He does not mean “our” in the collective sense—he means his own civilization. He doesn’t think they will become some grand galactic empire, quite the opposite, in fact; their single-minded fixation on controlling everything they encounter combined with their rejection of the unfamiliar has led to a cultural and technological stagnation, which, he believes, will ultimately lead to their undoing.

If that is the case, then Pequod is a poetic name for the ship that is their civilization. The whale is the Divine, and the Pequod will sink itself in the pursuit of destroying it. “That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate,” says Ahab of the white whale with which he is so obsessed and yet by his own admission does not understand. “I will wreak that hate upon him.”

I look at this alien being next to me, the body he inhabits an incredible feat of engineering, technological advancement so sophisticated it may as well be magic. I reflect on what a miracle it is that either of us is alive at all, let alone here together on this tiny mote of dust in the outer Milky Way. That we, independent of each other, evolved from our respective primordial soups to a point that we are able to see and understand as much of the universe as we do, that we are able to inhabit the same space and to interact. Nikola finds our limitations a source of consternation; I feel that we are able to see and understand as much as we do as the epitome of true beauty. I don’t know how many moments like this we will share together. Will this be one of many such moments, or is it both the first and the last?

I respond to him thus: “Hubris might be our end, too.”

Acknowledgments

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I had a lot more help for this book than I did for Axiom’s End, and I am grateful for every one who gave me their time, energy, and support. First, to those who gave invaluable feedback on earlier drafts: my agent, Christopher Hermelin; TWO-time Hugo–winning editor Navah Wolfe; Stephanie Kroll; Lindsay Ribar; Elisa Hansen; Nick Hansen; and Emily VanDerWerff. (Audiobook listeners got to hear three pronunciations of her name in the first book. For the record, it’s pronounced “VanDerWerff.”)

To my artists: Stanley Chow, who does portraits for The New Yorker and was kind enough to do a New Yorker-style “witness sketch” for my reporter-at-large, and Harry Brewis, who lent his handwriting talents to some hate crimes.

To Katharine Trendacosta and Devin “Legal Eagle” J. Stone, both of whom used their prestigious law degrees to help me explore the many legal questions at the heart of the book. Now Katharine’s many long hours enduring congressional hearings can finally be applied to the question “What if alien rights got debated in congress?”