Outside the protesters took up another chant. “No visitors. No V. No drilling here for me.”

He thought about the Earth gushing blood. Then he thought about Mr. Inman again and his now spotless brain. Everything comes at a cost. How do you balance the one against the other? How do you choose?

And why do you have to?

Leo angled his head to look up into an unusually cloudless sky, hoping for a glimpse of one of the giant silver Aykarian cruisers soaring overhead. Empty. No ships in sight.

He took another bite of his cheeseburger and followed it with a stolen slurp of his mother’s milkshake. She gave him a dirty look.

It was a small price to pay.

Zirkus Crayt wasn’t far.

That’s what Lark said as they made their way through the ruins of the village, moving at a halting pace, as the Aykari was often interrupted by a wide-eyed Orin coming up to him, taking his hand in both of its paws, speaking in a flurry of sounds that Leo’s translator couldn’t comprehend. Lark understood it well enough, however, often pointing, speaking in halted, incomprehensible sentences of his own, clearly giving instructions of some kind. In between interruptions, the Aykari tried to explain.

“I try to help them as best as I am able, but it is difficult. The Orin do not pursue technology for the sake of it or to bend their planet to their will. Rather, they have limited their advancements to only the tools required to live in harmony with their surroundings. They gather most of their water from the sky. They use every part of every plant they grow. They have no need for electricity, chemical manufacture, genetic engineering. Their metallurgy is restricted to making simple tools with which to hunt and grow food. They knew nothing of nuclear power or quantum physics before we arrived. They had never even seen a starship. And because they lacked the mechanical apparatus to do so, they never uncovered the secrets hidden beneath the surface of their planet.”

“You mean ventasium,” Leo said.

“They had no way of knowing the element was here. And even if they did, they had no means of accessing, processing, or using it. It lay unspoiled.”

“Until you came along and spoiled it for them,” Baz said.

Lark didn’t hesitate with his response. “We realized the planet’s value and immediately secured it, yes.”

“Secured it how, exactly?” Kat asked. Leo had to admit he didn’t really like the sound of that either. The Aykari had a way of speaking that kept everything at a distance.

“As I am sure you know, it has long been the Aykari mission to share its advanced knowledge and technology with the universe, thereby spreading our influence and further establishing the reaches of our empire,” Lark explained. “It is always better to make allies than enemies.”

Like us, Leo thought. Then he glanced at Baz’s blasted ear. Or most of us.

“Some cultures, however, are not equipped to handle the instant leap in scientific evolution that we can offer. In such cases, it is more expedient for us to simply take what we need rather than negotiate an even exchange.”