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There were several more sounds typical of the routine of spacecraft docking. Mostly they were the quiet hissing noises caused by flowing air. Eventually, the inner lock opened and they found themselves looking down a narrow well that held Hancock Mueller’s smiling, bald countenance at the bottom.

“After you, Mr. Vasloff,” Lisa said.

Vasloff pulled himself forward while the two of them held his feet to steady him. Once he had disappeared into the tunnel, Lisa lunged forward to follow him. She moved with considerably more dexterity than she had a dozen weeks earlier. Mark brought up the rear. When he popped out into the airlock vestibule, he found Dieter Pavel waiting beside the station commander.

“Gospodin Mikhail Sergeivich Vasloff, may I introduce Hancock Mueller, Station Commander, and Dieter Pavel, Project Officer,” Mark said formally. Both men nodded to Vasloff, who nodded back weakly as he clung to one of the hand lines.

“Mr. Vasloff, it is an honor, sir,” Pavel said without a trace of irony in his tone. “I trust you had a pleasant flight.”

“Not as pleasant as I had hoped,” Vasloff said.

“Don’t worry, sir,” Mueller boomed with his usual hearty laugh. “No one has yet died from weightlessness, although innumerable people have wished they would. You should gain your space legs in another day or so.”

“I hope you are right, Station Commander.”

“You look as though you need rest, sir,” Pavel went on smoothly. “Commander Mueller will show you to your quarters. After you have had a light meal and perhaps some sleep, we can begin your briefings.

Director Bartok has forwarded instructions that you are to be given full access to our data and to our guest.”

“Thank you, Mr. Pavel. I would appreciate that,” Vasloff said weakly. “And yes, I suppose I could use some rest before you brief me as to what you people have been up to--” If he’d meant that last statement as a complaint, the way his voice had trailed off at the end had ruined the effect.

When Mueller had taken Vasloff in tow and disappeared through the hatch, Pavel turned to Mark and Lisa. If he noted the proprietary way Mark’s arm encircled Lisa’s waist, or the way she fitted herself to him as the two of them hung in the middle of the compartment, Pavel showed no sign.

“Come along, people. We have some things to talk about.”

#

Sar-Say was engaged in his favorite pastime. He hung in midair in front of the viewport in his cabin and gazed at the half-light/half-dark globe of the Earth. The planet filled the port, indicating that the PoleStar Habitat was nearing the lowest point of its highly elongated orbit. The habitat was sweeping across the glacier-covered southern continent, approaching the line of the terminator. The name of the continent, Sar-Say had learned, was Antarctica. Why they called it that, he had no idea.

That part of the ice-locked land still in sunlight was bright enough to hurt his eyes. Ahead, the glare quickly gave way to an expanse of darkness bereft of city lights. The glaciers of the Antarctic night were lit only by the flickering, electric glow of a yellow-green aurora that danced above the dark line of the planetary limb. It was one of Sar-Say’s favorite sights.

Auroras were nothing new to Sar-Say, who had once made the long journey to Sselt, the eighth planet of a blue-white giant of a star. Such stars were too short lived for life to evolve naturally on any of their attendant worlds. Sselt had been lifeless when Broan explorers first opened a stargate into the system to search for heavy metals on the raw worlds that had so recently coalesced out of the primordial dust cloud. Sselt had proven to be rich in transuranics, so much so that the Broa had decided to seed the sterile world with their own kind of life. The project had been an expensive one, but ultimately successful.

Ten thousand cycles after the first seed ships dumped their loads of bacteria into the upper atmosphere, the planet hosted a thriving ecology and a native population of hard working quadrupeds.

Being eighth from the star, Sselt orbited out where gas giants are to be found in normal systems. Even at that distance, however, the pinpoint star was sufficiently energetic that liquid water covered much of the planetary surface. A side effect of the prodigious energy output of the star was a permanent auroral display that danced continuously over the darkened half of the planet. The night sky of Sselt was renowned as one of the most beautiful sights in all the Sovereignty.

