The aliens—they called themselves the Investors—seemed unlimited in power. They were ancient, so old that they remembered no tradition earlier than starflight. Their mighty starships ranged a vast economic realm, buying and selling among nineteen other intelligent races. Obviously they possessed technologies so potent that, if they chose, they could shatter the narrow world a hundred times over. Humanity rejoiced that the aliens seemed so serenely affable. The goods they offered were almost always harmless, often artworks of vast academic interest and surprisingly small practicality.