Six ships didn't mean anything. Billy seemed to know plenty and nothing at all. Andy really wanted to know what he meant by 'keep us'. Instead, they stared at each other from across the sand, this little boy talking about nothing and not wanting to fight, and Andy standing still with her axe in her hand, and Andy said, "What."

That wasn't a question she had been asked before. Variants of it, maybe-- 'are you human?' was a discussion that went around the team every few decades. From Earth, though, that was a given, Andy thought.