We are now well into the future. A private firm Eyes on the Skies provides the best available astrographic data for the Anglic Union — and anyone else who wants to pay for it.

Eyes on the Skies

Sector Headquarters, Barham

Marcus 27, 853 AIS

Senior Researcher Hiram Waters looked around the senior staff conference room.  The conference table was a slab of goldenwood, locally grown, inlaid in black oak with the corporate Eyes on the Skies logo.  Waters thought the inlay had been a substantial waste of money, though less of a waste than the rococco-carved marble walls.  However, they had inherited the corporate headquarters from the former owners, an in-system space freight Corporation whose owners and board had apparently been dedicated to seeing how thoroughly they could take the stockholders for a ride. It appeared that the stockholders had been thoroughly ridden. It was obviously a waste to tear out the marble, so there it remained. The inlay in the pre-existing table was a concession to practicality, occasionally useful to impress locals with the magnificence of Eyes on the Skies.

The rear face of the marble slabs, the face locals did not see,  was two inches of battle steel,  with a substantial air gap between the steel and the next wall. Under the conference room, reaching forty feet down into the granite bedrock, were the equally armored Eyes on the Skies computers.  Waters was inclined to view the armor as being excessive, but this facility was an Eyes on the Skies sector headquarters, remodelled when pirate attacks were not unknown.

“Gentle beings,” he opened the meeting, “we did receive the full data block from Earth Headquarters last month. We are now only the two years travel time behind them. We’ve all had computers chewing on it to see what interesting bits there might be or what inconsistencies there are with our own data.   Have we learned anything?” He looked around the table, starting at the far end and Junior Researcher Marjorie Quan.

“Their data is correct on us up to our last transmission and return date some years back.” She spread her arms palms upwards. “After all, we are at the extreme far end of everything. At least this time they didn’t get anything wrong that I’ve found — yet.”

“Still looking for new contacts,” Wilhelm Sachenbacher said. “Within our sector, almost every ship that has shown up in the last year is from someplace we already know about. That puts us out a hundred light-years from the frontier with decent coverage. There was one interesting arrival. We received a ship from Teruwhon, which is apparently their first starship. They didn’t get beyond immigration except for exchanging biological data for future trips, but they had the brains to show up with a whole pile of Imperial Credits, so they could at least pay for things. The only thing they actually bought was a decent map of the Empire so that they could figure out where they wanted to go next. They’d actually figured out the way you trade with people who’ve never seen you before without risking biological contamination issues is to trade with people who use completely different biologies.   Alas for them, they breathe air, meaning they can easily trade only with methanovores and the like.”