“I suppose that one possibility is that she isn’t a merchant ship, whatever she may look like,” Dumais suggested.

“You think she might be a warship?”

“It’s certainly possible. Play a few games with your nodes, and you can make a warship’s impeller wedge or Warshawski sails look like a merchie’s.”

“A Manty?” Singleterry suggested unhappily.

“Possibly. On the other hand, it’s more likely to be an Andie out here. For that matter, it could actually be a Silly. This is officially their territorial space, after all, even if everyone else seems inclined to forget that. One of them could have noticed us hanging around in Horus and gotten curious.”

“I guess an Andie or a Silly would at least be better than a Manty,” Singleterry said. “But either way, I don’t think the Admiral is going to be very happy if there’s anything to your suspicions.”

“Tell me about it!” Dumais snorted. He gazed at his plot for several more seconds, frowning in thought.

Hecate would be transitioning from Warshawski sail to impeller wedge when she left the fringes of the grav wave in another three hours. At that point, she’d be within less than five and a half hours’ flight time of her destination. And if that was a shadowing warship back there, then whoever she belonged to would have a very shrewd notion of where Dumais’ ship was headed. Which meant that they’d have a very shrewd notion of where Second Fleet lay awaiting its orders from Nouveau Paris.

The lieutenant commander growled a silent mental curse. He’d worried about the decision to use his ship and her squadron mate Hector as Second Fleet’s communications link with Ambassador Jackson in Horus from the moment he was assigned the duty. He understood the absolute necessity of making sure that link was secure, but it would have been a lot smarter to use a regular dispatch boat for the job. Unfortunately, whatever New Octagon genius had thought this one up had neglected to consider that possibility, and apparently no one there—or on Admiral Tourville’s staff—had realized until Second Fleet reached Silesia that Ambassador Jackson didn’t already have a dispatch vessel assigned to him.

Under the circumstances, the Admiral hadn’t had any choice about making his own arrangements to cover the final leg of the communications link. And because he didn’t have any dispatch boats of his own, he’d had to detach a couple of destroyers for the job.

The worst part of it was that Second Fleet had to be positive its communications were functioning properly. If the order to attack was sent from home, it had to get through. So Admiral Tourville had left not one, but two destroyers behind to ensure the maintenance of his communications with Ambassador Jackson. Two destroyers weren’t going to be all that much more noticeable than one, and at least this way, the ambassador could use one ship to shuttle back and forth between Horus and Second Fleet, maintaining constant contact while keeping the other on station in Osiris orbit in case the actual attack order should come in.