Lambert took their drinks over to the coffee table, then sat down next to Chloe. She picked up the wine and took a small sip. It seemed decent enough to her, but she had never really been much for wine. Chloe smiled briefly, thinking of the stereotype that James must have of Gallia and its wine.
She glanced over at him; he was taking a long drink form his whiskey. The two of them had only crossed paths once before, in a similar situation, at a similar place. But this time was different. They were talking with a Hogosha, and shortly after he left, Akuru showed up.
The events that followed seemed almost unbelievable now. Akuru must have changed Chloe's perspective somehow, and she felt less tense, despite her nervousness. Suddenly, James spoke, "I... well I guess we don't actually know too much about each other. Perhaps we can change that. Tell me a bit about where you're from." Chloe was a bit startled, for she realized that her seconds of concentrated thought were in fact minutes long.
Chloe replied, "I'm from Amiens, in Picardy. Amiens is an old world; its scarlet sands, once mined away, are now the home to hundreds of millions." She trailed off for a few seconds, then continued, "My parents have retired there, and my brother also works for the Corse." Smiling sheepishly, Chloe asked, "Are you from Denver, or somewhere else in Liberty?" As James began to respond, she took another drink from her glass.
"You see what your knowledge tells you you're seeing. ... how, what you think the universe is, and how you react to that in everything you do, depends on what you know. And when that knowledge changes, for you, the universe changes. And that is as true for the whole of society as that is for the individual. We all are what we know, today. What we knew yesterday, was different; and so were we."
- James Burke, The Day the Universe Changed (1985)
