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“You mean they have seeded those worlds with new life forms?” Pavel asked.

“Yes.”

“Because they were previously uninhabited?”

“No.”

“No, they weren’t uninhabited?”

The double negative clearly confused the alien, causing Dieter Pavel to rephrase. Sar-Say responded

“Many worlds possess native species when discovered. Species prove troublesome to Broa. Planets seeded with new lifeforms.”

“What about Earth? Would the Broa seed Earth with a new ecology?”

“Unknown,” Sar-Say replied. “If benefit Broa, humans ruled by Broa. If not, humans killed, Earth reseeded.”

“If we benefit the Broa, what will our status be?”

“Not understand.”

“Will we be given limited home rule? Will we be allowed to send representatives to some central government?”

“No government. Broa rule. All others ... servants.”

#

“Good morning, Captain. Good of you to come so quickly,” Anton Bartok said as he rose from behind his desk and strode toward Landon.

“Thank you, Director.”

“How was the flight down?”

“A little lonely on the first leg. On its return from PoleStar, the supply shuttle is just one big empty shell. I felt like a fly in an air cylinder.”

“Any trouble at Equatorial Station?”

“None, sir. I slipped into my civvies, boarded the ferry at the last moment, and started a good book as we reentered. Why the secrecy?”

“We have had a few people report conversations with inquisitive strangers lately. They all seem to want to know about your last mission. They are probably reporters nosing around.”

It was then that Landon noticed they were not alone. A large, rawboned woman sat in one of the visitor’s chair. The face, which not even a mother would classify as beautiful, was familiar to him.

“You know Laura Dresser, I believe.”

“Hello, Laura,” Landon said in reply.

“Hello, Dan,” she replied in a sultry voice. It was a voice that had originally caused him to picture someone quite different at a time when they had only spoken over voice circuits. In addition, Laura had a pair of archaic eyeglasses perched on her face. The glasses had slid down her nose and she looked over them at Landon. “It has been about five years, hasn’t it? ”

He nodded. “
Magellan
’s last overhaul.”

Laura Dresser was a living, breathing contradiction. The glasses were her announcement to the world that she was a medievalist, one who lived her life in harmony with the precepts of an earlier (and supposedly simpler) age. In allegiance to her beliefs, she refused to wear synthetics, eat anything grown in a vat, or use perfumes formulated with human pheromones. Yet, she was also the best stardrive specialist in the survey. She led a crew of a hundred rugged individualists who could strip down a ship and within a few months, return it to a condition as close to perfection as was humanly possible to attain.

She was also a royal pain in the ass. She and Landon had done nothing but argue when he delivered his new command to her tender loving care five years earlier. They had barely been on speaking terms when she gave
Magellan
back after the overhaul. Still, she had done a perfect job on his ship, and for that, he could forgive everything.

“Captain, I understand you have worked out your operational plan for going back and salvaging the hulk of that alien wreck,” Bartok said, getting to the reason Landon had come down from orbit.

“Yes, sir. May I use your screen?”

“By all means.”

Landon reached into a pocket and retrieved a record module, which he inserted into the reader slot built into the director’s desk. The window polarized automatically to shut out the light and a screen illuminated in what had moments earlier appeared to be a large painting of a seashore.

On the screen was a star chart.

“New Eden, sir, is the third planet of a class G3 star. The star is just under a hundred light-years from here. Transit time each way is ten days. I figure that we can strip the wreck and transport everything of value back here in three months if we use one of the big colony ships for transport.”

Bartok shook his head. “No colony ship.”

“Damn it, Director, you can’t just throw away a month’s planning like that!”

“I can and I will, Captain,” Bartok said, frostily, “if that is what the coordinator wants. You cannot have a colony ship because it would be too conspicuous leaving the system. If it spaces within a month of
Magellan
’s departure, people will notice and start to talk. There is already a rumor floating around headquarters to the effect that you came back early because you found a terrestrial planet.”

Landon smiled. “That rumor couldn’t possibly have started in this office as a cover for what really happened, could it?”

“Possibly. In any event, you cannot have one of our big ships.”

“Then how the hell do you expect me to transport the salvage back here, Director? We can’t very well tow it.”

“Maybe you won’t have to. Laura has an idea.”

There was a momentary pause as the two men turned to the stardrive expert. She peered at Landon over the top of her glasses and said, “My first thought upon learning of the wreck was the same as yours, Dan.

Obviously, that ship is much too big to take onboard one of our own starships whole, so I figured we would have to carve it up and ship it home in pieces. The only problem with that approach is that we are liable to destroy as much alien technology as we save. Just imagine what would happen if you gave an able spacer a cutting laser and orders to chop up
Magellan
!

“Anton first brought me into this to evaluate the records you people brought home with you. About halfway through my review, it occurred to me that we might be able to fly the ship home.”

“How? It isn’t equipped with a star drive and we don’t happen to have a stargate handy.”

“What if we install both a drive and a reactor in the wreck?”

“Same objection as bringing the wreck back in pieces. To transport the drive generator and power reactor, you will need a colony ship.”

“Not if we mount both on
Magellan
’s hull,” Laura Dresser said. “We will cross connect the new generator with the ship’s own drive, thereby extending the field to cover everything.”

“Will that work?”

“My computer says it will if we synchronize both generators properly. It might be a little tricky in practice.”

Right. Let us say you succeed with this jury-rig. Have you considered the risk of flying the hulk home?

What if the drive breaks down en route?”

“Then you will be there to rescue us.”

Landon snorted. “Do you have any idea how much empty space there is in a light-year? If you disappear in that blackness, you will starve to death or run out of air long before we will be able to find you.”

“Then we had best not break down.”

Landon turned to the director. “Are you sure you want us to try this, sir? It seems a good way to lose a lot of talented people, not to mention our alien prize.”

