“Good God,” Alexander said mildly. “Do you mean to tell me we finally have an SO on Basilisk Station who’s doing her job? How remarkable!”

“Yes, she’s doing her job, and damned well, as far as I can tell, but that’s what all of these—” Webster waved the memo chips “—are about. She’s got detachments all over the system, and whoever she left to handle the terminus inspections seems to be a real hard case. He’s ramming the regs down everybody’s throat, chapter and verse, and I don’t think he’d be doing that without Harrington’s specific backing. Of course it’s got the Havenites screaming, but he’s enforcing them against our own shipping, as well. That alone would be enough to tick off every merchant house in the Kingdom after the free run they’ve always had there, but even that’s not the worst of it. You remember the rumors about smuggling through Medusa?” Alexander nodded, and Webster grinned sourly. “Well, Harrington’s orbital inspection parties have seized well over nine hundred million dollars worth of contraband—so far—and sent it in for judgment and condemnation. And in the process, she caught the Hauptman Cartel trying to smuggle kodiak maximus pelts out through Medusa and called them on it. She’s seized a four-and-a-half-million-ton freighter under charter to Hauptman—the Mondragon—and sent her in under a prize crew, for God’s sake!”

“Oh, my!” Alexander pressed a hand to his ribs, trying in vain to stifle his laughter as he pictured the carnage the unknown Harrington must be strewing in her wake.

“You may think it’s funny,” Webster growled, “but I’ve had Klaus Hauptman himself in here, swearing up one side and down the other that his people are as innocent as the driven snow, that it was all Mondragon’s master’s doing, and that Harrington is harassing his other, legitimate shipments. He wants her head, and the Havenites are sharpening the axe for him with all these ‘protests’ of theirs! What’s happening to their Junction shipping is bad enough, as far as they’re concerned, but you know their official position on our claim to Medusa. Their consul is practically chewing the rug about her ‘patently illegal searches of legitimate merchant vessels in the course of their lawful trading activities with an independent planet.’ It’s got all the makings of a first-class diplomatic incident, and it’s not getting any better.”

“Screw the Havenites,” Alexander snapped, forgetting to laugh. “And screw Hauptman, too! It sounds to me like she’s doing exactly what we’re supposed to have been doing for years, Jim!”

“Oh? And do you think Sir Edward Janacek will share your view?”

“No, but that’s no reason to come down on Harrington for doing her job. Damn it, from what you’re saying, Young tried his damnedest to put a knife in her back! Do you want to stick it in for him?”

“You know I don’t!” Webster ran his hands through his hair again. “Hell, Hamish, my grand-nephew is on Fearless. If I relieve Harrington, I’ll be sending him exactly the wrong message about the discharge of an officer’s responsibilities. For that matter, every officer in the Fleet will draw the same conclusion!”