"You didn't answer my question," he said. "Why here?"

"Because of the industrial advantages. The stories those internees took back were true. There's a lot of salvageable stuff here. We've identified over thirty thousand wrecks and abandoned ships. Built by seven different races."

"Really?" He ticked fingers. He could name five, not counting humanity. Six if he counted the prehistoric race that had built Stars' End. "I'll give you human and Ulantonid. From the war. Who were the others?"

"I thought you'd wonder why they'd be here."

He frowned at her. Was she trying to bait him by showing off her superior knowledge? Savoring one minuscule advantage? He knew more than she about almost everything and she seemed to take it as a personal affront.

"I imagine because it's a good place to lay an ambush. That's why Carolingian came here during the war."

Her smile shrank. "Yeah. And because it's close to the obvious space lanes. Moyshe, there've been battles here for ages. Probably for millions of years. Or even billions. Except for the wrecks from the Ulantonid war, which I didn't even count, none of the ships here were built by any race we've ever met. They were all extinct before man ever left Old Earth. Or at least they were gone from this part of the galaxy. They all pre-date any of the races we have encountered."

"Ask the starfish about them."

"We did. We're not stupid. But they don't have much to tell. They don't pay any more attention to hard matter races than we do to bacteria. Less, really, because we're curious and they aren't. We're pretty sure one bunch of ships, though, belonged to a race that moved the ancestors of the Sangaree from Earth to wherever it is their homeworld is."

"Ah? Don't let Mouse know about that. He'll drive you crazy trying to get to them."

Only in this century had geneticists surrendered to the popular notion that Human and Sangaree sprang from the same root stock. The man in the street would not believe in a parallel evolution so similar that it could produce a being indistinguishable from himself. Scientists had demurred, citing no evidence on Old Earth for extraterrestrial intervention...

Then the abandoned alien base beneath the moon's dark side had been discovered. Some major rethinking had been necessary. Then had come confirmation of reports that the human female could, occasionally, be impregnated by the Sangaree male.

The most famous—or infamous—of Sangaree agents, Michael Dee, had been half human.

"Mouse will be protected from himself."

BenRabi studied her. She wore an oddly ferocious expression.

"Amy, I've been here almost fourteen months and you're still springing surprises on me. When are you going to run out?" He stared into the hollow asteroid and awaited her response.

"Moyshe, what happened to the people who built Stars' End?"

"We'll probably never know. Unless somebody cracks its defenses."

"We'll do that. We're going back. That was a rhetorical question."

"Wait a sec. Back? To Stars' End? After what happened? You're out of your minds. You're all raving lunatics."

She laughed. "Moyshe, they left their ships behind when they disappeared. Right here. God knows how many of them there are. Three Sky occupies a cubic light-year. We haven't explored a tenth of it. They had their yards and secret places too. Most of the ships we find were theirs. They were the people who transported the Sangaree, we think. We have explorers who don't do anything but hunt for their hideouts. Every one we find is one we don't have to build for ourselves."

He spoke to the engulfing maw in the viewscreen. "She's serious."

"Absolutely, darling. Absolutely. Oh, we're not really sure that it was the same race that did all three things. But the computers go with the probability. See, these are mostly good ships, Moyshe. They aren't derelicts. Some of them still have a little emergency power left. They try to scare us off with mind noises the way Stars' End does. And they have parts missing. Somebody took off all their weapons. I wish we had a whole army of xeno-archaeologists and anthropologists. It's really interesting. I always go see what they're working on whenever we come in. The scientists don't go very fast. They're mostly ones we captured, so they aren't real enthusiastic about helping us out. They train some of our people as aides, sometimes. Old folks and birth defect types who can't do much else."

"That don't make sense. People don't abandon good ships, Amy. Where did they go? Why? How? And if they did build Stars' End, why?"

She shrugged. "They weren't people, Moyshe. Not our kind. Don't judge their motives by ours."

"I wouldn't... though some ideas would seem universal. Just thinking questions out loud."

"The questions are why I wish we had more scientists." She switched the viewscreen over to a stern camera. Danion was well into the asteroid's interior. "They could be the same creatures that did the tunneling at Luna Command. But were they really? Is there a connection between the moon and Three Sky and Stars' End? Were we meant to find Stars' End and Three Sky? Is it all some kind of big puzzle that we're supposed to figure out? Is it a test?"

"You think they were planning to come back?"

"Who knows? The questions are all a hundred years old. The answers haven't been born. And if we ever do answer any of them, then right away we're going to ask three more.

"Anyway, those old ships are our main reason for being here. Some we fix up and use. They make good service ships. If they can be adapted. We scavenge some for materials to build harvestships. We only buy outside if we have to. Usually the Freehaulers make our purchases landside, for a commission, and make delivery to an asteroid at the edge of the nebula. They think it's just a way station. They don't ask questions. Too many questions is bad for business. They don't try very hard to follow us around, either. They're good people."

"Is that a cut?"

"If you think so."

"I suspected the Freehaulers. I know they had something to do with me and Mouse getting caught. How's chances of me getting to look at one of those ships? I know a little about xeno-archaeology."

A girl's face crossed his mind. Alyce. She had been his Academy love. She had been a recorder at the alien digs in the moon. She had taught him a little, and the Bureau had taught him more.

Sooner or later, the Bureau touched every base.

"You'll have to ask Jarl. I don't think he'll let you, though. We're going to be awful busy repairing Danion. Plus you've got your citizenship classes and your beer nights with Mouse."

"Now don't start that again. He's my friend, and that's the way it's going to stay. It don't hurt for him and me to play a couple of games of chess once in a while. You can come keep an eye on us if you think we're cooking up a plot against the Greater Seiner Empire, Lieutenant."

She ignored his sarcasm. "I don't feel like it. I always... " She stopped before she began waving the red flag. Their positions were inflexible. Argument would be pointless. "Moyshe, we've got to get Danion whipped into shape fast. The fleets are coming in. As soon as they're all here we're leaving for auction and another crack at Stars' End."

"Stars' End. Stars' End. That's all I hear anymore. And it's completely insane. We can't stick our necks in that noose again, Amy. Look what it cost last time. And remember, I was there too. I was outside with the starfish. I know what that planet can do."

"We've got to have those weapons, Moyshe. You saw the casualty reports. You saw the extrapolations. What the sharks are doing now is going to look pacifistic in ten years. We're talking survival, Love. And you're still thinking power politics."

"You'll just get yourselves killed."