A yet-newer invitee with a gravity-defying hairstyle passes them on her exit from the hallway.  ". . . Hello there."

"Hi, nice to meet you! I'm Cam."

"Mutual; Sydney.  Pleased to be one of your k - "

"Don't call it kidnapping," interrupts the other woman and one of the boys from down the corridor.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Also the rest of us are Sam, Silas, Simon, and Sadie."

"How alliterative. Is that a birthday thing?"

"Yes, but zz names are more common than ss ones in places that don't speak Latin."

"Huh, interesting. I don't think S is an uncommon sound crosslinguistically but I don't speak most local languages."

"I think it's something like three-eighths of us globally.  Assuming you include the ones which don't directly start with the relevant sound; it might be different for strict initials."

"Anyway, how many of you should I be expecting, or is this the lot?"

"We might be it but I'm not certain."

"Okay, well, if you might be it you can start loading your stuff on the shuttle at your leisure, I suppose."

"Thank you kindly."  The two packed ones lug their bags outside.

The Felicity still in the room with Cam giggles when they reach the shuttle.  "I guess the 'multibodied assistant' part hadn't made its way to them."

"Are they charmingly enthralled?"

"Oh, at least one of those."

Snort.

" - Now they're discussing whether the two or the five of them and possibly some other people should merge up now that resurrection is possible; how do you want me to respond to that."

"I'd rather they didn't? I have this huge backlog."

"You certainly do."

"Did I hear resurrection is possible?" calls either Simon or Silas, looking significantly more wakeful as he sock-slides to the lounge.

"Yes but I have a huge backlog please do nothing rash!"

"It's not like I want to die just for fun!  - Unless there are other - not that I would, now that you've asked - "

"You can always get around to it later. Just not soon please."