As she said this, images flashed in the air. Tall willowy buildings, some sizable, as befit lower gravity. Large balconies, flat, spreading roofs that shaded the building. Farm fields stretched away, tended by machines dutifully moving along rectangular paths.

“Carnivores in origin, I expect,” the Prefect said. “Like our eagles, vultures, smart parrots that can talk.” He closeupped the view, going down to the last pixels. “Primitive economies are hunting-fishing-gathering, advanced economies pastoral with farms. Large areas cultivated are probably just to provide fodder for animals. Grains, pastures. They don’t have the layout of proper farms—not many vegetables, fruits.” He tugged his chin.

Rachel asked, “So this is like our society many centuries ago?”

“I confess to being puzzled as to how these civilized aliens—well, let’s say the ‘metallurgic’ people, at this stage—how they manage it. You need trade, communication, quick exchange of ideas, for that level of technology. And if I read the pictures aright, roads are virtually nonexistent, see?” He made the image vector out, connections highlighted in yellow. “Stone tracks between towns and mines. Docks for barges, ships—confound it, water transportation is insufficient.”

“Pack animals, maybe?” she suggested.

“Too slow,” he said. “They must have electromagnetics. You don’t get progressive cultures when months must pass before the few individuals capable of originality can hear from each other. The chances are they never will.”

Rachel froze an image as it moved. “How about—this?”

A fleet of slow gray torpedoes drifted across florid plains. “Balloon transport in low gravity,” the Prefect said. “And those islands with large gantries”—he expanded the view to show towers, several with large tubes on their platforms—“they have orbiting capabilities.”

Rachel had not done enough deep surveying of the data, she saw. The Prefect had a superior instinct for this, probably from his deep past; rumor had it he was well over two centuries old.

She decided to nail her point, so stood tall, firm, and said, “I think this is where the Ythri come from.”

The Prefect and his assistants rustled, startled. One woman’s eyes bulged in a boogah-woogah way.

Rachel pressed on. “I deduced from the Message that contained these survey scans that the Message is already a millennium old. The space program we see here is at an early stage—they’re using old-fashioned rockets, no orbital tower. By now they could easily have explored their entire solar system, found whatever assets are there.”

“I had so gathered.” A wry smile. “Good work.”

“Here’s the clincher, honorable sir. This world is over four hundred light-years away.”

“Ah. So—”

“We have learned how to keep people in cryo-preservation after death for a few years, decades, hoping for centuries. Revival is hard. Any Ythri ship would have to keep them suspended for many centuries. That seems nearly impossible, while their starship came toward us, at maybe a tenth of light speed—a very big, long-term project.”

“And?”

She could see by his smile he knew her conclusion, had been patiently waiting for her to make it. “They must have come through a wormhole.”