Kung Chui leans back in to the high backed rattan chair.  Chan stands with his hands respectably.  Chan bows slightly, the tassel attached to the top of his square hat brushing against his forehead.

 “You are ready to assume your duties with the government of the Five Kingdoms?”

“I am.”

Chan thus became part of the governing council responsible for the well being of five million souls (more or less) living on the fringes of Alternation.  The empire contains a predominance of agricultural habitats, which have reached a production capacity in excess of the empire’s own needs, to become an exporter of farm produce.  There is a rustle of cloth.  A curtain is pushed aside to reveal an individual wearing the white robes of a philosopher, with a purple sash wrapped around his stomach.  The Chief Executive speaks.

“Ah, Meng K’o, you have arrived just in time to meet one of the members of the balancing chamber.  He has come to assist us in the governing of the empire.”

Meng smiled towards the general direction of Chan, moving hurriedly towards an ornately gilded black bookcase.  He extracts a leather bound volume and with a quick look at Kung Chou, exits through the cloth draped door.  The Chief Executive looks thoughtfully at the door.

“That aide of mine, he worries too much.  Complains that I am not as well known as I should be.  Says that if it were not for his constant reminders, the council would not even know that I existed.”  He places a pile of documents on the low table.  Chan marvels at the work put into its construction.  Small tiles made into ornate patterns of color trick the eye into losing its focus, the clever color combinations blurring and merging so as to form a multi-hued mist.  Carefully he places his hands upon the documents, half expecting them to fall through the imaginary mist on to the floor.   Holding the white, loose-leaf,  ribboned manuscripts close to his chest, using both of his forearms, he waits.  The Chief Executive gives a wave of dismissal.  Chan bows respectably, edging backwards towards the door through which the aide had just vanished.

* * *

Xenophon studies the radar screen.  The pin pricks of light indicating the central complexes of Alternation fade as the radar beam passes, lighting up still more Alternation habitats, the silver pin-pricks flashing off and on at slightly longer intervals.  The beam edges outwards, the pin pricks of light soon disappearing as it passes over the Five Empires which, despite the grandiose title, is in fact very small, consisting of habitats in the dozens rather that in the hundreds, as is the case with Alternation.  A crackle in the headphones of the radar telescope indicates the presence of an incoming meteor shower.  An adjustment on the radio telescope controls blots out this  particular sound.  He  is immersed in silence;  the glow of the overhead blue light accentuates the red dials of the various instruments sprinkled about the communications center.

“Any one still scanning?” he shouts at the leader of the watch who is hunkered down over the monitoring consoles situated upon a horizontal surface within a walled-in, white enclosure.

“There were some radar scans from that Alternation survey satellite in the general direction of the nozzle, but it’s been shut down now for an hour or more.”

Good, thinks Xenophon.  Didn’t want them to know the new direction of the link with Earth.  There is a pinging sound, then another.  He becomes tense.  Is this it he thought, or is it another false alarm, along with the score of others which have bombarded the communications center over the years since the last nozzle made contact?  He fiddles with a knob.  Nothing.  Now a small glimmer.  Could it be a small star?  The glimmer turns into a distinct gleam.  Something is definitely out there.  Slowly, ever so slowly the glam materializes into solid substance; first an elongated streak of gray, which by incremental degrees turns into a gleaming silver tube sitting majestically in space, as it slowly arches towards them bringing with it the results of research undertaken by millions of souls on faraway earth.  It has just ended a journey of over one hundred and fifty years, skipping from one way station to another, spinning in space, its inhabitants destined to live out their existences in lonely isolation, in order to be part of man’s first journey out of his star system.

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