Besides, he'd liked his old job much better than his new one. Or, no, that wasn't quite true. He'd just liked the people he'd worked for better.

He tipped back in the sinful comfort of his automatically contouring chair and ostentatiously planted the heels of his boots squarely in the middle of his huge desk's blotter. Then he clasped his hands behind his head and gazed up at the deckhead while he contemplated the perversity of success.

When he'd first been sent to the Basilisk System as a relatively junior officer, it hadn't precisely been a plum assignment. As a matter of fact, no one had been certain the Star Kingdom of Manticore was even going to keep the place, and if the Liberals and the Conservative Association had had their way, Manticore wouldn't have. But those ill-matched partners in isolationism hadn't had their way, and over the next half T-century, Basilisk had become an immensely important and valuable possession. The traffic through the Basilisk terminus of the Manticore Wormhole Junction had grown by leaps and bounds, until it accounted for almost a third of all traffic through the Junction, and Lieutenant Reynaud had advanced steadily through Commander Reynaud, to Captain Reynaud, to Admiral Reynaud, commanding officer, Basilisk Astro Control.

And then, of course, the Peeps had blown the entire Basilisk infrastructure to Hell.

Remembered pain twisted Reynaud's face as he recalled the devastating Havenite raid which had utterly demolished a half-century of investment and development. Warehouses, repair facilities, building slips, solar power satellites, orbital farms, transient housing, orbital factories and refineries ... It had been the single most successful Peep attack of the entire war, and Reynaud had gotten entirely too close a look at it. Indeed, Astro Control had been on the Peep list as well, and only the fact that Eighth Fleet had gotten there in time had saved it. And, he conceded, that was probably the only thing that had saved his own life, as well.

But that had been five T-years ago. Basilisk was rebuilding now, and much more rapidly than anyone—including Reynaud—would have believed possible before the attack. Partly he supposed that was because the original infrastructure had grown only as the demand for it grew, whereas the replacement installations had been designed and constructed to meet an established and clearly understood need. And another factor, he acknowledged unhappily, was that the High Ridge Government had seen the reconstruction of Basilisk as a perfect opportunity to pour vast sums into public projects. Not only did it create jobs, not a minor consideration now that the military was downsizing and demobilized Navy personnel were glutting the job market, but it fitted perfectly with the High Ridge slogan: "Building the Peace."

Damned straight they're "building the peace," Reynaud thought disgustedly. The idiots certainly couldn't have fought the war! But I guess Basilisk is probably less of a scam than some of their other programs.

And that, he acknowledged, if only to himself, was the real reason he disliked his present job. Not just because it had taken him away from Basilisk while the star system was still climbing back to its feet, but because in his opinion the entire program he'd been tapped to command had been authorized only because High Ridge and his stooges saw it as one more PR-rich boondoggle.

Be fair, he scolded himself. They may be padding the budget, and they're certainly playing their brainchild for all it's worth politically, but it really is about time someone got behind Kare and pushed. I just hate all the hoopla. And then there's the fact that I don't happen to think the government is the best entity to be doing the pushing. And the fact that I really, really don't like having people like Makris hanging over my shoulder ... or harassing the people who work for me. And—

He made himself stop adding to the laundry list of things he didn't much like about the situation. Besides, he admitted very, very privately, a lot of them simply added together and boiled down to how much he hated the fact that Baron High Ridge and his cronies would see to it that they got any credit that came of it.

He glowered at the deckhead for several more seconds, then glanced at his chrono, sighed, returned his feet to their proper place on the decksole, and allowed his chair to come back upright. Speaking of Dr. Kare ...

The door—it was much too splendid to be called a "hatch," even here aboard Hephaestus —opened exactly on schedule. That was not, Reynaud knew, the fault of Dr. Jordin Kare, who seldom got anywhere on schedule. Trixie Hammitt, Reynaud's secretary, on the other hand, was obsessively punctual enough to compensate for an entire regiment of Kares.

The admiral stood behind his desk, smiling and holding out his hand, as Trixie shepherded in the man whose work was at the core of the grandiosely titled Royal Manticoran Astrophysics Investigation Agency's current endeavors. Kare was a man of medium height, with thinning brownish hair and eyes which couldn't seem to make up their mind whether they were gray or blue. He was a good fifteen centimeters shorter than Trixie, and Reynaud's tall, red-haired secretary's compulsively fussy and overabundant energy seemed to bemuse the distinguished astrophysicist. Which was fair enough. It not only bemused Reynaud, it often intimidated him, as well.

"Dr. Kare is here, Sir," she announced with crisp authority, and Reynaud nodded.

"So I see," he observed mildly, and a glint of humor showed in his visitor's eyes as Kare gripped the admiral's hand and shook it firmly. "Could you see about ordering us some refreshments, Trixie?" Reynaud asked.

Hammitt gave him a hard, pointed look, as if to remind him that her duties were clerical, not catering. But then she nodded and withdrew, and he exhaled a deep sigh of relief.

"I don't think we're going to be able to get rid of her that easily much longer," he observed to Kare.

"We're both intelligent, highly motivated men," the physicist replied with a grin. "I'm sure that, given the alternative, between the two of us we'll be able to think of some way to . . . divert her."

"I should be ashamed of myself," Reynaud admitted. "I've never had a secretary or an assistant who worked harder or longer hours. I know that, and inside somewhere I appreciate it enormously. But the way she fusses over our meetings drives me stark, staring mad."

"She's only doing her job . . . I think," Kare responded. "Of course, the other possibility that occurred to me is that she's secretly in the pay of one of the Star Kingdom's commercial rivals and that her assignment is to permanently derail the project by pushing its directors over the edge."

"You're being paranoid again, Jordin," Reynaud scolded.

"Not paranoid, just harried," Kare corrected.

"Yeah, right." Reynaud snorted, and waved for his guest to be seated.

It was part of his ambiguous feelings about the entire project that he liked Jordin Kare as much as he did. Of course, the professor was a very likable human being, in his own, absentminded sort of way. He was also one of the more brilliant astrophysicists the Star Kingdom had produced, with at least five academic degrees Reynaud knew about. He suspected there were probably at least two or three others Kare had forgotten to mention to anyone. It was the sort of thing he would have done.

And much as Reynaud hated to admit it, in choosing him to head the scientific side of the RMAIA when they split the agency off from Astro Control, the High Ridge Government had found exactly the right man for the job. Now if they'd only get out of his way and let him get on with it.

"And what wondrous new discoveries do you have for me today, Jordin?" the admiral inquired.

"Actually," Kare said, "there may really be something to report this time."