"No problem."

"So I suppose I'll carry this off and try to get it figured out while you mine your asteroids?"

"Seems like the best plan we have at the moment."

"Can I use the ansible on it to talk to you in some straightforward way up until I have someone disassembling it?"

"It's not really designed for that sort of communications, but it has sensors on it and bits I can control, therefore we can use it to pass data. It does have a maximum range, though: once I go back through the wormhole you won't be able to hail me."

"Do you know what the range is, besides 'not between galaxies'?"

"I would guess about five light-years from a base station, but you can relay it as far as you want with no appreciable loss of speed: we have an interstellar comms web."

"I'll be more than five light-years away pretty quickly, so we'd better do any talking we're planning to do while I'm still in this system."

"I can maybe jury-rig a comms chain as far out as twenty light-years with the probes I have on me and some help from your magnificent drive, but if you're going any further than that you're probably correct."

"Quite a bit farther."

"Well then, you've got a few hours yet. Anything else you'd like to quiz me on?"

"Do ansibles require any exotic materials?"

"Sorry: I don't know what they're made of."

"Well, how expensive are they, that would be a clue."

"Well, one of these drones costs about six thousand ISK. Peanuts to me - the ship I'm flying is about five hundred thousand all kitted out, and it would only sting mildly to lose it - but I'm not sure if many people planetside could afford one."

"If it's small change to at least some people that suggests it's probably not staggeringly rare, materials-wise, at least not in quantity, but if it's expensive to most the manufacture is probably complex. I could be wrong, of course."

"Well, that probe has a miniature warp core in it, and some pretty specialized sensors: the majority of its price probably isn't the radio. If anything, I'd expect them to be easier to manufacture than you expect."

"Ah, that makes sense."

"Maybe your scientists can take the warp core apart too: if it achieves FTL in a different way from yours, it might also give you some new physics."

"Maybe. Especially if the power consumption is low it might be useful for short-range shuttling."

"Doubtful. Our ships have specialized capacitors for a reason."

"Low compared to subspace warp, I mean."

"Well, I have no idea what kind of generator you have on that ship or how much energy 'subspace warp' takes. So my answer is a definite maybe."

"There's antimatter involved."

"I entirely retract my earlier statements: our warp drives are ludicrously efficient compared to yours if yours require antimatter engines."