"And that's what happened to our people? That's the Great Silence?" Maslovic asked.

"Yes. But as with others over the eons they did not get everyone. It is a brute force approach. But, sooner or later, they will find your people, or, accidentally, your people will find them. That is why the route to the Three Kings was kept so secret after we were accidentally discovered. When a second expedition found us, we knew that our safe haven here could not last forever. So we sent back some of us as sentinels, as listeners, and we used the fringe, the cults, to minimize our obvious presence. We needed our arms and legs as usual, so that if and when the others come the secret yet findable route here can be sealed and our sentinels recalled. It will give us time to move again."

"There's nothing we can do to stop them?" Maslovic asked. "I mean, you said they were mortal. If they're mortal…"

"We know what you are thinking, but you would not get the chance. We have been working the problem now for two billion years. It is not hopeless, but it has not yet been solved. Until then, we hide, and we move."

"Then at least let us return to try and prepare our people, even if you won't help in a defense," the sergeant almost pleaded.

"We are sorry, but no. You are in the Three Kings. You must remain. The passage is deliberately controlled. In a word, you know too much to be allowed to fall back into the hands of the coming enemy."

"But you just told us there was hope!" Randi protested.

Ann sighed. "Don't you get it, Doctor? They've all but come out and told us why the others hate them so much, will destroy the universe rather than let them be. It's the corrolary of the fact that they are like gods but can die. Get it now?"

"Well, I sure don't," Murphy grumped.

"Consider what happened to me, Captain," Ann prompted. "I was on Balshazzar, watching a horror through these very transceivers, unable to help and wanting desperately to do so. They allowed it. With pride, I thought Doc and I had figured it out and managed it on our own, but we'd never done anything like that before. Not loading consciousness into another body somewhere else, let alone him into my old one. We just thought we did. These people did it. Or, they understood what we desperately wanted, made a decision to help, and it was done. The result was that I not only changed my gender I also lost almost a century and a half in age. A century and a half, Captain. You understand it now?"

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! I'm an old con man, lass! I ain't no brain!"

"They're immortal," Randi said, almost too soft to hear. "These people simply grow something new and move in, probably automatically. The memories, the intellect, who knows what? It all keeps." She turned to the wall. "That's it, isn't it? They might have been able to stomach a limited rival in power, but the only thing worse than them being able to die is to discover that you don't!"

There was no immediate reply, and it allowed the stunned others to recover somewhat.

"I got an inkling right off, when they said that everything that Li was was still there," she went on. "I'm right, aren't I?"

"Yes," came the answer at last. "And it is a limited gift that can be shared. Those who help us and work with us can have it if they want it. Not everyone does."

"Sweet Jesus! Me three empty-headed darlin's can dance till Doomsday?" Murphy muttered.

"My people are still stuck on Balshazzar," Ann pointed out. "What good will they do you?"

"They are stuck because at least one of the races there is not only not inclined to help but is inclined to hinder. Something will have to be done about it, but your Doctor and your people are already trying to win them. In the end, they will be left but your people will not, and all by their own choice. We have more than enough people. We do not have enough good people."

Joshua suddenly roared and reached into his utility pack and pulled out a very nasty laser pistol. "No!" he screamed, his voice echoing in the shaft. "You are the angels of control! I swore to serve the demons of freedom!"

Maslovic, nearest the big man, went into action almost reflexively, bringing up a leg and kicking hard into Joshua's backside. Not expecting it, the big man fell slightly forward, talking several steps nearer the edge of the bridge, but not losing his grip on the pistol or completely losing his balance. He managed to put out his other hand and stop his forward motion a good meter short of the edge, and it was clear he was going to make it, turn, and begin firing. He did not, however, decide to go down on his kees and turn and fire, a movement that they might not have been able to counter, but instead struggled unsteadily back to full erectness.

Patrick Murphy raised his leg and pushed it right into the big man's groin. Joshua yelled again and took several steps backward, trying to bring the pistol up and aim it first at the one who'd just kicked him. He stepped back one step, two steps, three steps.

He didn't have three steps.

With a look less of madness than total bewilderment, Joshua plunged into the seemingly bottomless chasm, his roars of defiance fading quickly.

Murphy smiled. "I didn't know I had it in me!"

"I never did understand why we brought him along," Maslovic commented.

Jerry Nagel looked up at the wall. "I assume your folks can lead us out of here? At least for now?"

"We had to bring you here. You represent all the factions of your race. You can be our ambassadors to them now."

Randi Queson looked at where Joshua had gone over into oblivion. "He made his choice. Now we get to make ours."

The gnome was suddenly there, gesturning for them to follow.

As soon as they cleared the bridge, Murphy reached into his own pouch and brought out a flask. He drank a good deep belt, then offered it to the rest, including the gnome, who sniffed with that huge nose and then made it clear that it was to be nowhere near him.

Ann took a slug herself, then handed it back. "I wonder if we can perhaps help them to win this thing? Or at least believe that they can."

"Maybe, maybe not," Maslovic responded. "But now at least we know the score. It's always the challenge that makes life worth living, isn't it?"

"I can see that you will have to learn a bit more about being human," Ann responded. "It took me a very long while myself. Still, there's great power here, and opportunity, and none of us have anyone left back in the colonial systems to worry or worry about."

"You're going to have to start introducing him to some philosophy," Randi Queson noted.

"You don't go back to Balshazzar for that," Jerry Nagel put in. "I think we start with the captain, there."

"Aye, lad! I think this will be a heavy time. I think maybe I can weather it, with me whiskey here, and maybe some good cigars someplace, and with three beautiful girls. The rest of you can think the deep thoughts and save worthless humanity. Maybe you just might. I think of meself as keepin' the home fires burnin'…"