“It wants to congratulate you,” Spy said, “on having made it halfway. The odds are good you will continue on to Wolf 25 and arrive intact.

“It currently has no interest in destroying you. It reminds you of the obvious, though: this ship you are in has an autonomous intelligence that thinks faster than you can and won’t hesitate to destroy you, and us, whenever that might be necessary for the protection of our home planet.

“You are here on our sufferance. We are curious about you and wish to study you.”

“Why should you let us live?” Namir said. “You’ve already tried to destroy us once—why should we expect you will let us survive now?”

“Is that a question you wish me to ask Other-prime?”

“Yes,” Namir and Paul said simultaneously.

I wasn’t sure about that, and started to say, “Wait.” But it was too late when my lips formed the word.

What if it said, “You’re right,” and we all were simply doomed? It could flick us away like a speck.

Fly-in-Amber expressed my misgivings: “Perhaps that was not wise. We should preserve our options and not compel it to make a decision.”

“Now or later,” Namir said. “It will be easier to work with it if we know we have a chance of surviving.”

It occurred to me that the room had no smell of its own. Standing next to Paul, I could smell the peanuts on his breath. But there was nothing from the ambient environment. Martian rooms had a characteristic smell, like damp earth; nothing like that here. It was like a VR background with the smell turned off.

Other-prime answered in less than a minute. Probably a prepared response; the question was no surprise. “That is fair. We do not think the same way as you, but let me try to put this in human terms.

“You averted worldwide catastrophe by moving our device to where it could not harm you. There were other things that you could have done, but that was sufficient. If you wish, you may think of that as a test that your species has passed. Contacting me here would be the second test.

“How many tests might be necessary for your assurance, I cannot say. The home planet does not yet know anything, of course; it will be more than a decade before my last communication from your solar system reaches them.

“I can say that other races have attained this degree of rapport with us, and many of them were allowed to go on their way. Some were not.

“None who resorted to aggression were allowed to survive. You must have deduced this already.”

“That’s all?” Paul said after a few seconds.

“Yes.”

“I showed you around our facilities,” Fly-in-Amber said. “Will you reciprocate?”

“Not now. I will discuss this with Other-prime. Right now it is resting.”

“It takes a lot of energy for it to communicate with us?” I said.