War Of Honor

He scolded himself, more dutifully than out of any sense of conviction, for being too hard on the Manticoran public. Up until the past few weeks, after all, there'd been plenty of evidence which could be adduced to support the thesis that the war was over. Not a shot had been fired in almost four T-years, and there was no immediate prospect of that changing. And even leaving aside the obvious assumption on the Government's part that the Peeps had been licked once and for all, there'd been the heady assurance that if the Peeps had been foolish enough to start something new, the technical and tactical supremacy of the Royal Manticoran Navy would crush them with ease. Not to mention the fact that the generally conciliatory tone the Republic's diplomatic teams had pursued in the peace negotiations had been another example which could be cited by proponents of the theory that peace had actually come, whether it had been sealed by a formal treaty yet or not. Kare hadn't happened to subscribe to that theory himself, but he could readily understand why it had been so attractive to the public at large. After the pain, losses, and fear of fighting the war, it would have been profoundly u

On the other hand, there'd also been plenty of countervailing evidence for people with the will to see it. And there'd been plenty of people like Duchess Harrington, Earl White Haven, and William Alexander who'd pointed that out. Unfortunately, in some ways the very strength and determination with which they'd made their case undermined it with those who weren't already disposed to share their views. If a politician was unscrupulous enough, it wasn't all that difficult for him to make his opponents look obsessed and vaguely ridiculous, or at least terminally alarmist, when they kept hammering away with warnings that the sky was falling.

Until, that was, Kare thought grimly, the sky finally came crashing down.

In his book, that was exactly what had happened the moment Thomas Theisman admitted that the Republican Navy had virtually completely rebuilt its war-fighting capabilities, apparently without anyone in the High Ridge Government even suspecting they were doing it. A sizable chunk of the electorate appeared to be inclined to agree with him, but not a large enough one. Government spokesmen—and especially "nonpartisan" representatives from the so-called strategic think tank of the Palmer Institute—had instantly begun providing tranquilizing public statements to prove things weren't really as bad as they seemed to be, and those statements were already begi

And then, of course, there was Jordin Kare's personal contribution to sustaining the High Ridge Government in power.

It became momentarily more difficult not to scowl ferociously as that thought flowed remorselessly through his brain. It wasn't really his fault any more than it was Wix's, but the timing of this first ma

Which was what had brought all of them to this particular news conference.

" . . . and so," High Ridge said finally, "it is my enormous pleasure and privilege to introduce to you the brilliant scientific team responsible for making this momentous breakthrough so much more rapidly than even they were prepared to predict might be possible."

It was really a pity, Kare thought, that even at a moment like this High Ridge was unable to project the image of anything but the supercilious aristocrat presenting the unusually clever lowborn servants who had somehow stumbled into doing something of actual value. The man was clearly trying. Worse, from the smile painted onto his vulpine face, he seemed to think he was succeeding. The man had all the personality and spontaneity of an overaged cake of warm gefilte fish.

The Prime Minister half turned to sweep his right hand in an arc at the three men seated behind him. It was somehow typical of him that he should refer to them collectively as the "scientific team," completely overlooking the fact that what Michel Reynaud actually was was the extraordinarily competent administrator who'd somehow kept the RMAIA functioning despite the technical illiterates with which his own staff had been lumbered.

Or perhaps he hadn't "overlooked" anything. Perhaps he was deliberately choosing to ignore Reynaud for some reason. His next words certainly suggested that he was, anyway.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the press, I present to you Dr. Jordin Kare and Dr. Richard Wix, the extraordinary intellects responsible for this historic moment."

Kare and Wix rose as the assembled dignitaries and newsies broke into applause. The fact that the applause was genuine, that the press corps of the Star Kingdom was as excited and eager as even the Prime Minister could have wished, only made it worse. Kare managed to smile, and he and Wix both inclined their heads in acknowledgment of the clapping hands. It was more of a semi-bob than a bow on Wix's part, but at least he'd tried.

The Prime Minister beckoned for the two of them to join him at the podium in what was clearly intended as a spontaneous gesture of invitation. Kare gritted his teeth and obeyed it, as did Wix . . . after a surreptitious elbow-jab in the ribs. Kare's smile became a trifle more fixed as the applause redoubled. It was extraordinarily perverse of him, he reflected, that he should feel equally irritated by the Prime Minister's invincible aura of aristocratic dismissal of anyone else's competence, on the one hand, and by the other man's hyperbolic praise of his own sheer brilliance, on the other. He was entirely too well aware of how huge a part good fortune, not to mention the hard work of all the other members of the RMAIA research staff, had played in the chain of discoveries and observations leading to this moment.

"Dr. Kare will now offer a brief summary of his team's progress and immediate plans," High Ridge a

He beamed at the astrophysicist, and Kare smiled back dutifully. Then it was his turn to turn to face the audience.

"Thank you, Prime Minister," he said. "Ladies and gentlemen of the press, I'd like to welcome you here aboard Hephaestus on behalf of the Royal Manticoran Astrophysics Investigation Agency, its scientific team, and its Director, Admiral Reynaud." He turned his head to smile at Reynaud, then returned his attention to the spectators.

"As you know," he began, "over the past two and a half T-years, we've been engaged in the systematic search for additional termini of the Manticore Wormhole Junction. It's been a painstaking process, and a time-consuming one. But thanks in no small part to the observations and diligent work of my colleague, Dr. Wix, and to a quite disproportionate amount of pure good fortune, we are considerably ahead of any schedule we could have realistically projected as little as six, or even four, months ago. In fact, we are now in a position to dispatch a properly ma