“I’m sorry. I was just wondering how long we have before it starts. I was thinking maybe I might go to the bathroom and—”

“It’s starting now, you wasted imbecile. Are you blind as well as ignorant? Use your eyes!”

And now he could see it. The monitors provided a clear view of one hemisphere of the Star Chamber’s central atrium. The front of the room was empty, except for Chan Dalton slumped black-clad and scowling in an easy chair. Dougal MacDougal sat far off to the rear, on the observers’ bench. Now three oval patterns of light were flickering into existence close to Dalton. The lights gradually solidified to become three-dimensional images of the Stellar Group Ambassadors.

On the far left hung a shrouded, pulsing mass of dark purple. As the image steadied, the shape became the swarming aggregate of a Tinker Composite, imaging in from Mercantor in the Fomalhaut system. The Tinkers had clustered to form a symmetrical ovoid with appendages of roughly human proportions. Next to the Tinker Composite, 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. And far off to the right, beyond a vacant spot in the Assembly (but fifty-plus lightyears away in real space, halfway across the domain of the Stellar Group) loomed the dark green bulk of an Angel.

That was the one that made Flammarion shiver in his boots and wish he was somewhere else, as it acknowledged its arrival with a wave of the blue-green fronds at its top end. An Angel wasn’t an animal, it wasn’t a vegetable; it wasn’t anything that Flammarion could relate to. It was some weird symbiotic life-form, discovered a century and a half earlier when the expanding wave-front of human exploration reached the star Capella and the planets around it. The visible part of the Angel was the Chassel-Rose, slow-moving, mindless, and wholly vegetable. Shielded within the bulbous central section lived the sentient crystalline Singer, relying upon the Chassel-Rose for habitat, movement, and communication with the external world. The Angels, depending on the situation, were either very stupid or super-smart in ways that humans could hardly comprehend.

MATTIN LINK NETWORK COMPLETE, said the voice of the computer at Milly Grant’s side. THE CONFERENCE MAY NOW PROCEED.

“Present,” the Pipe-Rilla said. It was a fourteen-foot nightmare rearing high on its stick-thin legs. The forelimbs clutched the tubular trunk, and the long antennas were waving.

“Present.” The whistling voice of the Tinker Composite appeared from deep within it, accompanied by a flutter of purple wings of its thumb-sized components.

“Present,” said Chan Dalton. “Ambassador MacDougal is also in the Star Chamber with me.”

“As an observer,” the Angel added firmly, “not as a participant. There can be only one participant from each member of the Stellar Group. Is that understood? Too many cooks spoil the broth .”

Flammarion grunted and said to Milly, “Still at it! Don’t you hate it when they do that?”

The Angels had an annoying habit of using human cliches and proverbs at every opportunity. No one was sure if it was the symbiotes’ sense of humor, or some perverse notion of species politeness.

In any case, Chan Dalton was used to it. He nodded. “We understand. I will be the only human participant.”

“Then all are present,” the Angel said. “We can proceed.”

There was a silence, long enough for Flammarion to wonder if Milly had lost sound from the monitors. Finally the Pipe-Rilla writhed its limbs, produced a preliminary buzzing sound, and said, “Twenty of your years ago, the members of the Stellar Group were obliged to take an action that we much regretted. Humans, a known intelligent species, were denied access to all Link entry points except those close to your own sun. This quarantine was not imposed lightly, or for no good reason. It was done following more than thirty incidents in which ships with human crews undertook acts of piracy and aggression. Acts of trickery. Of treachery. Of violence .”

On the final word, the voice of the Pipe-Rilla rose in pitch, while surface components rose from the Tinker Composite and flew in an agitated fashion around it.

The Pipe-Rilla’s narrow thorax leaned forward. “Chan Dalton, we do not accuse you, personally, of such things. Your actions when you worked with our colleagues, so long ago on Travancore, showed you to be a simple, honorable being.”

Flammarion glanced at Milly. “Twenty years ago, maybe. Look at him now.”

Chan was nodding at the Pipe-Rilla. His weary and battered face wore an expression of cynical amusement. “Nice of you to say kind things like that.”

The Pipe-Rilla went on, “However, a species must take responsibility for the actions of all of its members. When humans showed no inclination to deal with the problem, we — Pipe-Rillas, Tinkers, and Angels — were obliged to act for you. We closed the interstellar Link system to human access.”

“Yeah. We noticed.”

Sarcasm was lost on the Pipe-Rilla. She continued, “Of course, the Link closure was never intended to be permanent. We would continue to observe, and look for beneficial change in human behavior.”

“And you’ve seen it?” Chan’s face now showed genuine surprise.

“Regrettably, no. Such a modification has not, so far, occurred. However, a new factor has recently entered the picture. It could lead to the end of the quarantine. What do you know about the region of space known as the Geyser Swirl?”

“Not a thing. Never heard of it.”

Dougal MacDougal sat upright on the observers’ bench. “If I may say—”

“You may not.” The Angel’s deep voice cut him off. “Remain silent, or leave.”

The Pipe-Rilla went on, uncertainly, “The Geyser Swirl is an ultradense gas cloud and associated embedded stars that lie on the Perimeter of the Angel section of the Stellar Group. Until recently, it was believed to be uninhabitable, unremarkable, and of no special interest. However, one year ago we discovered evidence of a Link entry point within the Swirl. This was surprising, and most puzzling. The Link is certainly not of our creation, nor is it under our control. Neither is it a Link of natural origin, which would have been discovered during the first survey of the Swirl.

“Our curiosity at such an anomaly was aroused. It has been our experience that the most valuable discoveries are often associated with the strangest events. We dispatched an exploration team of Tinkers and a Pipe-Rilla to the Swirl using the new Link, and we had no thought of danger. Why should we, since Link access has always been perfectly safe? When the team failed to return on schedule, we thought there had perhaps been an equipment failure. We sent a second team, this time with an Angel as captain and crew.”

“And it didn’t come back?” Chan Dalton had lost his slouch.

“That is correct. How did you know that? It did not return. Neither expedition has returned. A single equipment failure is unlikely but possible. Two such, in immediate succession, represent a vanishingly small p-probability.” The Pipe-Rilla was beginning to stammer. “B-but what other options are there?”

“Something — or somebody — in the Geyser Swirl doesn’t like company. They’re knocking off your expeditions as fast as they arrive.”

“That is our f-fear. B-but how do we d-determine if that is true?”

“Easy enough. You send a third team. If it doesn’t come back, you’ll know for sure.”

“Regarding a third team—” began Dougal MacDougal, but he was drowned out by the Pipe-Rilla, screaming a reply.

“ Y-yes. A third t-team. But that would m-mean s-s-sending s-s-s-someone t-to almost s-s-s-sure d-d-d-d-d.” The Pipe-Rilla’s speech degenerated into a series of sputtering noises. The Tinker Composite broke into a myriad small components that darted frantically around the imaging volume.