“Yes,” Pritchart told him, looking him straight in the eye, “it is my decision, isn’t it?”

· · • · ·

“The President is on the com, Sir.”

Thomas Theisman looked up from the holo map floating above the conference table at Captain Borderwijk’s announcement. His senior aide tapped her earbug lightly, indicating how she had received the information, and he managed not to frown. It wasn’t easy. Normally, he was delighted to talk to Eloise Pritchart. Unfortunately, he knew who she’d been scheduled to meet with this afternoon.

“Thank you, Alenka,” he said, instead, then glanced at the planners gathered around the map with him. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I’ll leave you and Admiral Trenis to continue your discussions with Admiral Marquette. Arnaud,” he turned to the Chief of Staff, “I’ll go over your conclusions with you this evening.”

“Yes, Sir,” Marquette replied, and Theisman nodded to his subordinates, then turned and headed down the hall to his own office. Borderwijk followed him as far as the outer office, then peeled off to her own desk. His personal yeoman started to stand, but he waved the woman back into her chair and sailed on into his sanctum sanctorum. The attention light was blinking on his com terminal, and he drew a deep breath, then sat down in front of it and pressed the acceptance key.

“Hello, Eloise,” he said when Pritchart appeared on the display. “Sorry it took me so long to take your call. I was down the hall with Marquette and the joint planning staff.”

“Don’t apologize,” she told him. “After the conversation I’ve just endured waiting a few extra minutes is a small price to pay for the pleasure of talking to someone I want to talk to.”

“That bad, was it?” he asked sympathetically.

“Worse,” she assured him. “Much worse.” Then she sighed. “But if I’m going to be honest, Tom, I suppose I have to admit part of it was how much I hate hearing Arnold say anything I might find myself forced to agree with.”

“I don’t see why that should bother you,” Theisman said with a snort. “I haven’t agreed with anything the son-of-a-bitch has said in the last two T-years!”

“I know you haven’t. But you’re the Secretary of War; I’m the President. I can’t afford to indulge myself by rejecting the position of any Cabinet secretary out of hand just because I don’t like—or trust—the person advocating it.”

“No, I don’t suppose you can,” he said just a bit contritely, acknowledging the implicit rebuke.

“Sorry.” She grimaced. “I didn’t mean to take it out on you. But now Arnold is telling me that he thinks it would be… inadvisable to be any more ‘adversarial’ then we already have in our negotiations with the Manties.”

“Giancola said that?” Theisman blinked.

“More or less. I don’t know whether he’s serious, or whether he’s trying to talk me out of it because of the shift in my favor in the opinion polls. The problem is, that much as I’d like to, I don’t think I can just dismiss his official concerns out of hand.”