At his secluded villa, Prime Minister Netath was entertaining his foreign minister, Ugaza Bataul.
Netath leaned against the terrace bar and proposed a toast. "To an era of plenty."
Bataul smiled. "At the expense of the Western Cluster."
They gulped the drinks and Netath stared down into his empty glass. "We're quite fortunate that the Western Cluster's aspirations are extending to this sector."
"As long as we can be sure that there won't be any military advances." Bataul added the qualification with misgiving.
"Oh, there's no danger of that. Actually, we're lucky we didn't try to get on the Eastern Cluster's gravy train. We'd have had to make a lot of concessions."
Heralding its own approach with a sputtering rumble, the station 'copter came in low over the trees and dropped down on the lawn. Netath walked over as his chauffeur climbed out of the cab and used antigrav grapples to float a large crate out of the freight compartment.
"Just picked it up at the space terminal," the man explained. "Must be that aid shipment."
Bataul laughed. "You mean the first batch of credit certificates, maybe."