Sar-Say had never regretted the long, arduous journey that had taken him to that far distant world. It had been a journey reminiscent of the one that had brought him to his current predicament. Despite their strange attitudes and untamed ideas, human beings reminded Sar-Say of his own people. That was hardly surprising since the world that had produced them was the near twin of Home, as was the star that illuminated it. That Earth was beautiful to his eyes was a fact that would prove of inestimable value to him and his sept should he ever make it home.

The subject of going home was the one that had set him on this particular mental orbit. Lisa had gone down to Earth ten days earlier. She had not told him the reason for her absence, but the fact that several of the scientific staff had disappeared at the same time suggested that something important was happening. Yet, the news channels continued with their usual mixture of crime, scandal, and political jockeying for position. Nor had the news made mention of humanity’s first encounter with intelligent aliens. Not once since Sar-Say had learned enough Standard to understand the broadcasts had they hinted at what had happened in that far off system where he had been captured. In fact, he had often listened to supposedly learned humans pontificate on the fact that
Homo sapiens
was likely the only intelligent species in the universe. The self-centeredness of such claims was astonishing to Sar-Say, who had personally interacted with more intelligent species than there were individual humans aboard PoleStar.

His long captivity had given Sar-Say a great deal of time to think about humans. He was coming to understand them about as well as one species could understand another. The most powerful of human instincts was their curiosity. Like the lesser primates of Earth, which Sar-Say knew he resembled, that curiosity stemmed from the fact that human beings were omnivorous fruit eaters. Just as the ability to spot a ripe banana across a forest clearing had led to humanity’s ability to see in color, the search for sustenance had sharpened their monkey curiosity.

Sar-Say’s people were also descended from dwellers of trees, or at least, large plants. Like the humans, his ancestors had traveled in the tops of the tangled vine forests of Home. Like the humans, they had been chased out of the vines by bigger, more rapacious predators. Forced to live largely in the lower forests, his people had developed the intelligence that eventually allowed them to dominate Home in precisely the same way that the humans had come to dominate Earth.

None of Sar-Say’s thoughts was apparent to those who monitored him at the security workstations. To them, he appeared to be hanging from a pipe in the cluttered overhead of his cabin. In actuality, he was merely holding his body steady in the weightless environment, but the position made him look like an orangutan dangling from a tree limb. Sar-Say was aware that the humans found his resemblance to the lower primates humorous, even comical. He did not mind. Better to be the butt of jokes than the object of fear. Sar-Say was learning how much he had in common with his captors.

It would have been better for them had it been otherwise.

#

Dieter Pavel led the way through the corridors of the PoleStar Habitat to his office. En route, they encountered several people Mark Rykand did not recognize. They had been gone only ten days, and in that short time, the populace of the station seemed to have increased by a significant percentage.

“Who are these people?”

“Scientists from all over Earth,” Pavel replied over his shoulder as he pulled himself along the “barber pole” used to navigate the weightless corridor. “We had twenty-two scientists and technologists dumped on us two days after you left. Hancock Mueller has started doubling up on the room assignments. Before too much longer, you both may be getting roommates.”

Lisa laughed. The sound sent an electric thrill down Mark’s spine. “And I remember how empty the habitat seemed when we first came aboard!”

They reached Pavel’s office. He ushered them inside, then sealed the door before floating to his desk and securing himself behind it. He gestured for the two of them to slip into the foot restraints in front of the desk. When they were properly anchored, he leaned back and regarded both of them.”

“Welcome home, you two. Did you have fun on Earth?” He noted the exchange of glances that took place between the two lovers, and felt a moment of irritation that Lisa seemed to have taken herself out of circulation.

“Mark and I toured the Rock!” Lisa gushed.

“What rock?”

“The Rock of Gibraltar, of course.”

“Why?”

She told him about her famous ancestor and his part in the Fourteenth Siege. She cut the explanation short when he seemed to lose interest midway through her story. She finished lamely with, “What’s been going on here?”

“You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“When
did
the two of you leave the conference, anyway?”

“Three days ago,” Mark answered. “We were held up at Equatorial Station when
Mercanter’s Wind
picked up a maintenance squawk. They had to fly a part up from Earth.”

