"Oh, there's been some profit. Some of the wrecks that made it back-and not all do-have some goodies in them. Magi stones in several varieties and types, enough to depress the market if anybody else knew. Soil samples including tons of those funny little enigmatic machined thingies, too. Stuff like that. Stuff that survives being twisted and flattened and turned inside out inside a wild wormhole. No, Sergeant, I've gotten some things back. Not this last batch, but half the time. Why should I risk it until I can speak with someone who's made the return trip?"

It was Maslovic's turn to smile. "So I was right about you, you see. Deep down, there's that hollow spot in your brain, that secret place called Doubt. As deep as you can go, you really don't have faith in your religion. It's just a game. Otherwise, you'd be overjoyed with the idea of going off to meet your masters at the Three Kings and you'd not even worry about a return. And if by some stretch you really do believe in them, then you don't really trust them. Not a good position for somebody serving a god, is it?"

Macouri didn't like this direction, and his face showed it. "I think we end this for now. It's not any fun any more."

"You can't end it until I say we end it," Maslovic pointed out. "You're stuck here, Georgi, as long as we want you. Now we've established a new level, though, that may be working to your advantage."

"Indeed?"

"Now it's not just that I have you. Now you, in fact, have something I want. For the first time, there is a basis for negotiation."

Macouri sat up and stared at the big, bald man in uniform sitting there across the table from him. "And what do I have that you truly want, Sergeant?"

"We want the Three Kings. We want the address and anything else you might have on them."

"And if I give them to you? What do I get?"

"Out of here. Off this ship. As a permanent prisoner here, you're a liability. You consume but do not contribute. But you must believe this, Georgi: If we don't get what we want, if you don't give us what we want freely and accurately and willingly, then you will stay here. For years. For decades. For what will pass for forever to you. And you'll do it in a padded room, a little box, with nothing even to write with or do yourself or us harm. Alone. Forever."

Maslovic got up and started towards the security door, his back to the prisoner. He had delivered his ultimatum and now it was up to the other man.

"Sergeant?"

Maslovic stopped but didn't turn around. "Yes?"

"Your word. On the official record, endorsed by all your superiors. You will not take this information and then just discard me or throw me back in the hole?"

"I guarantee you that you'll not die here, and that we're not going to do you harm. If you want off this ship, that is the only way."

"And the others?"

Maslovic turned around and faced the little man who was still sitting at the table. "I don't see any grounds for holding the cook, and I'm going to allow this Joshua of yours to make his own choice. The three girls aren't your worry or responsibility any more. That's basically it."

"Why do you want to go there? You won't get back, you know. I understand that much now."

"Well, we can say we're looking for a little payback for what was done to our own operations here," the intelligence man said. "Or maybe we think there might be answers to questions out there that can stop this drift of humanity into oblivion. At least we might find out the answer to the greatest philosophical question of our time."

"Yes?"

"Whether or not we were locked out or locked in," Maslovic told him.

"I-I shall have to think on this somewhat," Macouri said after a pause. "There may be the basis of an arrangement here."

"Take your time. We're not going anywhere off the schedule right now and, as for me, I'm home."

With that, Maslovic walked out through the security doors and back down the hall to get a drink and wait for the others to reassemble. Still, unlike before, he felt quite good at this point.

Maybe someday soon he would gaze into one of those damned crystals and that thing, whatever it was, would eventually show up to peer back at him as before. Only this time, that creature would discover that Maslovic would be standing right behind him…

"So, Sergeant, what do you plan to do if he does give you the key to the front door?" Captain Murphy asked.

"I plan to go through it, kicking it down if I have to, and see what this is all about."

"Might be a real letdown," Darch put in. "The remnants of some machine doing its automated thing, or maybe even just some kind of broadcast into areas of the brain common to most organic life-forms. You might wind up standing there, freezing or boiling, with nowhere to go and nothing to do."

Maslovic grinned and looked around at them. "Well, I might have some company. Or would you prefer to break up this happy group?"

"And who else would be with us?"

Maslovic grinned. "The biggest damned ship in the fleet that the Admiralty will allow us to take, of course, with all hands. I want power behind me when I go in if possible. I want to know that, if we can't take control of the planet, well, then at least we can blow it up."

"But you're talking a wild hole!" Murphy noted. "Hell, man, that's tricky enough under the best of conditions with a small ship designed for the task. The records don't show any ship comin' back that's of any size. Biggest is that yacht his grandpa had. We know from the record that some pretty large ships went in, but none of 'em ever came back, and the biggest not even in pieces!"

"Nevertheless, if they allow me to risk such a ship I'm going to take it. What about it, Lieutenant? Think you could run a wild hole with something the size of, oh, the Agrippa?"

She nodded. "I do not see anything against it. The principles of physics are quite different inside a hole, wild or not, than here, but they are still pretty well predictable and their characteristics known. A wild hole is incredibly dangerous, but a competent pilot should be able to get even a large ship through. That is why I believe that some agency interfered with the return of some of the ones on record as having vanished after going. Nothing comes back intact larger than that yacht, which is no larger than one of our shuttles. That is the only danger I would feel threatened by. A good pilot can do that job, but we do not know what we will be up against once there."

"Well, Murphy here and I have been looking over the archives," Broz told them, "and we can't find any military ship on the list. Mostly research and exploration ships, freighters, and similar craft. Even one interstellar small city devoted to Christian evangelism, of all things. I feel confident that if we can keep them out of our control computers, we can handle the rest."

"Then as soon as I get the coordinates I will put the proposal to the Admiralty directly," Maslovic told them. "We will probably be approved with the limitation that we take only volunteers and then only the minimum human crew to do the job."

"And the girls? What of them?" Murphy asked him.

"That's up to the Admiralty. I know that if I had my own choice I'd bring them along. They may be the best, perhaps the only way of getting into direct one-on-one contact with this alien presence, and they have nowhere else to go. Of course, the Admiralty may feel that it would not be just to take them along at their age and experience. We'll see. You, Captain, will be allowed to depart with our thanks."

"The devil I will!" Patrick Murphy snapped. "I ain't come this far to turn and run now, maybe never knowin' what the hell it's all about. No, no. You're stuck with me, Maslovic. Nobody but nobody is gonna keep Patrick Xavier Aloysius Murphy from settin' his old eyes on the Three Kings themselves!"