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Despite the ample evidence that the Broa existed and controlled every star within reach, there appeared to be a dearth of information regarding the overlords themselves. The closest he had yet discovered was a library of their published decrees. Most of these involved rules for the use of stargates, but the decrees ran the gamut from banned information to restrictions on the aliens’ reproductive practices. There seemed to be no command too invasive for the Broa to issue or the Voldar’ik to follow. Remembering some of the biologists’ initial theories about Sar-Say, namely, that he viewed the overlords much as a pet views its master, Mark wondered if the same were not true of the Voldar’ik.

However, try as he would, Mark could find nothing on the Broa themselves. There were no descriptions, no pictures, no regal portraits hung in government offices, nothing. For example, inputting

“Broa-species-biology” had yielded no response from the station computer, not even a chiding notice that the data in question was classified. It was as though the idea that the Broa were biological organisms was a null concept in the computer’s brain, and perhaps in the brains of its masters.

Unfortunately, the paucity of personal information on the Broa made sense. Just as a galactic overlord would want his subservient species to understand the consequences of revolt, he would want to limit their access to data of a personal nature. Take Broan biology, for instance. A subservient species unhappy with the local Broan ruler could use their knowledge of his physiology to poison him. By denying the Voldar’ik biological information, the Broa were protecting themselves from harm. More to the point, they were denying their subjects information that could even
suggest
there were ways that an overlord might be killed. Furthermore, if keeping one class of personal knowledge from their subjects was beneficial, why not all such knowledge?

That, at least, was Mark Rykand’s working hypothesis. So far, it seemed to be holding up. Of course, he would have been better able to test it if he had not been so constrained in the questions he could ask the computer.

No one really knew whether his caution was warranted, but they all agreed that it was needed.

Presumably, the Voldar’ik either were monitoring his efforts or had the capability to do so. To prevent the aliens from learning too much about humans by analyzing the questions they were asking, Mark had to approach matters of interest indirectly. If he were asking questions about Broan biology, for instance, that question had to come at the end of a long string of other queries in which he appeared interested in matters of trade. To do otherwise risked leaving a record of human ignorance, a record that would strongly intimate that they were from somewhere beyond the Sovereignty.

It was this need for indirection and obfuscation that had slowed Mark’s efforts to a crawl. What they needed, Mark had long since decided, was a copy of the vast Voldar’ik database of their very own.

Once back aboard the
Whale
and at Brinks Base, they would be able to ask pointed questions directly.

They could seek out all the Voldar’ik knew about the Broa and their empire. They could probe, and correlate, and hypothesize at their leisure, with no concern that hostile eyes might be peering over their shoulders.

It had been the third day of their stay aboard Zal’trel Station that Mark explained his problem to Captain Landon, who had turned the matter over to Mikhail Vasloff. By Day 3, Vasloff was deep in negotiations with his Voldar’ik counterparts and it had seemed only natural for him to inquire as to the price of a copy of the station database. Asking the question had proved the easy part. Ten days later, Vasloff was still haggling with Zha over how much the information was worth.

The sociologists’ predictions about the Voldar’ik personality had proven uncannily accurate. As Raoul Bendagar had remarked during one of their calls to the ship, “Certain principles are universal. The Law of Greed is one of those.”

Such observations were interesting, but they did not get the job done. What Mark needed was someone far more knowledgeable than he on this particular snipe hunt. What he needed was Sar-Say’s help.

“Come on, Captain. Be reasonable. He has told us the truth so far, hasn’t he?” Lisa asked in a hoarse whisper.

She and Dan Landon were on a tour of Zal’trel Station and had stopped in the middle of one of the wide fields where the Voldar’ik grew bottle-plant tubers, their primary source of sustenance. Overhead, the sky was black save for the glowing yellow ball of the star they still called Orpheus. Some indefinite distance above their heads was one of the giant windows they had observed during their approach, a window so clear that it looked as though the field was open to space. Only the frigid, alien-scented air that curled around them in long streamers of exhalation fog proved that their eyes were deceiving them.

