Birthright

approximating the size of Earth's moon, were turned over to the largest departments of the Oligarchy.

Domes were erected on each of the planetoids, construction of worldwide complexes was begun, and life-support systems were implemented. Within half a century almost the entire administrative bureaucracy had moved from Deluros VIII to one or another of the Deluros VI planetoids. The orbits had been adjusted, the planetoids circled huge Deluros millions of miles from each other, and tens of thousands of ships sped daily between the ruling world of the Oligarchy and its forty-eight extensions. Here floated Commerce, a massive red-brown rock reflecting the sunlight blindingly from its billions of steel-and-plastic offices; there raced the smallest of the planetoids, Education and Welfare, spinning on its axis every sixteen hours; on the far side of the sun was the massive Military complex, taking up four entire planetoids, and already choking for lack of room. And halfway between daytime and evening was the Investigations planetoid. With some 80 million bureaucratic appointments per year, plus the huge narcotics trade and the various alien acts of rebellion, it could hardly be said that the department lacked for work. None of the planetoids found their work easy. The Bureau of Communication was involved with implementing the first ruling passed by the first members of the Oligarchy: that Terran was to become the official language. The Treasury planetoid was continually balancing tendencies toward inflation and depression, and was not abetted by the fact that with such a multiplicity of worlds in the Oligarchic empire, there was simply no single substance rare enough to back the currency with. Four-fifths of the Labor Department was devoted to keeping the miners happy without yielding too much power to them. No one knew exactly what occurred on the Science planetoid, but there were 122 vast buildings, each hundreds of miles long, devoted to the 122 major sciences, and no one seemed to be suffering from boredom.

But as she looked out her window at the twinkling, shining mini-worlds, Ulice Ston knew that the Department of Alien Affairs was currently sitting on the biggest problem of all, and that she, as Director, was sitting on the Department of Alien Affairs. The bulk of her business concerned the legal wording, ratification recommendations, and enforcement of some half million treaties per year. All wars not involving humans were also in her domain. So were all complaints of mistreatment of aliens.

And so, she sighed, was Bareimus.

The Bareimus situation was, simply stated, a stinker. By rights it should have gone to Science, or perhaps some sector of the Military, but since it concerned aliens, the problem was all hers. And a hell of a problem it was.

Bareimus was a star about eight parsecs from the Kandor system. It had seven planets circling it at distances of from the 34 to 280 million miles. Two of the planets were inhabited; five were totally devoid of life. The Astronomy Department had decided, by means she could barely begin to understand, that Bareimus was going to go nova, or possibly supernova, within two years. Her job was to evacuate the indigenous populations of Bareimus III and V before the cataclysm took place. The natives of Bareimus V, a docile, philosophically-oriented race of chlorine-breathers, were more than happy to relocate around a stable sun, and the problem there was merely one of logistics. Though “merely,” she reflected, was hardly an adequate adverb to describe the task of moving some two billion beings and their possessions halfway across the galaxy in a year's time. Her troubles—and her incipient ulcer—were being caused by Bareimus III. There was nobody in the