“Dr. Kare is here, Sir,” she announced with crisp authority, and Reynaud nodded.

“So I see,” he observed mildly, and a glint of humor showed in his visitor’s eyes as Kare gripped the admiral’s hand and shook it firmly. “Could you see about ordering us some refreshments, Trixie?” Reynaud asked.

Hammitt gave him a hard, pointed look, as if to remind him that her duties were clerical, not catering. But then she nodded and withdrew, and he exhaled a deep sigh of relief.

“I don’t think we’re going to be able to get rid of her that easily much longer,” he observed to Kare.

“We’re both intelligent, highly motivated men,” the physicist replied with a grin. “I’m sure that, given the alternative, between the two of us we’ll be able to think of some way to… divert her.”

“I should be ashamed of myself,” Reynaud admitted. “I’ve never had a secretary or an assistant who worked harder or longer hours. I know that, and inside somewhere I appreciate it enormously. But the way she fusses over our meetings drives me stark, staring mad.”

“She’s only doing her job… I think,” Kare responded. “Of course, the other possibility that occurred to me is that she’s secretly in the pay of one of the Star Kingdom’s commercial rivals and that her assignment is to permanently derail the project by pushing its directors over the edge.”

“You’re being paranoid again, Jordin,” Reynaud scolded.

“Not paranoid, just harried,” Kare corrected.

“Yeah, right.” Reynaud snorted, and waved for his guest to be seated.

It was part of his ambiguous feelings about the entire project that he liked Jordin Kare as much as he did. Of course, the professor was a very likable human being, in his own, absentminded sort of way. He was also one of the more brilliant astrophysicists the Star Kingdom had produced, with at least five academic degrees Reynaud knew about. He suspected there were probably at least two or three others Kare had forgotten to mention to anyone. It was the sort of thing he would have done.

And much as Reynaud hated to admit it, in choosing him to head the scientific side of the RMAIA when they split the agency off from Astro Control, the High Ridge Government had found exactly the right man for the job. Now if they’d only get out of his way and let him get on with it.

“And what wondrous new discoveries do you have for me today, Jordin?” the admiral inquired.

“Actually,” Kare said, “there may really be something to report this time.”

His smile had vanished, and Reynaud leaned forward in his chair as the physicist’s unexpectedly serious tone registered.

“There may?”

“It’s too early to be certain, and I hope to God I can keep the bureaucrats out from underfoot while we follow up on it, but I think we may actually be about to crack the locus on the seventh terminus.”

“You’re joking!”

“No, I’m not.” Kare shook his head vigorously. “The numbers are very preliminary, Mike, and we’re still a huge distance from nailing down a definitive volume. Even after we do that, of course, we’re going to be looking at the better part of a solid T-year, more probably two or three of them, before we get any farther than this end of the string. But unless I’m very mistaken, we’ve finally correlated enough sensor data to positively state that there actually is a seventh terminus to the Junction.”