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intelligent species would have found his diminutive size unimpressive were it not for the fact that he and his kind were the unchallenged rulers of the known universe. He was a biped, as are most intelligent beings. On the rare occasions when he chose to stand erect, he topped out at a bare meter-and-a-half. His ancestors had been tree dwellers — if the multi-trunk, vine-like growths of home world could be called trees. His arms were long and designed for brachiating, swinging from stalk to branch, and during mating season, for holding his body aloft while he engaged in the ancient ballet of the sexes. When on solid ground, he moved with an alternating gait, first supporting his weight on clenched six-finger fists and then swinging his lower torso forward to ride on club-shaped feet at the end of stubby legs.
    His fur was brown, with an intricate pattern of narrow black stripes that extended to his neck. Around his yellow eyes were the white streaks that signified the passage of lifespan. The white specks solidified into a solid mass around two paddle-shaped ears that jutted out at right angles from his head. His snout was likewise streaked with white around the four breathing holes on each side. Below the rows of nostrils, his mouth was open to show the teeth of an omnivore and a long tongue tinged with a healthy pink glow.
    Having wasted too much time following the antics of the local fauna, Ssor-Fel reproached himself silently and turned back to the matter at hand. As was normal, there was too much to do and insufficient members of his species to do it. When in a bad mood, he often contemplated this eternal state of affairs. It was as though, having given his race dominion over a vast number of stars, some cosmic force had then decided to play a joke by limiting the number of administrators available to do the work.
    His species was less fecund than most intelligent races. That was the consequence of the need for females to carry their young on their backs as they brachiated through the vine tops, and of prolonged droughts that had once plagued the home world. When the supply of purple fruit that had once been the staple of life was limited, it made sense for each mating pair to have one or two cubs each twelve-cycle.
    With the invention of agriculture and the discovery that insectivoids were tasty, however, that imperative had gone the way of the giant crabs that had once roamed the golden plains. Yet, the birthrate remained low because the memory of drought had been baked into the Race’s life matrix.
    Despite their habitually low numbers, his species had slowly built a high energy civilization, mastered first a world, then a star system, and finally, the surrounding stellar domains. For the great invention of the Race was the discovery that precisely modulated powers would open pathways to the stars.
    It had been this technology that had allowed the Race, though small in number, to conquer every known inhabited star system. Nor were their conquests complete. A large part of Ssor-Fel’s duties was to search out intelligent species that had not yet been brought under control, and to remedy that oversight.
    Thus, a race who possessed neither sharp tooth nor powerful sinew had taken control of a galaxy, forcing all others to submit to their will. It was how Ssor-Fel’s ancestors had built their star-spanning domain, and how they intended to keep it.
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    The Huntmaster of the Salefar Sector shook himself and willed that his mind concentrate on the day’s tasks. He recognized his vine gathering for what it was, an attempt to avoid hard decisions to real problems. Having bequeathed him and his fellows dominion over all other intelligent beings, his revered ancestors would not look kindly on this generation were they to do less than their utmost to pass the legacy on to future generations. It would have been easier, he mused, had there not been so many minor and boring details involved in running a Galactic Empire!
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