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superdreadnaughts and fleet carriers. It wasn’t something he wanted to slow down, not when there were countless problems along the Rim that needed handling as quickly and efficiently as possible. The warlords might be gone, but the pirates remained...and there was still a giant question mark over the Outsiders. What were they doing? They had to know the Federation’s war with its rogue military officers had finally come to an end.
    “We will see,” he said. He considered, briefly, just taking Tiffany and a starship and heading for somewhere nicely isolated. His sense of duty wouldn’t allow it. “How are the new students coming along?”
    “Slowly,” Kratman said. “The educational base isn’t there. But we’re working on them.”
    Marius gritted his teeth. It was absurd that the Federation, with billions of young men and women within the Sol System alone, couldn’t produce enough manpower to crew the Federation Navy, but there was no avoiding the problem. Earth’s educational system simply didn’t produce enough men and women who could read, let alone handle a computer, drive an aircar or anything else useful . It would take generations to produce more than a handful of people each year who didn’t have to do things by rote.
    And we might not be able to trust manpower from the outer worlds , he added, in the privacy of his own mind.
    “The sooner we start mass exoduses from Earth, the better,” Marius said, finally. “But will it be enough?”
    “Not for a decade,” Kratman said. “Moving millions of people will take years, even with the contraception drugs. But the sooner we begin, the sooner it will be done.”
    “If it ever is,” Marius said. He shook his head. “I must have been out of my mind.”
    “It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it,” Kratman said. “You’re doing fine.”

Chapter Four
    Chang Li. Former elected Senator from Nova Athena. Sole non-Grand Senate linked Senator in the Federation Senate, thus effectively powerless. Departed Earth following the Grand Senate’s imposition of emergency laws and effective state of martial law. Leader of the Outsider Federation...
    -The Federation Navy in Retrospect, 4199
     
    Sanctuary, 4098
     
    Very few human eyes – and none from the Federation – had set eyes on the Sanctuary System. It was over a hundred light years from the official edge of explored space, a cold planet circling a cold star. There was nothing to attract the attention of the Federation Survey Service, which concentrated on stars that might have given birth to life-bearing worlds and tended to overlook red giants or white dwarves. Even if a survey ship passed through the system, Chang Li had been assured, there would be little to see. The laboring cadres were hidden deep under the planet’s poisonous atmosphere.
    She ran her hand through her long dark hair, then sucked in her breath as the shuttlecraft dropped through the atmosphere. Sanctuary was very far from the ideal human world, something that would further disqualify it as a target of interest for the Survey Service. The thought that life might have arisen on its surface wouldn’t occur to any of them, she hoped, even though Sanctuary had an intelligent race of its own. But then, even if the Survey Service had noticed, it was unlikely they’d care. The planet was completely useless to human settlers.
    The shuttle bounced as it passed through the clouds, then broke through and headed towards the base. Li eyed the surface through the shuttle’s sensors, feeling her flesh crawl as she saw the creatures moving far below her. The Insects – their real name was utterly unpronounceable to human mouths – looked like giant beetles. Merely looking at them reminded her of the insect phobia shared by so many humans, yet they were an intelligent race in their own right. And, given that they shared a hive mind of sorts, a unique one. There was no other hive mind known to exist in Federation space.
    A handful of large