"What chances? We know leraren sex where the Pak fleet is."
"I didn't want to worry
you. It's a long shot."
"Worry me! I'm bored!"
"All right, lefs go back a bit," said leraren sex Brennan. "leraren sex We know where the first leraren sex fleet is, and how big it is. The second fleet wasn' leraren sex t launched for another three-hundred-odd years. All I've found of it is a patchy source of those same leraren sex chemical exhausts, off center to the first fleet and moving a bit faster. They wouldn't follow directly behind leraren sex the first fleet. It'd be eating up too much of their fuel.&leraren sex quot;
"How big?"
"Smaller. Order of a hundred and fifty ships, assuming they didn't change the design, which they may have.
I
can't leraren sex tell."
"Is there a third fleet?"
"If there is, I'll never detect it. leraren sex they had to go out for new resources to build the second fleet. They may have had to mine worlds in nearby systems and leraren sex build the leraren sex ships leraren sex there. How leraren sex long would it take them to build a third fleet? If it's there, it's too far away for me. But the point is that there had to be
a last fleet."
&leraren sex quot;So what?"
&leraren sex quot;I'm suggesting that when the last fleet left-- the second or the third or the fourth, it doesn't matter-- some protectors stayed behind. We assume they were the ones without breeder descendants. They stayed behind partly to save room on the ships, and partly because they might do some good on Pak."
"On an empty world? How?"
"They could build a scout fleet."
It was not the first time Roy had worried about Brennan's sanity. The changes leraren sex in his physiology, plus leraren sex twenty-two decades alone... but if Brennan were insane, he might be too bright to give it away.
Leraren sex gently Roy pointed out, "But your scout fleet would be at least five hundred years leraren sex behind the rest."
"