Basil said, “General, I myself have been troubled by certain inconsistencies. You are not aware of this, but I had my expediter, Mr. Pellidor, obtain commercial records for the past fifteen years and instructed a team of my best population statisticians to make projections of the size of the Roamer population, based upon the resources they purchase from Hansa suppliers. At first glance, the number seemed relatively small, comfortably insignificant.”

“About what I expected.” Lanyan guided the glider, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “But?”

“But I discovered that the Roamers have been gathering their own resources—perhaps quite extensive resources—to supplement what they purchase from us. That changes all the parameters.” He drew a deep breath. “Therefore, since they do not depend entirely on the Hansa, Roamer settlements and populations could be far more extensive than we imagine.”

“Damn,” General Lanyan said, his face reddening. “How many, exactly?”

“They could have hundreds, even thousands, of undocumented colonies. All self-sufficient, none of them paying Hansa taxes.”

“Impossible! We would know!”

The ethereal winds of Mars buffeted the glider, and Basil continued. “I’ve assigned discreet spies to keep track of Roamer ships trading with Hansa outposts, compiling a catalog of all their known vessels. When I finally began to look at the collated information, I was amazed at how many different vessels the Roamers are using. They seem to be building their own ships—lots of them.”

“And they’ve lost three skymines to the enemy aliens,” the General said.

“Three that we know of,” Basil pointed out. “But out of how many? We don’t know how many skymines the Roamers are operating, or where they are. Originally, they purchased a dozen old ekti-harvesting facilities from the Ildirans, but since that time they have built plenty more. How many? The Roamers don’t report to the Hansa each time they put a new one into operation. In fact, the facility that was destroyed at Erphano was completely unknown to us.”

“Bastards,” Lanyan said.

Basil shook his head. “There are so many skymines, General, countless uninhabited systems. The Hansa’s appetite for ekti is voracious—so how can we complain about their industry? Who could keep track of where all the facilities might be? No one has had the incentive before, since the Roamers keep delivering the stardrive fuel that we desperately need. They don’t overcharge us, and thus we don’t ask questions.”

No one had ever imagined that the seemingly aloof and disorganized space trash might in fact be part of a large hidden civilization in the back corners of the Spiral Arm. It reminded Basil of swarms of cockroaches living all unseen within the cracks of a dwelling. “Roachers” seemed an appropriate term for them.

“Perhaps the skymine facilities should be nationalized,” Lanyan said. “Military necessity, emergency powers act. Order them all to be placed under Hansa control and allow us to impose order. The alien attacks could serve as an effective excuse.”