Ruun—"

"Control four of the five planets," Birrel said, not without a faint edge of skepticism for the story he had already heard from her.

"Peaceably," she said. "The other three worlds allied themselves with us voluntarily. They are completely autonomous. But they are less favorably situated than Ruun and they can't support large populations, so they're relatively weak. And they wanted a strong friend, rather than a strong master—like Ir. Would you enjoy living under Vannevan?"

He had to admit he would not. "But are the Irrians all like him?"

"Of course not," said Kara. "But Ir, the fifth world, is ruled by oligarchs, of whom Vannevan is one. The people of Ir may not like it—indeed, we've heard some of them don't—but they're pretty well held down."

But still, Birrel thought, both parties to this interstellar quarrel were strangers to him. And anyway, the decision was not his to make.

He said so, and she said, "But it is yours to make. Nobody else can make it. There isn't time."

She plunged on desperately, trying to make him understand. "For centuries we've fought the Irrian oligarchs to keep them from dominating the whole system. The only time we had any peace was when the oligarchs took to fighting among themselves for power at home. Because of that struggle, many years ago they finally exhausted every bit of fissionable matter on Ir. We were able to prevent them from getting any more from our federated planets, and so for a long time there has been peace. You see? We had atomic weapons, they had not. They were no longer any danger. And of course we didn't need our strong military forces any more. All we've had for decades is just enough to act as an interplanetary police force. And now—"

"And now the Irrians have stolen a march on you," Birrel said. Kara had explained the significance of that probe-ray record, and he had to admit that it seemed to make sense. "They've decided to steal fissionable material from Earth. So they sent Vannevan and his men here to spy out our installations preparatory to raiding them. And if that doesn't constitute a threat to Earth I don't know what does."

"But the weapons they make won't be used against you!" she cried. "They'll be used against us, and unless we can mobilize in time we won't have a chance."

"Look," said Birrel. "Connor will see to it that our installations are so 

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