But now they found that their speech was old-fashioned and their beautiful new ships were completely out-moded. They could not be told immediately that the new hypersee ships were transporting colonists to the stars faster than the old near-light ships were coming out of the fitzgerald. They could not be told that they had gone out in vain.

A psych engineer had to be careful in telling them what had happened. The old ships had served their purpose, of course; without them, the race of man would not be nearly as far flung through the stars as it was now. But it would be hard to convince the Ancestors that they were still performing a useful function—unless a psych engineer told them so.

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