His accent gets less bad! 

She can understand around the accent, it's the vocabulary.

He's slower than Afen at vocabulary, no way around it. Remarkably fast if one hasn't met Afen, but much slower than Afen. 

"Would Afen have to actually talk to the inn people to talk to me?"

" - if people could call your room all the people would do that because they would be so yay aliens and there are so many of them."

"...well, I don't speak Anitami yet, so how about just him."

Sigh. "I can ask."

"Thanks."

"Maybe help if I say a point problem."

"...what?"

"It maybe help if I say a - not say 'is a problem, need Afen', say 'problem is this, need Afen'."

"...well, for example, I don't know what you're talking about."

"Example. It would help to have an example."

"Will that one do?"

        He goes across the hall. "She wants your father back."

"He went back to Lina."

        "Well, she thinks that's fishy as hell and she wants him back."

"You're doing great."

        "I'm doing adequately but I don't think it's even about that, it's about how when your translator vanishes overnight you wonder if this is a place where one gets shot for stepping on someone's toe -"

"And we couldn't have her thinking that."

        "So get someone to drag him back," someone else says.

"I guarantee you that will backfire."

       "Because he'd rather die than follow orders for three fucking days."

"Because he would rather be the kind of person who everyone knows will be dead inside three days if made to follow orders. I can't say it's a strategy that would serve most people in most contexts but he's very committed to it."

       "Then bribe him."

Aitim calls his father.

He gets his voicemail.

Aitim calls his mother.

"Hi sweetheart, how are you."

"Anxious alien who can give us planets wants Dad back, please can he at least pick up the phone?"

Sigh. "I'll tell him you called."

"Thanks."

...he calls Kefin.

" - Aitim? I'm in class."

"Ditch it and get on the train to Lakla? I'll arrange for orders to be waved in the right peoples' faces."

"Why."

"To meet the alien."