“That means, what—say, three billion years?”

“In your measure, yes.”

“Your species met the Mat when?”

“Recently, in the view of the Old One. It said that when your kind first came, it thought you were us. Only when I appeared did it know that there was a difference.”

Rachel sat back, wondering how all this fit together. “Why… why did you not tell us this before?”

“I am cautious.”

Rachel laughed, the helpless barks erupting from her like pressures escaping. “We dove into the atmosphere from orbit! You ascended Everest in a Lifter vehicle! Visited the black smokers kilometers down in the ocean! Cautious?!”

“In those feats, I represent my kind.”

Zuminski said, “And what did your kind send you here for?”

“To explore. You must see that I am not truly like my kind, in that way.”

Zuminski pressed, “What way?”

Fraq leaned forward and put his bulky claw-hands on the table, a gesture Rachel had never seen him use. It seemed to relax the rigid, encased body, muscle groups flattening and smoothing the blue-gray, rumpled feathers it chose to wear today. The Ythri could somehow tune these colors to their social codes and emotions. Apparently this had evolved to aid social modes.

“We are now a solitary species. The Collapse ruined our world, in ways we do not now know. Cannot know. For they are lost in the great abyss between us and those who destroyed our world.”

Wait, those who destroyed? That was new. Rachel asked solemnly, “Did this have anything to do with the Maze?”

Fraq’s eyes blinked, darted, the mouth twisted—and then he made himself go stiff again. “How did you know?”

Rachel admitted, “I guessed.”

“Why?”

“Because you won’t discuss the Maze. You came through it, your small flock, as if for—how long? thousands of years? more?—your species had not used it. And it worked. Got you here. Only fear could have kept your kind from using it—a gusher of opportunities!—for so long.”

This provoked a ripple of sitting-back, a gasp from Hassan, raised eyebrows—the startled response menu of humans. Fraq just nodded, a gesture he had learned. “You are correct. We cling to the ices of the outer realm, because no world will welcome us in the warmer zone toward our sun.”

Zuminski asked, “Your star has how many planets?”

“Five. Four are gas giants. Our world is the only possibility for us to live—the moons of the gas giants are far worse. In many millennia, our wounded world has not recovered from the Collapse.”

Rachel thought. “Your collapse drove you into the outer solar system. You adapted to the cold and dark. That meant, what?”

Fraq stiffened further—as if in fear of revealing more. “We became another… people.”

“You had to restrict yourselves.” Rachel leaned forward, her eyes holding his in a steady gaze.

“We think of it as learning a truth we did not know.”

“So you learned. To not let anything puncture the outer skin of a habitat. Not eat too much. Don’t make trouble—that will drain resources, waste time.”