"Sounds like you did the right thing, though," he assures Stone, nodding along. Yeah, losses like that are regrettable. But more regrettable? Mass extinctions, genocides, that sort of thing. Of course, Stone didn't say they were intelligent species, but at this point it seems out of place to ask. Maybe for them the distinction doesn't matter.

"Maybe by some stroke of luck we'll be able to see something like that here some day. Flying in space, I mean. If not through Doctor Ingram's technology, then by some of the magic some people have here."