Intelligence Bases

The star, Siekh, like Mimir, is furiously white with leaping prominences but must be much older because it is not surrounded by a nebula. Flandry is able to make such deductions when his Merseian captors allow him to observe the approach and landing on the planet Talwin. Like David Falkayn and Coya Conyon, he is also able to deduce approximately where he is in space by:

straining out the less bright stars;
finding landmarks like the Magellanic Clouds;
estimating the distance of the giant Betelgeuse by its magnitude.

Also, Siekh is uncommon enough that not many of its type will exist in any volume of space.

Siekh and Talwin are in no-man's-land but near the Imperial border. The Merseian base on Talwin is:

a watchpost;
a depot;
a receiving station for reports from agents like Rax on the Imperial planet, Irumclaw.

Of his spy ring, only Rax will know the coordinates of Siekh. The ring will have concealed courier torpedoes with preset targets. The Merseians will convey orders to Rax's dope shop by ordinary mail. Flandry wonders whether Terran Intelligence has a base like Talwin near the Roidhunate but thinks not. Later in his career, he will establish an advance Naval base within the Roidhunate and wonder whether the Merseians have done the same within the Empire.

We know of three occasions when Flandry enters the Roidhunate:

his visit to Merseia as an ensign;
his establishment of the advance base;
his raid on Chereion.

Of the Merseian agents, few would have known the coordinates of Chereion. However, hypnoprobing extracted them from the brain of Flandry's son, Dominic Hazeltine.