Sounds like a plan! Savil will repeat some polite diplomatic pleasantries by rote, and walk them back to the shiny metal flying-machine-thing still hanging out on the Palace lawn by the river. 

Is this an okay place for it? They can move it but it does need a fair bit of space.

Savil thinks here is fine? 

Okay! Back into their ship they go. They write up a summary report of how everything went.

And then they get informed of how the other delegations are doing and OH YIKES the people in Karse set their counterparts on FIRE that's not how you treat visiting diplomatic teams AT ALL. Two people have already died of their injuries and the rest of them are receiving emergency attention in orbit from the mothership's doctor.

If they're going to conveniently stay on the Palace grounds within range then Taver will definitely keep reading their minds! 

He is alarmed and concerned by the news they're getting about Karse, and immediately relays it to his Chosen and to all the other Companions in Haven. 

...Is she a horrible person for feeling like this probably works in Valdemar's favour? 

:We should maybe push them a bit on getting help with the war: Savil suggests. :Since I can't imagine their impression of Karse is very positive, right now. And - it'd be very good to get Van off the Border - he's been out there practically alone for months now: 

Tantras can't disagree with that! 

:I think we'd better call a meeting with the Senior Circle and, er, talk all of this over: 

While the Heralds set up their meeting, and then try to lay out an agenda and figure out where to even start, Taver keeps reading all the Amentans' minds. 

He has such an uncomfortable feeling about all of this! And nothing concrete to pin it to yet! 

They're really upset about the Karse thing! Apparently returning the books to Petras went fine and if things don't work out really well here they might send proper diplomats there even though they don't have a war in progress to be opportunistically alliancey about. Things seem to tentatively be working out here, though. And there is SO much empty space, they could fit like four cities in empty bits of Valdemar alone if they can eat the local food and get the local farms up to efficiency and then they have a stronger negotiating position for moving into other empty space. Empty space empty space empty space BABIES. The people aboard the ship are actually mostly already too old to have babies but the purple isn't and it's very much on his mind that BABIES. Anyway, Mission Control has authorized the blue to invite Valdemarans to look inside the ship if they want, and to show them pictures of Amenta, and to inquire very delicately into the existing state of population control, since this is definitely a High Infant Mortality tech level and they're going to fix that.

....Huh. Fascinating. They sure do spend a surprisingly high percentage of their time thinking about babies. 

Taver keeps relaying his observations, though just to Tran, who can take notes and then update the rest of the Heralds when it's a good moment for it. 

"I want to get Vanyel back in Haven," Randi is saying. "He - he'd be good at this. And he'd - want to be here, for it." 

Savil also would really like to get her nephew off the goddamned Karsite border! 

"Right. So we'd better push them on help with the war, then." 

"I'm not really sure what it'd even make sense to ask for? They don't have mages." 

"I mean, they'll definitely have non-magical weapons! They're incredible at artificing. We'd have to ask for details - and I don't know if they could send their own people, so they might have to tell our people what to do with their devices - but I'm sure they can manage something." 

The room falls silent for a while. 

"...I can't be the only one," Randi says finally, quietly, "who's - noticed that it seems like our Companions aren't happy about this." 

"No. You're not the only one." 

Savil scowls. "I'm not sure I like it either. They're...strange. I don't think we properly understand what they want, yet. And, like Kilchas pointed out, whether or not they have magic they're incredibly powerful." 

"Do we, er, know anything more about what happened to their planet? Why they're looking for a new place to live?" 

"- Oh. Right." Tran picks at his thumbnail. "We've - got a guess. Taver says they seem to be - really really obsessed with having children. Thinking about it a LOT. We haven't confirmed yet that they didn't have some sort of devastating war that destroyed their original world or something, but...could just be that they want more land so they can afford to have more kids?" 

"....Aww. That's - kind of sweet, actually?" 

"Well, except for the part where it's our country they want to move into! And - I mean, could we actually stop them, if they decide they're not happy with how much we're willing to offer?" 

“I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves here!” Randi takes a deep breath. Pinches the bridge of his nose. “Why don’t we ask them about help with the war, next - we can say it’ll free up more of our experts on magic so we can share our knowledge with them, which is true, Vanyel’s the one with all the Gifts. And then we can just…let them take the lead a bit? See if they show us more of what they want.”

“At some point they’ll probably piece together that we could be reading their minds.”

“And so? It’s not as though they could do anything about it.”