That sounds just about right to Tayrey. She nods eagerly. 'So - shalom parnassah tovah? No grammatical modifications?' She says this as a speaker of four languages, knowing that only the trading ones tend to simplify over time.

Then she turns to the bigger question. 'Different universes, so far as I can tell,' she says carefully. 'I was born on a Company-owned colony world called Cardalek. There are over a hundred inhabited planets in our sector - but many have very small populations, by Earth standards. Comparable to your smaller countries? Often the founding colonists only terraform a portion of the planet. Anyway, each of them having their own space fleet just isn't economically viable. The Tradelines are an interstellar organisation. We protect all our insured colonies, and keep the lines of trade between them clear and safe for civilian starships.'