'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
'Because God works in mysterious ways?' Wix suggested.
'Oh, very funny, TJ,' Kare half-snapped. He leaned closer to the display, then reached over Wix's shoulder and punched a command of his own into the data terminal. The display considered his question for a moment, then obligingly reconfigured, and Kare muttered a half-audible oath his rabbi would not have approved of.
'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 announcement could pose a few . . . difficulties.'
'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
'Of course,' New Kiev said in a somewhat more down-to-earth tone, as if she found Descroix's complacent contemplation of political advantage distasteful, 'we don't know where this terminus leads. The odds are against its connecting to any settled regions.'
'The 'odds' were against the original Junction termini connecting to places like Beowulf or Trevor's Star,' Descroix replied crisply.
'And even if it connects to completely unexplored space,' North Hollow pointed out, 'that's exactly what Basilisk was when we first discovered it. The opportunity for additional exploration and survey work alone would constitute a significant economic impetus.'
'I'm certainly not trying to suggest that this isn't an enormously important discovery.' New Kiev sounded just a bit defensive, High Ridge thought. 'I'm only saying that until we know more—until we've actually sent a ship through and brought it home again after taking a look at the other end—no one can know just how important it will be. Especially in the short term.'
'Agreed,' High Ridge said, nodding sagely. 'At the same time, Marisa, I'm sure you'll agree that news of this magnitude must be announced as promptly as possible?'
'Oh, of course. I didn't mean to suggest that it shouldn't. I'm only cautioning against making the news public in a way which feeds expectations we may be unable to satisfy in the long term.'
'Of course not,' High Ridge soothed. After all, there'd be no need to feed any expectations with official pronouncements. Private sector speculation would do the job just fine, and if it didn't do it on its own, there were enough think tanks which owed his Government favors. He was confident he could prime the pump without leaving any fingerprints if he had to.
'How soon
'We're not positive,' High Ridge admitted. 'The reports from Admiral Reynaud and Dr. Kare are filled with a lot of qualifications. It's obvious to me that there's an element of covering their backsides to it, but I suppose that's to be expected, and it would be unwise to try to override them. They've both stressed that no one could have predicted—or, at least, that no one did predict—a fundamental discovery of such magnitude. According to their reports, they more or less stumbled onto the critical observational data, and they both insist that it's going to take some time to refine their current rough figures. Apparently, they have the approach vector for this end of the new terminus fairly well defined, but they say they're going to have to send quite a few probes in to test their data to be sure there are no glitches in their numbers. And they also want to study telemetry from the probes on the transit itself. According to Reynaud, without that, and especially without the transit readings, they can't project a survey ship's required helm data with sufficient accuracy to assure a safe transit. Until they can do that, they're both on record as opposing the dispatch of any manned vessel.'
'It sounds to me like they're scared of their own shadows,' Descroix said roundly, with a scathing edge of contempt.
'And it sounds to me,' New Kiev said sharply, 'as if they're concerned about the possible loss of life unnecessary haste could cause! We've gotten along just fine with only six Junction termini for centuries, Elaine—we can wait another few months to explore a seventh one.'
Descroix bristled angrily at the countess's tone, and High Ridge intervened hastily.
'I'm sure no one in this room wants to run any unnecessary risks with the lives of our survey people, Marisa. On the other hand, I can certainly understand Elaine's sense of impatience. The sooner we can survey this new Junction route, the sooner the Star Kingdom's economy can begin to profit from it. And although it may seem just a trifle on the calculating side, I don't think any fair-minded person could fault us for taking a degree of credit for the discovery.' He held New Kiev's eyes steadily. 'After all, the discovery was made by an agency which this Government created and funded—against, I might add, quite strong opposition from Alexander and his crowd. And just as a government takes the blame for things which go wrong on its watch, whether those problems stem from its decisions or policies or not, it's fair for a government to take credit for things which go right.'
