"Ah yes, there shouldn't be planets here, yet there are. And these planets are inhabited by an intelligent, technologically developed race. And we must have these 'improbable' planets as the industrial base for our expansion in this volume; yet we don't have them."

Lal paused, then struck with reptilian ferocity. "Why not?"

For a moment Harl sat frozen by the other's ophidian glare. With a visible effort he twitched his mouth hole open in a disarming smile. "Care for a milvak, Puissance?" He motioned to a shallow dish of hors d'oeuvres.

Lal had to admit that the general was a cool one. Though e'Kraft faced the Long Dying for his failure, he offered his superior candied meat rather than explanations. This was going to be interesting. He carefully spread one of the squirming milvaks with a wrist talon, and sank his fangs into the little mammal's hairless skin. With a sucking sound, he drained the animal of its vital fluids.

Harl e'Kraft waited politely until Lal had finished, then handed him a pack of color photographs.

"The Mush faces are every bit as developed as you say. Their two outer worlds could supply us for any further expansion we might desire in Volume 095. They--"

Prince Lal slithered into a more comfortable position on the resting rack, and glanced at the top photograph. Mush-faces: that was an appropriate name for them. The olive skinned monster that looked out of the photo seemed bloated, diseased.

"... Have not invented mass-energy converters, but they do use a very efficient form of hydrogen fusion for their spacecraft. Their biggest spacewagons mass more than thirty thousand tons."

Not bad for hydrogen fusion drive, thought Lal. He glanced at the next picture. It was a schematic of a Mush-face battlewagon. There was a typical cigar shape of a fusion-powered craft, the magnetic venturis taking up much of the rear volume of the wagon. Then rocket bombs were housed forward, with more snuggling under the craft's nose on outside racks.