"...I have. More questions now. The first three are just 'what the fuck' three times." Lelly shakes her head. "You are probably aliens. Congratulations. I think. I guess you already knew you were aliens but now the Aurora can know it too."

"Ready to go home?" Nelen asks.

"...I guess."

A series of pops ensues and they are back where they started.

At which point after conferring briefly with Lelly and the security guard, Verret tells the aliens, "I believe you were sent to me in error because some parts of your situation weren't well-understood and I'd be happy to handle things from here but you should know that people with more foreign policy experience are also available."

"The rest of us have been looking for such people," says Nelen. "If you'd be willing to direct us that would be great. But if there's more to do here I can leave Natsuko with you."

"I mean, what I'll do is let the person you spoke to who directed you to me know that you're actually aliens, I don't know whose other business it makes the most sense to reschedule and at any rate you shouldn't just show up and surprise them. It's - going to be exactly like talking to me but with more geopolitical knowledge, there aren't the foreign kinds of diplomats here except when foreign countries send them."

"I'm not sure if we actually need the geopolitical knowledge, since there are other teams in other places."

"I didn't follow that reasoning."

"If the diplomats know things about neighboring countries, I'm not sure that's necessary, because our colleagues are already there learning directly from those other countries? I suppose there could be important context on relationships between Linver and its neighbors."

"Normally when discussing what a country might do in the future I think it's important to know what it's done in the past and what obligations it has. Is it not like that where you come from?"

"Less so, I think? Adding as much of a capabilities jump as we do tends to create something of a discontinuity. But it sounds like Linver takes its historical obligations unusually seriously."

Well, that's threatening even though at this point it basically isn't news.

"It does relative to the rest of Tey, anyway. - Apparently you can talk to someone more qualified in ten minutes."

"Oh?"

"A colleague of mine who's been working on the first contact checklist and knows a lot about global trade and other things that are probably relevant to you. If you'd like something other than incompetent fumbling."

"We'd be happy to be introduced."

"You people do talk like diplomats. Anything else you want to hear about or anything in the next ten minutes?"

"Is there anything we can do for you?"

"For me specifically or for the Aurora or Linver in general or Tey in general...?"

"You or people you know. Like, I have a very good healing spell, for example."

"I'm sure you'll have a lot of takers once you've demonstrated its safety! I'm pretty happy with my health," but he's mildly impressed with them for noticing the glass eye - oh wait no they probably just had someone conjure a duplicate of his entire body and dissect it, "but I'm curious how exactly it works - like if someone has lost a few pieces and there isn't physically room for them to grow back, is that something that happens?"

"The spell-prompted regrowth can exert a little force but not a lot but I don't think any opportunities have come up to test it in situations more complicated than people's clothes moving out of the way."

"...Sounds fun to test but I shouldn't volunteer until someone's checked that it works at all."

"Okay. Some planets what we do is we set up shops where we sell castings of that sort of spell, and also multiversal goods, in exchange for local songs and stories, but it's mostly suitable for places with a low literacy rate where we need to worry about things like that being lost forever."

"You - yes, that makes sense, and reflects a shared value. Also if I understand correctly there's a poem about that kind of attitude that I almost quoted at you but why would you know what I was talking about, and I'm literate so apparently it wouldn't even buy me anything. What do you do when you meet literate societies?"