"My name is Rodi. I have traveled here in an Exaltation of Arks. I have brought you good news of the Integrality--"

"Are you human?"

"Yes, of course. How long have you been stranded?"

"Stranded where?"

Rodi pulled at his chin. "Would you like to hear of events in the galaxies? Of the wars with the Xeelee?"

"What are galaxies? -- Cancel question. Please understand that this is the first time the Comms System has evoked a reply--"

"Then why have you maintained it?"

"Because we always have. The role of Comms Officer is handed from mother to daughter. We know we came from somewhere else. The Comms System is the only link with this other place, our origin. How could we abandon it? Are you in this other place?"

"Yes. You are not alone."

"How reassuring."

Rodi raised an eyebrow. Sarcasm? "Please describe your world."

"What world?"

It took some time to achieve a common understanding.

The stranded crew had observed the layer of soupy liquid at the star rim. The liquid was full of complex molecules, left over from the supernova's fusion fury.

It was their only hope.

With astonishing audacity they had terraformed the ring-shaped sea. Then they began to mold their own unborn children.

Their descendants swam like fish in a dull red toroidal ocean, chattering English. They didn't need hands or tools; only the old Comms System had been left for them, lasing its message to the skies. Rodi imagined the Comms Officer tapping a broad, unwearing key with his mouth or tongue.

Rodi sent down a small, sturdy probe. It was a passing novelty among the fish-folk. Rodi wondered if they thought he was swimming somewhere inside.

There was a death among the fish-folk. A corpse fell from a school of wailing relatives and settled slowly to the star's glowing surface.

Rodi's probe took a tissue sample from the corpse.

The fish-folk were beyond the reach of the glotto-chronology dating technique. Rodi turned to genetic analysis. Two groups on Earth will show divergence of genetic structure at a rate of one percent every five million years.

Rodi found that the fish-folk had swum their ocean for fifty thousand years.

That appalled him. How long had this damn Xeelee war dragged on? How many human lives had been wasted?

The fish-folk weren't too impressed by the Integrality.

"All mankind is joined in freedom," said Rodi. "The worlds in home space are joined by inseparability links into a neural network; decisions flow through the net and reflect the wills of all, not just one person or one group..."

And so on.

The Comms Officer was silent for a long time. Then: "What you say means little to us."

"Your world is unchanging. You are isolated. You are cut out of the great events which shape the greater human history."