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sky to look for us. So long as that is the case, we have freedom to act against them without fear of reprisal.
    “Nor are the Broa all-powerful. They have problems of their own. There is internecine strife among them, as evidenced by the attack on Sar-Say. They have an abnormally low birthrate. The Voldar’ik’s master hadn’t visited their world in quite some time. The Broa are stretched thin. Much of their domain runs on autopilot most of the time.
    “Despite that, of course, is the problem of their inherent power. The Sovereignty has a gigantic population, with a million planetary economies from which to draw resources. If we were to go up against the whole of the Broan domain, we would have no chance at all.
    “However, there is no need for us to fight all of them. To secure safety for ourselves and our children, we need not conquer a million worlds. We need to find the Broan home worlds, and defeat only them.”
    “How do we do that?” the chairman asked.
    Mark quickly explained his overall plan, which those aboard the Ruptured Whale had come to call “The Gibraltar Earth Strategy.”
    #
    One:        Humanity would finish the job they had begun on Klys’kra’t and obtain a planetary database with its astronomical data and maps of the stargate network.
    Two:        They would use this data to discover the location of the Broan home world and other capitals.
    Three:        They would build a fleet of starships capable of attacking the Broa in their power centers. The objective would be to destroy the home world stargates and isolate the bulk of the Broa from their possessions.
    Four:        While the enemy power structure was cut off, humanity would work to foment revolts on as many subject worlds as possible.
    Five:        They would continue the strategy until the Sovereignty collapsed under the strain. With thousands of former slave species on the rampage throughout their domain, the pseudo-simians would be far too busy to threaten the far-off human race.
    #
    “Bold, I’ll give you that,” Thackery Savimbi responded when Mark finished. “But a bit foolhardy, wouldn’t you say?”
    “Not as foolhardy as waiting for them to discover us,” Mark replied. Two places down the table, he noted Mikhail Vasloff stiffen out of the corner of his eye.
    “Proceed, Mr. Rykand,” the chairman said, glancing at his sleeve chronometer.
    Mark laid out the operational details that they had fleshed out over the past year. With interruptions for questions, it was well past lunch time when he finished.
    The chairman gazed at the other witnesses. “I know the agenda calls for several of you to present your technical evaluations now. I propose that we hold that for later this afternoon. We will break for lunch, 45 minutes. Committee members and witnesses are requested to be back here at 13:30 hours when we will hear the opposing viewpoint.”
    The recorded sound of a gavel striking wood punctuated the chairman’s remarks.
    #
    Mikhail Vasloff sat at the witness table with every hair in place and a hint of a smile on his face. He sat with folded hands, waiting for the committee to resume their places after lunch. To look at him, one would have thought that he was here in support of a highway bill or agricultural aid appropriation. None of the mental anguish he had felt in the past few hours showed.
    That he could keep his expression passive while seething inside was a testament to his long experience in politics. It had been torture to sit and listen to the stream of heresies spew forth from Mark Rykand.
    It wasn’t that he disliked Mark personally. He found him a personable young man and an entertaining traveling companion. On the voyage home, the two of them had whiled away the boredom with a chess duel. It had been during those games that Vasloff had tried to win Mark over to his point of view.
    He might as well have been talking to Sar-Say.
    Vasloff attributed Mark’s attitude to the