“Then you missed the last couple days in Al-Hoceima.”

Both of them nodded, puzzled at the direction the conversation was going. “What about Al-Hoceima?”

“Nothing much. For the last two days, they have been arguing over the coming expedition.”

“Expedition?” Lisa asked. “What expedition?”

“Director Bartok convinced Coordinator Halstrom that it is imperative for us to go find the Zzumer sun.”

Both listeners let their jaws drop. Mark was the first to recover. “That man must have the persuasive powers of an Arkansas bible thumper.”

“Don’t be so modest, Mark. You and Lisa are at least partially responsible for the decision.”

“Us?”

“You are the ones who brought Mikhail Vasloff back to the conference with you.”

“He found us, not vice versa!”

“No criticism intended. Apparently, the Director told Coordinator Halstrom that if Vasloff could figure out what was going on, others will, too. The coordinator doesn’t want to go public until after we know whether to believe Sar-Say’s stories.”

“The public is bound to find out sooner or later,” Mark said.

“Perhaps, but if we move quickly, we may be able to get the expedition away before someone goes public with our secret. Once the ships are safely away, it won’t really matter, now will it?”

“How long will we have to get ready?”

“The expedition heads out into the deep black in 90 days, or they don’t go at all.”

Mark gave a low whistle. “I don’t know much about starship operations, but that seems a trifle aggressive.”

Pavel smiled. “More than a trifle when you consider that we are sending a dozen starships seven thousand light-years out into space.”

“As long as that?” Lisa asked.

“Be thankful for God’s blessings. If Sar-Say is telling us the truth about the Sovereignty, seven thousand light-years isn’t nearly enough separation between us and them.”

Mark frowned. “I didn’t realize there were twelve starships in the Solar System at the moment.”

“There aren’t. The survey has nine ships in-system. Three others are out among the stars. The coordinator has given the director only one month to get them to Neptune.”

“A good trick if he can do it,” Mark mused. “And why Neptune?”

“That is the rendezvous point.” He turned to Lisa. “How are your Broan language lessons coming?”

“Sar-Say says that I am becoming fluent. Why?”

“Because you and Sar-Say are going to have to set up a crash course in the Broan trade speech for the expedition members to study en route. You will be going on the expedition, of course. We will need someone to handle Sar-Say.”

“You said you wanted to speak to both of us. What do you want me to do?”

Pavel smiled and leaned back in his metal frame as he steepled his fingers together in front of him. “Ah, yes. I think you will find your assignment uniquely suits your talents. Besides, you are sort of responsible

--“

Mikhail Vasloff was back in space. It had been almost three months since he had taken up residence in the PoleStar habitat and his bout with space sickness was a bad memory. That fact was small comfort.

His microgravity nausea had been replaced by another illness, a sickness of his soul. After a life spent obstructing humanity’s steady march to the stars, he finally had proof that his life’s work was not in vain.

Sar-Say’s description of the Broan Sovereignty was every nightmare Vasloff had ever had, and more.

Months after hearing the pseudo-simian describe the subjugation of a million sentient species in his unemotional, matter-of-fact voice; Mikhail Vasloff still woke up in the middle of a night, surrounded by small beads of floating perspiration.

They had been frustrating months for Earth’s leading
Luddite
. Having penetrated to the heart of the Stellar Survey’s most secret project, he found himself constrained to keep their secret. The contract he had signed was not what kept him silent. Even had he been worried about the financial penalties, the magnitude of Sar-Say’s revelation would have released him from any moral obligation he might have felt.

The knowledge he carried was far too important to allow such petty considerations as his personal oath or legal contracts to interfere with his trumpeting the news.

No, his frustration resulted from the constraints under which he lived aboard PoleStar. The survey had kept their part of the bargain. They had given him access to all their data, and had even assigned him an assistant to aid in his search -- Mark Rykand. He had been suspicious of the young dilettante’s motives, at first, but Rykand had proven very helpful in teaching him about the alien and his civilization. Over the past three months, Mark had devoted three hundred hours to answering Vasloff’s questions and helping him look up scientific reports. This had been in addition to his job assisting the project astronomers.