"Oh, that's just tooth . . . paste.  - It's actually a powder but it's, y'know, what you use when you brush your teeth.  Um, those ones are corento and isnono, and the bigger one is morfaino.  They're, um?  Used as recreational drugs?  - The shopkeeper wrote down more detailed information about what they do, but I continue to only be thirty-four.  And uh, my parents never gave me any drugs.  So I should probably just translate it."

Kyeo writes the names down phonetically anyway.

They start on copying the sheet into Kularan.

Sarham watches over their shoulder.

From the effects, 'morfaino' sounds like it's very plausibly just morphine, or something close to it.

"Is this by any chance made from - little red flowers?"

"I don't - know things about how drugs are made??  Sorry."

"No big deal, I was just wondering if it's the same thing as morphine."

" - I could tell the word for potatoes was the same because I know what potatoes are, and I could tell that your word meant them.  But I don't think I know enough about drugs that're less common than the more popular alcohols to be able to do the same thing for them.  But it's probably telling that the words sound so similar.  - If you know the name of the flower I might know whether we have those?  I don't know a lot about flowers, but definitely more than I do about drugs."

"Poppies."

"Huh, really?  - Yes, we have those."

"Maybe it's the same thing, then - we'll have to be a little sparing with this, what with the addictive potential -" He takes Kyeo's pencil, crosses out the phonetic name, writes "morphine".

" - Elaborate on 'addictive' . . ."

"People who can't just copy not-being-addicted-to-things sometimes wind up hooked on stuff - alcohol's risky in quantity but safe in moderation, some people have problems with opiates like morphine in smaller doses, keep wanting more when the original problem's gone. There are drugs that un-addict you, back home, but I don't know what they're made from, if it's even plants in the first place."

They still seem to be having trouble with the concept.

"I can tell that it's not like - um.  Hm.  - Is food addictive?  For us, not for you; obviously you need it . . ."

"...probably not? This is a neurological thing and food doesn't act on the brain that way. - except if it has caffeine, that's a little addictive. Coffee. Chocolate a little. Not in a way that usually causes problems."

"What . . . does the neurological thing . . . do.  - Or, maybe I'll just never be able to think of directly useful questions with the amount of information I have - I can tell from the word and what you've said that it's - bad?  But I can't see how, or - in what way . . ."

"...well, if someone's addicted to morphine and is, say, allergic to the drugs that fix that, or people who were addicted before the drugs were invented, sometimes they spend all their money on more morphine and then start stealing to get more than that, and sometimes they're so focused on figuring out how to get more that they drop everything else and their life falls apart, and sometimes they need to take larger and larger doses to get the effect they're chasing and eventually that just kills them."

"You're not the worst aliens but your world is very alarming."

"Oh, and quick withdrawal without the helpful drugs causes awful symptoms."

"Are you.  Sure you want to have these at all."

"We're not going to take them unless we wind up seriously injured, and not treating pain is also a bad idea even if you ignore that it hurts. But it would be a good idea to have a general idea what the dosing's supposed to be like."

"Right.  Um."  They go back to translating the sheet.

- for about fifteen seconds, before: "Do aliens - do hugs?  And specifically I guess do your kind of aliens do them in specifically these sorts of situations.  And more specifically do either of you want one if it is."

"...we do hugs but not usually about... the existence of opiate addiction."

"Okay; just thought I'd offer."  copy copy  " - Do you do them about - um.  I just don't - think it quite hit me before, that - you're aliens, and you had lives before this, and this is all probably really new and scary for you, and - it was possible for you to get hurt before, right, but also it sounds like your society was set up for how to deal with it, and ours - definitely isn't, and.  I don't know, if it were me maybe I would want a hug about - all that, even if not about the existence of opiate addiction specifically."