A long curved table of burnished wood filled the room. Weller and Spurling sat on opposite sides. A long rectangular plasma screen was affixed to the wall. It was a virtual window, its blackness filled with a sea of stars. The men were silent. Belden paced the floor, ignoring his company, eyes darting about as if deep in thought.

"Gentlemen," he said quietly. "What we have before us, in these stars, is something Transor or its children have never anticipated. The reasons why the others left are common lore."

With a motion of his hand, an image of a beautiful blue green world materialized and hovered over the table.

"You know the world. Transor, it was as beautiful and idyllic then as now. For millennia, it has been a place of infinite bounty and justice. Genius is as well cultivated as her ubiquitous gardens. It is a world of two billion souls, each the object of a caring and thoughtful society. A picture reflected perfectly in the time of your final crisis over a thousand years ago."

He continued. "You didn’t want for any spiritual or physical need, but even happiness must come upon limits. Gentlemen, you know the illness that plagued your world, that forced the others to flee. What an ironic apocalypse! You got bored! It was your legacies, those memories that you fix in granite, in your books, and in your minds. If they were periodically removed, like underbrush by a cleansing fire, then you would in ignorance and pleasure repeat yourselves until the universe wanes. But no, you gave them reverence, stored them for infinite posterity, and with an irony unintended, banished the delight of novelty that moves your souls. Since you couldn’t destroy them, you ran from them. But running wasn’t enough. You needed a solution, a way out of a future of barren delights. In the past year, we met a score of them. To us they were bizarre aberrations, but to them it was Utopia found."

"Then it’s nowhere!" said Weller.

"Yes, as in the literal meaning of Utopia itself. And here also, the perfect world is nowhere, though the inhabitants of these scattered worlds would dispute that."

With another wave of his hand a star chart materialized, with worlds and stars dancing about in a celestial mobile.

"Behold Utopia!" Belden exclaimed. "They call themselves the Federated Planets, or Federation for short. These are the seeds of the first Diaspora, the thirty million souls who departed your world more than a thousand years ago. It was your standard science fiction future. I think all universes share it. They come to one planet, Ropa, and from there scattered themselves among a hundred stars. Colonization, exploration, the novelty and challenge of building new worlds renewed them. It was an exercise unrestrained by the dead hand of Transor. To insure their independence, they even made if a rule. It was informal at first, enforced by the distance between stars. Later, when communication improved, it became a bylaw of the emerging Federation. Non-interference, allow cultural evolution to take its course. A convenient rule given what their ‘evolution’ produced, and made doubly so since it affirmed their devotion to a redeeming freedom. They call it the First Directive. It states that interference in the affairs of any of their worlds, no matter how just, would not be tolerated. It means gentlemen that your voyage is in vain."

Spurling pounded his fist against the table. "But we’re not here for that! Our mission…."

"Your mission comes from your nature, not yourselves!" Belden exclaimed. "You can’t escape what you are. You will intervene once you see, once you see!"

"See what?" said Weller.

Belden continued. "Colonization is not an easy thing, and these colonies have not followed the path we or they envisioned. Each expedition was encumbered by nature, by happenstance good and ill. The second wave of colonies that spread from Ropa across the stars were not well provisioned or planned. Things went wrong, deadly wrong, yet evolution found a way. They survived, or should I say mutated to forms both beautiful and repugnant. Now with all these worlds tied together by the thread of sub-space communication, their tradition of non-interference is enforced. You will meet resistance if you try to correct the evils you see. Since they will know Transor is behind it, they will be doubly resentful."

Spurling was unimpressed. "But we’re not here to interfere, and neither was our first expedition. Surely they must know…"

"They know that Transor is here! That is enough!"

"Then our plans?"

With a wave of his Belden’s hand, the images disappeared, and silence filled the room. "Be quiet, stay away from them, listen. They know something’s afoot."

"Because we are here?"

"Because they are here."

"Our other ships! How would you know?"

"Not directly. It’s the transmissions that filter unconsciously through my mind. Things are actually improving here, by our standards anyway. I can’t prove it. They’re have been too many coincidences. Politics, like nature, does not conspire to serve the common weal; and yet peace, progress, and justice seem to be breaking out everywhere. Gentlemen, this is not evolution, this is intervention, and the invisible hand I suspect is Transor."

"Do you think the other colonies suspect as much?"

"The Doytch perhaps, but for now I gather they may be the only ones that suspect it."

"But why would they intervene," said Spurling, perplexed. "It’s not in their instructions. And why would they break contact with Transor."

"To protect us, or to protect themselves," said Weller. "They know home world would not approve, and even if it did, Transor would not wish to be seen as the instigator of this."

"Then silence is the strategy that cuts both ways."

Weller nodded. "Precisely."

Spurling threw his hands up in frustration. "But how do we contact them if silence is their game?"

"We don’t. They must come to us."

"But how do we do that?"

"Perhaps a good deed. It is after all a likely beacon for their presence. We can use it as well."

"But our orders, we cannot intervene."

"Unless it serves a large purpose," said Belden adamantly. "It’s too dangerous now to announce our presence. We know now, at least for the Doytch, that we are the hunted. We also need to reprovision and repair the Nole. We can stay cloaked for now, and move out of range as well as sight of the Doytch."

"But where do we go?"

"Perhaps here," said Belden, highlighting a star system on his celestial map. "It is five light years away, a second for our hyperdrives to take us there. It is an outlying world, with resources, shelter, and perhaps a place where they may have use for a few good deeds."

"Deeds?"

"Yes, and quite cinematic too I must say. Enough to draw attention, from foe and I hope, friend."

Weller looked to Spurling. "Then, if that is our safest option until we figure out what to do, I suggest we go."

Spurling frowned and nodded.

Weller turned to Belden. "Prepare…"

"Done," he said. "No need for preparations. I can move us with a thought." He pointed to the viewport on the wall. "Behold the star Astereus!"

Belden smiled proudly. "In the blink of an eye, I …"

"Moved the ship," came the voice.

Belden recoiled in surprise. The conference room was gone. The two captains were gone. There was someone else addressing him. He knew it was not human, and he knew it was not pleased.