War Of Honor

I've never been at my best dealing with situations like this, he thought. And if I told this airhead what I really think of her obvious inability to understand simple English . . .

"If I may, Admiral?" Jordin Kare, on his very best behavior here in the public eye, asked diffidently, and Reynaud managed to conceal his relief somehow and nodded.

"As Admiral Reynaud just suggested," the astrophysicist told the reporter in his best, authoritative professorial mode, "each wormhole junction with which we're familiar has been a distinct and unique case. Our own Junction isn't quite like any of the others which have been explored, and none of the others are identical to one another, either. I've spent the better part of my adult life studying this particular field, and while I can speak with authority about the known junctions, that doesn't apply to new ones. Or even to previously unexplored termini of known ones. We're largely in the position of, say, the last century or so Ante Diaspora where gravity was concerned. They could describe, model, and predict it in considerable detail, but no one had a clue how to generate and manipulate it the way we can today. All of which means that while we've made certain working assumptions about this terminus based on the Junction's other termini and what we know about other junctions, they remain just that: assumptions. Until we can positively confirm their accuracy, the notion of sending a ma

He smiled with easy authority, wrapped in the mantle of his academic credentials, and the reporter nodded with profound respect, as if he hadn't just told her exactly what Reynaud had already said. The RMAIA director was grateful for Kare's intervention, but that didn't prevent him from thinking slightly homicidal thoughts about the reporter as she finally sat down.

The rest of the newsies instantly stabbed at their attention buttons, and Reynaud nodded to a slightly built, dark-haired man as a holographically projected green light appeared above him to indicate he'd won the competition.

"Ambrose Howell, Admiral," the reporter identified himself. "Yawata Crossing Dispatch."

"Yes, Mr. Howell?"

"We've heard a great deal about the potential value of this discovery, and you and Dr. Kare have both cogently explained the difficulties and scale of the discovery and exploration process. I have two questions, if I may. First, since we've known for centuries that the math models of the Junction suggested there were additional termini, why has it taken us this long to look in the right place for this one? And, second, why did we go looking for it at this particular moment?"

"Both of those are excellent questions," Oglesby replied, cutting in in his deep, resonant baritone before Reynaud could respond, "and, if I may, I'll answer the second one first."

He bestowed a self-deprecating smile on the RMAIA director, apparently totally oblivious to Reynaud's blistering anger at his uninvited intervention.

"Obviously," he went on, transferring his modest smile to Howell, "as a layman and a total ignoramus where hyper-physics are concerned, I'm not in any position to reply to your first question. The timing, however, was the result of equal parts serendipitous circumstance and foresight. Although the thorny issues which have prevented the negotiation of a final peace treaty remain, the determination by both parties to the recent war that even an uneasy truce is superior to active bloodshed provided a window of opportunity in which it was possible for the Government to consider other substantive issues. No one could reasonably blame previous governments for their preoccupation with matters of interstellar security and naval budgets. And, of course, until we do have a formal peace treaty, the present Government is also under a powerful obligation to secure the Star Kingdom's security as its first priority. But the present political realities mean we've been able to step back from the abyss of active warfare and turn our thoughts to something besides better ways to kill our fellow human beings.

"The present Government, aware of the absolute necessity of maintaining the momentum towards peace domestically, as well as internationally, sought an entire array of initiatives to, as the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer put it, 'build the peace.' Some were designed to ease the transition of military perso

Oglesby beamed at Howell and the HD cameras, and Reynaud reminded himself that it would never do to strangle the pompous, fatuous opportunist in front of so many witnesses. And at least he wasn't as poisonous a personality as Makris. For a moment, the admiral considered the alternative of asking Oglesby to brief the newsies about the . . . ambiguities Reynaud's own staffers had discovered in the Agency budget statements Makris had approved. But, no, that would never do, either. And so he simply waited until Oglesby had stepped back from the podium, and then looked directly at Howell, ignoring the Prime Minister's press secretary entirely.

"Since Sir Clarence has done such an . . . admirable job of answering your second question, Mr. Howell," he said, "I'll confine my own response to the first one. The simplest answer is that there was a flaw in the most widely accepted models of our Junction—one which Dr. Kare and his team at Valasakis University first identified only about six T-years ago. To be perfectly honest, it was his work there which led to his selection to head this project.

"The discrepancy they identified wasn't really a fundamental error, but it was sufficient to throw all of our predictions as to the probable loci of additional termini off to a significant degree. The Manticoran Wormhole Junction is a spherical region of space approximately one light-second in diameter. That gives it a volume of approximately fourteen quadrillion cubic kilometers, and any given terminus within the Junction is vastly smaller than that, a sphere no more than three thousand kilometers across. Which means that a terminus represents less than seven hundred millionths of a percent of the total volume of the Junction. So even a very small error in our initial models' predictions had an enormous impact. In addition, this terminus's 'signature' was extremely faint, compared to those of the termini we already knew about. Our theoretical studies had always suggested that would be the case, but that faintness meant we required further advances in the sensitivity of our instruments and their computer support before we could realistically hope to detect it."

The admiral shrugged.

"Compared to the difficulties associated with the hunt for this terminus, the proverbial needle in a haystack would have been no challenge at all. Indeed, honesty compels me to admit that even with the strong support RMAIA has received, it was as much old-fashioned luck as anything else which allowed us to detect the terminus this quickly.

"I trust that answers your questions, Mr. Howell?"