"Are you going to let her go home?" she asks Khemet.

"We'll talk about it as a group. A group that does not include you."

"But I miss me."

"I know. I - it depends on whether there's a way for Anaander, once she knows of us, to get here. There are lots of ways there might not be. It could be that it takes a Plane Shift and no one on your end can learn to do that. It could be that we figure out some way to reach Mirelótë's gods after all, and they're willing to promise to get in her way if she tries anything. It could be that when I talk with Abadar in the morning he'll have a plan. It could be that you can get enough social competence to keep our world a secret from Anaander. It could be that you or someone else will think of some other solution.

But if none of those things happen, then I don't see how I can send you home. I don't want the rest of Anaander to know about us if she has a way to come for us."

Rubelite's facial expression doesn't change at all when she cries.

Sigh. 

"You know, the Amentans might invade you too."

"I have the same information as you, Anaander."

"How can I get social competence?" Rubelite asks Cor, the nearest unoccupied one.

"...heck. Uh, practice helps. ...do you write things down or do you just spaceship things?"

"I spaceship things."

"Okay. Let's get you something to write with. Maybe what Cam has, it seems really fast." He takes her hand and goes to follow Cam.

"We don't have a problem," he says quietly to Pelape in case she's following all this.

"You sure? Is it because of all my social competence?"

"Nah, he just thinks he'd win a war and he sees more upside."

"Good to know."

"Also there's a cooperativeness thing. Can explain more later if you want. - assuming we're permitted private conversations? I guess possibly we aren't."

"Rirosseth could be a relay if you're worried?"

"That might be good. Thank you."

"You're welcome. Any ideas to help Rubelite that Cor might not think of, I'd be really upset if I were suddenly some smallish percentage of myself and wasn't even going to get to loop in the rest later."

"I take it the Valar from your world definitely won't play peacemaker?"

"They're not all bad all the time, Aulë helped me out with some of my side effects, but, uh, Mirelótë sounds like she can give hers marching orders and we super cannot do that and involving them could make things worse."

Nod. "Uh, if you think his threat model is wrong you could talk him out of it, I just don't know that it is."

"It sounds like he thinks an informed Rubelite would wittingly or un- inform the rest of Anaander that Osirion et al exist and that she might somehow use this information to independently develop enough magic or sufficiently sci-fi tech that she then shows up here and conquers the place for its... nonmagical resources, I guess, since ex hypothesi she can in this scenario duplicate magic effects just by having the vague idea that this might be worth looking into, but maybe the place has interesting nonmagical resources other than sand I just don't know about? I'm not sure what advantage I have over Anaander in communicating that this sounds really weird as a thing for her to do."