"Granted."

Reports are sent over on the tablet. The humans and mercurials have very detailed statistics, and their reports of disasters are illustrated with very detailed images taken both on-the-ground and from far overhead.

Violent deaths are quite rare, more common in mercurials than in humans but still less common than for the humans Griffie is used to. Among the most common causes are diseases of age, a category featuring a lot of cancers. Infant mortality is shockingly low, as are deaths by sanitation-failure-related diseases. Fatal accidents are also rare: while space exploration is a risky profession by the standards of whoever collected these statistics, it's less risky than farming on Suaal.

Humans and mercurials do not seem to consider settlements with fewer than a million residents to be cities, though the reports on city destruction do include smaller settlements. On civilized planets, such as the mercurial and human homeworlds, the most common cause of a settlement being destroyed is for it to be no longer profitable to have a settlement in the region, causing emigration and abandonment of maintenance of structures. On less civilized planets, the first sign that it is unprofitable to have a settlement in the region may be a hypercane or attacks by local wildlife, which are both linked to higher death rates than typical disasters on a civilized planet.

A representative sample of city destruction reports include:

A Martian city's dome was damaged to the point of air pressure loss. This was immediately announced throughout the city. Citizens in close proximity to personal oxygen-supply devices donned them and distributed them to others. Aside from emergency-response teams with appropriate protective gear, citizens moved to shelters. While some mercurials trampled each other in a panic, there were by Griffie's standards very few casualties. Other domes took the citizens of the damaged city in as refugees until the city was repaired.

A volcano near a city on the human homeworld was on track to erupt. Geological instruments detected this with enough warning for citizens to evacuate with some of their belongings. When the volcano erupted, attempts to redirect the lava flow around the city failed. Portions of the city were buried under lava, and more burned. However, the city was near a highly valuable trade route and was rebuilt, with structures more resilient to fire if not to lava. Some of the people trying to defend the city developed silicosis, and had replacement lungs grown for them in vitro and surgically implanted. A few died in fires or lava, and the rebuilt city contains memorials to them.

An older city on the mercurial homeworld, built when regional weather patterns were different, experienced significant damage during an unexpected large cryoseism which instruments had failed to detect. Many mercurials were injured by collapsing buildings, and some died. The mercurials formed impromptu warming shelters in intact buildings and followed generic protocols for checking areas for injured victims. Some mercurial first responders were severely injured due to eagerness to enter very damaged buildings, and a few died. After the cryoseism, demand for materials relevant to securing buildings against such accidents skyrocketed, and by the time it would have been affordable to rebuild the city safely, few of the residents were attached to returning, though the settlement does remain inhabited.

The humans and mercurials appear to have basically straightforwardly conquered infectious disease, save for the sorts of opportunistic diseases that only attack people who are already very weak. As well as infant mortality. Wow. And Griffie feels rather jealous about those actuarial tables regarding 'high-risk' professions, they've seen the tables for adventurers and they look a lot worse than this. And the statistics are extremely rigorous. Axis would probably envy these people too.

A real city contains more than a million people, huh. Wow these civilizations are large.

None of the disasters match the Fulgati attack pattern. In many of these disasters, libraries and other cultural centers survived. And the death rates are quite low. Apparently destruction of cities really means the cities here, not their inhabitants. A few wild animal attacks aside, but even those cases still don't look like Fulgati, or Jabberwocks, or even goblin invasions. Also, they seem to always manage to have lots of pictures even of disasters in frontier regions. Also implicit in the discussions of evacuations and refugees and salvage of culturally valuable items is the information that people here just seem to be on average nicer, in the way that prosperous people who aren't prosperous for bad reasons tend to be nicer.

"This … might be a weird thing to say after looking at death and disaster statistics, but I like your world a lot. You have such low infant mortality! You basically just don't have plagues! I was looking for a specific antimemetic problem in the city-destruction statistics and reports, and you don't appear to have that problem. And you can afford to build so many safety-promoting systems and you're good about taking in refugees."

"Also by my world's standards, you're all in low-risk professions. Or, uh, were. Arithnu, you seem to want to join my profession."

"Well, given that reaction… it sounds like you need the help. What is your profession, though?"

"I'm an adventurer. Adventurers are sort of like … a very strange cross between mercenaries and experts from distant places who you hire to look at your organization a bit to see if they have insights you didn't come up with? We're typically found in groups of three to seven, have very eclectic collections of abilities, and tend to do things like wear armor in our sleep and have spring-loaded tool storage for when we need to rapidly switch tools, such as mid-combat. It's a high-risk, high-reward profession. Those of us who live tend to spend the majority of our wealth on tools for being better at adventuring. For the price of things like the tools I personally wear and carry, I could have bought over a thousand pounds of saffron. Saffron is a rare spice that takes a lot of labor to harvest, because only a small and delicate portion of the plant it's from is usable for the spice. I'm using my memories of saffron prices as a reference, presumably they'd be higher if someone actually tried to buy that much saffron in one place."

"You actually sound more like you want to be a soldier, though. The last time an organization classifying people into soldiers or not classified me, they said 'Civilian (adventurer)', though actually that was a while back, and what happened in Verduran probably counted as me being a soldier? It was a temporary group formed in response to an invasion. There aren't any militaries in my world that I'd join save for that of the Upper Planes, and the Upper Planes prefers me in my current role. But it sounds like you like your people's military more than I like the ones I've seen."

