He pushed the buttons, and I heard again the casual nonchalance of “Of course they’ll be human,” and “Do you need numbers on them too?”

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that’s what they mean,” I said.

“We’ll have to give them Aristomache’s dialogue Sokrates,” Klymene said. “That’ll explain it to them properly. We’ll have to translate it. That should be a priority. Arete could do it at once.” She made a note.

“Tell them yes, we do want numbers on the Workers,” Neleus said, looking at me. “And as soon as we meet their Workers, we must tell them that they have rights here. We must pass a law in the Council that any Worker who comes here is free at once, as soon as they set foot here.”

“I will help draft the legislation,” I said, much moved by how unhesitatingly my friends spoke up for the rights of Workers.

“Not only any Worker, any slave,” Klymene said. “Humans can be slaves. I was born one myself.”

“Any slave, yes, of course,” I said. I had not imagined anything as bad as this.

“You are assuming their Workers must be self-aware,” Aroo said. “The Saeli have no sapient Workers.”

“But we know humans do,” Neleus objected.

“There may be more that one human culture, more than one human technology. On their planet, Marhaba, they may not have self-aware Workers, even if they had them on Earth when your ancestors left.”

“Thank you, Aroo, I feel much better for that thought,” Neleus said. I hoped she was right. “Of course space humans are not one homogenous lump, any more than our twelve cities are. The Marhabi may well have Workers who are not self-aware.”

Akamas pushed buttons, and we were back in communication. “We want numbers on the robots,” I said, in English.

“We’ll get you that information.”

We went on with the negotiations for some time. After a while, Arete came in.

“Oh, there you are, did you fall asleep?” Akamas asked.

“It’s a little bit more complicated than that,” Arete said. “How is it going here?”

“Staying on script as far as possible, with a bit of a worry that they don’t treat their Workers as people—though Aroo pointed out that we can’t tell until we meet them whether their Workers are in fact people,” Neleus said.

“Good. Well, I’m here to translate.”

“I can keep going,” I said.

“I’m sure you could, but there’s somebody outside who really wants to speak to you, so I’ll take over for a while. Go on.” She smiled at me. Arete and I have been friends for a long time.

Curious, I rolled out to see who needed me.