Pirius himself—Pirius Red—watched intently. He felt intimidated that a version of himself, only a few years older, had been capable of this.

He tried to assess the reaction of the court members. Despite the legalistic setting, the members of the court watched, rapt, as miniature spacecraft chased each other across the spherical chamber. It was undoubtedly a dashing, daring episode, and it seemed to touch something primitive in people’s hearts, whatever their roles here today.

But Pirius Red’s heart sank at the grim expressions on the panel’s faces as they heard one example after another of how Pirius Blue had disobeyed orders: when he failed to hold the line as the Xeelee broke through the Rock, when he failed to turn back to face the fire of the pursuing nightfighters. Even Dans, obviously a maverick, had shown a closer adherence to duty by ensuring that she sent back a FTL beacon containing data on the engagement to the past, giving the military planners a couple of years’ notice of the Xeelee’s new Rock-busting tactic.

Nilis seemed unperturbed. He nodded, murmured notes into Virtual receptors, absorbed, analytical, his blue, rheumy eyes bright in Virtual light. He seemed most animated, in fact, at the dramatization of Dans’s ingenious countertemporal maneuver. He whispered to Pirius Red, “That’s it. That’s the key to the whole incident—that’s the way to outthink a Xeelee!”

When the reconstruction was over, the panel conferred briefly. Then with a curt, dismissive gesture, the president of the court summoned Nilis to make his response.

As he gathered his robes to stand up, Nilis whispered to Pirius Red, “See that look? He thinks the case is already over, that my defense is just a formality. Hah! We’ll show them—just as Blue showed that Xeelee.”

Pirius turned away, his heart thumping.

Nilis immediately conceded the accuracy of the reconstruction. “I’m not here to pick holes in a story told fully and honestly by three very honorable young people. And I’m not here to question, either, the central charge against Pirius: that he disobeyed orders both standing and direct in the course of the action. Of course he did; he doesn’t deny it himself. I’m not here to ask you to set aside self-evident fact.”

The old general asked dryly, “Then why are you here, Commissary?” Muffled laughter.

Nilis rose up to his full height. “To ask you to think,” he said grandly. “To think for yourselves—just as Pirius did, in extremis. We must think beyond mere orders. Why obey a pointless order if it will cost you your life, and the lives of your crew, and your ship, and gain absolutely nothing? Isn’t it better to put aside that order, to flee, to return—as Pirius self-evidently has done—and to fight again another day? Isn’t it obvious that Pirius disobeyed his orders the better to fulfill his duty?”