A long pause. 

"Then," Urtho says firmly, "how about we record this location in the charts. And then we go back, and inform him that we have found something very, very interesting." 

There is no immediate sign of their pursuers following them, at least. 

"Get us in closer," Mhalir orders. "I want us near one of the moons or planets, so we can hide behind it if we see a hyperspace jump signature." Pause. "- Oh, first. Any signs of habitation? Technology?"

Most star systems aren't inhabited, so he doubts it, but scaring a local spacefaring society would be ill-advised and it won't take that long to check.  

"No artificial work in space, no radio signals. ...one planet with water."

"And life, I'll bet you ten to one, it's going to look green. Ha, see, green."

"...Well, regardless of what brought us here, this might be worth a closer look then. Take us in behind one of the other planets, though, please. We can wait there and gather sensor data, and investigate the planet in twelve hours if - whatever that was - does not follow us." 

"All right."

Now that they're not in immediate danger she's going to be mopey about how if they die on a Void-exploration mission they might be dead forever even though there's really no point to thinking about this.

Mhalir wishes he could reassure her. If they had morph... But they don't, and Yeerk-Andalite relations on Golarion are nowhere near good enough to finagle getting it, and at this point, with their fancy headband, he plausibly could reinvent it on his own but it would take him decades and they have other things to do. 

<...Maybe at some point we ought return to Yeerk space briefly> he suggests, finally. <It is not an ideal solution, but - I had a copy of my brain made, once, using technology. It could in theory be run on a computer - not perfectly, and without a body, but - better than vanishing forever. And if I retrieve mine and make one of you as well - the scanning method causes brain cancer in humans but probably one of the kinds of magic Healing we know of could fix it - if I do that, and give the files to Aroden, I - trust him to find a way to bring us back. If we die somewhere where our souls cannot be retrieved...> 

Carissa has never contemplated the question of whether it is bringing you back if someone uses a brain scanning method to make a copy. It seems like they - wouldn't have your soul? And wouldn't have - you would still have the experience of dying and then no experiences ever again -

<...Maybe we have different intuitions about what it means to be yourself? When I thought about it, I was imagining - hmm, picture a scenario where we are attacked and struck over the head and you think we are about to die, but actually we are rescued in time and just lose the last year of our memories from the head injury. Is there a you who dies, there? - Even if there is, it seems clear there would also be a you who survives...> 

That seems different because your soul is still there.

<I suppose I spent most of my life not thinking that souls existed separate from the body at all! ...In fact, I wonder if it is even true, or if a soul would spring up and reattach as soon as the file was run? Since I did not start out in a place where souls were known to exist in any measurable way, and yet I apparently had one in Golarion...> 

She has no idea how to think about that but if it's a different soul she is not sure that counts. It might but it doesn't seem obvious.

<Hmm.> 

Mhalir isn't sure what else to add, so he leaves the matter alone and turns his attention to the incoming sensor data. 

The planet has life! Some settlements, even, mostly wood and stone not metal. They can't see what the settlement-builders look like from this distance. The magic sensors aren't noticing anything.

They can watch from here for a while. Eventually get some sleep. 

Once it's been a full twelve hours and there's no sign of the pursuing something-or-someone, Mhalir returns to the sensor screen. "If there is still no sign of satellites or other space technology, then - take us in closer, I think, we will be able to see more from orbit." 

They do that cautiously, even though there should be no magical or mundane way the locals could see them. 

The planet is mostly ocean with two continents, a little warmer than Golarion or Velgarth, inhabited along all of its coasts. Their images of the cities are slightly less blurry, now, but don't reveal much; some of the cities are quite dense for their apparent tech level. The inhabitants aren't human but they'd be, in Golarion's classification of things, humanoid; they're a bit taller and more stockily built, with less hair and odd coloration.

Still no magic detected?

....maybe not none? If they sweep the whole planet they get blips occasionally, in locations of no particular note, consistent across scans so it's not just nothing, but it's not much and it doesn't seem to be something the civilization uses; there's none of it in most of their cities.

How odd. 

"Interesting enough to spend a day or two investigating, I think," Mhalir says, cautiously. "We can prepare to send a shuttle down." 

<Carissa, what do you think? It - looks less likely we can obtain either additional magic or new technologies from this world, but - I am still curious...> 

It's still bodies that might want Yeerks. Now that she's done all this thinking about death she does not strongly want to go herself but - :I think it makes sense to check it out.:

<We can stay up here.> Mhalir is curious, but - well, he was a lot more cavalier about exploring potentially-dangerous places himself when he had morph. He really misses morph. 

Mhalir gives instructions to send a small team down with one of the shuttles, do a pass over both continents, get closer-up footage of both the cities and whatever those magic blips are, if they turn out to be anything and not just noise. 

They get video back a short while later. The cities are - varied, some of them the dense messy chaos typical of premodern cities, some in other parts of the world tidy and symmetrical and obviously the product of a much richer civilization. The magic spots are....

....nothing? This one is a canyon and this one is a meadow and this one is a forest and this one is another canyon and this one is a cave.

But they still ping the magic sensors? 

Yep.

Huh. 

<The problem> Mhalir thinks to Carissa, <is that - we are the only ones who have permanent Tongues... Can you prepare and cast Tongues temporarily on one of my staff, to go down and talk to the locals, I suppose that might work...?>