The racing probe was less than two years old. As a class-T device it contained the new pan inorganica logic circuits and a full array of sensors. It could comprehend as much of what it saw as most human observers, and it was eager to show its powers. It waited impatiently, until at five million kilometers from Cobweb Station it could finally pick up the first image on its radar. The hulking station showed as a grainy globe, pocked by entry ports and knobby with communications equipment. The probe’s data bank now included a full description of the station’s purpose and presumed contents. It had started all-channel signalling even at extreme range, with no reply.

Cobweb Station’s silence continued. The probe was closing fast, and it was puzzled to observe that all the station’s entry ports appeared open to space. It sent a Mattin Link message back to Dominus, reporting that peculiarity, and decelerated hard until it was within a hundred kilometers. The high-resolution sensors were now able to pick up images of small, irregular objects floating close to the station. Some of them gave off the bright radar reflection of hard metal, but others were more difficult to analyze. The probe launched two of its small bristle explorers, one to inspect the space flotsam, the other to enter and examine the interior of the station.

If the second bristle explorer’s task was ever completed, the results were not recorded. Long before that, every message circuit on the probe had hit full capacity. A blast of emergency signals deluged through the Mattin Link to Dominus, while rarely-used indicators sprang to life on every control board from the Vulcan Nexus to the Oort Harvester.

The first bristle explorer had encountered the debris outside Cobweb Station. Some of it was strange fragments, mixtures of organic and inorganic matter blown to shapelessness by the weapons of station guards. But next to those twisted remnants, sometimes mixed inextricably with them, there floated the bloated, frozen bodies of the guards themselves. In shredded uniforms, cold fingers still on triggers, the dead hung gutted and stiff-limbed in the endless sarcophagus of open space.

Throughout the solar system, alarm bells sounded their requiems.

LINK NETWORK COMPLETE. STAND BY FOR CONFERENCE CONNECT.

The musical disembodied voice sounded from all sides. In the last few seconds before final Link Connection, Dougal MacDougal turned to the two men standing next to him in the domed hall.

“I want to emphasize it one more time. This is strictly a briefing for the Ambassadors. Although the hearing takes place in the Star Chamber, there’s currently no criminal charge at issue. I’m sure you want to keep it that way. That means your testimonies have to be as accurate and complete as possible. No concealing of information, even if it makes you look bad. Understood?”

Ambassador Dougal MacDougal was a tall, imposing figure. The traditional robes of office were handed down from one Terran Ambassador to the next, but on him they sat as though made for his shoulders alone. The other two men exchanged the briefest of glances before they nodded.

“And be consistent,” went on MacDougal. “You are in enough trouble already. You don’t want to add to it by contradicting each other.”

“I understand perfectly.” Luther Brachis was a match for MacDougal in height, and massively broader. Even in the low gravity of the Ceres’ Star Chamber, his booted tread shook the gold and white floor. He was in full uniform. On his left breast sat a phalanx of military decorations, and the swirling Starburst of Solar Security was blazoned across his right sleeve. No matter that those meant less than nothing to the alien ambassadors. They mattered to him.

His eyes, a weary grey-blue, were unreadable as they met Dougal MacDougal’s. “I will describe everything, and conceal nothing.”

“Very good.” The Ambassador turned at once to the other man. “I know you two never stop bickering. I just want to tell you, this isn’t the time and place for it. If you have anything to disagree on, do it now. The link will close in a few seconds.”

Esro Mondrian had to look up to meet MacDougal’s glare. Both MacDougal and Brachis towered over him by a full head, and in contrast to them his build was slender, even frail. Unlike them, he was also wearing the plainest of costumes. The severe black uniform of Boundary Security, precisely tailored and meticulously clean, stood unadorned by medals or insignia of office. Only the single fire opal at his left collar served as his identification badge — and concealed its other multiple functions as communicator, computer, warning system, and weapon.

Mondrian shrugged. “I’m not in the habit of concealing information from anyone who legitimately has a need to know it. As soon as we have full identification for the parties tapping in to the Link, and a secure line, I’ll give them all the information that I believe appropriate.’

His voice was agreeable and low in volume, but it was not offering the commitment that Dougal MacDougal was asking. Before MacDougal could reply, the lights for full Mattin Link operation began to blink. The Terran Ambassador gave Mondrian one unsatisfied scowl and turned to face the sunken well of the room. In front of them, the hemisphere of the Star Chamber’s central atrium had been empty. Now three oval patterns of light were flickering into existence within it. As the men watched, the lights gradually solidified to reveal the three-dimensional images of the Ambassadors.

On the far left hung a shrouded, pulsing mass of dark purple. The image steadied, and the shape became the swarming aggregate of a Tinker Composite, imaging in from Mercantor in the Fomalhaut system. The Tinker had clustered to form a symmetrical ovoid with appendages of roughly human proportions. Next to it (but fifty-plus lightyears away in real space, halfway across the domain of the Stellar Group) loomed the dark green bulk of an Angel. And far off to the right, beyond a vacant spot in the assembly and still showing the margin of rainbow fringes that marked signal transients, hovered the lanky tubular assembly of a Pipe-Rilla. It was linking in from its home planet around Eta Cassiopeiae, a mere eighteen lightyears away.

MATTIN LINK NETWORK COMPLETE, said the same pleasant human voice. THE CONFERENCE MAY NOW PROCEED.

It was a historic moment. The representatives of the Stellar Group were in simultaneous full audio and visual contact for the first time in twenty-two Earth years. Dou-gal MacDougal, conscious that he was about to take part in a singular event of Stellar Group history, adjusted his already-perfect robes and stepped forward to fill the one remaining spot in the tableau of ambassadors. “Greetings. I am Dougal MacDougal, Solar Ambassador to the Stellar Group. Welcome to the Ceres’ Star Chamber. Can you all see and hear me, and each other?”

The question was pure diplomatic formality. The Link computers would have confirmed full audio and visuals before permitting any of the participants to enter link mode. Yes,” said the Pipe-Rilla, in a fair approximation to human speech. “Yes,” echoed the Tinker, and, after a few seconds, the computer-generated response of the Angel Ambassador.

“As you know,” went on MacDougal, “we have called this special meeting to discuss a difficult situation. A recent event here in the Sol system is cause for grave concern, and it could be a problem affecting the whole Stellar Group. We may have to consider unusual — maybe unprecedented — control measures. Naturally, any such decision must involve all members of the Stellar Group. But first, you need to know the background of the problem. For that purpose, I have arranged for you to receive a briefing from two of the principals involved in this matter from the beginning,”