The Second Civilization-Cluster

By the first civilization-cluster, I mean the one that includes Earth. By the second, I mean the one where some Earthwomen trade temporarily. We know comparatively less about the second civilization-cluster but let us assemble the little that we know:

it is dominated by "...raw capitalism..." (Poul Anderson, After Doomsday, St Albans, Herts, 1975, pp. 84-85);

robotics are highly developed,including "...thousands of kinds of automaton..." and even "...body-waldos"; (p. 84)

Uru is "...the interstellar auxiliary language..." as in several other clusters, including the first; (p. 83)

after visiting only two clusters, the women heard rumors of this one, "..a free enterprise economy at a stage of pioneering and expansion...," that suits their plan to become rich enough to hire ships to search the galaxy for other human beings; (p. 86)

Terran Traders, run by the Earthwomen and helped by native investors, introduces "...profit sharing, systems analysis and motivational research among outworld cultures...," just as the Earthmen are meanwhile introducing new applications of paragravitics in the first civilization-cluster; (p. 85)

Terran Traders trade amicably with the sha-Eykza of Zatlokoopa but their innovations upset the Forsi, the "...second most powerful race in this cluster...," who respond by kidnapping one of the women, using the body-waldos. (pp. 85-86)

This is all taken from a single ten page chapter. As usual, when all the information has been gathered together, it turns out to be a lot more than might have been expected.