The robot showed signs of wear and age: crumpled panels on the dodecahedral core; an antennalike protrusion that was pitted and scarred, as if by micrometeorite rain; one arm that appeared to have been broken and patched by a sheath of newer material. This is an old machine, he thought, and it might have been traveling a long, long time; he wondered how many Suns had baked its fragile skin, how many dusty comet trail clouds had worn away at those filmy structures.

Right now the two arms were held upward, as if in an air of supplication, giving the robot an overall W shape — like the first robot he’d seen.

Could this be the same machine? Or, he wondered, am I anthropomorphizing again, longing for individuality where none exists? After all, this thing could never be mistaken for something alive — could it? If nothing else its lack of symmetry — one arm was a good two meters longer than the others — was, on some profound level, deeply disturbing.

He gave in to his sentimentality.

“Cassiopeia,” he said. “That’s what I’ll call you.”

Female, Malenfant? But the thing did have a certain delicacy and grace. Cassiopeia, then. He raised a hand and waved.

He half expected a wave back from those complex robot arms, but they did not move.

…But now there was a change. An object that looked for all the world like a telephoto lens came pushing out of an aperture in the front of Cassiopeia’s dodecahedral torso and trained on him.

He wondered if Cassiopeia had just manufactured the system, in response to its — her — perceived need, in some nano factory in her interior. More likely the technology was simpler, and this “camera” had been assembled from a stock of parts carried within. Maybe Cassiopeia was like a Swiss Army knife, he thought: not infinitely flexible, but with a stock of tools that could be deployed and adapted to a variety of purposes.

And then, once again, he was startled — this time by a noise from within his bubble.

It was a radio screech. It had come from the comms headset tucked inside his helmet.

He grabbed the helmet, pulled out the headset, and held one speaker against his ear. The screech was so loud it was painful, and though he thought he detected traces of structure in the signal, there was nothing resembling human speech.

He glanced out at the robot, Cassiopeia, still patiently holding her station alongside his membrane.

She’s trying to communicate, he thought. After years of ignoring the radio and other signals we beamed at her colleagues in the asteroid belt, she’s decided I’m interesting enough to talk to.

He grinned. Objective achieved, Malenfant. You made them notice us, at least.

Yes, but right now it wasn’t doing him much good. The signal he was being sent might contain whole libraries of interstellar wisdom, but he couldn’t decode it — not without banks of supercomputers.

They still have no real idea what they’re dealing with here, he thought, how limited I am. Maybe I’m fortunate they didn’t try hitting me with signal lasers.

If we’re going to talk, it will have to be in English. Maybe they can figure that out; we’ve been bombarding them with dictionaries and encyclopedias for long enough. And it will have to be slow enough for me to understand.

He dug in a pocket on the leg of his suit until he found a thick block of paper and a propelling pencil.

Another moment of contact, then: the first words exchanged between human being and alien. Words that would presumably be remembered, if anybody ever found out about this, long after Shakespeare was forgotten.

What should he say? Poetry? A territorial challenge? A speech of welcome?

At last he grunted, licked the pencil lead, and wrote out two words in blocky capitals. Then he pressed the pad up against the clear membrane.

THANK YOU

With its — her — telescopic eye, Cassiopeia peered at the paper block for long minutes.

From her angular body Cassiopeia extruded a new pseudopod. It carried a small metal block the size and shape of his notepad.

The block bore a message. In English. The text was in a neat, unadorned font.

COMMUNICATION DYSFUNCTION. REPAIRS MANDATED. REPAIRS PERFORMED. DECISION CONSTRAINED.

He frowned, trying to figure out the meaning. We don’t understand. Why are you thanking us? You would have died. We had no choice but to help you.

He thought, then wrote out: IT SHOWED GOODWILL BETWEEN OUR SPECIES. Not the right word, that species; but he couldn’t think of anything better. MAYBE WE WILL UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER IN THE FUTURE. MAYBE WE WILL LIVE IN PEACE.

The reply: DECISION CONSTRAINED BUT NOT SINGLE-VALUED. INFORMATION REQUIRED CONCERNING OBJECTIVE: REPLICATION; RESOURCE APPROPRIATION; ACTIVITY PROHIBITION; EXOTIC. WHICH.

We didn’t have to keep you alive, asshole. We didn’t know what the hell you were doing here, and we needed to find out. Maybe you wanted to make lots of little Malenfants from Centauri asteroids. Maybe you wanted to take away our resources for some other purposes. Maybe you wanted to stop us doing what we’re doing. Or maybe something else we can’t even guess. What are you doing here?

Take care with your answer, Malenfant. Most of those options, from a Gaijin point of view, aren’t too healthy; you mustn’t let them think you’re some kind of von Neumann rapacious terminator robot yourself, or they’ll slit open this air sac, and then your belly.

I’M HERE OUT OF CURIOSITY.

A pause. COMMUNICATION DYSFUNCTION.

What??

He wrote, WHERE DID YOU COME FROM? WHO MADE YOU? ARE THEY NEARBY?

Another, longer pause. SEVERAL THOUSAND ITERATIONS SINCE INITIALIZATION. We are thousands of generations removed from those who began the migration.

Then these are the Gaijin, he thought. They don’t know who made them. They’ve forgotten. Or maybe nobody made them. After all, you believe you evolved, Malenfant; why not them?

He wrote out, WHAT IS YOUR PURPOSE HERE?

REPLICATION. CONSTRUCTION. SEARCH.

So they did come here from somewhere else. And the Gaijin’s last word, finally, gave him hope he was dealing with something more than a fixed machine here, more than simple mechanical goals.

SEARCH, he wrote. SEARCH FOR WHAT?

The answer chilled him. SEARCH OBJECT: OPTION TO AVOID COMING STERILIZATION EVENT. EXISTENCE OF OPTION QUERY.

My God, he thought. We always thought the aliens would come and teach us. Wrong. These guys are coming to us for answers.

Answers to whatever it is they are fleeing. The “sterilization event.”

For long minutes he gazed at Cassiopeia’s crumpled, complex hide. Then he wrote carefully, WE MUST TALK. BUT I NEED FOOD.

OPTION: RETURN BEFORE EXPIRATION. We can take you home before you die.

WHAT ELSE?

OPTION: MANUFACTURE FOOD. ITERATIVE PROCESS, SUCCESS ANTICIPATED.

Reassuring, he thought dryly.

COROLLARY: CONTINUE.

He wrote, CONTINUE? YOU MEAN I CAN GO ON?

OPTION: ORIGIN NODE. OPTION: OTHER NODES. We can take you home. Or we can take you farther. Other places. Even farther than this.

Even deeper in time, too. My God.

He thought about it for sixty seconds.

I WANT TO GO ON, he said. MAKE ME FOOD.

Then he added, PLEASE.

Maura Della died eight years after Malenfant’s disappearance into the Gaijin portal, a few months before a signal at light speed could have completed the journey to Alpha Centauri and back.

But when those months had passed — when the new signals arrived, bearing news from Alpha Centauri — the great asteroid belt flower-ships at last opened up their electromagnetic wings, and a thousand of them began to sail in toward the crowded heart of the Solar System, and toward Earth.