"- does that mean you can't tell me anything I don't already know or just that you won't be able to answer most follow-up questions?"

"I just haven't ever worked with it directly.  It . . . lets some dead cats see the future?  You have to invest in it a lot to really get anywhere and I haven't at all."

"But ballpark how far in advance, say."

"I think it's getting farther out all the time but I don't know exactly where the frontier's at right now.  I think we first got inklings - that's also a good word - about this project around two years ago?  But that was, hm, I remember somebody describing it as a blossom of potential.  Not seeing specific courses that you would take but that you would do a lot of things, fragments of better maybe-futures, fragments of worse ones with other demons . . ."

"Huh. Does it get very - conditional, can they outcome-pump things if they keep changing stuff till the future looks how they want -"

"Depending on what precisely you mean, yes.  I think the forest was going to be all torn down and paved over soon and they were looking for ways to fix that?  You should obviously stop the Clans' forest from getting all torn down and paved over if that doesn't automatically happen as a consequence of you doing other things, which it probably will I think."

"...gosh. I guess if I have to I can find out who owns it and buy it off them?"

"Probably!"

"Cool. That can go on my mental to-do list to be written down when I wake up."

"Would you like to do that now?"

"Didn't you say other people wanted to talk to me too?"

"Not right now!  I didn't have specific people in mind and anyways it takes prep work to run a dream and it's hard to switch hosts during one.  What departments did you want to talk to?"

"Oh, I didn't have anybody specific in mind, I just assumed they'd swing by, I didn't realize dream architecture was complicated. What-all departments are there?"

"I have mostly been calling them departments because I think it's a fun new saying; they aren't nearly so concrete.  But the other big good group is the one where they try to make medicine work better!  Or I guess make people work better with the medicine available near them.  - That's what was up with Cinderpelt and the lidocaine, by the way.  We're just biologically different from the cats you're used to."

"I had begun to suspect! Partly because of the colorblindness but also the lidocaine. Can I get a quick summary of how that will affect things - does it mean kittypets at the vet have a bad time -"

"I'm pretty sure they're keeping everything mostly in line with this world's existing medicine, which is already very different from yours.  I don't know the details but I trust their collective competence in making things better instead of worse."

"Okay. I will try to use my copious spare time to read on local vet state of the art."

"Would it be easier to hire a vet as an assistant or consultant?  Or a cat doctor, or one of each - probably one of the apprentices; don't try and steal some Clan's main cat doctor, they won't let you."

"Also good thoughts, though I don't know if this is going to come up enough that I need to be hiring personnel about it."

"Shrug," says the linguistics ghost kitten, out loud.

Cam giggles.

"I don't think my shoulders move the right way to actually do it."  He tries; they do not.  It comes out as sort of a head dip.

"That's okay." Scritch scritch. "Anything else I should know?"

He tries again!  His shoulders sure do go up and down, although the part where this is accompanied by a tiny front-feet hop is somewhat more salient.  "Just that you're doing a very good job, and all the reasonable people up here are grateful to you."

"Aw, thank you."