"In quick succession thereafter," Richthofen continued, "we suffered seven similar raids. Then the pattern changed. The raiders began appearing in numbers, with large cargo-carrying units. They also set about rounding up all the young women at each raid, and taking them along into captivity. It became obvious that a major threat to the Imperium had come into existence. "At last we had the good fortune to detect a raider's field in the close vicinity of one of our armed scouts. It quickly dropped in on a converging course, and located the pirate about twenty minutes after it had launched its attack. The commander of the scout quite properly opened up at once with high explosive cannon and blew the enemy to rubble. Its crew, although demoralized by the loss of their vessel, nevertheless resisted capture almost to the last man. We were able to secure only two prisoners for interrogation." I wondered how the Imperium's method of interrogation compared with those of the dictator of B-I Two, but I didn't ask. I might find out soon enough. "We learned a great deal more than we expected from our prisoners. They were the talkative, boastful type. The effectiveness of the raiding parties depended on their striking unexpectedly and departing quickly. The number of pirate vessels was placed at no more than four, each manned by about fifty men. They boasted of a great weapon held in reserve, and which would be used to avenge them. It was apparent from the remarks of the prisoners that they had not had the MC drive long, and that they knew nothing of the configuration of the Net, or of the endless ramifications of simultaneous reality. "They seemed to think their fellows would find our base and destroy it with ease. They also had only a vague idea of the extent and nature of the Blight. They mentioned that several of their ships had disappeared, doubtless into that region. It appears also, happily for us, that they have only the most elementary detection devices and that their controls are erratic in the extreme. But the information of real importance was the identity of the raiders." Richthofen paused for dramatic effect. "It was our unhappy sister world, B-I Two." "Somehow," Bernadotte took up the story, "in spite of their condition of chaotic social disorder and their destructive wars, they had succeeded in harnessing the MC principle. Their apparatus is even more primitive than that with which we began almost sixty years ago; yet they have escaped disaster. "The next move came with startling suddenness. Whether by virtue of an astonishingly rapid scientific development, or by sheer persistence and blind luck, one of their scouts succeeded, last month, in locating the Zero Zero line of the Imperium itself. The vessel dropped into identity with our continuum on the outskirts of the city of Berlin, one of the royal capitals.