They walk, through Mkmktkt't.

He considers his new vocabulary for ways to phrase his next question.  Mkmktkt't'tkt doesn't have a word for loved ones, it doesn't have a word for family, it doesn't have a word for friends?  It seems cartoonish.

"The dead ktk whose remains I consumed," he says.  "Did it have - coworkers who especially enjoyed working with it, who will especially miss it?  Would it be appropriate for me to talk with them and reassure them its remains were put to good use?"

"...perhaps?" the administrator says.  "I do not know what its talents or preferred types of work were, or if anyone else found it unusually easy to work with.  The news of its death will spread swiftly enough, and the news of what was done with part of its remains."

"My species has... many deeply felt emotions around death, and around death of people they knew.  One of us might want to speak to another of us, a stranger, who was there to see - the death of - one whose company they enjoyed - and helped make sure the remains were properly disposed of.  To process those emotions."

"...Ktk do not by and large enjoy company.  We meet for the sake of the project.  When we can no longer bear each other, we depart, and return later.  If the dead one was particularly skilled at some type of work, then those who grew accustomed to its assistance will naturally resent its absence.  But I do not think ktk have the kind of emotions you are alluding to."

"If your favorite colleague was killed...?"

"I would be irritated to have lost a valuable asset?  And I would want the body to be made good use of, if it died on-site, but that for the sake of the project, not for the sake of the dead colleague.  ...I might experience something loosely similar to what you're describing if Mkmktkt't were destroyed, or some service it provided disrupted in a way that was difficult to fix.  But even in that hypothetical, ktk do not much appreciate sharing their emotions, or having others' emotions shared with them.  It would be invasive, in either direction."

"I see.  I apologize if I have been invasive."

"Somewhat, yes, but I am making allowances - children often do inappropriate things, if not exactly the ones you have done, and it is necessary to summon patience for onboarding them properly.  I don't mean to suggest that you have the ineptitude of a child, but that you are obviously accustomed to different ways and will take time to acclimate to ours."

"Understood," he says.  "And thank you.  My species, or rather the species from which I took this shape - " he gestures up-and-down his main bipedal body " - and much of my psychology, shares emotions very freely, and are generally harmed by not being able to do so."

"...I doubt any ktk will be willing or much able to provide that service for you."

"It's all right.  I have had practice in enduring loneliness."

"All right.  You identified yourself as a lk?  Is that the bipedal species your mind is extracted from or your plant-controlling species-of-biology?"

 - he chortles.  "Neither.  That was the name of the person who I - absorbed, the way I absorbed the dead ktk.  But I took more of him than I took of the dead ktk, and became a new thing very similar to the person he had been.  He was a," "human," he finishes with his human mouth.

"I cannot pronounce that at all," it says.  "Khhhh-mp-nt?"

He represses a laugh.  "Kmpnt is fine," he says.  "If we're importing" "English" "grammar for our lonewords, it would pluralize to kmpnts."

"Knklssss'hhsss'h's," it says experimentally.  "I cannot pronounce that either."

"It's not important."