“Let us not bandy words,” he said. “The nearest border of the League is almost a thousand light-years away, which would make your lines of communication ridiculously long if you tried to attack. Also, in spite of this distance, we have had our own agents in your territory for years. We know that the temper of the League population is…well, let us not say decadent, let us be kindly and say pacific. It would not react favorably to a war which could only mean expense and grief for it. Moreover, the Patrol is a minimal force, designed merely to keep order within the bounds of the League itself. Policemen! We have built up a war machine.”

He shrugged massively. “Why go on?” he rumbled. “It is only our intention to claim the natural rights of Ulugan. You go your way, we will go ours; we do not wish to fight you, but neither do we feel bound to respect the morals of an altogether different civilization. You can, at best, only be a nuisance if you try to stop us; and if the nuisance becomes too great, we are not afraid of fighting a thousand-year war to exterminate it. We are a warrior race and you are not: there is the essential difference, and mere statistics will not change it.”

He sat down behind his desk and fiddled absently with a jeweled dagger. His voice was remote, uninterested. “You may inform your government that Ulugan is already commencing the occupation of Tukatan and the other planets in its system. That is all. You may go.”

To dismiss an ambassador thus was like a slap. Alak had to fight himself for an instant before self-control came. Then his gaunt sharp face smoothed itself out, and his tone was unctuous.

“As your excellency wishes, so be it. Good day.”

He bowed and backed out of the magnificent room.

* * *

Scene: An upper office in the League Patrol Intelligence—Sol Sector—building, Britn, Terra. A sparsely furnished room, a few relaxers, a desk, the control-studded board of a robofile. One wall is transparent, opening on a serene landscape of rolling, wooded hills, a few private dwelling-units, the distant bulk of a food factory. Overhead, the sky is full of white clouds and sunshine, now and then the metal gleam of an airboat. It all seems incredibly remote from the troubled world of Galactic politics.

Characters: Myrn Kaltro, sector chief, a big gray-haired man in the iridescent undress uniform of a human Patrol officer. Jorel Meinz, sociotechnic director of the Solar System, small, dark, intense, conservatively dressed in gold and crimson. Wing Alak, unattached field agent, enough of a dandy to wear the latest fashion in civilian clothes—plain gray and blue. But then, he has been away from home for a good many years.

Background: In a civilization embracing nearly a million separate intelligent races, most of them with independent governments of their own, a civilization which is growing almost daily, it is impossible for even a well-informed administrator to keep track of all significant events. Jorel Meinz has hardly heard the name “Ulugan” before today; now he is being asked to authorize an action which may change Galactic history.