h the Omega World should
lie was about a century. Today we have the techniques to construct a
small scouting vessel capable of making the transit in just over five
years. We cannot hold out here for a century, perhaps; but we can manage
a decade.

"As for location, we know the initial target point toward which Omega
was launched. The plan was of course that a precise target should be
selected by the crew after approaching the star group closely enough to
permit telescopic planetary resolution and study. There is no reason why
the crew of a scout could not make the same study and examination of
possible targets, and with luck find the colony.

"Omega was the last colonial venture undertaken by our people, two
centuries after the others. It was the best equipped and largest
expedition of them all. It was not limited to one destination, little
known, but had a presumably large selection of potentials from which to
choose; and her planetary study facilities were extremely advanced. I
have full confidence that Omega made a successful planetfall and has by
now established a vigorous new society.

"Honorable Members of the Council, I submit that all the resources of
this Government should be at once placed at the disposal of a task force
with the assigned duty of constructing a fifty-thousand-ton scouting
vessel, and conducting an exhaustive survey of a volume of space of one
thousand A.U.'s centered on the so-called Omega Cluster."

The World Secretary interrupted the babble which arose with the
completion of the officer's presentation.

"Ladies and gentlemen, time is of the essence of our problem. Let's
proceed at once to orderly interrogation. Mr. Klayle, lead off, please."

* * * * *

The portly Councillor glared at the Commander. "The undertaking you
propose, sir, will require a massive diversion of our capacities from
defense. That means losing ground at an increasing rate to the obscenity
crawling over our planet. That same potential applied to direct
offensive measures may yet turn the balance in our favor. Against this,
the possibility of a scouting party stumbling over the remains of a
colony the location of which is almost completely problematical, and
which by analogy with all of the earlier colonial attempts has at best
managed to survive as a marginal foothold, is so fantastically remote as
to be inconsiderable."

The Commander listened coolly, seriously. "Mr. Councillor,"