The Teeth of Evolution (Polyrhythmic Constellations)

Humanity having learned enough about itself and each other to be able to live and help each other live, had terraformed much of the solar system and sent seeder ships that could grow humans from stored data to nearby stars, seeking places to grow and possibly peoples to meet.

But their first contact protocols did not consider the possibility of encountering formerly sapient aliens a species that had ten million years ago terraformed its own system, now dwelt and grew but no longer thought. What could they use from past knowledge and evolving ways to give new sapience to these whose biology and thought were wholly unlike the human neurochemistry long thought solved.

The Terraformers Enclave who looked to construct futures and the Historians Enclave who looked to reconstruct many pasts looked to each other reached out and founded they needed more than they could make of space, time, and possibility.