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could’ve spent on the open water to, I don’t know, a couple months? Three months?”
    â€œYou sure seem to know a lot about fishing,” Dr Russell teased.
    â€œHe loves nature documentaries,” Theresa said. “Drives me nuts with them.”
    The village on the screen shrank to a pinprick, then shot to the right side as Mahama took control and zoomed the view out to encompass a flattened representation of the entire planet.
    â€œThere are a few archipelagoes along the way where they could’ve stopped and replenished.”
    â€œThat’s possible,” Benson added. “But I think we’re shooting for a worst-case number right now, yes?”
    Mahama nodded.
    â€œOK, so how fast can a sailing ship average over water?”
    Theresa consulted a database in her plant. “Call it five knots.”
    â€œWhat the hell’s a ‘not’?”
    â€œRight, sorry, about nine kph.”
    Benson nodded. “OK, is that an Earth standard?”
    â€œBroadly speaking, with a ton of variables, yes.”
    â€œAll right, average wind speed here is a little higher, so call it twelve kph, just under three hundred kilometers per day in ideal conditions.”
    â€œHold on,” Valmassoi jumped back into the conversation. “Are you saying they made the crossing in two weeks ?”
    â€œNo, I’m saying they could have, if everything went perfectly. Which, as you know, it usually doesn’t.”
    â€œBut that still puts them on site for more than a local year!” Alexander said.
    â€œA year ,” Mahama corrected. “Earth’s year doesn’t have any meaning anymore.”
    â€œYes, fine, a year. That’s still enough time to learn the language and say all sorts of things. We could have a real situation here.”
    â€œAnd that’s why this meeting was called,” Mahama tried to regain control of the conversation. “The question is what to do about it now that they have made first contact with the Atlantians for us.”
    â€œYes,” Valmassoi added. “Who knows what stories they’ve been telling the natives. We’ll be lucky if they don’t teach them how to build an invasion fleet to sail right over here and wipe us all out.”
    â€œCan’t happen,” Alexander jumped in. “The Ark’s navigational lasers would burn any ship to ash before they got within a thousand kilometers of Shambhala.”
    Theresa rolled her eyes, but Feng was the first to respond to the needless bravado. “First of all, the prevailing winds blow east to west. They’d have to sail right on around Gaia, then cross our whole continent overland. And second, I suspect Captain Mahama would prefer to find a solution that doesn’t involve wholesale slaughter of the people we’re trying to share this world with.”
    â€œToo true,” the captain said. “The task before us now is basically public-relations damage control. The Unbound have forced our hand here.”
    â€œShould’ve spaced the lot of them,” Alexander mumbled, but Mahama ignored him and continued.
    â€œWe have to either contain or counter whatever biased information they may have given the Atlantians about our presence and intentions.”
    â€œHow do we do that?” Valmassoi asked.
    â€œWe move up our timeline and send the diplomatic mission to introduce ourselves to the Atlantians.”
    â€œWhen?”
    â€œLast year would be ideal,” Theresa quipped.
    â€œSnarky,” Feng said, “but entirely accurate. Maybe we got lucky and they stopped at a particularly beautiful tropical island for a few months and really did only get there two days ago, or maybe they’ve been there for a year already and only now got around to attending church. Either way, we need to get our people there immediately.”
    â€œWe’re not close to ready,” Valmassoi objected. “Waiting for a good