There were actually quite a few explanations like this, and every one of them sounded quite reasonable.
But no one dared ask it that question to its face.
The reason was simple: they were afraid of dying.
Places like the Mechanical Serpent constellation and the ferryboat belonged to the gray areas of civilization.
In other words, under the laws of different civilizations, they were all illegal.
But there was a reason they had survived until now—and were even thriving.
Take the "Collector," for example. Back when the Mechanical Overlord Purple Giant Star was still around, he had been its intelligence broker, guide, and bootlicker. Even a level-three civilization could do nothing to him.
The "Captain of Death" had similar utility. The two civilization representatives present both knew exactly what that value was: it could drive away Cosmic Evil Gods.
Cosmic Evil Gods were notoriously troublesome. They could not be beaten to death, killed, or easily suppressed. Once one became entangled with them, it turned into a black hole that devoured resources.
This was especially true when a level-three civilization was developing some star region. For example, they might discover a resource area containing dozens of resource planets, only to find that the region was the spawning ground of a "Cosmic Evil God." The sheer disgust of it was enough to give anyone a headache.
Under normal circumstances, they could only go to war, because Cosmic Evil Gods could not communicate.
However, an existence like the "Captain of Death" offered another possibility. It could communicate with Cosmic Evil Gods through a special method and make them leave the star region of their own accord.
That value was immense.
Therefore, even though the civilization representatives knew perfectly well that the "ferryboat's owner" secretly supported several "interstellar terrorist organizations"—such as the Society of