" - sure but they actually did it."

"So I should avenge the dead? I think everyone understands that if they try a red transition and the reds die then Andalites are not going to be starships-kinds of impressed with their competence."

"They might think you'd be impressed if they successfully dispose of them without clean casualties but disapproving if they let it get out of hand."

Sigh. "I will be very clear on that."

"I think some of the colony planets, once we have several, will be more liberal."

"Andalites are very conservative. I'm not sure 'liberal' is the axis of concern to me, more - governed in a way conducive to your flourishing and being good citizens and not a scourge on the galaxy or an embarrassing backwater of internal problems - Shasali thinks most blues have no idea what it is like to be - not blue -"

"Do Andalite leaders know what it's like to be a poor Andalite? Are there poor Andalites? Ones who work in the factories?"

"Factories are all automated. I suppose you have disincentive to develop that kind of technology. Our leaders' children play and learn alongside all the other children."

"Oh, some blues let their nannies take their own children with them to work."

"That was humor."

"It was. Good job."

"You deliberately had unusually few expressive cues to it being humor."

"Guilty. I was testing a theory."

" - that I asked for other interlocutors because I've gotten adequate at parsing your species for reactions and wanted to draft the agreements with people whose dishonestly I expected to notice? Yes, that's correct."

"Bet you're worse at it than me."

"I bet I am better at it than you are at parsing Andalite body language!"

"Perhaps I should pick it up for when we have less friendly ambassadors."

" - 'unfriendly' is not the exact concern I have about potential replacements."

"Suppose you could maneuver into not getting arrested until the war's over? - the story of how the Amentans ended up with all this technology is need-to-know lest it fall into Yeerk hands -"

"At the cost of the court being very very unamused when I do explain myself. I suppose steering power earlier is worth trading for whatever satisfaction I'd derive from coming off very righteous at court-martial."

"If you're sure enough they won't drag anyone else into it, yeah."

"The whole thing's going to be a national embarrassment, they won't want to drag it out with forty times the fuss and a weaker argument - my soldiers aren't supposed to commit atrocities on my orders and they're supposed to be very sure I'm not Yeerked but there's no precedent for expecting them to know whether I'm authorized to declare new national allies. And I'm not sure we even have the prison capacity."

"...to hold an extra forty people for a week?"

" - to hold an extra forty people indefinitely - oh, we don't have the death penalty. That's barbaric. Though you're supposed to suicide for some things - not this, desertion or treason."

"- huh. Supposed to suicide with how much encouragement -"