"Back before we invented indoor sanitation I think child mortality was above twenty percent - we can't raise her like this -"

"We'll have to get some place out somewhere with its own well and - commission things -"

Nod. 

" - all right, I think we should get out of here before we're any stranger, I'll see about money..."

"I think you're going to be better at the language than I am."

He makes a little bit of a face. "Probably. You can take her somewhere that doesn't smell, maybe, and wait."

"At least they don't seem to be making the walls difficult to get past."

"Historically some places had a setup where if there were raiders coming you'd go into the walled city, close up, wait for them to leave or for your nation's army to come, go back out once they left. I guess if you see everyone going in -"

"Right. Follow the crowd."

"On the bright side if we managed to communicate that you are descended from undertakers I cannot imagine they'd care."

"I'm getting that impression." She smiles faintly.

"Take care."

She nods and gives him her sweater and takes beverages and baby outside the city again.

And he goes wandering for something that looks like a market and tries not to feel sick and tries to stop absently scratching his skin bloody and tries to stop twitching because it feels like something is crawling under his pant leg against his skin and

 - eventually - 

- watches the people and listens to them.

Market!

There are robots. Some of them move in frankly bizarre ways - when still they don't look articulated and the skin doesn't look flexible. People talk to alien animals, which perform complex tasks. There are no screens anywhere but lights and shadows sometimes move independently.

Literally no one has a baby. There are some kids running around, usually in groups that don't look related with a minder, or on their own or with friends if they're older. People are with their significant others and friends - no one is hanging out with people who look related to them. No one has a belly button.

They find Aitim's hair mildly interesting but don't follow up when it transpires that he can't explain it to them. Their hair comes in black (usually) and brown and a rare mild orange and a range of weak yellows. Old people go grey. They have more sexual dimorphism than Amentans; men are taller and broader and hairier. They are quite low tech but the robots make up for some of it - robots are doing particularly repetitive labor all around, including some street cleaning, albeit to a standard Amenta would consider deeply inadequate.

The market sells robots and ice blocks and produce and street food and caged birds and books (they do seem to have the printing press) and clothes and jewelry and spices and dishes!

Well.

Here is a jacket, made to exacting if foreign standards and with high-quality if alien material, which he would like to trade for currency, will one of the clothing vendors with a more eclectic collection entertain that transaction? He has about a dozen words now. "I need money, sell jacket."

The clothing vendor clucks at his accent and peers at the jacket. Picks a burr from sleeping rough out of the back of it carefully. Lowballs him.

Headshake. "Foreign, not child."

Vendor snorts, adds ten percent.

Aitim is handicapped in negotiating by not knowing any words for numbers. He shakes his head again and starts to take the jacket back.

"Ah-ah-ah -" Vendor tries throwing in a hat.

- he'll do a shirt.

...okay but not that shirt this other one that is cheaper. It fits him better!, seems to be the justification, though the vendor is chattering quite fast.

It is a shirt and will later enable him to sell his and wear something that is not a peed-on sweater so it will do. 

The vendor will also buy his previous shirt. The first offer is still a lowball but by a narrower margin.

Headshake. "Still not child."