"I am quite unsure how to evaluate your wealth, even with that statement. The Martian Ship Stopping By Crashing Into Stone is already connected to the militaries of both of our primary governments."

"I could talk about wealth comparisons more but I’m not sure it would be productive yet. Your world appears wealthier than mine in the ways that matter. If it has less of some useful metals or gems it still has more of what one ought to want to buy with them. My point is more that I have spent a lot of wealth, far far more than most people in my world ever see, on improving my capacity for combat and responding to emergencies, and this is my largest category of expenditures, and that this is not atypical for a sensible member of my profession."

"And if the Stopping By Crashing Into Stone is connected to both of your militaries… you and the humans on the bridge recognized the deadly potential of elemental fire to your world. I know that the translation system is changing your faces to match my language, and I suppose it could also remove emotional cues. But neither you nor anyone else appeared to have any desire to ensure your people, and not other people, gained access to weaponized-elemental-fire first, and all of you looked horrified. Does that in fact match how you reacted?"

"I can't promise as much about the humans, but I think at least Boyd and the captain are all right. Don't be mislead by Boyd's attitude, he is a good man at heart. I can't really see Silvia or Cornelia trying such a thing either. Arete… I don't know as well."

He pauses, thinking. "I've worked with Silvia a lot, snaps at people, but… I could see Cornelia getting involved in something stupid if the captain and Boyd weren't there to keep things right."

He smiles a little. "Don't worry too much about Boyd, really. I've learned to read him quite well, both in and out of combat."

"My point regarding elemental fire is not about the personal tendencies of one of the humans on the bridge, but rather that they apparently are connected to a major human military, and they did not react to elemental fire as though their superiors wanted them to find things like it to use as weapons. You also did not react that way."

"That… is more of a concern, yes. We are a Curiosity Class Scouting Ship. Finding new things, especially useful things—that is our goal. Finding new planets that we might inhabit, finding dead jellies, or, I suppose, finding you. Human governments do have… concerning amounts of pressure in that direction. This isn't a pure human ship though. For now at least, though, with subspace–"

Leonarda returns, glaring at Arithnu.

"Art. I gave you a list. You will fill out that list, now."

She looks at Griffith. "Still working on the plant, but the antimeme protocol–"

"This involves both of our governments. You may be captain of the ship, but I am the highest ranking member of the mercurial military on board. Griffith has a reasonable point, and as the highest ranking representative of the mercurials that we can currently get in contact with, I am deciding to share with them that our current ability to communicate at a distance is limited, regardless of your list."

"…fine. And what, may I ask, is this 'reasonable point'?"

"One of the primary missions given to by your government was the discovery of new technologies, and I have concerns that your government may push for the misuse of Griffith's technology, and that you will have difficulty bringing yourself to resist."

"That would be bad, though I'm not sure what contexts they'd want to misuse it in, if the only violent destruction of cities is really done by wild animals."

Leonarda shoots a glare at Arithnu "Can we please worry about this later? I have protocols for the antimemes. We are, as Arithnu is apparently so eager to disclose, currently out of contact with the rest of civilization. I would like to propose, as a compromise, that we do not actively seek out any weapons for the moment and instead focus on defensive capabilities. In particular, I would like to know just what both of our civilizations may be up against that can be hidden with antimemes."

"The division of tools into offensive and defensive is never as easy as one might like, but I agree that the antimemetic threat should be solidly on the defensive side to discuss. Show me the protocols?"

Arithnu looks suspiciously at Leonarda, then finally says "If Griffith agrees… point."

"All right. First, I will sit down. Now, check your tablet. You should have a button. This connection will terminate automatically. If the antimeme is only difficult to transmit, not actually hazardous to know, you will press the button to reconnect and we will continue. Otherwise, a highly minimalistic system will wait for a period of one hour, then ask me if I received information. If I claim I have, it will alert individuals, including those who have no context, that I have received false information which I am compelled to believe. Do you have any questions before this connection is terminated?"

"Successful transmission of the antimemetic information is non-hazardous, if unpleasant. Failed transmission could to my knowledge at worst increase your confidence in a false belief you already have. The false belief would be dangerous because it would encourage dangerous actions, not because merely thinking it is dangerous."

Leonarda pauses, thinking for a few minutes.

She picks up her tablet and begins manipulating it. "Arithnu. You already had a concern, and this creates another. I will resolve both. I am hereby declaring that if Griffith so decides, I will be required to submit myself and this ship to your authority. You will not listen in on this conversation, but if Griffith determines that I am a risk, either due to this, other hazards, or concerns about governmental pressure, they may place you in charge. Is this understood?"

"I understand. I was expecting to use the information transmission protocols with a lower-ranking person. I consider this a good safeguard, especially if Arithnu could in that case forcibly prevent you from communicating things to himself and other people, including by yelling short sentences."

"With no subspace communication, I am the highest ranking member of my military that can be contacted, and based on how things have gone previously, I am not disclosing this information to anyone lower-ranking if I can avoid it. And now, at your and Arithnu's discretion, anyone higher-ranking either. A secure room and limited tablet are being prepared. Arithnu, someone else will take the bridge. Unless you have objections, come along to wait outside for Griffith's judgement."