide things in their own minds. 

It's not hard to be very, very sympathetic to them about the war and its cost. Leareth understands that cost. (It's one he's chosen to pay, willingly, more than once, and would have chosen again if not for a third option appearing, but nonetheless.) It's also not hard to be very impressive, even when he's avoiding visible morphing. 

:I miss Andalite eyesight: he complains to Matirin at one point. He's apparently used to it enough that he feels itchy in open spaces; he copes by morphing himself-with-Farsight and using that, but his human brain doesn't have the sensory cortex for it so it's more disorienting. :And tail-sparring. I look forward to being back on Earth again when I can morph Andalite as often as I wish: 

Matirin feels very warmly about Leareth in Andalite form, and it leaks through. <I am terribly sorry. It's one of the more awkward features of the whole situation and - they don't want to say I was wrong to do it, but they also surely don't want to say I was right, so better not to talk about it. You can insist that the tech-sharing agreement include morph for some of your researchers so that they can assist with improving it, and after that it'll be no problem if you want to morph around them - might be diplomatically helpful, even. We Andalites derive a great deal of satisfaction from having the best body plan we've seen anywhere in the galaxy.>

:It is a very good body plan! The only advantages of the human form, so far as I can tell, are fitting into smaller spaces, being able to climb things, and the endurance for repeated morphing. And it is very true that if I could give more of my researchers morph, we could make faster progress on various elements of this, especially Cayaldwin's work on the multiple tethers and the time limit: He's brought it up already but can do so more emphatically. 

<Mouths! You forgot mouths! Humans can experience pleasures unimagined by Andalites. But most of those benefits can be accessed just by morphing them, so I think we still come out ahead.>

:Well, except that I can morph four times as often as most Andalites: Leareth's tone is teasing. 

He slumps his tail to the floor in mock-defeat. <You win. Humans who can morph Andalite all the time have the best body plan. But they do morph Andalite all the time.>

:- Fair, I do spend at least half my time on Earth in Andalite morph: Sigh. :I am going to get out of practice with tail-sparring, I was finally starting to be tolerable at it: