"The More We Are Together"

Brechdan Ironrede of Merseia to Max Abrams:

"'Commander...your young man makes me proud to be a sentient creature. What might our united races not accomplish. Hunt well.'"

-Poul Anderson, Ensign Flandry IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, January 2010), pp. 1-192 AT CHAPTER FOURTEEN, p. 145.

Voah of Arvel to his fellow Arvelans:

"What might our peoples not accomplish together, if they would allow themselves?"

-"The Ways of Love," p. 125. 

They sound the same. Both insert the word "not." "What might we accomplish?" might be an enquiry as to the limits of possible accomplishment whereas "What might we not accomplish?" sounds like a denial of any limits.

But Brechdan and Voah are fundamentally different. Voah means an equal partnership. Brechdan means anything but.

That members of Brechdan's species are able to treat human beings as their equals is shown by their participation in the economics and politics of the human colony on Dennitza.