"We know how to live like this. If we weren't used to working hard, if we didn't know how to farm, if we'd been safe too long to know what was dangerous... I think that'd be worse. The population didn't just shrink to what the land could support. There's empty places. That's what worries me, not just going back to how things already are."

"Then I won't tell anyone how to build nuclear weapons or make germs into weapons or stuff like that."

"You don't think it was just people who were used to eating food made by machines eating poison plants because they didn't know which ones were safe, that kind of thing? Or do you think the collapse was probably at least one of those things?"

"I don't know but I think the collapse was a big war using nuclear weapons and germ weapons and computer viruses and other nasty things. That... Fits best out of what I can think of so far. I actually checked last night... The world's background radiation is higher than it should be. That means lots of nuclear weapons were being used long ago. Have you heard of any ruined cities? Places like out there, but even more destroyed? Places you mustn't go or you'll get sick? This place probably didn't get hit because it's not actually a very important city..."

"There are warnings about going some places really far away but nothing specific enough that I could tell you that's definitely what they're about. And I've heard of cities more ruined than this one that don't make you sick, but that's probably something different. ...I wonder why this place isn't important, with the mine right near it and you here..."

"Less than forty thousand people lived here. That's not a lot in the old world. No army was here... No important crossroads or irreplaceable industries were here. It was just one more city among hundreds. There are other mines, and mining things more valuable than iron... And I'm a pretty impressive ship, sure, but there were thousands like me."

"Well. Here is the most important place in the world now, whatever it was before."

"I might want to make a copy of myself when I have more stuff... Just in case. But I can't do that while I'm awake. Someone else would have to."

"How does that work?"

"I would have to give you access to my mainframe and teach you all the commands to use to do it. It'd take a day or so."

But Vaayo could also name himself her captain, revoke her control over all the machines, or a few other things, or delete her, if he knew how, or if he screws something up. It makes her nervous.

"I don't know, though. Something could go wrong..."

"Let's not try anything that could kill you right now."

"Yeah. Not right now, either way. Wait until I made some things, taught other people some things. If enough people get enough things from enough places, you could finish rebuilding without me. But no reason to make it any harder than it has to be. A happier topic, I found a few more games you might like!"

"Thank you! Have you tried them? Do you like them?"

"I tried them, yeah. I don't enjoy things the same way you do but Citadel of Glass and Light is probably really pretty based on what you said is pretty so far. And it's supposed to have beautiful music. It's a story game in a made up world where there's no solid land."

"What way do you enjoy things, if it's not how I do?"

"Mostly when I'm getting something done? Or helping someone? Or learning something. I don't have the same emotions as people. Mostly just helping-people-happy, I'm-learning-or-growing-happy, pain, worry, and angry."

"I know things I can teach you! What're you interested in learning?"

"More words! Let's go to the room with the big screens, you can probably see better there." That'll get him out so she can turn the machines up high again, right?

It sure will. "What do you want to know the words for?"

All sorts of things apparently.

She pulls up pictures of things - a variety of household objects, illustrations showing people doing various verbs, body parts (head shoulders knees and toes, KNEES AND TOES), animals and plants ("It's fine if you don't recognize them"), tools, substances, and so on.

Most of his vocabulary's what she would guess from her knowledge of English and the changes the words he's used so far have undergone. Some are derived from Spanish instead or seem to derive from words that meant something different. His word for plates in general seems to come from the word "china" even when he's not talking about nice plates.

He has words for all the local plants and animals, but not for most of the ones that only live in different climates. He does want to know what the ones he doesn't recognize are and where they live and if they're good to eat.

She is happy to provide counter-lectures! Most animals that are not livestock are not that good to eat. She shows him a world map on a second screen and highlights animal ranges. "As I know them, anyway. The ranges have probably changed since then."

"Thanks! Anything else you want to know?"

"I want to know everything you can tell me about other people you know about! What problems Iron Heart has, if you trade with anyone, where everyone is..."

"So around here... you wouldn't know which land we call Yuya, probably, but the area where if you say 'the town' you mean Iron Heart... everyone here trades with each other enough that we all speak the same language and we have friends in other towns. There's northerners we trade with but that's more of an every few years thing, one time when I was a kid they came down offering us a bunch of silver and said the crops were all failing that year, we fed them and sent them back north with all the corn we could spare. Another time it was us starving, our people took art and tools and things people made and came back with enough wheat and beet sugar that we could make it till our next harvest. It's really good to have people far enough away that our bad years don't all come at the same time and close enough to trade with whenever we need to.

"Besides them we really rarely see anyone. The people down south might or might not even still be alive, we haven't seen them in decades but maybe they're doing fine on their own. There's people in the west, too, we see them... sometimes. There's no telling when they'll decide to come see us and we don't bother crossing the desert all that often but it does happen. People say they look funny but I've never seen a westerner. Anyway, that's all, we've never gotten visitors from over the mountains and we've never crossed them ourselves, we've heard totally unsubstantiated rumors that there might be people even further north than the people we trade with but I've never heard of anyone meeting any. Personally I don't believe there are any to meet.

"Oh, and if you're going to go try to talk to anyone else you'll have more languages to learn, I've heard the northerners used to speak our language but by now you can't understand them and I don't think anybody else even used to speak our language. But you learn languages fast, it shouldn't be a problem for you."