Navarre broke in. "But it’s the human element that must defeat you. Where’s the appeal to greed? That’s where you erred before. You could have run Czarina-Kluster. Instead you let your control slip, and now the Queen’s Advisors, those Mechanist"—Navarre stopped short, noticing the dogs accompanying Gomez—"gentlemen, are running things with their customary efficiency. But politics aside, this nonsense is ruining C-K’s ability to do decent science! Real research, that is; the kind that brings new patents to armor C-K against its enemies. Terraforming squanders our resources, while Mech and Shaper militants scheme relentlessly against us. Yes, I admit your dreams are pretty. Yes, they even serve a social use as a relatively harmless state ideology. But in the end they’ll collapse and take C-K with them."