Torch of Freedom

coupled with its unusually close proximity to the primary, also indicates that it's almost certainly not especially huge. Frankly, despite the rumors to the contrary, I'll be surprised if there's more than one additional terminus associated with it—it looks a lot like one end of a two-loci system, what we call a 'wormhole bridge,' unlike the multi-loci 'junctions' like the Manticore Junction. Some of the bridges are more valuable than quite a few of the junctions we've discovered over the centuries, of course. It all depends on where the ends of the bridge are.'

The Torches at the table nodded to show they were following his explanation. From their expressions— especially Du Havel's—the prediction that their wormhole was going to connect to only one other location wasn't exactly welcome, though.

'Even in a worst-case scenario, most wormholes are significant long-term revenue producers,' Captain Zachary put in. Obviously she'd seen the same expressions Kare had.

'Unless the other terminus of this one is somewhere out in previously totally unexplored space—which is possible, of course—then it's still going to be a huge timesaver for people wanting to go from wherever the other end is to anything close to this end,' she continued. 'It's only four days from here to Erewhon even for a merchant ship, for example, and only about thirteen days from here to Maya. And from Erewhon to the Star Kingdom's only about four days via the Erewhon wormhole. So if the other end of your wormhole is somewhere in the Shell, anyone wanting to reach those destinations is going to be able to shave literally months off of her transit time. I'm not suggesting you're going to see anywhere near the volume of traffic we see through the Junction, of course, but I'm pretty sure there's still going to be enough to give your treasury a hefty shot in the arm.'

'Maybe not a goldmine, but at least a silver mine, you mean?' a grinning Queen Berry asked.

'Something along those lines, Your Majesty,' Zachary agreed with an answering smile.

'Which probably wasn't exactly a non-factor in Mr. Hauptman's thinking,' Kare added, and chuckled. 'From what I've seen and heard, he'd probably think backing this survey was a good idea even if it wasn't likely to add a single dime to his own cash flow. On the other hand, I understand he's going to be showing a nice long-term profit on his share of your transit fees.'

'I think it's what's referred to as 'a comfortable return,' ' Du Havel said dryly. 'One-point-five percent of all transit fees for the next seventy-five years ought to come to a pretty fair piece of change.'

Several people chuckled this time, and Kare nodded in acknowledgment of the prime minister's point. At the same time, the hyper-physicist really did feel confident Hauptman would have backed the survey effort, anyway. It was obvious to Kare that Klaus Hauptman regarded not making a profit for his shareholders whenever possible as a perversion roughly equivalent to eating one's own young. He supposed no one became as successful as Hauptman without that sort of attitude, and he didn't have any particular problem with it himself. But anyone who bothered to take a look around the Torch System would have been forced to concede that Hauptman also put his personal fortune's money where his principles were.

Anyone who knew anything about Klaus Hauptman and his daughter Stacey had to be aware of their virulent, burning hatred for all things associated with the genetic slave trade. By any measure one cared to use, the Hauptman Cartel was the Star Kingdom's single largest financial contributor to the Beowulf-based Anti-Slavery League. Not only that, the Cartel had already provided the Kingdom of Torch with well over a dozen frigates. No serious interstellar navy had built frigates in decades, of course, but the latest ships—the Nat Turner-class—Hauptman had delivered to Torch were significantly more dangerous than most people might have expected. Effectively, they were hyper-capable versions of the Royal Manticoran Navy's Shrike-class LAC but with about twice the missile capacity and a pair of spinal-mounted grasers, with the second energy weapon bearing aft. Their electronics were a downgraded 'export version' of the RMN's (which was hardly surprising, given the fact that they were going to be operating in an area where the Republic of Haven's intelligence services had ready access), but the Turners were probably at least as dangerous as the vast majority of the galaxy's destroyers.

