The council thinks that is sure weird. Was the one who looks like Isel recognized in Miolee? (The ambassador asks. Yes she was, they didn't think anything of it.) Did anyone recognize the one who looks like Makel, internationally famous pop star? (A soldier blogged about it!)

"One alone is just weird, not exceptionally noteworthy. I noticed Matirin before and thought I must just have a fairly generic face. It's all of them together which - why lie about how their shapeshifting works, and in a way we'd definitely notice - what is happening when they touch people - they looked like us even when they just had Evaleen reds as source material?"

And then, frowning more, "Matirin. Macarath. Talik. Corbron. Cayaldwin. Ajorod. Ajoril. My brothers are Makel, Telkam, Kantil, Kefin, Amlas, Amel. Same starting sounds, sometimes a shared syllable -"

"Should we ask them? Nothing happened to the Mioleen person who mentioned the resemblance to Isel..."

"They're telepathic, why do their names even have sounds?"

" - ask Matirin if he has siblings."

The military blue conveys to the other military blue and she says, "So with the reduced drive to have children I'd imagine you'd tend to have smaller families than the sort of people here who can afford a lot of child credits - do you have siblings?"

<Oh, my parents were an exception, had seven. Two before the restrictions were lifted and then five more afterwards. If most Andalites were like them we'd have perhaps encountered some of the difficulties you encounter here.>

"Brothers or sisters or a mix?"

<All brothers.>

"Goodness. Were you before or after they took off the restrictions?"

<I am the eldest. I think if they'd had Cayaldwin first they would have stopped, truth be told.> Tail-flick.

<Probably> he says, munching on a cookie.

"Oh, why's that?"

<My parents were both brilliant and gifted engineers and inventors. They wanted a child to take after them.>

"Ah, I see." This is all relayed, of course.

Aitim is frowning.

"They're lying. Then. Right?"

"Right."

"But why?" someone asks.

"At a guess, military procedures on what information you can give out as a prisoner of aliens of unclear friendliness. And they might not have realized that it'd be found out in this particular way - if they were ten random Amentans it wouldn't have been - but they should also have anticipated their - corresponding numbers - wouldn't be random Amentans, if the resemblance is deeper than superficial."

"Were they lying about not being able to read minds?"

"If they can read minds I am sure they would have lied about it."

" - are we presuming here that they are, via cloning project or social experiment by bored Andalites or some even more powerful third party, us had we been born herd animals grazing on the Andalite homeworld - I have no idea what I would be like under those conditions -"

"It seems like quite a thing to presume but the alternatives are - admittedly not obvious. Could ask them if there's anyone who would do something like that but it rather tips our hand. And I know what I'd be like under those conditions - he has FTL and he's lying about it, possibly just until he decides what he thinks of us but possibly longer than that if it's Andalite law. He sent some of his people off to hide in the Mioleen rainforest and he had them all morph grey even though Cayaldwin would have quietly had a tantrum over not going green - we could ask if there's Andalite law about technology-sharing -"

So she asks if there's anything they can explain as non-engineers about their more advanced technology, even things they've heard in passing could be useful to the engineers.

<It involves Z-space somehow. You go into Z-space and come out of Z-space, and sometimes there's a short path in Z-space that's long outside it, and the computers can find them. I'm sorry I don't know more than that.>