their own. We put survey teams on the other five, mapped and charted and sampled them, and staked claims. Some of the information we sold to a few consolidations, some to the Centrum. We even sold information to Hafkan Bestmerit for a genealogical survey.”
“How was that?”
“A million years ago the Aighors developed interstellar travel — that is, an ancestral species did. In a short time they got into a war with the Minkies and destroyed about fifty civilized worlds. God knows why they went to war. Peaceful coexistence is so much cheaper, and there’s room enough for everybody but the most die-hard propagationist. Even then, and the Galaxy was more crowded at the time. At any rate, they reduced each other to prespace technology. That was the first-stage Aighor civilization.
“The second stage rediscovered interstellar travel and made an experiment. They took several dozen intelligent species, still locked on their home worlds, and transplanted them by force to other planets. Nobody appreciated that, and when the Aighor watchdogs over the experimental planets became lax, some of the transplants developed space technologies and attacked them.
“That was the end of the second stage. Because of that, the lineage of a lot of species has been called into question. We found three far-flung vestiges, relatives of groups still active in Hafkan Bestmerit. One had survived with only prespace technology. The other two had sunk even lower, down to minimal existences, completely overcome by the natural planetary ecologies. Some species are still pressing a kind of lawsuit against the Aighors, and in the interest of unity within Hafkan Bestmerit, the Aighors are complying with the judgments.”
“Hafkan Bestmerit is the only consolidation with no human members?”
“If it can strictly be called a consolidation. It’s a rather exclusive group. Aighors, Minkies, Crocerians, and — some think — Perfidisians. But there’s no evidence Perfidisians associate with anyone. We guess there are about twenty distinct species within Hafkan Bestmerit, some of whom we know little about.”
“These Aighors, are they totally irrational?” Kawashita said.
“Not at all. They’re among the most inventive and intelligent species we’ve met. They’re aggressive, but then they developed from a background where extreme aggression was the only way to survive. Still, we’re lucky they didn’t find us before we were ready to compete.”
“But they destroyed their civilization several times.”
“That’s not unheard of,” Anna said. “We’ve found the remains of four thousand spacefaring civilizations, of which maybe a hundred are going concerns today. That appears to be the norm, judging from transmissions received from other galaxies.”
“You have not traveled between galaxies?”
“Only to the Magellans. A few exploratory ships are planned. But higher space warps depend to a certain extent on large local bodies of mass for guidance. The distances between the galaxies are forbidding because they’re practically empty. On the other hand, we’ve yet to investigate the galactic core because the stars are too densely packed. I’ve heard the Aighors have a way of navigating hyperdense and hypodense geodesics —”
“Excuse me,” Kawashita said. “I can’t keep pace looking up definitions on the tapas.”
“Don’t worry. You’re doing fine. I understand a lot less than I know, myself. Poetic imagery is the only way some of these ideas can be grasped, unless you’re hooked up to a computer with specially augmented circuitry.”
“Back to the Aighors. Have you had a war with them yet?”
“Some skirmishes but no official wars. We may not be especially adept, but we do develop fast, and our technology is the equal of theirs, point for point — at least in transportable weapons and shields. They may have something — but no, that’s top secret. I’m not supposed to know about it.”
Kawashita grinned. “Now I am
“How was that?”
“A million years ago the Aighors developed interstellar travel — that is, an ancestral species did. In a short time they got into a war with the Minkies and destroyed about fifty civilized worlds. God knows why they went to war. Peaceful coexistence is so much cheaper, and there’s room enough for everybody but the most die-hard propagationist. Even then, and the Galaxy was more crowded at the time. At any rate, they reduced each other to prespace technology. That was the first-stage Aighor civilization.
“The second stage rediscovered interstellar travel and made an experiment. They took several dozen intelligent species, still locked on their home worlds, and transplanted them by force to other planets. Nobody appreciated that, and when the Aighor watchdogs over the experimental planets became lax, some of the transplants developed space technologies and attacked them.
“That was the end of the second stage. Because of that, the lineage of a lot of species has been called into question. We found three far-flung vestiges, relatives of groups still active in Hafkan Bestmerit. One had survived with only prespace technology. The other two had sunk even lower, down to minimal existences, completely overcome by the natural planetary ecologies. Some species are still pressing a kind of lawsuit against the Aighors, and in the interest of unity within Hafkan Bestmerit, the Aighors are complying with the judgments.”
“Hafkan Bestmerit is the only consolidation with no human members?”
“If it can strictly be called a consolidation. It’s a rather exclusive group. Aighors, Minkies, Crocerians, and — some think — Perfidisians. But there’s no evidence Perfidisians associate with anyone. We guess there are about twenty distinct species within Hafkan Bestmerit, some of whom we know little about.”
“These Aighors, are they totally irrational?” Kawashita said.
“Not at all. They’re among the most inventive and intelligent species we’ve met. They’re aggressive, but then they developed from a background where extreme aggression was the only way to survive. Still, we’re lucky they didn’t find us before we were ready to compete.”
“But they destroyed their civilization several times.”
“That’s not unheard of,” Anna said. “We’ve found the remains of four thousand spacefaring civilizations, of which maybe a hundred are going concerns today. That appears to be the norm, judging from transmissions received from other galaxies.”
“You have not traveled between galaxies?”
“Only to the Magellans. A few exploratory ships are planned. But higher space warps depend to a certain extent on large local bodies of mass for guidance. The distances between the galaxies are forbidding because they’re practically empty. On the other hand, we’ve yet to investigate the galactic core because the stars are too densely packed. I’ve heard the Aighors have a way of navigating hyperdense and hypodense geodesics —”
“Excuse me,” Kawashita said. “I can’t keep pace looking up definitions on the tapas.”
“Don’t worry. You’re doing fine. I understand a lot less than I know, myself. Poetic imagery is the only way some of these ideas can be grasped, unless you’re hooked up to a computer with specially augmented circuitry.”
“Back to the Aighors. Have you had a war with them yet?”
“Some skirmishes but no official wars. We may not be especially adept, but we do develop fast, and our technology is the equal of theirs, point for point — at least in transportable weapons and shields. They may have something — but no, that’s top secret. I’m not supposed to know about it.”
Kawashita grinned. “Now I am
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