Being the first day of the rotation, the center was quiet. In the administrators office, too, a tense silence had settled over the cycle-fabricated furniture. Kryzzic shifted nervously in the silence as he always did. He shifted even more when the recruit spoke, voicing his thoughts in his harsh monotone. He had thought the youth to be an inorganic because of this, but he had been quickly proven wrong. Saric was overwhelmingly mechanical in composition, but his origins were the same as his teacher's.

"Am I to be punished?" he said.

The administrator re-focused the lenses of his oculars, making a record of Kryzzic's agitation before answering.

"Certainly", he said. "You have broken one of the conditions of your enrollment at this academy."

"I contest that", replied Saric. "A provision was given for the sake of participation in class discussions, the teacher can testify as to my involvement."

"That provision applies only to information that is asked of you", said the administrator. "Volunteering classified details is a clear breach of our arrangement. It would have been sufficient to recall a passage from a Primer."

"No", Saric replied with a twitch of his forelimbs. Kryzzic recognised the gesture as a mechanical perversion of his race's own body language, but the administrator seems to pass over it. "The teacher made it clear that textbook examples were insufficient."

Kryzzic snapped to attention at this.

"I never asked you to reveal what you did", he replied, almost stammering. It hurt his pride that he didn't have the time to choose his words more elegantly. "In any case, you clearly volunteered the information outside of your place in the discussion."

"I concur", said the administrator, to the disgruntlement of the student. "The humans are our allies now, and it would be prudent to keep information out of the eye of the public."

Kryzzic relaxed his frame at the words of agreement. Punishment ordinarily involved isolation and loud noises or even more unpleasant silences. To someone as audio-sensitive as he was, it was distressing to the extreme.

"Do you want to see why I say this?" asked the administrator.

Kryzzic was suddenly ill at ease once more, and the stillness from the recruit did nothing to calm him.

"I do," answered Saric. "I assume you are referring to the fall of Eld."

A mirthful tone bleated from the administrator, and he became animated as he replied.

"Precisely!" he said. "The fall of Eld! A wonder of technology and a bastion of security in the Convention of United Worlds. My home planet, but most importantly the first to fall in the war with Sol."

A view-screen appeared before the three as he continued talking.

"As you know, Earth was the first and only Category 6 death-world to house sentient life."

The view-screen displayed images of an altogether different planet, a still green giant.

"First contact with the humans was made by my race, the Lithians. Although the universe may consider us to be slow-moving and cautious, we weren't above exploration as part of our natural void-space surveillance. Death worlds were unconditionally avoided in our ventures, as it always had been until we noticed signs of space-travel in the vicinity of Earth."

The image changed to an accurate picture of the planet in question.

"Naturally, we assumed that some other explorers or researchers had come into our territory in order to study the planet. We hailed them with our communications, and it was not until they had responded that we realized we had made a mistake. Because of the presence of dihydrogen monoxide in the atmosphere, and the proximity to the local star, we had neglected signs of civilization on the surface of the planet. The Convention was in chaos. An unplanned contact with denizens of a death-world? This was unthinkable. The final decision was simple - quarantine. So simple, but a complete and utter failure."

If he could, Kryzzic would have long since returned to his studies. He had no wish to hear of this. Unfortunately, it only continued.

"Our blockade did not hold for long. As always, first contact catalyzed massive growth in the space-faring capabilities of the contacted, and the many civil wars they suffered in the meanwhile seemed only to further push them toward us. Because the humans were not a member of the Convention, they had no urge to hold our rules of engagement. At least, this was our view of the matter. When the combined might of the Convention threatened them with hit's power, however, they gave pause. It mattered not the assault on Earth would take years to accomplish, the humans feared an end to their existence."

"But they were not ready to give in. Instead of surrendering to our terms, they sought allies among the Convention. As you know, it is not Convention policy to intervene in the struggles of it's members unless the aid is called for. The humans ceased their use of prohibited bio-weapons and we were forced to face them alone. At that time, they found the loophole in the Carrow treaties of 112. As a sentient species, humans were not classified as a prohibited species themselves. As you already know, Earth biology is unique in that it's organisms are often comprised of many different cells. They were able to effectively utilize their own beings as potent bio-weapons and we once again pushed back. Combined with their abundance of dihydrogen monoxide, their very existence was toxic to us. Metal corroded at unthinkable rates, anything edible was consumed by human-based organisms and flesh was no exception."

"The leaders of Eld were arrogant in their security. Had they sent a call for aid, the humans would have been wiped from existence. As it was, they could not stand to hold another sentient species above their own might, and they moved to crush the humans with our own power. Earth was destroyed. We celebrated, but the war was far from over. Humans first landed on Eld a mere five decades after first contact. The planet was, to put it simply, contaminated. The effect was as if we had been hit by thousands of bio-torpedoes. They did not even have to attack us in order to defeat us. They simply existed, and spread. We were overwhelmed by their very nature as the monstrosities the universe now knows as multi-celled organisms. Human-based life soon transformed Eld into a writhing, living mass of death, and in 200 Eld was reclassified as a Category 6 death-world. The Sol treaties of 201 prohibited humans from weaponising themselves in such a way, and they were allowed, or rather they were forced to join the Convention of United Worlds."

Saric processed the information that the administrator had given him.

"I fail to see why such information should be kept classified", he said. "Humans are now our allies."

The administrator paused in his reply.

"It was a quarantine that started the war", he said. "Tell me, what would you say that the current status of humanity is at this time?"