“Let’s not beat around the bush. I know who you are—at least who and what you claim to be. I have been observing your behavior of late, particularly that in the Castle on Charon. You claim to be Chief of Security for our hidden friends here in the Diamond, and I’m willing to accept you at your word—for now. I certainly hope you’re telling the truth.”

Morah sat back and thought a moment. Finally he said, “It appears you know a great deal indeed. How much do you know?”

“I know why your alien friends are there. I know pretty well where they have to be. I know the nature and purpose of the Warden Diamond and its interesting little beasties. And I know for a fact that your’bosses will fight like hell against any move against the Warden Diamond. Furthermore, I know that my bosses will make just such a move when my report is analyzed. What I don’t know is how strong a resistance your bosses can put up; but they are defending a relatively small position against the resources of an enormous interstellar entity, one which, if you are truly Morah, you know well. In the end, things could become horribly bloody for both sides. Perhaps your bosses could get a number of our worlds and your robots will mess up a hundred more—but we’d get the Diamond. And I mean totally. That means that, no matter what we lose, you and your bosses lose more.”

Yatek Morah remained impassive to the logic, but still appeared interested in the overall conversation. “So what do you propose?”

“I think we should talk. By ‘we’ I mean your bosses and mine. I think we’d better reach some accommodation short of total war.”

“Indeed? But if you know so much, my friend, you must also realize that the very existence of this little exercise came about because my bosses, as you call them, in consultation with our people, determined that the Confederacy can never reach an accommodation with another spacefaring race.