#Things to consider

  1. Like all of her kind, she is driven to investigate anything new. Like humans, Portia’s people are quick to see patterns, sometimes when there are none.
  2. Her people have solved the mathematical riddles posed by the orbiting satellite – the Messenger, as they think of it – learning the proofs first by rote and then in true comprehension, as a civic and religious duty.
  3. You know what’s a good lesson of history? You’re screwed if you can’t pay the army.
  4. …just because she cannot understand something now does not mean that it cannot be understood.
  5. She has a gift for seeing problems from unusual angles, and imagining radical possibilities.