He paused, glancing at Giscard, and the Citizen Admiral nodded in combined understanding and an order to go on.

“Within those qualifications, they’ve been able to give us a pretty solid count on the forces deployed to watch over the terminus itself,” Thaddeus said. “Those units are easily inside the sensor reach of any merchie using the Junction. But the numbers have always been a lot more… amorphous for the rest of the picket.”

“Why is that, Citizen Lieutenant?” Pritchart asked in neutral tones. “My understanding was that over half the traffic passing through this system transships at least some cargo at the warehouses in Medusa orbit before continuing through the terminus.”

“That’s correct, Ma’am,” Thaddeus said much more stiffly. Pritchart, after all, was the enemy as far as he was concerned, yet he seemed a little baffled by his own reaction to her. It appeared that he couldn’t quite work up the hate for her that he felt for StateSec’s other minions, and that seemed to puzzle him.

“In that case, wouldn’t they have been able to observe the other portion of the picket in some detail, as well?”

“Yes and no, Ma’am,” MacIntosh said, coming to Thaddeus’ aid. “They’d get a good look at anyone in close proximity to Medusa, but not at any units that were further out—on patrol, say, or conducting exercises. And the Manties are as sensitive to the possibility of espionage here as we would be in their place. They don’t exactly encourage through traffic to use active sensors in areas like this, and there are limits to what merchant-grade passives can pick up. Unfortunately, part of the inspection the Manties have been insisting on since the war started includes a very close look at the sensor suites of visiting merchantmen, and if they find something more sophisticated than they feel is appropriate, the ship in question better have a very good justification for it. If she doesn’t—pffft!” The Citizen Commander made a throwing away gesture with one hand. “That ship and that merchant skipper are banned from any use of the Junction for the duration of hostilities, which leaves them no real legitimate reason to be anywhere in the Basilisk System, much less anyplace they could see something that would do us any good to know about. Sort of cavalier of them, I suppose, but effective, and I’d do the same thing in their position.”

“The Citizen Commander is correct, Ma’am,” Thaddeus added. “We’ve had some reports that they’ve been drawing down the strength of the picket for the past several months, but no hard evidence to support them. Under the circumstances, NavInt—” it wasn’t actually Naval Intelligence anymore, but Thaddeus, like a great many naval officers (and with more personal reason than most), still referred to the military intelligence section of State Security by the old pre-Coup name “—went with the last definite numbers we had. I suppose the theory was that it was better to make a worst-case assumption. And according to those figures, there ought to have been at least twelve of the wall assigned to the inner-system picket here.”