“Maybe. But the Far-Shooter told him far more than he should.” She waved a hand, letting it go. “But you really did make it work, you’re really doing it. It’s excellent.”

“Everyone on Plato is trying to do it their own way,” I said. “But it’s easier for us. Sokrates says Plato should have written it for Workers.”

“Except he didn’t know you existed,” she said, smiling.

“Who suggested bringing Workers in the first place?” I asked.

“It was my idea. We wanted plumbing, and we didn’t want slaves. I’ve always been uneasy about slavery.”

“Aristomache wrote that in the ancient world they couldn’t imagine doing without slaves, because they really had to depend on them to keep up their level of culture. But Plato imagined a way, having all the children brought up in common and selected for their work by merit.”

“Plato had a wonderful imagination, and a strong sense of justice. And he tried to make things sound really conservative, Spartan even, while really being wildly revolutionary and progressive. Women, slaves—it was much more comfortable for men in power to believe with Aristotle that they were naturally inferior. It freed them from guilt about how they treated them. But Plato wanted the true aristocracy, rule by those who are objectively the best. His mother Perictione was a Pythagorean philosopher. He was enslaved himself, and he knew other philosophers who were enslaved by the chance of war. He wanted justice. He wanted to make people think about it, which he did. He never intended the Republic as a blueprint.” The owl flew down and nestled on her lap. She petted it absently.

“Are you sorry you tried to make it real?”

“No, how could I be? I learned so much. And here I am talking in Greek with you on a planet circling a distant sun, in a version of Plato’s Republic spontaneously set up by robot philosophers. It’s more than a cultural rebirth, it’s a whole new civilization for us. Then there’s all the additional time I had to spend with my friends, Cicero, Ficino, Pico … that is, Ikaros.” She sighed. “I saw the statue of him you’re making, by the rails. It’s beautiful.”

“Is that why you came?” I asked. The owl turned its head and looked at me.

“No. I came to tell you I brought the others back.”

I had no idea what she meant, and then I realized and was excited. “The other original Workers? The ones you took away after the Last Debate?”