“Oh, that’s a wonderful idea!” Frankel snarled. “Those BLS increases are all that’s keeping the mob in check! They supported the wars to support their standard of living, and if we don’t—”

“That’s enough!” President Harris slammed his hand down on the table and glared at them all in the shocked silence. He let the stillness linger a moment, then leaned back and sighed. “We’re not going to achieve anything by calling names and pointing fingers,” he said more mildly. “Let’s face it—the DuQuesene Plan hasn’t proved the answer we thought it would.”

“I have to disagree, Mr. President,” Dumarest said. “The basic plan remains sound, and it’s not as if we have any other choice now. We simply failed to make sufficient allowance for the expenses involved.”

“And for the revenues it would generate,” Frankel added in a gloomy tone. “There’s a limit to how hard we can squeeze the planetary economies, but without more income, we can’t maintain our BLS expenditures and produce a military powerful enough to hold what we’ve got.”

“How much time do we have?” Harris asked.

“I can’t say for certain. I can paper over the cracks for a while, maybe even maintain a facade of affluence, by robbing Peter to pay Paul. But unless the spending curves change radically or we secure a major new source of revenue, we’re living on borrowed time, and it’s only going to get worse.” He smiled without humor. “It’s a pity most of the systems we’ve acquired weren’t in much better economic shape than we were.”

“And you’re certain we can’t reduce Fleet expenditures, Elaine?”

“Not without running very grave risks, Mr. President. Admiral Parnell is perfectly correct about how our neighbors will react if we waver.” It was her turn to smile grimly. “I suppose we’ve taught them too well.”

“Maybe we have,” Parnell said, “but there’s an answer to that.” Eyes turned to him, and he shrugged. “Knock them off now. If we take out the remaining military powers on our frontiers, we can probably cut back to something more like a peace-keeping posture of our own.”

“Jesus, Admiral!” Bergren snorted. “First you tell us we can’t hold what we’ve got without spending ourselves into exhaustion, and now you want to kick off a whole new series of wars? Talk about the mysteries of the military mind—!”

“Hold on a minute, Ron,” Harris murmured. He cocked his head at the admiral. “Could you pull it off, Amos?”

“I believe so,” Parnell replied more cautiously. “The problem would be timing.” He touched a button and a holo map glowed to life above the table. The swollen sphere of the People’s Republic crowded its northeastern quadrant, and he gestured at a rash of amber and red star systems to the south and west. “There are no multi-system powers closer than the Anderman Empire,” he pointed out. “Most of the single-system governments are strictly small change; we could blow out any one of them with a single task force, despite their armament programs. What makes them dangerous is the probability that they’ll get organized as a unit if we give them time.”