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expansionists.”
    Slowly, the anteroom began to fill. Dan Landon walked in a minute behind Mark and Lisa. He nodded to both of them and to Vasloff, but did not speak.
    Drs. Thompson and Morino arrived, as did half a dozen others. Several conversations buzzed just below the level where the brain can pick out individual phonemes. From time to time, there were surreptitious glances in the direction of Vasloff. If the Russian noticed, he made no sign; but rather, continued to go over his notes.
    At precisely 10:00 hours, a musical tone sounded and the doors to the committee room opened. They filed through the portal to find two long tables with chairs facing a dais on which there was a fancier table with larger and more comfortable chairs. Each witness’ place was marked with a nameplate. They spent a minute sorting themselves out. Save for a few staffers busily laying out briefing books, pitchers of ice water, and spare styluses, there was no one else in the room.
    When they had been seated for five minutes, a door at the front of the hall opened, and in filed six Members of Parliament. Their leader was Anthony John Hulsey, Member from New South Wales, Australasia. Also present were Thackery Savimbi, Capetown, Federation of Africa; and Jorge Santa Cruz, of Estados Unidos de Sud America; along with three others that Lisa did not recognize.
    As the MPs entered, the witnesses rose and stood respectfully. As the doors closed, a low buzzing sound just below the level of hearing began as the anti-eavesdropping field came alive. The committee members took their seats and gestured for the witnesses to do likewise.
    Chairman Hulsey pressed a plate inset into the table surface. As he did so, the amplified sound of a gavel banging wood sounded from hidden speakers. A uniformed functionary intoned ceremoniously, “Hear ye; Hear ye! The Special Committee of Parliament on the Discoveries Made by the Crab Nebula Expedition is now in session. Citizen Anthony Hulsey, Chairman, presiding. Attend all who have business here!”
    “Sergeant-at-Arms. Are all we have summoned here present?”
    “They are, Mr. Chairman.”
    “This may prove a long session. I suggest we get started. The committee calls Mark Richard Rykand. I understand you have a statement to read?” When Mark nodded, he continued: “Very well, Mr. Rykand, the floor is yours.”
    #
    Mark made essentially the same presentation that he had in the office of the Stellar Survey Director, with the exception that this time he had visuals. He briefly recounted their discovery of one of the home stars of the Sovereignty and of the expedition they mounted there. He told of his surprise and horror when the big blue Taff trader described Sar-Say as a Broa. He spoke of the hurried retreat that had followed.
    It had been in a black mood that he, Lisa, and some others sat in the Ruptured Whale ’s wardroom, commiserating with one another. They had been talking about the overwhelming power of the Sovereignty when Lisa made an offhand comment:
     
    “ It's too bad we can't defend the solar system against stargates. What we need is a fortress that blocks access to our system, like Gibraltar once guarded the entrance to the Mediterranean.”
     
    “Then it hit me,” Mark told the committee. “I realized that the Broa aren’t three-meters-tall and covered with fur.” He smiled sheepishly. “Well, they are covered with fur, but you know what I mean.”
    “We know,” Elizabeth Fletcher, one of the junior MPs on the panel responded. “However, perhaps you should amplify the point.”
    “The Broa control a million star systems. How can one planet with a dozen interstellar colonies hope to survive a conflict against such a behemoth? The answer, of course, is that we can’t. If the Broa knew about Earth, we wouldn’t stand a chance in hell. They would overwhelm us before we could get organized.
    “But they don’t know about us… yet. They have no idea that we exist, let alone where in the