“The fourth circumstance that has favored peace since the Relocation is the Council of Worlds,” I said. “All the cities send representatives, chosen however they want, and we discuss the issues that affect the whole planet. People try to win debates instead of battles. Everyone gains a little and loses a little. We try to think of the good of everyone.”

“And nobody is discontent?”

“People may be a little discontent, but they think that as they have lost a little here, they have gained a little there,” I said. “But I may be prejudiced in favor. I have served in the Council regularly, and have been elected Consul three times. That is our highest elective office.”

“How about the ordinary people, the Bronzes and Irons and Silvers? Are they content with the situation?”

“If they’re not happy with how their city is governed, then they usually move to another city, as suits them,” Sixty-One said. “Mystics go to Psyche, rebels to Sokratea, and so on.”

Sokrates nodded. “That’s what Jason told me. How did the other cities get started?”

“After the Last Debate, everyone who hadn’t been content formed groups to set up their own new city. They coalesced around different ideas, and people with different temperaments,” Sixty-One said.

“But all the other Workers had vanished? And you two decided to stay here?”

“We gave it a lot of thought,” I said. “But it was difficult because of the feeding stations, and also this was our home, with our dialogues etched in the stones. When all the other Workers were gone, and before we had the new ones, everyone needed us. We were essential. I helped build Sokratea and the City of Amazons, and I have citizenship there as well as here. But I stayed here.”

“And I helped build Athenia and Sokratea, and hold their citizenship also,” Sixty-One said.

“But neither of you helped build Psyche or the Lucian cities?”

“Psyche at first did not recognize us as people,” Sixty-One said. “Even now they don’t allow Workers full citizenship—their Workers are all Iron and Bronze.”

“And we didn’t know about the Lucian cities until immediately before the Relocation,” I said. “Kebes took off without any warning, right after the Last Debate. He stole the Goodness and went, and we never saw him again. They only had a hundred and fifty-two people, so they rescued refugees from Greek wars to populate their cities. Those refugees, who are mostly dead now, came to Platonism and Kebes’s Christianity as adults, and that made the culture of the Lucian cities different from the rest of us.”

“We helped rebuild them and strengthen them for Plato after the Relocation,” Sixty-One said. “It was an interesting design challenge, because the climate was so different and human temperature needs are so precise.”

“So you never had wars with the Lucians?” Sokrates asked.