'I hear you,' she replies solemnly. 'The offer remains, should you ever choose to take it.' Tayrey can't be offended, not even a little; Koutolika's logic is sound. There are times where you have to make a sharp decision based on the information you have, incomplete or not. This isn't one of them. Time, if nothing else, is on their side.

She leans back in her chair, relaxed, contemplative. 'I do think the experiment has practical constraints,' she says. 'The Council are not omnipotent. The trouble involved in trying to bring beings here who exist in universes with different fundamental constants, or even those who don't require oxygen - perhaps the benefit doesn't justify the cost. Or perhaps life is rarer than we think. You are human, so am I, and either that is a grave error of translation or we are physiologically near-identical despite our origins being so far apart.'

With a half-smile, she adds, 'Although I would say that every human is an individual and that souls do not exist, so there, that is a difference - but perhaps we'll debate philosophy another time, yes? I suppose the real question is whether you think there's anything to be done about it all, presently. As I said, I'm content to observe. Providing that their promise to return anyone home if they wish to go is genuine. If not, we are prisoners with much worse problems.'