“Now, all the time I am bombarded.” He waved a hand, and the bots and Virtuals around his couch swarmed like insects. “I have whole teams of experts, advisors, lobby groups, all battling for my ear, even within my own Ministry. And then, of course, there are the other agencies beyond Economic Warfare to be dealt with—negotiated with, beaten back, soothed. And all of this against the background of the war.” He sighed and pushed more food into his mouth. “The war, the damn war. It’s more than just a theater for heroic exploits by boy heroes like you, Ensign. You know, you’re lucky, out there in the Core. All you have to think about is your comrades, your ship, your own hide. I have to think of the bigger picture—of all the millions of little Piriuses running around and hunting for glory.”

He propped himself up on his elbow. “And here’s that bigger picture. We’ve beaten back the Xeelee. We’ve pushed them out of the disc of the Galaxy. It’s been an epochal achievement. But they still lurk in the Galaxy’s Core. We have them bottled up there—but the cost of that containment is huge. We have turned the whole Galaxy into a machine, a single vast machine dedicated to a single goal: to keeping the Xeelee trapped. It’s dreadful, it’s costly—it’s working. But I have to be parsimonious with my resources.

“Now, whether you see it or not—and no matter what that old monster Luru Parz says—we’ve been responsible with your project so far. We’ve tried to apply resources sensibly, commensurate with the successes you’ve actually achieved, bit by bit as the concept has been proved. But now we’re being asked to take a much greater leap of faith. You might think a couple of dozen greenships isn’t much in a war that spans a Galaxy. You might think you’re under excessive scrutiny—that you’re being opposed, arbitrarily, through the mechanism of the funding. Perhaps some do have such a motive. But for me it’s not like that. We’re stretched thin, Ensign, thinner than you might understand. Even a single ship, lost unnecessarily, might make the difference, might cause it all to unravel. That’s the great fear—and Nilis’s is only one of a hundred, a thousand such requests I have to deal with right now. Do you see what you’re asking me to risk, if we commit to Nilis’s madcap jaunt?”

“You fear that if we draw resources away, the Front could collapse.”

“Yes. And if the Xeelee were to punch out of there, we’d be lost; they would surely never allow us to establish a position of dominance again. Nilis isn’t unique, you know. Especially in the Commission, there are many corners, lots of bits of unaccounted-for funding—plenty of places for the likes of Nilis to dream their dreams.”

“Nilis is more than a dreamer.”