"This time. Didn't affect us this time, that you know of. You didn't know there was a Maxohlx cruiser out there somewhere, ready to blow this ship to pieces. Skippy, here's the problem; if something goes bad out here, you'll be stranded in deep space, until you can fake a distress call or something and lure a starship here. That sucks for you, stuck alone for a while again, but you survived it before, you'll survive it again. The stakes for us monkeys are a lot higher. When you put us at risk, you're risking my entire species. Everyone. My whole planet, and everyone and everything on it. We may be bacteria to you, and maybe you're being generous to consider us bacteria. To us, to me, this is everything. We risked a lot to come out here, now we're risking the survival of humanity. If this mission fails, if we can't shut down the wormhole, if the Kristang stay in control of Earth, then we lose, I lose, everything. Do you understand that?"

There was a moment of uncharacteristic silence, then "Joe, is that a tear?"

"I splashed some water on my face," I responded angrily, and wiped a tear away with my sleeve. Thinking of my family, my home town, friends, the cool dark woods where I'd spent so much time, thinking even of my parent's dog, had gotten me emotional. They were all counting on me, and they didn't know it.

"I'm sorry," he said softly. "I do understand what's at stake for you, for all of you. We made a deal, I'm going to keep my end of the bargain, I am going to shut down that wormhole. And I'm sorry to alarm you, we truly were not in any additional danger. But I won't do that again, I promise."

"Thank you. Another subject; do the Thuranin know about this ship? Do they know they lost a star carrier?"