"Or what, you'll have me shot? - I guess you'd have to first invent guns."

"Or I'll kick you out of the palace."

"Is there another country that'd take Cor, if he wants to leave -"

" - most places will take him, if he shows up and isn't destitute. I don't want to push him too hard in that direction, though. I really do think we're probably here for some reason. ...to teach me some important lesson about something?"

"Well, if you're using your position to rape people I think the obvious lesson is, don't do that."

"I'm not! I also haven't destroyed any planets and don't intend to, and haven't made terrible bargains with any evil gods and don't intend to, and no one I spend time with would hurt me if they had the chance - excluding Anaander, I guess - and yet I still feel like anyone who drops a bunch of alternate universe evil people on you has a point, you know?"

"I guess. Doesn't explain why I'm here."

"I don't know. I find it reassuring that I'm sometimes a - person I can recognize, even if they're an alien -" 

- to Anaander, "the other three, they're the same cluster too, aren't they."

"You knew that twenty minutes ago but you didn't have enough self-confidence to say anything."

"I wondered."

"You knew. Anyway, yes, they are. I don't know what that adds to the puzzle."

"We should probably tell them, though."

"I could go?"

"Yeah, sounds good."

So he gets himself escorted over to everyone else. 

"Aitim, right?"

"Yes. Sorry to bother you all, I'll leave in a second, but we noticed something and wanted to ask about it. The - mysterious similarity thing - it looks to us like these people have it, too? They're not us. But they're each other."

"Based on -"

"The ...kinds of considerations you focus on? The problem solving? I wouldn't have confidently bet on it but Anaander's sure and - I don't think she's lying, I think she's faster than us at that."

"She's old. Though I don't know why she'd specifically have practice at identifying - personality duplicates."

"I'm not sure how to feel about this."

"There is a whole heck of a lot going on. There's Maitimos and there's whatever we are? We're a thing? I didn't notice..."

(He leaves).

"You all seem like decent people? Wildly different alignments but circumstances can do that. I wouldn't have guessed there was more to it but - the pharaoh's not wrong about people often."

"I mean, this could still all be elaborate bullshit."