“That’s a load, Cal, and you know it,” Regland said. “There was every threat implied. Their sheer presence is a threat. They can seem as nice as they please because they have all the power. And when they do act magnanimously, that also affords them the moral high ground. ‘Look what we’ve done for you—now you owe us.’ We essentially had nothing. No leverage. No choice. Nothing.”

“Except the ventasium,” Dr. Ganderson, the only completely bald one of the bunch, said.

“Which belongs to us why, exactly?” a young woman named Dr. Fansa asked. “Because we were here first? Ask the Indigenous peoples of this continent how well that argument worked for them.”

“That’s hardly a fair comparison,” Leo’s father countered.

“She’s right, though,” Regland said through a mouthful of cracker. “Even the moral code that we use to govern our actions toward each other is far from universally applied—and we certainly don’t extend it to species that we deem inferior to us. As the apex predator on this planet we were granted free rein to do whatever we pleased, so what did we do? We raped, pillaged, and plundered it. And now we aren’t at the top anymore. The Aykari are. And they can do whatever they please with us.”

“But they won’t. Because they need us too. Nature is full of symbiotic relationships,” Leo’s dad said.

“And parasitic ones,” Regland retorted. “And I think you’re naive to assume that the Aykari are acting out of some universal ethics playbook that just happens to coincide with our most idealistic, humanistic impulses—ideals that we constantly fail to live up to, I might add.”

“Hear, hear,” Ganderson said, sipping his lemonade.

Leo had only the vaguest notion of what everyone was saying, but he liked to hear his father get into it with his friends—mostly because the esteemed Dr. Fender usually got the last word. He was the one with all the awards, after all. Leo was more than just a little proud.

“You call it naivete. I call it optimism,” Leo’s dad said. “You can choose to believe the best or assume the worst.”

“That’s exactly it, though. You don’t really have a choice. What you believe makes absolutely no difference. Not to them.”

“I respectfully disagree,” Dr. Fender said, then he proceeded to launch into a long speech about some dead guy named Kant that was even harder to follow, so Leo gave up and wandered back toward the house to get more food. That’s where his mother found him.

“Your brother bogart the basement?” she asked.

Leo looked at her, in her flowery summer dress with her thoughtful eyes and sympathetic frown, and nodded. His mother glanced at the cluster of professors arguing several feet away. “Looks like your father’s getting into it with Professor Regland again. If a fistfight breaks out, I’m going to need you to help me turn the hose on them.”

Leo smiled, picturing a half dozen sopping wet physics professors wrestling in the grass.