Reclamation

Eric's head drooped. "I'm going to ask you one more time, Madame Chairman," he said toward the carpet. "What do you want from me?"

"I want you to speak for the Realm. I want you to say you do not want the Vitae there and that you protest the invasion. I want you to repeat it for broadcast to the Family members and attendant governments. I want you to make life difficult for the Vitae." She paused. "You know you can see it from here."

"See what?" asked Eric, confused.

"MG49 sub 1. The Realm of the Nameless Powers. Your sun and its companion are one of the stars in our sky."

"And?"

"And it's a crashing funny-looking place, isn't it?" She touched the inlay on her desk again and Eric, almost involuntarily, looked toward the central screen. The monitor showed an extremely out-of-scale representation of a binary system; a golden primary star looming over a white dwarf. Eric watched their gentle motion. He could remember his father's stories of his father's delight at the discovery of that companion. It confirmed the Teacher's assertion that the sun, the suns, were Garismit's Eyes watching the Realm, as the stars were the eyes of the Nameless, watching from afar.

At the edge of the screen hovered a lopsided planet, rotating gently to display a surface of bare, radiation-burned rock. If he watched long enough, Eric knew, it would eventually display a blur of cloud cover held in place by a ragged circle of mountain. The Realm of the Nameless Powers.

"Just sits there, doesn't it?" said Ross, resting her elbows on the desk. "All on its own, in a steady orbit around a binary star. No moon, no other planets, not even a gas giant or two for company."

"Madame Chairman, what are you getting at?" Eric said in a strangled tone.

"I mean the Unifiers make it their business to hunt down unknown worlds. We're very good at it…but your world…this arrangement is so manifestly unlikely for the production or support of human life that we didn't even bother to look at it. It was an accident that we found your people at all. One of our spotters calibrated a probe incorrectly."

Her voice was steady but her eyes practically glowed with eagerness. "You know, there's only one world we've searched for that we couldn't find."

"Which is?" Eric tried to keep himself under control. Let Madame Chairman lead him along. Let her play her game out. When she was finished, he would still be standing here and she would have his answer in full.

"The Evolution Point for the Human Family," she said. "We have been looking for three centuries now and we have come up empty, haven't we? After three centuries." She spread her hands. "I think I know why."

Eric said nothing, he just let her go on.

"Dorias told me that your mythology is founded around the idea that a servant of the gods moved the world to a safe location." She smiled so wide that he could see her teeth. They were white, clean, and as even as the lines of the Hangar Cliffs. "I think they didn't just move it, I think they hid it." She nodded toward the screen again.

"Madame Chairman"—Eric did not let himself look at the screen—"why would anybody want to hide the Evolution Point?"

"To keep it from the Rhudolant Vitae?" she said archly. "Or their ancestors. I can't say for certain, can I? We haven't got an overall history of the Quarter Galaxy for ten years ago, let alone three thousand. We do, however, know that engineering a planetary orbit was possible for someone, at some time." She pointed meaningfully at the ground.

Eric could feel her assurance reaching out to him, as palpable as the touch of a hand.

"You see what it means, don't you? No one even vaguely connected with the Family would willingly let the Vitae lay sole and whole claim to the Evolution Point and the people on it. Since the Shessel were discovered, safe and sound on their own Evolution Point, there has been a reemergence of interest in the Family for finding ours. Sar Born, speak for your people, the Guardians of the Evolution Point, and you give us all a real fighting chance against the biggest stopping block to the reunion of Human Family. You could put the Vitae back in their place, just by speaking out."

"And if I don't," said Eric, "then what?"

She spread her hands. "Then nothing, Sar Born. You have the use of the room and will have use of all the nets as soon as your IDs are cleared. You are my guest. I, on the other hand, am Chairman of the Unifiers and I will harry the Vitae in whatever way I can until I find out what it is they are trying to do. Why, for instance, they are kidnapping natives from MG49 sub 1."