“How bad is it, then?” Rigney heard himself ask. He was as surprised as anyone to hear his own voice.

Egan glanced at him, then drew her attention back to the crowd. “If things continue as they are, based on historical CDF fatality rates, in three years we’ll no longer have sufficient forces to defend our colonies from predation and genocidal aggression by other races,” she said. “From there, our best estimate is that the Colonial Union as a political entity collapses within five to eight years. Without the overarching protective structure of the Colonial Union, all remaining human planets are attacked and wiped out within twenty years. Which is to say, ladies and gentlemen, that from this very moment, the human race is thirty years from extinction.”

The room was dead silent.

“The reason I’m telling you this is not so you can run home and hug your children,” Egan said. “The reason I’m telling you this is that for more than two hundred years, the Department of State has been the vermiform appendix of the Colonial Union. An afterthought to the CU’s strategy of aggressive defense and expansion.” She stared at DiNovo. “A nice sinecure for mediocrities to be shoved into, where they can do no real harm. Well, all that changes now. The Colonial Union can no longer afford to live the way we’ve lived. We don’t have the resources and we don’t have the people. So from this moment forward the State Department has two missions. One: Bring Earth back into the fold, for the advantage of us both. Two: Whenever possible, avoid conflict with the Conclave and unaffiliated alien races. Diplomacy is the best way to make that happen.

“What that means, ladies and gentlemen, is that from now on, the Colonial Union State Department actually matters. And you,my friends, now all have to work for a living.”

*   *   *

“Do you always squash someone as hard as you squashed DiNovo?” Rigney asked. Theater Seven was now empty; the midlevel diplomats had shuffled out, grumbling to one another. He and Egan were now both standing near the display, which had again shut down.

“Usually,” Egan said. “DiNovo was doing me a favor, actually. For every one like him who is stupid enough to open his mouth, there’s about fifty of these people who keep their traps shut and plan to ignore what I have to say. This way I get to drive the message home to all of them. Marginally more of them will listen to me this way.”

“You think they really are all mediocrities, then,” Rigney said.

“Not all of them,” Egan said. “Most of them. And certainly the ones Ihave to deal with.” She waved at the empty theater. “These people are cogs. They’re stationed here, pushing the proverbial paper. If they were any good at what they did, they’d be out there in the universe. The ones out there are the A-teams. Hell, they’re the B-teams, too. The ones here are teams C through K.”

“Then you’re not going to like this,” Rigney said. “One of your A-teams has gone missing.”

Egan frowned. “Which one?” she asked.

“Ambassador Bair’s team,” Rigney said. “Along with, I should add, one of our frigates, the Polk.”

Egan was silent for a moment, processing the news. “When did this happen?” she finally asked.

“It’s been two days since there’s been a skip drone sent back from the Polk,” Rigney said.

“And you’re only telling me this now?” Egan said.

“I would have told you sooner, but you wanted me to see you scare the children,” Rigney said. “And two days without drone contact is our standard alarm raiser. Particularly with missions like this one, which are supposed to be secret. I came to find you as soon as we confirmed two days of dead air.”

“What did your recovery mission find?” Egan asked.

“No recovery mission,” Rigney said, and caught Egan’s look. “We had a hard enough time negotiating a military frigate for the mission. If the Utche show up and see several military ships in the area, none of them with diplomats on them, everything blows up.”

“Recon drones, then,” Egan said.

“Of course,” Rigney said. “Everything’s preliminary because the drones have just arrived, but they’re not finding anything.”

“You sent the drones to the correct system,” Egan said.

“Come on, Liz,” Rigney said.

“Doesn’t hurt to ask,” Egan said.

“We sent the drones to the right system,” Rigney said. “We sent the Polkto the right system. The Danavar system is where the Utche wanted to meet.”

Egan nodded. “A system with nothing but gas giants and airless moons. No one will think to look for you there. Perfect for secret negotiations.”

“Apparently not so secret after all,” Rigney said.

“You’re presuming the Polkmet with a bad end,” Egan said.

“Our frigates don’t have a history of randomly vaporizing,” Rigney said. “But whatever or whoever did this isn’t in the Danavar system now. There’s nothing there but planets and moons and a big yellow star.”

“Have we told the Utche about this?” Egan asked.

“We haven’t told anyone about it,” Rigney said. “Outside of command, you’re the first person to know. We haven’t even told your boss that her team is missing. We figured we’d let you do that yourself.”

“Thanks,” Egan said, wryly. “But surely the Utche have noticed there is no one negotiating a treaty with them.”

“The Polkarrived three days early,” Rigney said.

“Why?” Egan said.

“Ostensibly to give Bair’s team time to prep away from the distractions of Phoenix Station,” Rigney said.

“And in reality?” Egan asked.

“In reality to make sure we were militarily prepared for an immediate withdrawal if necessary,” Rigney said.

“Seems drastic,” Egan said.

“You’ll recall the Utche have handed our ass to us in three out of the last five military engagements we’ve had with them,” Rigney said. “Just because they came to us for this alliance doesn’t mean we trust them entirely.”

“And you don’t think the Utche might have figured out the CU’s trust issues,” Egan said.

“We’re pretty sure they have,” Rigney said. “In part because we let them know we were arriving early. Your boss signed off on the cover story, but we don’t assume the Utche are stupid. It was a sign to us of how much they want the alliance that they were willing to give us a tactical advantage.”

“You’ve entertained the possibility the Utche blasted the Polkout of the sky,” Egan said.

“Obviously,” Rigney said. “But they’ve been as transparent with us as we’ve been with them, and where they’re not transparent, we have spies. This is something we would have known about. And nothing they’re doing indicates that they think anything is out of the ordinary. Their diplomatic mission is on a ship called the Kaligm,and it’s a day out from skip distance.”

Egan said nothing to this but instead fired up the display, turning to it. Phoenix Station floated in the display, the limb of the planet Phoenix below it. At a distance from Phoenix Station, CDF and trade ships floated; their names appeared in labels hovering aside them in the display. The image pulled out and both Phoenix Station and Phoenix shrank to a single dot, taking with them thousands of starships arriving at or departing from the Colonial Union’s capital. The image pulled farther out and displayed, as dots, dozens of ships, each working its way toward a sufficiently flat spot of space-time to make a skip. Egan began pulling information from a few, crew manifests spilling onto the display.

“Okay, I give up,” Rigney said, after several minutes of this. “Tell me what you’re doing.”

“Ambassador Bair isn’t on our A-list,” Egan said, still scanning crew manifests. “She’s on our A Plus–list. If she was pipped to negotiate, then this mission is an actual priority, not just a top secret diplomatic circle jerk.”

“Okay,” Rigney said. “So?”

“So, you don’t know Secretary Galeano like I do,” Egan said, naming the secretary of state. “If I walk into her office, tell her one of her best diplomats and her entire team is probably dead and their mission therefore a complete failure, without a backup plan already in place and ready to implement, things will be very grim indeed. I will be without a job, youwill probably be without a job simply for being the messenger, and the secretary will go out of her way to make sure that the next posting for both of us will be someplace where our life expectancy will be measured with an egg timer.”