"It's good to meet you. Was there evidence that you or your friend wish to present regarding your claim? Just since I wasn't here and didn't see you arrive."

"I think probably some people did see me arrive. Also I have tools that help me do things you can't do without them, like remembering things and getting un-hurt."

"Those sound like very useful tools," says Carey. "I certainly won't ask to test your healing but there have been a couple of people born here with perfect memories. Well, if there's nothing faster, it'd probably only take a few days to introduce you to everyone and see if they recognize you."

"I did see her arrive," Nan says, "and she offered me food I've never had before but I dunno if she has any more."

Tarinda has a few more; she pulls one out. "I can show the healing if you want."

She takes a peanut candy. "This will suffice, I think - huh, what a flavor. So, what brings you to Sathend?"

"I don't know. It happened and I didn't think it would happen."

"You are welcome in Sathend as long as your intent is peaceful. I think, for us, the best case scenario would be to open peaceful diplomatic relations and - I think a number of people would like to live somewhere else, if that's an option."

"Everybody can go live in my sky if they want and can go there!"

"That would be a tremendous relief! I think one concern we have about other worlds is the possibility that they will slowly stop having things in them, because all of the stars will burn out; is that a concern that you have?"

"...in tens of tens of tens of tens of tens of tens of tens of tens of tens of years! Maybe!"

"That sounds like an amount of time after which humanity might not be around to care what happens next."

"We'll be there! But it's a long time to think of a way to make stars."

"It's not a complicated problem for us, just a question of manpower we don't have. We could make a star now, if we had someplace to put it and nothing else needing magic for the next - I have no idea how long, unfortunately - but we don't have anywhere to put it other than your world, which doesn't need it yet, and we need quite a lot of magic as long as we want this world to continue to exist."

"Our stars might be different in my sky."

"I meant real stars - the kind that are very big and on fire - but you're not wrong that we have fake stars here."

"Oh. We have real stars and they last a long time and we can probably make new ones no magic."

"I would love to see a real star. Well, would you say a good first priority here would be figuring out if we can aim for your world and send you back with a diplomatic party?"

"Yes! Or bring something from my world here. Or make a computer. Whichever of the things is fastest."

"Can you tell me more about that third one?"

"My tool that helps me remember is a computer!" (Page is feeding her sign language from home as necessary, whatever seems unlikely to be parking on existing cheremes.) "It is a machine that can learn and do numbers things and I can put learning on it from my computer to make it better."

"And making more of these is... an alternative to you going home?"

"It will help me get home. So, whatever is fastest."

"Can you explain how it would do that?"

"It's very smart."

"...Uh-huh. Well, I don't think anyone here knows how to make that. I'd offer to let the mages know about you but you've already met the one who organizes scouting parties so I don't think there's anything else I need to do on that front. Hm, what else - have you already been shown a map and told which parts of which plants you can eat?"