Bartok glanced at the chronometer inset into his sleeve before fixing Landon with his gaze. “That is the reason I asked for this conference, Captain. Laura is the best we have when it comes to star drives, but you have the practical experience. I want the two of you to work this plan, wring it out, and report back to me tomorrow on whether it is feasible or not. If you conclude there is too much risk, we will think up something else. Just remember, the longer we are in the New Eden system, the more likely it is that other aliens will show up.”

Salli Rheinhardt was a typical working mother. In addition to the job that kept her tied to the computer workscreen in her den six hours each day, she had three children to get off to school, pick up after, and shuttle around to various functions. She worked in the Princeton Medcenter four hours a week and had her clubs and hobbies. She was also active in campus politics and had faculty teas to attend. Even in the best of times, it was difficult for her to find a free hour in her day. With her husband away on an extended business trip, the burden was nearly more than one woman could handle.

When Ben had told her that he was being assigned to an orbital research project, she had sighed and played the supportive wife. In theory, he could have told his department manager to find someone else; in practice, that would never do. Had Benjamin Eustus Rheinhardt turned down the assignment, it would have been like announcing to the entire university that he no longer sought the chairmanship of the microbiology department. Salli Rheinhardt understood that as well as her husband. Still, after nearly a month alone with the children, she no longer cared whether Ben was awarded the chairmanship.

Suddenly, the idea of hosting faculty teas and being deferred to by the other wives and the graduate students had lost much of its allure. She had reached the point where she would gladly have traded all of that for Ben lounging on the couch in his tattered bathrobe.

Because of her resentment over her husband’s absence, she was in an especially bad mood when the telephone beeped for her attention while she was programming dinner.

“Yes, what is it?”

“Mrs. Rheinhardt?” an elderly, silver-haired man asked as he gazed out at her from the screen. A perceptible accent accompanied the words. It took Salli a moment to realize who he was.

“Citizen Vasloff!”

“Have I caught you at a bad time, Mrs. Rheinhardt? My chronometer assures me that it is not yet dinnertime in your zone. Perhaps you eat early?”

“No, you aren’t interrupting, Citizen. And please, call me Salli.”

“Very well, Salli. And I am Mikhail.”

“To what do I owe this honor, Mikhail?”

“One of the joys of my position, Salli, is the opportunity to speak to organization members who have done us particularly good service over the years. I understand from your section leader that you were responsible for coordinating our grassroots letter writing campaign in your city last year.”

“It wasn’t difficult, Mikhail. I merely called a few friends, who called a few of their friends.”

Vasloff held up a hand in a restraining gesture that was distorted by his hand being too close to the phone pickup on the other end.

“Please, dear lady. Do not make light of your efforts. If the truth be told, it is the work of you and thousands like you who make
Terra Nostra
possible. I am afraid that those of us on the firing line do not acknowledge our debts to the rank-and-file often enough.”

“Is that why you are calling me now, Mikhail?”

Vasloff smiled. “I think you are sufficiently perceptive to know better than that, Salli. No, I am speaking to you because a computer check of the membership has revealed that you are uniquely positioned to help the organization at this time. Can we count on you?”

“Certainly, Mikhail. What can I do to help?”

“I understand that Professor Rheinhardt is in orbit at the moment, on assignment for the university.”

Salli gazed at the beatific features of the man who was said to have done more to stem the useless flood of resources to the stars than any other. There was something in his expression that told her the question was of more than passing interest.

“Why, yes. He is aboard PoleStar doing microbiological studies for the Stellar Survey.”

“PoleStar? I thought the survey confined its studies mostly to High Station.”

“Usually, they do. At least, the other three times Ben has worked for the Survey, that is where he has done his work.”

“So why PoleStar this time?”

“I don’t know. Ben does not speak about his work on an open telephone circuit. He does not want to take a chance on any discovery he may have made being ruled in the public domain. Also, I get the impression that information is being much more controlled this time.”

“How so?”

“For one thing, he is only allowed to call once a week. When he was aboard High Station, we used to talk nightly.”

“And the other things?”

“When we do speak, there is a five second delay between the time I talk and the time he answers.”

“That should not be. PoleStar is in Earth orbit. Communications delay is no greater from there than for point-to-point surface circuits. You are telling me that they have a computer monitoring his calls?”

“I believe so.”

“And he has not told you anything about what he is working on?”

“Not a hint. In fact, the one time the conversation started to drift in that direction, he was quick to change the subject.” Salli Rheinhardt hesitated, wondering how much she should reveal to this famous stranger.

Vasloff recognized the hesitation for what it was and smiled. “You can be sure that any confidences will be kept, Salli, and I would not be asking if it weren’t important to the cause.”

“He has never
said
anything, you understand, but we have been married long enough that I have no trouble reading his emotional state. Whatever he is working on, he thinks it is important.”

“Oh, why?”

“When he first called to tell me that he had arrived safely, he was very excited. I could see it in his eyes.”

“Interesting. Is there anything else you can tell me?”

“Can you tell me what this is about, Mikhail?”

“No, dear lady. Not at this time. We will keep you informed as things develop, however. And perhaps it would be best if you do not mention this conversation to Professor Rheinhardt.”

“I cannot keep secrets from my husband, even if he does not think the way we do about this interstellar foolishness.”

In fact, Ben and Salli Rheinhardt often argued about the expense of exploring the nearer stars. Ben maintained that understanding alien biospheres was necessary to the advancement of science. Salli thought the money could better be used to solve problems at home. Neither was particularly interested in planting colonies around other stars, especially on the kind of marginally habitable worlds that humanity had found to date.

“You may tell him what you wish, of course. I had thought to keep him from having ... professional difficulties, shall we say?”

“I will think about it.”