NEGATIVE.
Because the room was tit only by that glorious starlight, he had not noticed the examiner until the word appeared white on a black screen. There was no sensor plate on top, and this examiner, Martin thought, was not fooling around with colored screens and subtle psychological pressures. He knew that his questions here would be answered simply and directly.
Unless they were forestalled…
THIS IS THE FEDERATION WORLD.
… or he began to see the answers for himself.
IT IS A HOLLOW BODY FABRICATED FROM MATERIAL WHICH COMPRISED THE PLANETS OF THIS AND MANY OTHER STAR SYSTEMS. IT CONTAINS THE INTELLIGENT BEINGS OF NEARLY TWO HUNDRED DIFFERENT SPECIES WHO ARE THE CITIZENS OF THE FEDERATION OF GALACTIC SENTIENTS. THIS WORLD, WHICH AMONG EARTH SCIENTISTS WOULD BE CALLED A MODIFIED DYSON SPHERE, ENCLOSES THE SYSTEM’S SUN AND USES ITS OUTPUT FOR LIGHT. HEAT. AND POWER FOR ITS SOIL SYNTHESIZERS, ATMOSPHERE PRODUCTION AND WEATHER CONTROL MACHINERY, GENERAL FABRICATION, AND FOOD SUPPLY
THE DIAMETER OF THE FEDERATION WORLD IS IN EXCESS OF TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY MILLION MILES AND IT HAS A USABLE SURFACE AREA, INCLUDING THE CONICAL EXTENSIONS AT THE POLES, OF NEARLY TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY QUADRILLION SQUARE MILES, OR WELL OVER ONE BILLION TIMES THE SURFACE AREA OF EARTH.
THE PROJECTED FUTURE POPULATIONS OF ALL THE PRESENT MEMBERS OF THE FEDERATION, TOGETHER WITH THOSE OF THE HUNDREDS OF AS YET UNDISCOVERED INTELLIGENT SPECIES WHO HAVE NOT YET BEEN INVITED TO JOIN. WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO FULLY POPULATE THIS WORLD.
The words, diagrams, and sharply detailed pictures flashed onto the screen, describing the Federation World, its topography, atmospheres, temperature and weather control machinery, and the light neutralizer fields which provided night and day for those species which needed them. It rotated ponderously and with seeming slowness, furnishing maximum gravity in the equatorial areas for those Citizens who had come from high-gee planets, and a diminishing artificial gravity approaching the poles where the surface was stepped and terraced so that the centrifugal force would be at right angles to the ground.