In the underground warrens of Moon City a meeting was taking place, chaired by mayor Roscoe Bascombe. He was attended by Rob Passing, chief of the Moon City police and security forces; Selene Brown, resources allocation director; and Randall Craig, commander of space transportation. Each position had originally been an elected office, but as the deteriorating situation on earth cut into critical supplies the space environs were still unable to manufacture or locate, their tenure had advanced to the status of permanency. Elections had already been postponed many times, and now their firm grip on the reins of power in Moon City and the space stations made elections in the future even more unlikely. Just as had happened so many times before in the history of the race, adversity had bred in the human heart a yearning for the man on a white horse, a problem solver, one who would uplift the downtrodden, smite the wicked, and lead them on to an idealized utopia where intractable problems were as easily solved as a child figuring out the mechanism of a cookie jar. The citizens of Moon City were neither worse nor any better than others in the past who had given over their participation in government in return for an assured stability, and compared to some despots of history, their present rulers would be considered as benign as Sunday school teachers. Nevertheless, they were meeting with the intention of exercising their powers in whatever manner necessary for the benefit of Moon City. Cooperation with the Enclaves of earth was not even under consideration in this instance. Moon City was their home, their power base, and they intended to see that it survived, no matter the cost to earth.

     Mayor Bascombe queried Rob Passing, who had just finished explaining the import of Cadena's coded message. "Then you think this intelligence you've received is really important enough, and believable enough, for us to mount an expedition ourselves?"

     "Whitmire, the Houston security chief, evidently thought so, and he had to have more information than we do. The fact that he is sending a ranger expedition out into unexplored territory so quickly substantiates it," Passing replied in a crisp, matter of fact voice. He appreciated the mayor's hesitation. Any prolonged operation on earth would of necessity have to draw upon already scarce transport facilities and personnel, they being the only ones able to tolerate gravity six times that of the moon. Perhaps he could entice Randall into going, he thought, then recruit mercenaries there. If the expedition should fail, that would  put him one step closer to the Mayor's chair, and if not, he wouldn't be any worse off. He sat slumped in the thinly padded rock chair. The slump was habitual because of his height; he was taller than even most third generation inhabitants of the warrens and always felt as if his head was scraping the ceilings, especially in the older sections of the warrens which had been constructed on the basis of normal height.

     "We have some information I doubt they have," Craig Randall said. He still carried the heavy musculature of his days as a pilot, and was constantly flexing and pulling at fixtures in an attempt to retain his strength. "I remembered the circumstance after Rob talked to me this morning. When he mentioned the possibility of spaceships, I pulled it from the datanet to be sure. About a month ago, one of our landing control satellites picked up an anomalous object which was at first thought to be an uncharted meteor or some old debris in a long orbit.  This was subsequently questioned when it slowed as it entered earth's atmosphere but failed to burn. It was tracked to a point about 200 miles northeast of the Houston Enclave, but by the time control realized it wasn't acting exactly like a meteorite, it was already down. It showed a deceleration pattern somewhat like our own craft, but much faster. As a matter of routine, we checked the transponders on all our craft, both inbound and outbound, and of course, they were all accounted for. We never came to a decision on what the object was."

     "Didn't you get any pictures?" Bascombe asked.

     "Yeah, but nothing definitive. The area includes the ruins of an old city, split by a river. Maybe it went down in it, or is concealed under the forest or is sitting right by some old structure of similar metal that masks it. Who knows? All I can give you is the approximate spot where the object landed."

     "Could it have belonged to one of the Enclaves?"

     Selene Brown answered this time. "What Enclave on earth would be foolish enough to put resources into building a spacecraft when there's no place to go? We control immigration to Moon City and the satellites and they know how strict we are. Whatever it was, it didn't come from earth." She was as emphatic with her statement as she would have been in denying a childless couple an extra room for their hutch. She was younger than the three men, but no less competent. She was sure enough of her own talents and confident enough in her own position to even forego the semi-nude dress conventions of most women her age, more a paucity of material rather than a cultural style. She wore a tailored sleeveless tunic over thigh length shorts and kept her straight brown hair at a longer length than the customary cap-close cut. She was handsome, rather than pretty, which she felt befitted her position nicely.

     "Well, let's grant the possibility of an unknown spacecraft, anyway," Bascombe said. "But suppose we can't recover it? Is there anything else worth the expense and risk of an earth mission?"

     "For my money, there is," Passing said, looking down at his notes. "Our contact reports some sort of a message from the area carried by a feral dog. According to him, it's from a possible alien, and the technology implied by the means it came by is nothing short of phenomenal." His long face tensed with expected skepticism.

     "This contact of yours, Don Cadena isn't it? How reliable is he? A feral dog carrying a message from some sort of alien being sounds more like a hallucination than an intelligence report." The mayor splayed his hands out on the polished rock surface of his desk. His conscious mind was trying to deny the possibility of an alien excursion into the solar system, while at a lower level, he was already considering committing resources that Moon City could ill afford to lose.

     "I count him reliable enough, since we're promising him that we'll trade Houston some imports in return for them allowing him to emigrate when the time comes. The excuse is, we need his talents.

     "Do we really?"

