by David Weber
And if there was indeed a Junction in the Manticore system, damn right there would be profit. There would be profit and to spare.
Luther was looking expectantly at her. “Well, they’re all welcome to try,” she told him, mentally pulling up the procedure listing she’d memorized so long ago in the hope that one of these long shots would someday come in. “But never mind them. Here’s what we’re going to do. As of right now, you’re out of the research tank. Turn all your projects over to Carnahiba and Oehm—tell them I’ll talk to them later about sharing out the load with the rest of the team. Then collect your computer, your files, and everything else you’ve got down there and report back up here. You know the visitor’s office across from the conference room? That’s yours until I can get someone reassigned and we can move you into something more permanent. What’s your pay level?”
Luther’s eyes had gone wide. “Uh—uh—Five,” he managed.
“You’re now at Seven,” Wamocha told him. “What the hell—make it Eight. Take the rest of the day to relocate and then go home and have a nice, relaxing evening. Starting tomorrow, your one and only job will be to start pulling together everything you can find on the Manticore system. And I mean everything—astrogation records, merchant ship course adjustments and fuel usage, regional grav wave data, and anything else that might help nail this down. Pull it, consolidate it, graph it, normalize it, and otherwise just analyze the living hell out of it. Clear?”
“Y-yes, Ma’am,” Luther stuttered, his face glowing now like a minor star.
“Good.” She lifted a warning finger. “One other thing. As of this moment, this project is under the Black Dagger protocol. You understand what that means?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” he said again, more confidently this time. “It stays between you, me, and the Board.”
“Correct,” Wamocha said. “Once you have your stuff in your new office come back here and I’ll give you the encryption you’ll use for everything from now on. I’ll go ahead and re-encrypt this chip; you’ll do the same for everything else on your computer. Questions?”
“No, Ma’am,” he said.
“Then get to it.” She smiled at him, something you never did with subordinates. “Welcome to management level, Luther.”
“Thank you—” he braced himself “—Karen?”
“Karen it is,” she confirmed. “Now get moving. Time is money.”
“Yes, Ma—Karen.” He flashed a smile of his own, and was gone.
Wamocha turned her attention back to the data, her smile fading a little. It still could be nothing, she reminded herself firmly. In which case the huge bonuses Axelrod offered in these instances would blow away in the wind.
And even if there was a wormhole it would likely take years to confirm and track down. They would have to send ships out there, probably more than one, packed with the kind of expensive and sophisticated instruments that hadn’t even existed a few T-years ago. Even more important, the surveys would have to be kept utterly quiet, lest the Manticorans get wind of what was lurking in their system. Subtlety, like everything else of value, also cost time.
But if the wormhole was there—if it was there—the rewards would be astronomical. For her, for Luther, and for Axelrod.
She could but hope.
And speaking of Axelrod, it was time to share the cautious good news. Pulling up the Black Dagger encryption, she began composing the most important letter of her life.
Afterword
In the authors’ foreword, we explained that there are really three authors for this book and mentioned something called BuNine in connection with how Tom Pope became involved with the Honorverse in the first place and this book in particular. Those of you who have read House of Steel: the Honorverse Companion will have recognized that name. Those of you who haven’t read House of Steel (and I’m sure all of you had some sort of valid excuse) may not have recognized it, however.
So, we’d like to tell you that Bureau Nine (affectionately known to inhabitants of the Honorverse as BuNine, for short) originated as a group of Honorverse fans that originally coalesced around Ad Astra’s Saganami Island Tactical Simulator. BuNine is not just a group of Honor Harrington fans, however. About half of them have some sort of connection to the US military, mostly the Navy, in either a civilian capacity or in uniform. The other members include artists, lawyers, computer specialists, and the like, all of them expert in their own fields (and all of them prepared to offer their skills to David . . . and to argue with him upon occasion, shocking though he knows his legions of devoted readers might find that to believe). They had a tremendous amount to do with House of Steel—indeed, they wrote (with David’s oversight and checking) three hundred and eighty of its five hundred and sixty pages and produced the sixteen pages of full-color plates which illustrate that volume. A huge percentage of the content they contributed consisted of their applying their own expertise and historical knowledge to actually building portions of the Honorverse which David had sketched out in his notes but never fully developed for the reader. When BuNine got done, the portions of the Honorverse covered in House of Steel had moved from elements which had been described in passing into strong, fully developed components of the Honorverse literary canon.
Speaking for himself, David has found all of BuNine’s members immensely helpful, and they have moved from fans who read his books to people who collaborate with him in improving his books and who have become close personal friends, as well. BuNine’s members in particular contributed to A Call to Duty by critiquing the manuscript and sharing their insights—always useful, frequently entertaining, and occasionally painful—into that mystic military rite of passage known as “boot camp.” They offered us plenty of other insights, as well, and we’d like to specifically thank Barry Messina for sharing his memories and experience and serving as a window into “how this stuff really works” for people creating a fictitious Navy.
Thanks guys, you did good.
David Weber
Timothy Zahn
Thomas Pope
