“I am, Marius,” Giscard replied with a small smile. “Trevor’s Star was a primary objective, I know. And I know why Admiral Theisman wanted Third Fleet destroyed. But if they’ve managed to assemble this much firepower here, then they have to be buck naked on all of Thunderbolt’s other objectives. That means we’ve kicked their ass everywhere else. I realize that we’ve got a chance here to carry through and cripple or destroy three-quarters of the combined Manty–Grayson SD(P) force. But we’ve got too many pre-pod ships of our own, and we’d be risking over half of our own SD(P)s. Not to mention the fact that there’s too good chance of their catching us between them instead of us catching them separated.” He shook his head. “No. There’s always tomorrow, and if we’ve gotten out as lightly as I think we have elsewhere, the comparative loss figures are going to hit Manticoran public morale right in the belly. I don’t want to give them a victory here to offset that effect. Nor do I want them to think that they hurt us badly enough we can’t continue to take the war to them.”

“Yes, Sir,” Gozzi acknowledged and headed for the com section yet again.

Giscard watched him go, and then returned his attention to the master plot. He knew that Gozzi’s question had reflected the chief of staff’s concern over the possible repercussions the decision might have on Giscard’s career. His own concern, hidden behind a confidently serene expression, had nothing to do with his career prospects. He knew Tom Theisman would expect him to exercise both judgment and discretion in the case like this, nor was he afraid that Theisman would see his decision to withdraw as an act of cowardice. For that matter, he snorted in genuine amusement, he could probably count on the President to intervene if things got too grim.

No, his concern was that he might be wrong. He didn’t think he was. But he could be. And if he was, if he was throwing away a genuine opportunity to gut the Manticoran Alliance’s wall of battle, the implications of that would dwarf anything that might ever have happened to anyone’s career.

· · • · ·

Michael Janvier, Baron High Ridge, was also thinking about careers as he paused, some hours later, in the hallway outside the polished wooden door. An armed sentry—a captain in the uniform of the Queen’s Own—stood stiffly at attention before that door, and the immaculately uniformed woman didn’t even glance at the Prime Minister.

High Ridge knew that the traditions and training of the Queen’s Own required that ramrod stiffness, that apparent obliviousness to anything even as the sentry saw and noted everything that happened about her. But there was more to it than mere tradition or training. Something no one could ever have put a finger upon or isolated, but nonetheless there.

An edge of contempt, High Ridge thought as he made certain the mask of his own expression was firmly in place. The hostility that all of Elizabeth III’s partisans reflected, each in his or her own way.