Andy slapped his forehead with the heel of his free hand. "Hologram... or illusion spell, some sort of non-corporeal projection anyway... so that's why you havn't been eaten, no monster's going to eat a van."<br/><br/>He sighed when he heard their tales of woe. "On our world, there's been a massive dieback due to a genetic plague... that's why we started splicing ourselves, to become immune."<br/><br/>He suddenly realised that there were humans around who might take this wrongly. "Don't worry, I'm not a carrier! We have unmodified humans in our town, in my school. We have regular screenings, and I mean weekly, and I'm clean as a whistle!"<br/><br/>"We may not have the raw tech of you guys..." He indicated Thar and Ipthar, and Rowko, "... but you don't get this level of bioform alteration without being pretty darned good at genetics and bio-sciences." He indicated himself. "And detecting genetic diseases has been something of a hot topic for the last 20 years."