“I am afraid I must keep that a secret,” Sorvalh said. “And not just because I was never told. But I assume now we can dispense with the polite fiction that there are not, in fact, ten human colonies where they should not be.”

“Those aren’t sanctioned colonies,” Rigney said. “They’re wildcats. We can’t stop people from paying spaceship captains to take them to a planet and drop them there without our permission.”

“You could, I am certain,” Sorvalh said. “But that’s not the issue at the moment.”

“Does the Conclave blame the Colonial Union for the existence of these wildcat colonies?” Rigney asked.

“We question that they are wildcat colonies at all, Colonel,” Sorvalh said. “As wildcat colonies typically do not have Colonial Defense Forces soldiers in their mix of colonists.”

Rigney had nothing to say to this. Sorvalh waited a few moments to see if this would change, and then continued. “Colonel Rigney, surely you understand that if we had wanted to vaporize these colonies, we would have done it by now,” she said.

“Actually, I don’t understand,” Rigney said. “Just as I don’t understand what the gist of this conversation is.”

“The gist, as you say, is that I have a personal message and a bargain for the Colonial Union from General Gau,” Sorvalh said. “That is to say, it comes from General Gau in the capacity of his own person, and not General Gau, leader of the Conclave, a federation of four hundred races whose combined might could crush you like a troublesome pest.”

Colonel Rigney’s face showed a flicker of annoyance at this assessment of the Colonial Union, but he quickly let it go. “I’m ready to hear the message,” he said.

“The message is simply that he knows that your ‘wildcat’ colonies are no such thing and that under different circumstances you would have received notice of this knowledge by having the fleet show up at their doorstep, followed by other reprisals designed to strongly dissuade you from further colonization attempts,” Sorvalh said.

“With respect, Councillor,” Rigney said, “the last time your fleet showed up at our doorstep, it didn’t end well for your fleet.”

“That was the second-to-last time,” Sorvalh said. “The last time a fleet of ours showed up at your doorstep, you lost the Earth. Beyond that, I think you and I both know that you will not get a chance to repeat your exploits at Roanoke.”

“So the general wishes to remind us that normally he’d vaporize these colonies,” Rigney said.

“He wishes to remind you of it to make the point that at this time he has no interest in doing that,” Sorvalh said.

“And why not?” Rigney asked.

“Because,” Sorvalh said.

“Really?” Rigney said, stopping his walk. “‘Because’ is the reason?”