Psi-High And Others

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For fourteen days, by Earth reckoning, the outpost ship of the Watchers patiently continued in its orbit, circling the great planet called Jupiter like a silent shadow, waiting for some sign of Kadar’s return.

The ship had come silently from halfway across the Galaxy, responding to a prearranged call signal. Now it was here, an undetected visitor to this remote solar province with its dwarf yellow star and its ten obscure planets. It was not the first time an outpost ship had come here, although visits had been relatively infrequent in the time since life had first appeared on the third planet of this star. Many in the Confederation—especially those with short memories—had opposed surveillance of such a backwater region at all, but the Watchers as usual had prevailed. They knew from long experience that it was not the remoteness of a new-appearing race that mattered, but its intelligence and its potential to build—or to destroy—the Confederation in the future. Once a people had broken free from the star that spawned them, remoteness was no longer a consideration. But the nature of the people was something else.

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