Rachel felt a wave of sudden joy. So this nonsense had paid off, after all.

His kind had descended from life-forms that fed on such vents, Fraq told them as they rose to the surface. They’d evolved around black smokers that were close to shore. Their earlier forms were amphibious, because their shallow world had less land area.

Rachel thought, So that’s why he bought into a deep descent so close to land. Did the Prefect think of that possibility?

Nonetheless, Fraq’s kind had fouled their world as they moved through their industrial ages—the “early times” he called them, with perhaps a touch of nostalgia. The global damage was enormous, running past the tipping point of global ice-over. They’d thought they could greenhouse their way out of that, but failed. The Ythri had retreated outward, moving vast populations into their outer solar system, desperate to find any sites they could work into a bearable environment.

So most of his species now lived in artificial habitats close to the ices of their outer system, and far from their star’s warmth. Only now were they making headway in reclaiming their world. He called it “ancient and trampled.”

The translator said, “So no one of his kind has ever seen, for many thousands of years, the ‘legendary ancestral origins.’ Witnessing thermal vents was an enormous event for Fraq, and he wants to repay us with a great advance in knowledge.”

Rachel shook her head in dazzlement. “More approach protocols to our wormhole site?” She grimaced. “I hope it’s more than that.”

“He may be willing to give what he calls ‘knowledge of the sector where the bridge resides.’ And… perhaps more.”

Rachel kept her face stiff, to mask her surprise. “What?”

Natal paused, groping for a way to say something that might be beyond human terms. “A—a difficult translation, done by Fraq’s kind. Ancient records. Of their expedition long ago to… our system. They made a descent, seeking the thermal vent origins they believed led to intelligent life.”

“So they, Ythri, visited the Earth—how long ago?”

“No, on another world.”

Rachel was getting used to being surprised. “Really? Why not pay attention to the primates on Earth?”

Fraq spoke for some time, and the translator struggled to make sense of what the plainly energized alien said. “Because they had a theory that ‘excess’ led to indulgence, and hence low orders of intelligence.”

“What? Excess?”

Fraq spoke even longer, eyes animated. Natal said, “He states that while he has enjoyed seeing the natural wealth here—the wonderful forests, the elegance of Everest—Earth is too rich in all life needs. We have so much! Metals in the crust, still. A rich asteroid belt, and so many minerals, rare earths and the like. A large moon to stabilize the orbital inclination. Ample continents that run along lines of latitude, so that species can migrate great distances without a change of climate.”

Rachel could scarcely believe this. She said slowly, eyeing Fraq, “Other planets like ours didn’t produce intelligence?”