"We have concealed it out here. A perfect place," said the Designate. "Even so, we must be cautious."

Uncomfortable with the prolonged mystery, Kori'nh said, "Please explain yourself, Designate. What are we seeking?"

"Our aim is not to seek, but tohide, and thereby ensure continued secrecy."

Kori'nh dwelled on the words as the shuttle drifted into the ice-studded, rocky debris. He heard a hiss of dust particles and tiny pebbles impacting their shields. Ahead, his scanners detected a darkened shape that looked decidedly artificial, a construction not of Ildiran design.

"As you can see, Adar, we have left too much evidence behind. There is always a risk it could be found."

A huge, antique spacecraft.

Fascinated by Earth military history, even when it was not relevant to current assignments, the Adar recognized the bulky, squarish lines of an immense star-crossing vessel larger than five Solar Navy warliners. The construction design seemed wasteful, a ship that relied upon brute force rather than finesse. It was shaped like a tall building, topped with industrial processors, collectors, and refineries; it looked as if it had been uprooted and hurled into space like a brick. Now the big vessel was dark and shadowed, stained with the scars of ancient storms and encounters, like a ghost ship, haunted and drifting without its crew.

Kori'nh noted the symbols on the fuselage; these bulky engines could achieve only a fraction of lightspeed. It would have taken centuries to cross the gulfs of space... and yet the brash humans had flown the old generation ships anyway. "Bekh! Is that... theBurton ?"

In the cockpit, the Designate looked scornfully at the immense vessel. "The Solar Navy escorted that thing here to Dobro. At the time, we'd intended to let the humans settle with our splinter colony here, two races joining together. The Designate even took a human woman, theBurton 's captain, as his wife.

"But other humans... did not adapt well to the situation. Before any formal contact was made or delegation sent back to Earth, the human woman was assassinated, and the grief-stricken Designate was forced to crack down, to impose rigid order.

"Earth never knew about these refugees. My grandfather Mage-Imperator Yura'h issued instructions that these unruly creatures were to be investigated in every possible manner. Once theBurton was emptied, a warliner towed the vessel out here to the fringes of the Dobro system, where it has remained."

Kori'nh thought of all the effort and hope that had been poured into the creation of this mammoth starship. "It is a valuable relic."

The Designate sneered. "I'm sure the humans would love to have it back. They have prospectors and scavengers searching the void between stars to see if they can recover it. We must let them hold on to their myths and mysteries. And never discover the truth."

"Agreed," Kori'nh said, but for a different reason. "They must never learn what we have done here." As he cautiously threaded the shuttle through the space debris, he drank in the crude majesty of the derelict.