“Esteemed god,” Bigtooth said. “I heard you like to collect small organisms from different star systems, so I brought you this very entertaining little thing: a human from Earth.”

“I only like perfect organisms. Why did you bring me such a filthy insect?” said the god. The sphere and the plane flickered twice, perhaps to express disgust.

“You know about this species?” Bigtooth raised his head in astonishment.

“Not intimately, but I’ve heard about them from certain visitors to this arm of the galaxy. They made frequent visits to Earth in the brief course of these organisms’ evolution, and were revolted at the vulgarness of their thoughts, the lowliness of their actions, the disorder and filth of their history. Not a single visitor would deign to establish contact with them up to the destruction of Earth. Hurry and throw it away.”

Bigtooth seized Yi Yi, rotating his massive head to look for a place to throw him. “The trash incinerator is behind you,” said the god. Bigtooth turned and saw that a small, round opening had appeared in the plane behind him. Inside shimmered a faint blue light….

“Don’t dismiss us like that! Humanity created a magnificent civilization!” Yi Yi shouted with all his might in the language of the Devourers.

The sphere and plane again flickered twice. The god gave two cold laughs. “Civilization? Emissary, tell this insect what civilization is.”

Bigtooth lifted Yi Yi to his eye level; Yi Yi could even hear the gululu of the dinosaur’s giant eyeballs turning in their sockets. “Bug-bug, in this universe, the standard measure of any race’s level of civilization is the number of dimensions it can access. The basic requirement for joining civilization at large is six or more. Our esteemed god’s race can already access the eleventh dimension. The Devouring Empire can access the fourth dimension in small-scale laboratory environments, and only qualifies as a primitive, uncivilized tribe in the Milky Way. You, in the eyes of a god, are in the same category as weeds and lichen.”

“Throw it away already, it’s disgusting,” the god urged impatiently.

Having finished speaking, Bigtooth headed for the incinerator’s aperture. Yi Yi struggled frantically. Numerous pieces of white paper fluttered loose from his clothing. The sphere shot out a needle-thin beam of light, hitting one of the sheets, which froze unmoving in midair. The beam scanned rapidly over its surface.

“Oh my, wait, what’s this?”

Bigtooth allowed Yi Yi to dangle over the incinerator’s aperture as he turned to look at the sphere.

“That’s … my students’ homework!” Yi Yi managed laboriously, struggling in the dinosaur’s giant claw.

“These squarish symbols are very interesting, and the little arrays they form are quite amusing too,” said the god. The sphere’s beam of light rapidly scanned over the other sheets of paper, which had since landed on the plane.

“They’re Ch-Chinese characters. These are poems in Classical Chinese!”

“Poems?” the god exclaimed, retracting its beam of light. “I trust you understand the language of these insects, Emissary?”