Gosh, aliens! He quickly comes to conversational distance and is halfway out of his vehicle when he stops short, looking to the other crafter - it sounded to him like this was safe enough but she's all walled up, is he wrong?

    He's not - she's not sure it's safe, but the walker is just habit at this point, she thinks he'll be fine.

Great! Aliens! He disembarks, bringing a walking stick with an elaborately curved golden decoration on top out of the vehicle with him to lean on.

So from the letter - the other crafter wrote it, right, he doesn't want to assume - but from the letter they have kind of a lot going on, he can probably help with some of it, is anything very urgent?

Nothing is very urgent but his offer is appreciated! Does he have relevant skills of some kind or does he just want to hang out with them?

He likes crafting tricky feedstock and he knows people with lots of other skills. Also the letter said something about wanting people to visit their househive and he's very interested in that.

He is totally welcome to visit their househive if he will be able to, like, do stuff, there!

He probably will, if it's clear enough that he's welcome to! And he minds getting stuck less than most people, it won't be a huge deal if it goes kind of badly.

If he gets stuck what should they do, since they shouldn't, like, pick him up and deposit him out of the city?

He'll still be able to talk, he can tell them what's wrong? If he really can't handle it he might have to ask them to lead him out by the hand or something but that's fine if he asks for it.

Okay! If he'll still be able to do the telepathy thing that will be fine. Would he like a helicopter ride? Somebody back in the city is watching this video and has offered a helicopter ride.

He would absolutely like a helicopter ride. Do they want him to get his vehicle out of their campsite first.

It's not really in the way or anything, up to him.

-he'll move it back a bit, that seems polite. (And doesn't involve him getting back in, it turns out, just resting a hand on the cabin door and leading it beside him.)

So. They're aliens, that's super cool! What are they like, he has no idea what to expect here.

They like to live in cities, and don't have the territory thing (they have a "personal space" thing and a "privacy" but that's much less pronounced). They have castes, and love babies, and can't do any magic.

Babies are great, yeah. Subspecies are an interesting thing for aliens to have. He's very curious how they get by without crafting, that's hard to imagine.

They have better technology than crafters in most respects but it was a bit of a slog to get there, for sure.

He'll look forward to seeing that, too, then. What are the subspecies like? Can they describe what not having a territory instinct is like, or is it just not like anything much?

It's not like anything much! Sun repeats her caste explanation.

Huh. Crafters really value being as self-sufficient as they are; it's surprising the aliens seem to go the other way with that. Does it have any implications he should watch out for?

There are some subtleties but all the castes are united in being excited about space and meeting aliens! Sun doesn't expect there to be situations where what caste of person he's talking to matters and their individual job doesn't.

He's not used to peoples' jobs mattering very much either but probably he won't mess anything up too badly if they don't have any obvious warnings for him.

One thing he should know is that if he's going to come into the city he shouldn't go anywhere marked with red, that signifies places that are unclean.

Mmhmm. Do they have reason to think he needs to worry about alien disease or is this just about general principles?

They don't think anything's very likely to jump the species barrier soon, but they seem to be broadly biocompatible so it's not out of the question, and even if he couldn't catch anything, he could spread it.

So, like, be a little careful but it's not worth bothering his medic friend to come here immediately over, that makes sense.

Right. Their tech is pretty good at cleaning things and they keep good track of what might be dirty, plus nobody is allowed on a spaceship sick, so it's not a big risk to take.

Mmhmm. He's honestly not all that worried about risks - he's not going to take any blatant ones, he's got a few good years in him yet and he expects to be a great-grandfather soon and wants to meet the new generation, but on the other hand he can't pass up aliens and if it's him rather than someone younger who discovers a problem, well, that's not a bad death.