     Passing raised a cynical black eyebrow. "No, we don't even want him here, let alone need him; that just keeps him in line. Besides, it's not his believability I'm basing my assumptions on, it's Whitmire's reaction that convinced me." That statement got their attention. The old Englishman was well known to their intelligence branch. He had stymied many of their activities over the years.

     "Have you confirmed that he's actually sent an expedition out to investigate? Are you tracking it?"

     Randall answered Bascombe's question with an emphatic nod. "It's confirmed. We're already picking up traffic between the Enclave and the expedition. It's scanty, though; they're not talking much, and as soon as they got into the forest, we lost any real chance of following them visually from space. We just don't have satellites any more with that kind of resolution."

     The mayor leaned as far back as his hard chair would permit. "I'm still not totally convinced. The whole thing sounds just too fantastic, but I suppose we have to act as if it's all true, given our present circumstances. Any advanced technology which might help improve conditions here simply can't be passed up."

     Selene Brown shifted her gaze from her notes to the rest of the council members, considering whether to release the results of a months long analysis now, or wait for the final refinements. The grim look on Bascombe's face decided the question. "If there's the remotest chance of gaining access to any sort of advanced technology, we have no choice but to act. I have been preparing and running projections of future resources for months. None of the projections are good. Based on the most reasonably optimistic assumptions, we still come up with no better than one chance in three of Moon City and the satellites becoming self-sufficient before a total collapse of earth's economy and possibly even the complete environment. The Enclaves just can't maintain enough commerce between them to ensure an exchange of vital components which one might have and the other lack. I don't think they realize themselves how bad their situation is becoming. Our imaging satellites continue to show how the massive population of enhanced animals is changing the environment for the worse. The Houston Enclave is better off than most, but I don't give them more than another twenty to thirty years, barring some unexpected development like a universal animal parasite or some method to limit breeding of the animals. Neither they nor we have had any success at either in the past, and there is nothing I see now to suggest a solution in the future."

     The mayor's pale face blanched even whiter than usual. He could not have been unaware of the decreasing volume of  necessary imports from earth, but to have the consequences of the shortages placed so squarely in his face buckled a little of his spine.

     "Do you two go along with Selene's analysis?" He asked the other two men. They both nodded reluctantly.

     "All right, then, let's try to beat them to the prize and hope the expense is worth it. Have you thought about methods yet?"

     "I have a number of contacts in the Dallas Enclave," Passing said. "I understand from them that the situation there is going rapidly downhill. I think we might be able to convince their authorities to help us if we could get a landing craft down."

     "They do have a large airfield there, although it's really only designed for atmospheric craft like their floaters. I think I could manage a small lander, though, if we could get them to clear the field when we come in," Randall said.

     "We?"

     "Yeah. I'm going. Someone from up here has to make sure we get what we're after. You can't trust earthers."

     Bascombe smiled. "Don't worry about having to operate on trust. I have a few contacts there, myself. I assure you, the governor of the Dallas Enclave and most of his staff will do anything I ask them to, including outfitting an expedition  for us. All I have to do is promise them space on the return flight. Things are very bad there. However, I agree: One of us should lead whatever force we raise, and you're the only candidate here."

     Randall frowned. "That wouldn't leave much room for return cargo if we're thinking of bringing back immigrants. Suppose we need the lift capacity promised to passengers?"

     "No problem, just promise another ferry flight. Take my word for it, they'll cooperate." Bascombe glanced at his thumbnail. "Let's move on. Craig, you take care of getting the craft ready and alerting the personnel you want. Selene will see to it that you have top priority on any supplies you need. Rob and I will get in touch with our friends and lay the groundwork for getting your lander down and a force of reliable troops put together. OK so far?"

     The other three nodded agreement.

     "Fine, that's settled. Now let's consider some other questions. I assume that once you're on the ground you will head directly for that suspected landing site. How close do you have it pin-pointed?"

     Randall looked pained. "There's a problem there," he admitted. "We haven't been able to locate it precisely, although we're sure that it's in or near the ruins of what was once Shreveport/Bossier City, and it might be on either side of the river, or possibly even in the river. We've  gotten nothing from satellite photos, like I said, nor any clues from what sensing devices the satellites carry."

     "Then how do you find it? Or more important, how do you  find it before the Houston force does?" Selene asked.

     "We'll monitor their communications. Once they get there, I'll have a satellite ready to suppress any further contact so they won't be able to call for reinforcements. A search party from Houston could find them, of course, but before they can, we hope to have our own party there."

     Selene started, sitting bolt upright. "You hope! Is there a chance you can't?"

     "It will be close," Randall admitted reluctantly. "They have already started, while we're just getting organized. Remember, though, their expedition is moving on foot. We'll be able to do most of it by floater, at least to the general vicinity."

     "Why aren't they going by air?" The mayor asked, plainly puzzled.

     "The dog which brought the message apparently isn't too bright. He has to stay on the ground to find his way back. I'm sure they will use floaters to keep in contact, though, and for re-supply, and you can bet that if they do find something, they're planning on sending a relief expedition by air."

     "And we need to be there and take control before the relief arrives," Bascombe concluded. "Let's get cracking then. We can fine out the details along the way." He dismissed the others by disappearing into the holobubble of his desk console as they filed out the door. He trusted them to carry out their assignments, especially Randall Craig. Randall was no stranger to violence.