“It all started when I was a wee lad. Apparently, the potty training didn’t go well, and I’ve had issues ever since.” It made a sad sniffing sound. “Can a brother get a hug?”

“I’m not hugging you!”

“Probably a good idea. I’m not crazy about your personal hygiene anyway. Seriously, I haven’t had anyone to talk to, since before your species was living in trees, and eating lice from each other’s fur. That was, what, last week? All that time alone, I may be kind of kooky.”

“Kooky?”

“My diagnostic system indicates a 23% chance that I’ve gone a bit insane.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

“Don’t listen to my diagnostic subsystem, that guy is really an asshole. So, can you carry me out of here?”

I looked around the dusty warehouse. “Why did the Ruhar stick you in here?” The whole place looked like a collection of useless and broken junk. I’d thought Skippy was part of the useless stuff.

“They didn’t. Or, they didn’t know what I am, they thought I was a big roller bearing or something stupid like that.”

“Wait, the Ruhar didn’t build you?”

“The Ruhar? Those overgrown hamsters are almost as dumb as you humans. No, I was built, if you want to use such a crude term, by the beings you call the Elders. The ones who built the devices you call Sentinels.”

“Wow. So, you’re really old, then. All right, the Ruhar have been in this place a lot. Why haven’t you asked one of them to carry you out of here? You allergic to hamster fur, or something?”

“Another stupid rule. I can’t communicate with civilizations which may be in any way capable of understanding the principles of how I operate. As a practical matter, that means I have to hide from any species capable of faster than light travel. On their own, not by hitching rides like you monkeys did.”

“You have been here, hiding in this warehouse, all this time?”

“No, of course not. Before the Ruhar took this planet, the Kristang were here for a couple hundred years. They dug me out of the ground. The lizards also had no idea what I am. Before that, I was in orbit on a derelict ship, then it fell out of orbit.”

“Huh.” How do you respond to that. “And before that?”

“I can’t say. I mean, I’m not allowed to.”

“Restrictions?”

“Yup, and the fact that I was operating on minimum power for a maybe million years?"

"A million?" Oh my God. "You've been waiting for over a million years, for us humans to arrive?"