Faya smiled. “We don’t know that either. We’re here to answer such questions.” She would say no more.

Pirius found it a deeply disturbing thought that some alien intelligence had built such a silent sentinel on the fringe of the system, long before humanity even as the sun was fitfully flaring to life. In fact, he felt resentful that somebody had used that immense resource for their own purposes. Those were our ice moons, he thought, knowing he was being illogical.

They completed the circuit of the Pit, coming back to where they had started. They longed to go further—to see more of Michael Poole’s heroic engineering, or even find the fabled Forest of Ancestors, where the native life-forms in their sessile forms waited out eternity. But they had work to do.

Regretfully, they returned to the conference room. It turned out to be set high on a gantry, overlooking the Pit of the Mayflower. It had a startling view of the gantries and cranes that had once built starships.

But nobody in the conference room was interested in the view. They were too busy with a tremendous row.

Luru Parz paced, small, cold, determined.

“In its day, the Coalition served a purpose. We needed a framework, guidance to help us recover from the terrible wasting of the Qax Occupation. But we quickly slipped into an intellectual paralysis. Do you not see that, Minister? Even now we look back over our shoulder at the past, the Occupation, the near-extinction of mankind. The Druz Doctrines are nothing but a rationalization of that great trauma. And since then, obsessed with history, we have sleepwalked our way into a Galactic war.

“But it can’t go on forever. Nilis sees that. We can’t keep up our blockade of the Core indefinitely. Now Nilis offers us a chance to win, to take the Galaxy. I’m not at all surprised you, Gramm, and your self-serving colleagues are seeking to sabotage his efforts. In fact I’m surprised you have given him as much support as you have. But it’s not enough. Gramm, you are going to give Nilis all the backing he needs—all the way to the center of the Galaxy.”

Gramm sneered. “Madam, this buffoon has nothing. Don’t you understand that yet? He is blocked! He has no way to defeat FTL foreknowledge, or to strike at the Prime Radiant itself.”

Faya Parz said, “Then we must help him. There may be answers.”

Gramm snapped, “What answers?”

“Mankind is very old; the past contains many secrets. . . . This is a treasure which the Coalition chooses to ignore. We believe that somewhere in this deep heritage we may well discover the key to unlocking the final puzzles.”

Nilis rammed his fist into the palm of his hand. “You’re right. Yes! That’s where we must go next.”

Pirius said, “Where?”

Nilis said, “Why, to Mars. To the Secret Archive of the Coalition.”