"It would be odd if we smelled identical, I guess."

"But your weirdnesses aren't at all the same."

"...okay. I don't really have any light to shed on this."

"How many cats can you take with you today?"

"All of you if you all want to come!"

"How will we get all this food, if not by hunting?  Are you going to keep us all inside somewhere?"

"I can make food out of nothing." He materializes some sashimi and hands it to the first cat who definitely wants it. "And you don't have to live in a building, though the city is in a pocket in the side of the world, so there's a ceiling over the whole thing."

"Mungojerrie said you could. But how will we get it?  Will you be all of our family?"  'Family' in this instance isn't a word that cats use for each other; it's specifically for humans.

"I can make food that will last a long time, and I can leave it somewhere convenient for you and you can go get it from there whenever you want. I'm probably not going to be around enough to be family for everybody in other capacities."

"Oh, good.  I prefer that."

"How convenient. If any of you do want family there are people around but it's currently pretty hard for you to communicate with them, that's a work in progress."

"But that's not any different from how it is already.  Unless knowing we could be communicating mucks things up."

"I don't think it will be worse but it will mean humans might be awkward about, say, petting you, since the etiquette will be unclear at first."

"What does it have to do with that?"

"...it's kind of complicated and I don't even know if everybody else will have the same intuitions I do about it. Suffice it to say that there's a few cats working on making it so anybody will be able to talk to you and vice-versa."

"Can I help too?"

"I don't see why not."

"Can we go now.  How are we going."

"Will there be a chance to come later for those who don't now?"

"I will load you into my flying vehicle and fly you there as soon as we are done with this conversation. And yes but I don't know when."

"More like a year or a moon or a day?"

"...more like a day but maybe two or three such days."

"We'll have someone always in here waiting for you, then, until you return."

"If that's not too inconvenient? I don't know how many trips you guys are going to need."

"If there's another way to make sure we don't miss you without you knowing a time now, it might be more convenient."