According to official reports, the Hauptman Cartel had built them at cost. According to unofficial (but exceedingly persistent) reports, Klaus and Stacey Hauptman had picked up somewhere around seventy-five percent of their construction costs out of their own pockets. Given that there were eight of them, that was a pretty hefty sum for even the Hauptmans to shell out. And according to the last word Kare had picked up before leaving Manticore for Torch, the Torch Navy had just ordered its first trio of all-up destroyers, as well. Even after they were completed, Torch would scarcely be considered one of the galaxy's leading navies, but the kingdom would have a fairly substantial little system-defense force.

Which just happened to be hyper-capable . . . which meant it could also operate in other people's star systems.

And the fact that Torch has officially declared war on Mesa isn't going to make those Manpower bastards feel any happier when they find out the sort of capability the Torches are building up out here, the hyper-physicist reflected with grim satisfaction.

When he'd mentioned that thought to Josepha Zachary on the voyage here, she'd nodded emphatically and added her own observation—that Torch obviously had a well thought-out, rationalized expansion program in mind. It was clear to her that they were using the frigates as training platforms, building up a cadre of experienced spacers and officers to provide the locally trained (and highly motivated) manpower to systematically upgrade their naval capabilities as time, money, crewmen, and training permitted.

'At any rate,' he said out loud, 'and returning to my original point, that's why TJ and I were both a bit surprised that anyone ever managed to pick it up at all. Which, I suppose, could explain why Mesa apparently hadn't gotten around to surveying it yet. They may have had enough trouble finding it in the first place that they simply hadn't known it was there long enough.'

'I hadn't realized it would have been so difficult for them to detect, Doctor,' Jeremy said. 'On the other hand, the fact of its existence had become sufficiently common knowledge that Erewhon, at least, knew all about it over two T-years ago. And, frankly, the Ballroom knew about it for at least six months before anyone in Erewhon realized it existed. Given what Captain Zachary's just said, I'm a bit surprised someone like the Jessyk Combine didn't get a survey crew in here sooner. If anybody in the galaxy would recognize the potential value to shippers, I'd think Jessyk would.'

'Yes, TJ and I have kicked that around a good bit, too,' Kari replied, 'and he's come up with a theory for why they might not have surveyed it even if they'd known it was there all along, if anyone's interested.'

'I don't know about anybody else, but I am!' Queen Berry said, and cocked her head at Wix.

'Well,' Wix rubbed the mustache that was a couple of shades lighter than the rest of his rather unruly beard, 'I hope nobody's going to confuse me with any kind of intelligence analyst. But the best reason I've been able to come up with for Jessyk and Manpower's trying to keep their little wormhole quiet is that they didn't want to draw any more attention to what they were doing here on Torch.'

Faces tightened all around the table, and Du Havel nodded thoughtfully.

'I hadn't really considered that,' he admitted, 'and I should have. It's the sort of propaganda factor the ASL's tried to keep in mind for a long time. But you may well have a point, Dr. Wix. If this wormhole had started attracting a lot of through traffic, then there'd have been a lot more potentially embarrassing Solarian witnesses to the mortality rate among the members of their planet-side slave labor force, wouldn't there?'

'That's what I was thinking,' Wix agreed. Then he snorted. 'Mind you, that's a pretty sophisticated motive to impute to anyone stupid enough to be using slave labor to harvest and process pharmaceuticals in the first place! Completely leaving aside the moral aspects of the decision—which, I feel confident, would never have darkened the doorway of any Mesan transtellar's decision processes—it was economically stupid.'

'I tend to agree with you,' Du Havel said. 'On the other hand, breeding slaves is pretty damned cheap.' His voice was remarkably level, but his bared-teeth grin gave the lie to his apparent detachment. 'They've been doing it for a long time, after all, and their 'production lines' are all in place. And to give the devil his due, human beings are still a lot more versatile than most machinery. Not as efficient at most specific tasks as purpose built machinery, of course, but versatile. And as far as Manpower and Mesans in general are concerned, slaves are 'purpose built machinery,' when you come down to it. So from their perspective, it made plenty of sense to avoid the initial capital investment in the hardware the job would have required. After all, they already had plenty of cheap replacement units when their 'purpose built machinery' broke,