"...we've met? He's not here right now? I'm not sure what the question is."

"I dunno, allied with?  Working with?  I heard he came to RiverClan with you.  Unless there's more than one talking Twoleg Twolegging about."

"Just me. He was the first cat I met, and helped introduce me to folks."

"Couldn't have asked for a better cat for it.  I would know, we were apprentices together."

"He's been very helpful!"

"So, if this thing will let Clans talk to each other, and cats can make things on it that need a secret word to be seen again, is there something that's both?"

"There is, but I just encountered some worried rumbling about computers fomenting interclan conflict..."

". . . I guess they might?  I'd expect it to go the other way."

"That's what I said, but I'm not a clan cat so I'm not sure my guess is any good, and secret messages seem like they might be disproportionately risky if this is going to come up at all."

"I'd expect it mostly if they weren't actually very secret, I think."

"Oh?"

"Well, there can only be intraClan conflict if the Clan knows about what there would be conflict over.  Mostly."

"I guess, but not knowing what's going on can make folks anxious."

"Yeah.  But sometimes they're anxious over mouse-brained things."

"Tragic that mouse-brained anxieties don't come with mouse-level ability to act on them."

"I guess?  Kind of a weird way to think about it, though."

"Oh, how would you put it?"

"I mean, I wish Leopardstar would have a little more faith in me and get off my tail some, but it's not like I want her to be, I don't know, made to do apprentice duties or something instead of being the leader.  I just wish she'd stop worrying about the things that don't need worrying over."

"Yeah, I hadn't meant mouse ability in quite that broad a fashion."

"Oh."

"I'm glad mice did not turn out to be people here."

"Me too!  That was a pretty worrying half-day."

"Huh, I hadn't gotten the impression that many cats were anxious about it especially."

"I think most cats would be pretty upset if the number of deaths-that-mattered they were responsible for went from a pawful or so to all the paws of all the cats in all the Clans.  So maybe they just didn't want to think it could be true."

"Maybe! Though it did also seem like deaths were maybe only considered to matter if they were cats."