He met Filareta’s eyes, and the fleet admiral nodded, thinking about his earlier comments to Burrows about FTL coms. The Manties’ apparent ability to transmit data at faster-than-light speeds had given all of them more concern than they really wanted to admit. The advantages of real-time or near real-time communication of tactical data were enough to make anyone who didn’t have them nervous about facing anyone who did. And all the fragmentary information available to Eleventh Fleet when it pulled out of Tasmania had insisted the Manties were doing it using grav pulses, possibly to somehow manufacture modulated ripples along the alpha wall’s boundary with normal-space. Theoretical gravitics were scarcely Filareta’s area of expertise, and he had no idea how the Manties might be pulling it off. For that matter, it didn’t sound to him like any of the gravitic theorists—even among the handful who would admit it might be possible—had a clue about how to actually do it. Given the penalties the SLN had already paid for its institutional arrogance, however, he and his staff had decided to accept the probability that the Manties could do it.

Funny how the apparent confirmation that we were right doesn’t make me feel a whole lot better, he thought.

“Any pattern to the sources?”

“Not really, Sir. Or not one we can identify yet, at any rate. It looks like they’re directional as hell, so the only ones we’re actually getting a good look at are coming from directly out-system of us. They might be scattered all around the system periphery without my being able to pick them up yet.” He grimaced apologetically. “We’re still spreading the platforms, Sir. And, to be honest, I’m not sure how good they’ll be picking up this sort of datum in the first place. Their gravitic arrays just aren’t set up or calibrated to detect or differentiate signals like this.”

“The best you can do is all you can do,” Filareta said, much more philosophically than he actually felt.

Daniels nodded and returned his attention to his displays.