“The lighter shapes remain. They merge to form a background to the double crescent. And once I saw them, I remembered—they are always there. There is always a background, so faint you might miss it. There are two layers to the symbols. And I was thinking … perhaps what we are missing is grammar or syntax. Or something as essential as a tone. Once I saw it, I began to worry. So—I decided to fix it.”

“You decided to fix it,” Altantsetseg repeated.

“Yes. The symbol Ha created underwater. I went in and added a background of clear bottles to the figure.”

“To keep us from making a grammatical error?” Altantsetseg asked.

“We aren’t even close to errors like that yet,” Ha said. “We aren’t even at words. This is what you call a ‘meta-message’ we are trying to send. It isn’t about the word—the message that we are sending is, We have the capacity to try to understand you. We see you have a language. We know this is an important word for you, and we can make this word, too.”

“Exactly,” Evrim said. “And now they know that we can ‘spell’ the word correctly as well.”

“And for that you walked into the water in the middle of the night, without telling anyone.”

“I don’t answer to you,” Evrim said. “I don’t ask permission from you. I’m not your prisoner.”

Altantsetseg opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. For a moment it seemed Altantsetseg was going to turn and walk away.

Then she said, “No. You are not my prisoner. You are my responsibility. And if you walk into the water and are destroyed, I am the one who will answer for it. So—please—when you have these temper tantrums of yours, think of the damage it would do to me, if something were to go wrong.”

Evrim had turned back to the terminal and did not look up. “Fair enough. I will let you know my plans in the future.”

“Well,” Ha said, “I don’t know what the shapes mean, or their sequence, but certainly it is better to be as accurate as we can be. That is the only way we are going to have a breakthrough. So thank you.”

“Thank you,” Evrim said. “It is good to be appreciated.”

“I appreciate you, robot,” Altantsetseg said, “I just don’t appreciate getting fired from my job.”

Evrim jerked to their feet. “Do. Not. Call. Me. Robot. Again. You have now called me that seven hundred and ninety-seven times since we arrived in this place. Make this the last.”

Standing, Evrim was taller than Altantsetseg, though much thinner. For a moment it seemed as though Evrim were going to strike the security officer.

Horrifying scenarios flashed through Ha’s mind—violence between the two of them, with no one but Ha to intervene.

But Evrim turned and stalked toward the door.