"Psychiatric?"

“Healthcare or medicine or other services for minds that aren’t working as they would prefer.”

Nuta makes a face. She presents her pocket everything.

Nuwalati peers at it with sharp interest and pokes around it a bit.

”... fascinating. The message we received said that you had teleported - suddenly appeared - into a random house, by accident, and that you then claimed to be from another planet called Amenta. Can you tell me more about Amenta, please?”

"Amenta is around a different fireball," says Nuta. "Amentan hair is not black and not brown. Amenta maybe has narrow times of going around fireball."

“I see. Is all Amentan hair bright orange?”

"No. Some blue some purple some green some yellow some gray some -" She waves a hand, pretending to have forgotten the word for red.

“Mmhm. - I think that your device is sufficient evidence to forward this case to someone more important, and I will make arrangements accordingly. In the meanwhile I would like to collect more information to forward them. Can you elaborate on any other differences you’ve noticed?”

"Six-shapes, not four-shapes," she says, "cold water for washing hands, forests, big house many people not in this tall building place."

“- your rural areas have smaller houses and fewer forests?”

"Yes."

“Do people typically live with their romantic partners? Are rural areas usually resident to the unattached?”

"Usually with their partners and children. Rural areas are for farmers? Who need space to grow food."

“- at what age do children live with the people who produced them?”

"...till they grow up? Or even till they get married. Sometimes longer."

“... thank you for clarifying. Rural areas, here, are not mostly occupied by farmers, and children live in creches until the age of eight, and afterwards mingle with the general population. Most people find children below that age interesting from a distance and unpleasant to interact with for prolonged periods, and some fail to tolerate even short periods. How would you describe the attitude of most people on Amenta towards children?”

Nuta needs to have several of those words defined, including ones she's used herself correctly before, because she can't believe she's possibly hearing right.

Nuwalati patiently defines assorted vocabulary.

"You don't like children????"

“They’re sometimes charming, over video? I would not want to live with one, or touch something one of them had touched.”

Nuta can't even respond right away to that. Her jaw has kind of dropped. "How are you alive? Why do you have them if you don't like them?" she manages eventually.

Nuwalati remains inscrutably professional.

“It increases your government stipend, knowing that you’ve had children is abstractly very fulfilling, meeting them later can be very interesting, pregnancy can be very interesting, and it’s a natural result of sex without certain inconveniences.”

Nuta is still fairly boggled.

"Amentans -" She does not have strong enough vocabulary. "Amentans like children! Much much much!"

“It makes sense that some species would, under conditions of lower childhood mortality and childborne disease, or because of more fundamental divergences.”

"We thought other fireball people would like children!"