“I have to admit that everything he has told us has checked out so far,” Landon whispered back in Standard. If the Voldar’ik had a voice pickup focused on them, all they would hear was alien gabble.

“Still, he has no reason to be loyal to us, and therefore, we have no reason to trust him.”

“He’s a trader. We can give him reason to trust us. We’ll offer him the sole trade concession in the Solar System if he helps us.”

There was a flash in the captain’s eyes that told Lisa she had triggered something unintended with her comment. “Trade? What trade is that?” he asked, his voice a hoarse murmur. “How do you think they will react at home when we report what we have found? Do you think any human starship will be allowed near the Orion Arm after this?”

She frowned. The captain was right. Just a few of the pictures Mark had dug out of the Voldar’ik database would cause Parliament to run screaming for cover. So long as the Broa ruled the Sovereignty, there would be no trade with humanity.

“Right. Then we will gain his cooperation some other way. How about if we agree to leave him here with our cargo when we go?”

“Do you think he will promise to keep quiet about us?”

“We can ask.”

Landon’s scowl deepened. “Really, Miss Arden! Do you think I would risk the safety of the human race on the word of one small alien?”

“What could he tell them? He doesn’t know where Sol is.”

“He knows we exist. That is enough. Besides, how do you know he is ignorant of our location? Has he been studying our astronomy books?”

“Some,” she agreed, nodding.

“Tell me, where is the zero-zero point in all of our astronomical position data?”

She frowned, not liking the way this conversation was going. “Earth, of course.”

“So, if Sar-Say happens to have memorized the right ascension, declination, and distance data for the Crab Nebula, how difficult will it be for the Voldar’ik to make the correlation?”

“Not difficult, I suppose.”

“Not difficult at all. I suspect they will know where Earth is located about two minutes after Sar-Say tells them we exist.”

She chewed on her bottom lip, unhappy with the conclusion toward which her brain was scrambling.

“You are right, of course.”

“Damned right, I am right. Now, let us have no more silly suggestions that we allow Sar-Say to compare notes with our hosts. Agreed?”

She nodded.

“Good. Let us rejoin our guide. He seems curious about what we are doing with our heads stuck together, whispering like a couple of school girls.”

“Yes, sir.”

While she, the captain, and their Voldar’ik guide continued the tour of the station agricultural spaces, Lisa considered Landon’s comments. For the life of her, she could spot no flaw in his logic and that depressed her even more than thinking about Sar-Say’s fate. The truth was that despite the vastness of space, the Earth was not that difficult to find, not if one merely had a few simple clues to its location.

It seemed there was no solution to the dilemma beyond total isolation. If they were to remain safe from the Broa, they would have to dig themselves a hole, climb in, and pull it in on top of them. There could be no contact with any species of the Sovereignty. Even a hint of their existence and the Broa would come looking for them. In fact, their presence in this system might well have put the human race at risk already.

It seemed that Mikhail Vasloff and his
Terra Nostra
fanatics had been right all along. It was time for humanity to pull in its horns. The universe was too dangerous a place for them to bumble about in.

She continued to mull over the consequences of what they had learned of the Broa and their empire. The more she pondered, the more depressed she became. Her companions found her very quiet for the rest of the tour.

#

Two days later, Mark came up behind Lisa and gave her a hug.

“What is that for?” she asked, still despondent over her conversation with the captain.

“I have to go back to the ship,” he said, letting his hands move playfully over her form. She enjoyed the attention and molded her body to his for a few seconds. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Sure. Out of memory again?”

“You got it. I will transfer this load into the
Whale
’s computer and come back for a fresh batch. Anything I can get you?”

“No. I have everything I need.”

“And if Sar-Say asks about a certain subject?”

She frowned. It had not taken Mark long to cajole her into talking about what it was that was bothering her. They had had a long session of pillow talk the night before. Somehow, lying in the dark, cuddling with him, urgently whispering in his ear, all of those actions had been therapeutic for her. She had not even been shocked when she discovered that Mark agreed with the captain. No matter what else, they could not allow Sar-Say access to the Voldar’ik, or any other aliens for that matter.

