War Of Honor

"I know. I know! And Cat and Elaine are busy telling me exactly the same thing, although at least they don't do it in front of Rachel, thank God! For that matter, I have to admit, speaking as the Protector of Grayson and not a nervous father, that under other circumstances it might be a wonderful idea. But at this particular moment, with relations as strained as they are and as much resistance as there is in the Keys to any closer accommodation with the Star Kingdom, sending the Protector's oldest daughter off to enroll in the RMN's naval academy could be a recipe for disaster."

"I can understand that. But even if you sent her off at the earliest age the Academy would admit her, she'd have to be at least seventeen T-years old, and that gives you a year to work with. A lot of things could change in that much time."

"But a lot of things might not change," Benjamin shot back. "And if they don't, if it's still politically unfeasible to send her to the Academy, I don't want to be in the position of having told her she could go and then breaking my word to her. I've never done that before, and I don't want to start now, even if it's because a reason of state gives me no choice."

"That's because of the good father in you," she told him gently, and smiled. "Tell you what. I'll have a talk with her tonight after supper, if you'd like. I know Rachel well enough to know she's been keeping an eye on what's happening politically in the Star Kingdom, whether she'll admit it to you and her mothers or not. She has to realize political factors are driving your decisions right now in a lot of ways . . . some of which are going to impact on her personally. Still, she may take it better from me than from you if I point out how unpleasant it is being used as a soccer ball by a bunch of cretins like High Ridge, Solomon Hayes, and Regina Clausel and then explain as gently as possible why it simply may not be possible to send her to Saganami next year. After all, you're her father, and there have to be some authority issues tied up in that for any teenager. I, on the other hand, am simply Aunt Honor, and if any glamour attaches to 'Admiral Harrington,' maybe I can put it to good use with her."

Chapter Nineteen

"Take a look at this, Jordin."

Jordin Kare looked up from his own terminal and pivoted his work station chair in Dr. Richard Wix's direction. Wix was a strawberry blond, with a somewhat shaggy beard, a mustache several shades lighter than his hair, and quite a reputation as a hard-partying sort. Indeed, he rejoiced in the nickname "Tons of Joy Bear," although Kare wasn't quite sure where the "bear" part of it came in. On the other hand, when he wasn't establishing himself as the very soul of conviviality, Dr. Wix was also an extremely competent astrophysicist. Perhaps even more important, he possessed that unique intuitive sense which spotted data correlations almost more by feel than by analysis.

"What is it?" Kare asked.

"Well," Wix said with an air of calm, "I can't be certain of course, but unless I'm sadly mistaken, that last data run from Admiral Haynesworth's people just nailed down the entry vector."

"What?!" Kare was out of his chair and standing at Wix's shoulder, peering down at his display, without any conscious memory of having moved. "That's preposterous! There's no way! We don't even have a definitive locus yet—how the hell could we have an entry vector?"

"Because God works in mysterious ways?" Wix suggested.

"Oh, very fu

"See?" Wix asked with an ever so slight air of complacency.

"I do, indeed," Kare said slowly, his eyes fixed on the display's vector arrows and the sidebar of tabular numerical data. He shook his head, unable to look away from the ridiculous figures. "You do realize how astronomical—you should pardon the expression—the odds against this are, don't you, TJ?"

"The thought did pass through my admittedly shallow mind," Wix agreed. "By my most conservative estimate, it should've taken us at least another six or seven months just to nail the locus, much less this." It was his turn to shake his head. "But there it is, Jordin." He waved at the display. "The grav eddies don't leave very much room for doubt, do they?"

"No. No, they don't," Kare replied. He straightened up and folded his arms, frowning as he contemplated the staggering implications of Wix's discovery. So far as he and Michel Reynaud knew, they'd kept any of their political overlords from realizing they were in hot pursuit of the Manticore Wormhole Junction's long-sought seventh terminus. But they weren't going to be able to sit on this news. As Wix said, they'd just cut a minimum of half a T-year off the search time—more like a full year, really. Which suggested that there might be a slight amount of hell to pay when the politicos discovered the hired help had been trying to keep them in the dark about the state of their progress.

On the other hand . . .

"This is tremendous news!" Countess New Kiev said exultantly, with what Baron High Ridge privately considered an unsurpassed talent for stating the obvious. Not that the Prime Minister supposed he should really hold that against the Chancellor of the Exchequer under the circumstances.

He had assembled a working group from the Cabinet in the secure conference room underneath the Prime Minister's residence. That room was buried under almost fifty meters of solid earth and ceramacrete, although every effort had been made to avoid any "bunker atmosphere." The furnishings were both expensive and elegant, from the deep pile carpet in the blue and silver of the House of Winton to the powered chairs around the huge conference table of hand-rubbed dark wood. One entire side of the large room was a programmable smart wall, whose holographic technology and nanotech had currently combined to create a breathtakingly realistic illusion that it was actually a window overlooking Jason Bay.

Yet despite all attempts to convince them otherwise, everyone in that conference room was well aware of how far beneath the surface they were . . . and of how impossible that made it for anyone to eavesdrop upon their conversation.

"I agree that this is fantastic news, of course, Marisa," Stefan Young said. "Obviously, the entire business community is going to be electrified by the possibility of still another Junction trade route, and as Trade Secretary, I'm delighted at the prospect. At the same time, the a

"Not any insurmountable ones," High Ridge told him with a slight, quelling frown he was careful not to let New Kiev see. This wasn't the time to be reminding the countess of any trifling accounting irregularities where RMAIA was concerned. In fact, that was one reason he'd wanted Melina Makris assigned to Reynaud's staff. Makris knew exactly where her true loyalties lay, and as New Kiev's representative at the agency, she provided the perfect cutout between New Kiev and the actual bookkeeping. Which was a very good thing, given the way the countess' political conscience had of pricking her at the most unpredictable of times. It seemed to do it more over lesser matters than over greater ones, too. Personally, High Ridge suspected it was some sort of defensive mechanism. Perhaps her subconscious fixated on such minor matters because her pragmatism prevented it from reacting to any major sins of commission.

"Certainly not!" Elaine Descroix seconded enthusiastically. "This is the greatest discovery in decades—no, centuries! The Junction's been the biggest single factor in the Star Kingdom's prosperity; if its capacity increases, it will be the biggest boost our economy's had in almost a hundred T-years. And it's an agency we created which found a new terminus to make that possible."