After the Relocation, those delegates from the Lucian cities who had come to the Remnant were anxious to get home and reassure their friends about what had happened. Pytheas and his children and Maia had explained it to us on their return from Olympus, but the other cities had experienced the Relocation without any explanation for what had happened. Pytheas assured us that we had all assented in our souls, and a few of us had indeed refused and not made the transfer.

“They are stuck there in the Bronze Age in the margins of history,” Arete said. “But we will have posterity!”

“If they have any sense they’ll move around to the other side of the island before the mountain erupts and manage to survive,” Pytheas said, despondently. “I’ll have to check on them once I get back, they’re my responsibility too.”

“I’m glad you’re prepared to attend to your responsibilities now!” Maia said. Pytheas stuck out his tongue at her, and she laughed.

As for those of us who had been relocated to Plato, since we had no memory of being asked or assenting, it did not help in understanding the transition, which at first many found confusing and distressing even with an explanation. Many of us were even less happy about the move once they really understood what it entailed. The climate and landscape of our new home were not to everyone’s liking. There were a lot of complaints. The Lucian delegates’ desire to get home and explain was more serious.

Aristomache was one of the Masters, and quite old at that time, in her seventies. She had been born in the nineteenth century, and was a translator of Plato’s work. In the Republic she had been a friend of Sokrates and Ikaros. At the Last Debate she had gone off with Kebes, and become again a Christian, as she had been in her own century. I had always liked her because she had been one of the first to acknowledge my personhood, and because she had argued at length and in such a way as to convince all the Masters that enslaving any thinking being was unjust. She cornered me one day when I was talking with Maia and Maecenas about the heating installation project.

“You promised to take us home in the Excellence,” Aristomache said to Maecenas. He was one of the captains of the ship, one of the Children, then solid and middle-aged. He was a Gold, and served on the Tech Committee.