"Looking at the moons," the Elder remarked to Cornucopia, "you wouldn't think so much depended on their precise characteristics and the exact dynamics of their courses..."

The young man sat intensely focused at the primary controls of the small scout ship, angling in a precise parabolic curve outward bound for the outermost orbit of the first of the twin moons.

They reached the edge of Tern's atmosphere and they both felt the acceleration as the local resistance faded away, and the ship, loaded to its absolute maximum, shifted slowly into a path of orbit around the first moon. Within an hour of reaching the first tangent point, they had looped around her back and into the narrow gravity well with which the second moon kept her sister firmly in constant range. They flew down the slope of that gravity ramp at faster and faster speeds, pulling out at the last minute in order to reach an orbital path around the back of the second moon, slowing only a small amount as they warped around in a huge figure-eight. Again, they followed the indeniable pull of the primary moon, now moving twice as fast as they had on the first loop, and again they nudged the path just slightly at the last moment, just enough to reach an orbital curve rather than smashing into the center of mass of the dry, towering, startk, brilliant, towering globe. Every iota of Cornucopia's attention was fixed on the sensors as he tweaked the very nose of death in microscopic course adjustments.

Again, at twice the speed; and again. The velocity of the small vessel was approaching terminal limits as they flung themselves once more down the spatial ramp defined by the gravitic force-cone of the second moon. The calculators on the control panel clacked and whirrred, and the small green plant row behind the console quivered their tell-tale leaves in distinct patterns, informing the gaent of every instant's calibration.

Finally he knew it was time, as the vessel began to hum and oscillate with the near luminous speed it had built up. He tapped a few control keys of burnished wood, as the sturdy ship roared down the well of gravity, starting around the lower limb of the second moon; at that precise instant her nose pointed straight for the ancient home planet of Terra. along a line millions of parsecs long, which defined the core path of human expansion through known space and intersected every human inhabited galaxy at at least one point.

A huge explosion was heard from the depths of the scout vessel.

From all along her lower hull, from a series of precisely calibrated tubes no bigger than bamboo trees, came smoke, fire and an incredible array of rapidly accelerating microscopic hardwood needle-form tubelets, each shielded with the transparent friction proof mineral coat that only Ternian technology could provide. On calculated paths these tiny vessels burst toward the rest of the known universe, dodging the asteroid belts with incredible finesse and speed, each making microscopic course adjustments. As the scout vessel lost speed, the Elder watched the thousands of tiny vessels fade into the remote distances of the galaxy. Within a year, he knew, they would be reaching the systems they were targeted for.

"Let us cross our fingers for plan One," he said, smiling at his companion. "It is the surest of them all, if the slowest. It may be our only real hope."