"It's perfect," Kyeo assures him. "I might need to be taught how to use the kitchen things."

"Sure." And they explain how to turn the stove and oven on and off and set the temperature and when things are hot but don't look like it, and that this part of the fridge is the fridge and this part is the freezer, and how to control the microwave and why you should never put metal in it, and that all of these things will beep if they seem to have been left in a dangerous or energy-wasting state. Also while they're at it here's how to work all the bathroom appliances, since spaceships might do funny things with plumbing.

Spaceships do do different things with plumbing. He is attentive to all the instruction.

Tazz will not get derailed asking or speculating about how they do things in the future. Okay, maybe once.

Once everything is explained: "We can go shopping next, or discuss what kind of job or education you want, but also there's something I want to make clear. I'm getting the sense that your time is very different from ours in a way you don't seem to want to talk about. And I want to make it clear that I've sworn not to reveal anything I learn about you in the course of your job without permission. So if you want to talk about whatever it is with someone, but don't want everyone to know, I'm an option. Or I can shut up and stop asking. It's up to you."

"- hm? Is there something you'd like to know?"

"Why you don't ask questions about things that aren't right in front of you. Or answer questions more than minimally. Or speculate about things. Or talk about your favorite interests. It's like you're trying to hide that you're trying to hide something by emitting as little information as possible. If it's a secret you don't want to tell me then of course I will not cause problems for you because of it, but, well, it looks unpleasant, hiding everything like that, and I thought you might want to stop."

"...I think perhaps our cultures are very different and it will take me time to get used to - different politeness standards."

"That makes sense. If you tell me what you've noticed is different I can try to meet you in the middle?"

"...you're more talkative than I'm used to. It doesn't bother me."

"Do people not--sorry. Education and employment planning, or food and housewares?"

"Education and employment planning first, please."

"Okay. Would you prefer a job similar to what you were doing before, or something new?"

"I don't know where I will be most useful here yet. Do you have recommendations?"

"The Coast Guard and the Forest Service both sound similar to what you did and involve a minimum of talking to people. You could go into cleaning, that's pretty solitary and pays well, but of course it involves dealing with unclean things and plenty of people don't want that even with good protective equipment . . . What would you say are your skills, I don't want to fail to suggest something because I don't realize you'd be good at it."

"I was trained from pretty early for going into the shipboard military. I'm... not especially bothered by unclean things?"

"I know you weren't an engineer, but if you can remember anything that goes into building spaceships, even just the children's description of the principles they run on, you can make tons of patent money. And if you're on the low end of sensitivity to uncleanness you can make a lot as a janitor or a sanitation worker. Or you could train into something completely different; I can set you up with placement tests for how easy it's likely to be for you to learn any given thing if you don't know."

"I can take tests if that's standard. Would I just tell you now how ships are explained to children?"

"Sure! I can help you write it up for the research sites and find physicists or engineers to turn it into a working model."

"I was told that due to - the shapes gravity makes in the texture of space, which I'm afraid I don't understand any better now than when I was younger - some places are close to places that are otherwise far away, like if you had two shirts and hung them flat and apart from each other but then poked each one -" He mimes bringing his forefingers together with imaginary shirts between. And that scientists can find where those places are and what they are close to, and -" he's getting a little hoarse - "design ships to go between. They have to turn off their artificial gravity."

Tazz writes this all down on their handcomp. "I'm not a physicist but I bet one could get somewhere awesome with that! Also, wow, artificial gravity! Want to make a bunch of prediction market bets before we tell any physics forums?"

"If... that is how things are done here... then I will learn how."

"You don't have to, but it's easy money."

"I will probably become more accustomed to money eventually."

"That or the economists will figure out how you don't need it!"

They show him a couple prediction market websites; the prices are the same on all of them, of course, but the UIs are different. A lot of the fundamental physics ones have really long maturity times, but "No major updates to the Standard Model in the next year" is trading at two cents. "So you can X-times-50 any money you want to put in!"

"...I don't know if it will take less than a year."