"That cap is so the caste don't feel others are stepping on their turf? I guess explaining things to aliens is similar to being a tourist guide?"

"I don't know," she says dubiously. "It's not paid at all, really - this might be closer to hospitality, which is orange - the cap is so you have incentive to improve professionally within-caste."

"I was joking. Uh, do people never show out of caste talent?"

"I think approximately two percent of people hit their out-of-caste income cap any given year."

"That wasn't exactly what I am aiming at. I was thinking more... if there could be people that would contribute more to society if they are writing academic paper or inventing new things."

"Oh, an orange smart enough to be a mathematician teaches mathematics - and can write papers, if they like - and a yellow that smart does some kind of math-intensive engineering - and can write papers too. And greys and purples just aren't that smart."

"...Okay."

"Maybe your species has less variance in intelligence."

Nod. "Worth taking a look once I have a better... sense of things. It's still weird to penalize people that happen to be good at something that doesn't straightforwardly fit their caste. But again, worth taking a look later."

"What would you do once you've - taken a look?"

Shrug. "Not sure if I would even be able to do anything about it, but at least I would know."

"Hmmm."

There's a knock on the door. Nasami goes to get it. "Evening, sir," she says when she does.

"Are you Lisit's wife? She wrote -"

      "Yes," Lisit calls. "He's in here."

Afen bounds into the room. He pulls up short at the winged alien. "Is he an alien? You didn't say he was an alien."

     "I thought you might think I was out of my mind."

"Hi! I am Felix Dalkaila," he tilts his head and adjusts the translation so he can sound English but be understood regardless, "they called you because you would take a train here in the middle of the storm to learn a new language."

"Oh," he says delightedly, "you are an alien....Plenty of people would travel much farther, really, to learn an alien language. But I'll be fastest. What's the - translation thing going on -"

"Uh... I actually don't know how it works. It's subtle enough that I failed to realize you are not speaking English."

"English. English. Where are you from exactly -"

Feels a stab of pain and flinches a bit.

"I am from a country called the United States of America. But my parents are from the Stormlands," he switches to Tormundic, "where they speak Tormundic like this."

Bounce. "And you've never encountered the translation effect before? You're not doing it? But then - what is -"

"I haven't... I confess not knowing where it comes from. They exist, but the only one I can't recall with any clarity only does audio translation and this also does writing... Huh, now that I think about it I wonder if it can do any language... This is a sentence in Spanish. Oooh. This is a sentence in French. This is a sentence in Portuguese. This is a sentence in German. This is a sentence in Mandarin."

His eyes pop. "Can anyone else do this -"

"I am not even sure how I am doing this. It's new." he taps on the table. This morse code. Then signs. This is ASL. "Could you name some Amentan languages for me to try?"

"Tapap. Evaleen, Litholeen, Voan, Arvoran -"

"This is a sentence in Tapap. This is a sentence in Evaleen. This is a sentence in Litholeen. This is a sentence in Voan. This is a sentence in Arvoran."

Perfect green accent too.

"How're you picking an accent -"