As part of that attentiveness, he’d taken to recording marginal notes on the dispatches he found of particular concern. Which, Janacek thought as he watched the malignant, blinking red eye with a sort of dread fascination, was not something he wanted to deal with just now.

Unfortunately, as Pritchart’s response to Elaine Descroix’s most recent note had reminded the entire High Ridge Government, what he wanted didn’t always bear a great deal of resemblance to what he was going to get.

He squared his shoulders, inhaled deeply, and marched across to the desk. He sank into his chair, scarcely noticing its comfort, and reached out to key the combination into the dispatch case lock plate. The combination of fingerprints, proper numerical code, and DNA tracers convinced it to open for him, and he pulled out the chip on top of the pile.

For just a moment, he felt an undeniable sense of relief, because it was in a Fleet message folio, not one with the flashings of the ONI. So at least it wasn’t a fresh admission from Francis Jurgensen that that insufferable son-of-a-bitch Theisman had managed to deceive them as to his navy’s combat capabilities after all. But that fleeting relief vanished as he read the header that identified it as a message from Sidemore Station.

Oh my God, he thought around the fresh sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. What’s that lunatic done now?

He drew another deep breath, slipped the chip into his desk top reader, and called up the message header.

· · • · ·

“Just how bad is it, Edward?”

The Prime Minister’s anxiety showed far more clearly than he wanted it to. Indeed, Janacek thought, it undoubtedly showed far more clearly than High Ridge thought it did. Not that the baron was alone in that, and the First Lord felt the echo of his own tension and strain coming back from the other members of the working cabinet. Aside from Janacek and High Ridge himself, that working cabinet currently consisted of Elaine Descroix, Countess New Kiev, Earl North Hollow, and Sir Harrison MacIntosh.

“That’s very difficult to say,” the First Lord replied. “I’m not trying to dodge the question, but all we have right now is Harrington’s initial report about the Zoraster System incident itself. It will be at least a few days before we get anything more than that, I’d imagine. It would have taken at least that long for the Andies to respond to the incident—or to Harrington’s message to their station commander in Sachsen. So any later report from her is going to be delayed at least that long before reaching here.”

“But when those messages do get here,” Marisa Turner pointed out anxiously, “the events in them will be over two weeks old. There’s absolutely no way for us to tell how far Harrington may have pushed the Andies even as we sit here.”

“Now, just a moment, Marisa,” Janacek replied strongly. “Everyone in this room knows my opinion of ‘the Salamander.’ I’m not about to change it at this late date, either. But, much as I may distrust her judgment, in this instance she’s certainly showed far more restraint than I would ever have anticipated.”