She was still depressed about their discoveries and what they implied for the future of humanity, but she was beginning to snap back. Her natural resilience told her that things could not be as bad as she imagined. There had to be a solution other than running home with their tails tucked between their legs.

Unfortunately, she had no idea what that solution was.

Finally, she shook her head. “No, I don’t want you to upset him. Besides, it is only fair that I give him the bad news myself. How long will you be gone?”

“A couple of hours. See you tonight. What exciting thing have you planned for today?”

“I am supporting Mr. Vasloff. He seems to get off on this negotiation stuff. He has Dravv offering about ten percent more for the energy modules than he did yesterday. Apparently, we are demanding his first and third born in exchange for our modules, to hear him tell it. I think Mikhail missed his calling when he went into political agitation. He would have made a hell of a good used-groundcar salesman!”

After a few more seconds holding his woman, Mark reluctantly let go and gathered up his computer. It was so packed with information that he thought it ought to have more inertia than it did as he slipped his arms through the straps and made sure that it was secure on his back. He checked the rest of his equipment, then opened the hatch, and floated out into the public corridor beyond.

He enjoyed these short trips back to the ship. Not only did they get him away from the computer screen; they allowed him to see something of his alien surroundings. The first two times he had made the trip, one of the laconic Voldar’ik guides had accompanied him. This was his first attempt to find his way on his own.

A hundred meters down the corridor; he came to a large volume in the form of an open dodecahedron-shaped compartment. The volume was more than one hundred meters across. It was light and airy, and reminded him of what the interior of a hollow golf ball would look like. As the corridor in which he floated opened up into the large space, he halted his progress and considered his next move.

Spacers in the holo epics who encountered such interior volumes invariably kicked off one wall and sailed freely through the air to the opposite side. In practice, it was dangerous to fly free in large enclosed spaces. Human beings had not evolved in microgravity, and among many other shortcomings, lacked the depth perception needed to properly judge distance. If he pushed off too hard, he would slam into the opposite wall with enough speed to break something; if too lightly, he would spend minutes suspended in midair, slowly tumbling.

Neither prospect appealed to him. Then there was the problem that while in flight he would be out of control. He could just see himself caroming off Voldar’ik pedestrians, thrashing the air as he tried to grab anything with which to anchor himself. Rather than risk embarrassing himself in front of aliens, Mark decided to take the long way around.

Around the periphery of the open space were the ever-present Voldar’ik mobility nets. The aliens used their tentacles to “roll” along the nets, spinning slowly and efficiently through space. He grabbed a handful of webbing and pulled himself along the curved wall. It would take several minutes to reach the corridor that was his destination, but he would suffer no collisions in the process.

Occasionally aboard Zal’trel Station, they had caught sight of beings from species other than the Voldar’ik. Mark noted that one such alien seemed to be on an intercept course with him. The being was a big, blue, furry fellow and he moved across the netting with the skill of one who had spent a lot of time in microgravity. When it became clear that the being was indeed converging on his location, Mark halted and waited for him.

“You are one of the Vulcan traders?”
the blue alien asked in trade talk
. “The one known as He Who
Operates Computers?”

Mark was about to respond, “You have the better of me,” when he realized that he lacked the vocabulary. He satisfied himself with,
“I am He Who Operates Computers. My personal label is Mark
Rykand. Who are you?”

“I am Effril. I would speak with you, Mark Rykand.”

Mark hung from the net like a dangling Christmas tree ornament and studied the stranger. At least, he was constructed on a familiar pattern. He possessed two arms, two legs, and a head. Recognizable hands surmounted the arms, although they had six fingers each; and the legs ended in club-like pads that could fairly be called feet. The alien had a short tail attached about where a tail should be, and his head approximated a sphere, with two eyes, a slit nostril, and a mouth about where their human counterparts were located. The being’s teeth were sharp and pointed, the mark of a carnivore; and his ruby-red eyes gave him a ferocious look.