“Yes,” Rigney said. “Since the Conclave has restricted us and other unaffiliated species from colonizing, we’ve been dropping a few CDF members into wildcat colonies. The rest of the colonists don’t know. We modify their bodies to look and act like natural human bodies, but keep their BrainPals in. They record data and send it along occasionally. We recruit CDF members with a background in technical work so they usually end up being in control of their colonies’ communications systems.”

“To what end?” Abumwe asked.

“We want to see how the Conclave responds to wildcat colonies,” Rigney said. “Whether it sees them as a threat, whether they respond to them the same way as an official colony, and whether ultimately wildcat colonies—or colonies that give the appearance of being wildcat colonies—are a way we can keep expanding our presence without having a conflict with the Conclave.”

“And you thought colonizing a planet already claimed by another species was a smart thing to do,” Abumwe said.

Rigney spread his hands. “We don’t pick the planets,” he said. “We just put our people into the colony undercover.”

“How many of your people were on Wantji?” Abumwe asked.

“We typically put in a couple of people,” Rigney said. “Most wildcat colonies are small. We’ll put in one for every fifty colonists or so.” He turned to Schmidt. “How many did your friend Wilson wash up?”

Schmidt glanced over at Abumwe, who nodded. “Two, sir,” he said.

“That sounds about right,” Rigney said. He settled back in his chair.

“What do we do about this?” Abumwe asked.

“And by ‘we,’ you mean ‘you,’” Rigney said.

“Yes,” Abumwe said.

“We don’t do anything,” Egan said. “The Bula haven’t brought it up to us.”

“We’re not going to be the ones to bring it up to them,” Rodabaugh said. “If they do ask about the wildcat colony, then we tell them that as soon as we found out about it, we moved to remove them—so quickly that we didn’t ask permission first, so sorry. We’ll be out of there before then.”

“And if they find out about the CDF members among them?” Abumwe asked.

Rigney pointed at Schmidt. “We have them,” he said. “We have them both. More specifically, we have their heads, where their BrainPals are.”

Abumwe gawked at the three of them. “You’re joking, right?” she said. “The Bula are not that stupid.”

“No one said they are stupid,” Rigney said. “But all our intelligence suggests that the Bula don’t know the wildcat colony was there, and they weren’t the ones who attacked it. We’re going to proceed with the negotiations as they are.”

“And if they ask me directly about it? Contrary to all expectation they might,” Abumwe said.

“Then you don’t know anything about it,” Rodabaugh said.

“To be clear, you’re asking me to lie to the Bula,” Abumwe said, to Rodabaugh.