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couple of stipulations. We agree not to engage in hostile actions against them or any other races we may find there, and also that we accept their terms for future trade negotiations with them. But from what George Jones has told us, there’s no one there whom we’d consider to be an enemy, and all they want from us is the same thing that they want from everyone else... raw materials like iron, copper, zinc, silicon, and so forth.”
    â€œI see.” Andromeda slowly nodded. “And I take it that we’ve been given the planet’s coordinates along with the starbridge key.”
    â€œThe key, we have. George Jones said that the coordinates will be given to us once one of our ships makes the jump.” Harker frowned slightly. “And that’s something of a puzzle right there. Because, according to our data, there’s not a lot in the danui home system, let alone planets habitable by us or anyone else.”
    He looked at his datapad again. “Display HD 76700 system diagram,” he said loudly, and George Jones vanished, to be replaced by a three-dimensional schematic of a solar system. It was remarkably simple: a midsized star, with a single planet in a close yet highly elliptical orbit around it.
    â€œHD 76700,” Harker continued, reading from his pad’s screen. “Type G6V star, same spectral class as 47 Uma but just a little larger, located 214.9 light-years from Coyote.” He pointed to the sole planet circling the star. “In the early twenty-first century, optical inferometry found a small gas giant in close orbit around it. Since its semimajor axis is a little less than .05 AUs, that means HD 76700-B completes an orbit of its primary about once every four days.”
    Andromeda nodded. Hot Jupiters, while freakish, were not uncommon in the galaxy. They were usually gas giants that evolved in the outer reaches of a solar system, only to have their orbits gradually deteriorate over time. When that happened, the planets began long, slow falls toward their primaries, death spirals that took millennia to complete.
    â€œAre you sure you’ve got the right system?” she asked. “I mean... look, I’m not an astronomer, but even I know that habitable worlds of any kind aren’t usually found in the same system as a hot jupe. The whole system gets destabilized.”
    â€œOur people thought of that, too,” Harker said, “but the danui insist that this is their home system and that more than one habitable world exists there. But it’s still strange as hell... Overlay HD 76700 remote image.”
    On top of the schematic diagram, a two-dimensional photographic image was transposed: the danui star, a small white blob brighter than the tiny dots of light in the background yet surrounded by a nimbus the color of verdigris on rusting copper pipes.
    â€œThat’s what we see when we point a telescope at their system,” Harker said. “We see their star, all right, and although HD 76700-B is too small to be seen directly, we know its there because of the gravitational effect it has on its primary. But if there’s a planet located within a 1-AU radius, we can’t make it out because of this thing”—he pointed to the nimbus—“which appears to be some sort of dust cloud or planetary nebula.”
    â€œA dust cloud?” Andromeda peered closely at the image. “Within 1 AU? Wouldn’t that make any planets within the system... ?”
    â€œUninhabitable?” Harker finished. “Yes, at least that’s what the science boys at the university told me when I checked with them.” He paused. “But if there’s no habitable planet anywhere in the system, why would the danui tell us otherwise? The nord , too, for that matter.”
    Andromeda absently tapped a forefinger against her lips. “I think I know where this is going,” she said at last. “We’ve been given an awfully