"Physical things? And they live underwater."

"Like strength or speed or teeth, and so what, just invent waterproof things." He gets a sound recorder from under the table. "This would work underwater."

"What's wrong with liking physical things? And that sound recorder was probably designed and assembled on land, by humans."

"Yes, that's why I said mer could trade with humans. And there's nothing wrong with physical things I just don't understand liking them this much when there are so many more interesting things."

"Mer don't exactly have much to trade. And he's young, why shouldn't he enjoy running around? As much fun as designing my house was, building it was pretty enjoyable as well."

"I'm not saying he shouldn't, just that it looks like that's all he likes and the other things don't matter to him. And anyway mer could trade fish, I bet they fish better than humans, and they could help build things underwater and they could do research about things underwater and there's their languages and everyone likes art!"

"Mer are much better at catching fish with their hands, or with nets and spears. Humans however can do it on an industrial scale. And trading stories and the like wouldn't help them build an infrastructure. As for using them as labour force, you'd have to invest a massive amount of time and resources in training them, and mer dwell in relatively shallow waters, limiting their usefulness in that capacity.

And Michael's got his depths to him. He reads a lot."

"It still sounds like they could help and get stuff," he says stubbornly, and doesn't comment on Michael's reading habits.

"I heard they like the waterproof camera I gave Michael, so there's hope."

"...hey," he starts something belatedly occurs to him, "but wait, humans didn't have technology to fish things a thousand years ago, why didn't they trade things then?"

"They might've, the archeology is a bit sketchy."

"Sketchy how?"

"Not much data available. There aren't massive mer ruins for us to study."

"But what about human ruins? And books?"

"Historical accounts of mer tend to be somewhat blinkered."

"How? Why?"

"Have you ever read old accounts of white people meeting non white cultures?"

"...no."

"They are neither flattering, nor accurate. It's arguably worse for mer."

"But that's stupid."

"You seem to be a nice child. Can you imagine what a not-nice person might say about Michael?"

"I didn't really mean it when I said he was terrible. Well, I did, but I didn't mean it that way."

"Some theologians actually think mer are sinless, for strange, complicated reasons. I don't think so, but they're no worse than people."

"People a thousand years ago."

"But still people."