Hmm - depends on how much cargo a helicopter can take and how many people they bring - he has a low-material one-person design but that's still a decent amount if they're going to want half a dozen of them.

Helicopters can be pretty big, and they have some big ones here, and they'd like to bring several geneticists at least to talk to goosewing.

Well, he can pull his mini out of storage and refresh his memory on exactly how much material it takes and get back to them. - do they have a source of crafting-material yet?

Feedstock or the actual converted material? They do not have the latter.

The converted stuff - converting feedstock is much slower than crafting things from crafting-material that already exists, you want to be in a safe comfy place to do it if you can be. He can convert some feedstock or try to get it from the locals for them if they have something to trade.

Amentans can trade basically anything he has seen available for sale. And services, though those will be more complicated, probably the locals don't want to hire prostitutes or guards or - well, they might want tutors? -

...?

(He's blushing to the tips of his ears, all of a sudden.)

...tutors maybe, yeah? And objects, he can ask around about them.

Tutors and... landscape designers or do they like to do that all themselves? Art or music commissions, musical instruments? Exotic Amentan foods, maybe.

Landscape design might actually work, yeah, crafters like their territories to look nice but not everyone has very good design sense that way, they already hire each other for it sometimes. He could see some crafters hiring someone to help with fine-tuning their personal aesthetic or how their buildings look, too. Musical instruments probably, art and music commissions maybe - he's not sure how they're imagining a music commission to work but he could see a community coming together to pay for a concert if they knew they liked the style. Food definitely, once they're sure it's safe; hard-to-get food is the most common thing traded within crafter communities. Inventors, maybe, once the aliens know more about the abilities and limitations of crafting; getting a specific idea for a new variant of something working is another thing crafters hire each other for sometimes. And it seems like they're better at transportation, in the long run they can maybe do something with that.

The Amentans are really looking forward to a bustling trade here! Trade is the bedrock of civilization.

Crafters might well disagree with that, he sends, amused. But it doesn't seem likely to be a problem.

What do crafters consider the bedrock of civilization?

Being good to each other? Everyone having what they need? He expects that's the answer that would shake out, anyway, it's not exactly something they talk about much. But he does expect, like - if they needed to go talk to goosewing now, if the couple weeks it'd take him to make them crafting material for it was really going to cause a problem for them, he's sure he could go to the locals and explain the situation and get crafting material from them for it, with no trade necessary, even with the locals shy of them. Because people having the things they need is the way the world should be, and crafters in general will put their surplus towards that when it comes up, if it'll help. Not that they can't cross a line that exempts them from that - it might well not have worked a week ago - but it takes a lot.

That's very lovely, he'll have to think how to put it into words and write it down as a quote.

Sounds good. He'd be interested to see it.

It'll wind up on the internet for sure.

What else would traveler like to see here?

Hm, well, he wants to sketch their architecture, like he said, and he's curious what the city looks like at night, but he doesn't think he wants to stay that late today. He kind of wants to people-watch? He expects he'll pick up some interesting insights that way. If they have feedstock for him he can do some conversion while he's doing it.

Okay! There's a construction site over this way and he can take chunks of excavated dirt and rock that haven't been carted away yet and sit on this bench nearby and people-watch and draw.

He crafts up a spindly-legged push-cart to put a modestly-sized boulder on, after a bit of negotiation about which boulder, and sits where he's told, first sketching the skyscrapers and then getting started on the rock while he watches the crowd.

The blue sits with him, peering at the drawing occasionally but mostly doing stuff on his pocket everything.

He's not a proper artist by any means, and mostly just wants to capture the sheer scale of the buildings; it takes him a couple of tries to find an approach that does the job, but he eventually finds something he's satisfied with and fills it out with renditions of the different textures of the buildings.

Converting the rock is relatively slow, producing a fist-sized amount of crafting-material every five minutes or so, but doesn't seem to take much of his attention, leaving plenty for watching the crowd and occasionally waving back or sending a little crafting-material bubble floating through the air for a particularly charming child.

The child, a little yellow, runs after it and tries to catch it in his little hands!

It's sturdy enough to be held after it's caught, if he's gentle, and very wobbly, more so than a soap bubble; it's a little darker than a soap bubble, too, in traveler's signature indigo iridescence.

Wobble wobble wobble squish pop yelp!

This leaves a thin film on his hands that's smooth and easy to rub off, more inclined to stick to itself than to his skin. Traveler sends another one floating his way.