Then the contact went dead, as they must have become aware that we could hear them.

I translated this exchange for the others as best I could.

“My interpretation is that they think our origin story is funny, but not implausible,” Neleus said.

“That’s all according to plan,” Klymene said, and yawned hugely, a slightly disgusting biological thing humans sometimes cannot avoid doing when they are tired.

“This word ‘could,’ is it a time modifier?” Aroo asked.

I tried to explain the word, with a great deal of difficulty. “Very soon you will speak English better than I do,” I said.

“We Saeli have a talent for languages,” Aroo acknowledged, her violet and brown eyelids flicking over her eyes for an instant as she spoke.

“I wish I could listen to it again,” I said. “I constantly feel I am missing nuance.”

“You should be able to,” Aroo said. “That is a Saeli console, it records and echoes.” She showed Akamas, and he pushed buttons on the console, so that the voices repeated themselves over again in the same exchange.

“Useful,” Neleus commented.

“Nuts must mean insane,” not illogical, I said. “And I think you’re right, they accept our story.”

“What does profit really mean? You said benefits?” Neleus asked.

“Yes, I think so, something like that. It’s filed under economics. Economic benefits? The weightings in my word lists say it’s a really important concept, but I learned long ago never to accept other people’s priorities except in emergencies. We should ask them about that word, when we get the chance.”

Their contact crackled back to life, and Akamas adjusted it again, wincing. “So we’ve agreed we’re going to send down three people, is that correct?”

I responded at once. “Yes. Will they all be human?”

Then I translated, and the others nodded.

“I don’t understand, Plato control. Of course they’ll be human. We told you we have no Maraths aboard.”

“No Workers?” I asked, sadly. “No robots, that is?”

“Oh, we’ll be bound to send down a few robots. Do you need numbers on them too?”

“Please wait for translation,” I said, and indicated to Akamas that he should switch off the contact. It seemed very quiet now with no hum. I translated for the others, and then clarified in case they hadn’t understood. “They don’t count Workers as people.”

“Maybe their Workers aren’t self-aware yet?” Akamas suggested.

“But that makes no sense. It’s true we didn’t know our Workers were people at first, but ours come from several hundred years in their past,” Klymene said.

“If we’ve understood that correctly, they must have had self-aware Workers for several hundred years without regarding them as people,” Neleus said. “That’s horrifying.”

“Let us hear the echo again,” I said to Akamas.