Fred finishes his book and asks Bar for another one. For some reason, in the other one, God lives on the moon and judges poetry contests.

It is unbearably tragic. He finds himself the closest to crying that he's been in, oh, three years.

And eventually the Secretary returns with some greens. He introduces a theologian, a pair of biologists, and a linguist. One biologist and the linguist are men, if Fred is counting.

Fred is not sniffling at the end of the book at all! He has allergies to Milliways, that's all. He dabs at his eyes with the handkerchief.

He notices but does not comment on the fact that half the team is women.

A few moments later, Serena returns with a theologian, a linguist, two biologists, a science fiction writer, and an aggressively normal-looking man who, if questioned, will give his job as "administrative assistant." All of them are men except the science-fiction writer.

Avalor, while waiting, has recorded a short video of herself authorizing the cordoning of the corridor so no one thinks she's being violently deposed by all the greys refusing to let anyone by.

The green linguist is chatting in fascination with the bar; the biologists are muttering to each other while looking at the human specimens available but stop when their opposite numbers arrive, the theologian has been brushing up on her introductory level stuff so she can explain theology to the unwashed aliens.

"Who should talk to whom? I assume the theologians should talk with each other so that Amentans' knowledge of God does not come solely from a guy who usually does housing policy."

"Yes, I assume they should pair off - I did not fetch a science fiction author, I confess I'm not sure what the relevance is..."

"Until quite recently, we believed that God had only created one sapient species, so science fiction writers are the only people who bothered to think about aliens much at all."

"Oh, I see. We have always assumed there might be more. Although we expected to encounter them via someone traversing space in ships, not, ah, this."

"Dr. Rosen is a specialist in bitoxiphosphene; is there one of your biologists that it makes more sense for him to talk to?"

"I'm a reproductive biologist and this is a biochemist," says the male biologist, "she'll recognize the chemical if we know of it - or at least know how to look it up in that chemical dictionary, if we have service here -"

"We do as long as the door's open to Voa," says Avalor.

"And I'll know about its relevance to Amentan fertility if any."

"So biologists with biologists, theologian with theologian and SF writer, linguists can step outside into my bedroom so they can hear each other, and the administrative assistant can float and write things down so that we have excellent notes on all the conversations?"

"Is that safe," asked the linguist. "The stepping out. We don't know about the chemical yet - perhaps you could come to Voa instead -" he tells his opposite number.

"We've never seen any negative effects at anything less than a year's exposure. But Governor Avalor should make the final decision, the advantage of my bedroom is that no one will enter it who doesn't already know that aliens exist."

"It might be harmless to us but it might also be much worse," Avalor says. "I think the cordoning of the hallway should suffice. The linguists can use Darmakga's office, it's next to mine if you turn right exiting."

Off go linguists.

The theologians and SF writer also pair up. 

The human theologian begins trying to explain the watchmaker argument. 

"- hang on for a second," says the green theologian after listening for about one paragraph. "I was told you were a theologian, are you actually some kind of evolutionary biologist?"

"Evolution is false. God created the world six thousand years ago."

"Oh! On Amenta, evolution is true. I'm surprised that even translated, what are you hearing it as?"

"Evolution is a lie spread by atheists in our world. I'm not entirely-- I mean, science is not my field, but the arguments against it seem like they ought to apply to every world."

"Maybe God chose evolution as His way to create Amenta," the science fiction writer says.

The human theologian looks suspicious about this. 

"It's a robust finding. It's not my field but they covered it when I was two, and I took a few courses on things other than theology in university," says the green. "But it's interesting if you aren't the same way, that has all kinds of implications, in particular I'd expect you to be put together better under the cosmetic similarities if you were designed. Is there a reason you decided to start with that topic, is it related to how you do your kind of theology?"

"It's one of the primary arguments for the existence of God, who is our creator. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving."

"- why are you arguing about his existence?"

"Because one of the angels, Satan, rebelled against God and deceived people into believing God doesn't exist."

"Oh. We haven't heard from Satan on Amenta either, so we were just taking your word for it about God. I assume we'll hear back from Amentans who visit him about the details at some point."

The theologian is not entirely sure how to sort out the misunderstanding here!

Finally, he settles for "so what do you guys do?"