The Commissary quickly sketched the objectives of Project Prime Radiant. He set out his familiar argument that striking at the Prime Radiant, a target “logically upstream” of the many secondary targets in the Core, would if not finish the war, then at least shorten it. He described the problems to be overcome if that ultimate target was to be hit, and set out his three proposals for doing so: the use of gravastar shielding to defeat the Xeelee’s ability to see the strike force coming before it even set off; the revolutionary CTC processors to outmaneuver the Xeelee’s last line of defenses; and the black-hole cannon to strike at Chandra itself. All this was illustrated with Virtual displays, technical summaries, maps of the war zone, and bits of imagery from the Project’s work so far.

Pirius thought he spoke well, uncharacteristically avoiding excessively technical language. And Nilis included plenty of spectacular action images, such as shots of Pirius Blue’s jaunt to Chandra, the captive Xeelee ship being baffled by the grav shield, and finally yielding to the black hole cannonade. For armchair generals, he always said, there was nothing so impressive as a bit of footage of actual hardware.

He drew it together in a simple graphic summary—more sophisticated than Pirius’s old asterisk diagram, but not much. Then he sat down, visibly trembling, and mopped his brow. “Now for the hard part,” he whispered.

Gramm said there would be a recess before detailed questioning began. But he opened the floor for first reactions.

A Commissary raised a finger. With a head like a skull, and paper-thin flesh stretched tight over angular bones, he was one of the oldest people Pirius had ever seen—aside from Luru Parz, of course—older than anyone was supposed to get, according to the Doctrines. He seemed to be so prominent in this company he didn’t need to introduce himself.

Pirius was shocked when the very first question was directed at him, not Nilis.

“I’d like to ask our hero ensign what he thinks of this.” The old man’s voice was soft as a whisper. “Would he be willing to fly this lash-up into the Xeelee nest?”

Pirius glanced at Nilis and Darc; Nilis shrugged.

Pirius stood. Every face turned to him, the hard expressions of military commanders, the softer curiosity of the swarming black-robed Commissaries. “Sir, I would say—”

“What, what? Speak up!” A ripple of laughter passed around the room.

Pirius cleared his throat. “Sir, this technology is unproven in battle. That’s obviously true. But we are proposing many more proving stages before it is deployed. It will require courage to take such a new weapon into battle. I have no doubt that many will give their lives trying. But try we will.”

Nilis gently patted Pirius’s back.