“But you’re the one that claims the Dysons will prove hostile, and we’ll need to evolve the agency into a navy.”

“I know. But I’m not standing for election. There’s a small part of me that’s tempted to sink this whole venture here and now.”

“What? You have to be joking.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t. But something’s not right.”

“Care to be more specific?”

“I can’t. I’ve analyzed this all night, compared it to a dozen similar guiding weekends this family has been involved with. There’s nothing tangible except my gut feeling.”

“You’re just worried about what the Halgarths will pull. They’ve been biding their time ready for this moment when the rest of us have reached a broad agreement, then they’ll make their bid.”

“Maybe you’re right. I hope so.”

Justine got the opportunity to find out soon enough. There was a general “progress review” meeting scheduled for midmorning. They held it in the library. It was Larry who requested it be limited to those who held level one Commonwealth security clearance. That meant Justine herself only just scraped in, due to her directorship of several companies that supplied equipment to Directorates that avoided the public view. But it certainly excluded everybody’s partners and aides, along with Isabella. There was a short sharp argument at the door when she was turned away. Patricia came in looking slightly flustered. Everyone inside had heard what the girl had shouted.

“Sorry about that,” Patricia said as she sat at the table.

Justine stifled her own smirk, seeing quite a few others doing the same. As soon as the doors were closed, Thompson stood up. “I expect this to be the final session for this weekend. We all seem to be in broad agreement over the principal structure which the agency will follow. This gives us a chance to iron out any final problems; I’m sure none of us want any show-stoppers at this stage. I for one have a number of Senate votes to attend on Monday, and I’d appreciate getting to them.” He sat down beside Gore, whose polished gold face turned expectantly to Justine.

“The major development this weekend seems to be moving the agency’s primary base to High Angel. Given that we’re foreseeing that it, or possibly a navy, will be in operational status for a long time, it does make sense and certainly has our family’s approval. Does anyone disagree?”

“As you said, Justine, we’re all in broad agreement with what’s been negotiated this weekend,” Larry Halgarth said. “The High Angel move, the preliminary work for navy defenses; my family will certainly add its rubber stamp to all this.”

“Here it comes,” Campbell murmured to Justine.

“However, there is one facet to all this planning which has been overlooked.”

“What’s that?” Gore asked sharply.

“Giving the navy an offensive capability. If, God forbid, the Dysons do turn out to be hostile, simply sitting underneath force field domes and hoping they’ll go away isn’t realistic. We would have to carry the fight into their territory.”

“Just hold on a minute here,” Gerhard said. “Since when have we included invasion in our hostile encounter scenarios? All my briefings have concentrated on possible clashes over colonizing new stars in the direction of the Dyson Pair. In other words it’s all going to be down to agreeing on the direction and limits of expansion. And that’s assuming they do want to expand.”

“They filled an entire solar system,” Larry said. “Their culture is just as expansion-based as ours, if not more so. Make no mistake about it, the two of us will meet out there in space.”

“They’re seven hundred light-years away,” Ramon said. “And it’s a big galaxy. Defensive capability is only going to be a sop to public opinion anyway, at least that was my understanding.”

“That’s very comforting. But what if we really need it?”

“Why?” Campbell asked.

“Excuse me?”

“Ramon was right in saying that any future clash with them will be over establishing borders to our respective spheres of colonization. Any navy we create will be a long-term venture. I doubt we’ll need it within a century. There isn’t exactly a rush to fill up phase three space like there was with one and two—more’s the pity. Even if they expand at our rate, we’d be in phase five or six space before the possibility of clashes arose.”

“And if they don’t stick to your timetable?”

“Then we stop at phase five space in that sector, and continue outward everywhere else. Like Ramon said, it’s a big galaxy.”

“Somebody was so concerned about them, they tried to quarantine them off from this big galaxy. And we’ve seen for ourselves how aggressive they are. That tells me we have to prepare for trouble.”

Campbell regarded him as a teacher would a particularly awkward pupil. “What do you think they’ll invade us for, exactly? If they want mineral or chemical resources, they can get them from any star system. Energy? Their fusion systems looked more advanced than ours. There is no economic or logical reason for them to invade us, especially not with a navy in place. It’s a deterrent.”

“Fine, then make it a working deterrent. Give it some teeth.”

“What sort of teeth would you like it to have?” Justine asked. “I take it this is why you wanted everyone here to be security cleared?”

“Yes.” Larry nodded at Natasha Kersley.

“My Directorate has been reviewing the data which the Second Chance came back with,” she said. “You were right to say their fusion systems are more advanced than ours. So are their force fields. If Captain Kime hadn’t pulled back, we estimate that the Second Chance would have been destroyed within a minute of their missiles reaching attack range. The only thing that saved them was the FTL capability. If we are going to confront the Dyson aliens in the future, even if it is solely to establish boundaries, we will need a lot more firepower than we’ve carried so far.”

“Then we’ll scale things up for the next generation of ships,” Campbell said. “Increase the force field strength. Provide more power to the atom lasers and plasma lances.”

“They will do the same,” Natasha said flatly. “And their shipbuilding capacity is much greater than ours will be for the foreseeable future. Their entire civilization is based around spaceflight and manufacturing ships, we cannot win a contest to scale things up. What we need to do is take this to the next level, and develop a new generation of advanced weapons.”

“Such as?” Gore asked.

“The theoretical concepts which my Directorate studies are need-to-know only.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to examine the idea,” Thompson said.

“What my family would like to see is Natasha’s Directorate transferred to the starflight agency’s defense office,” Larry said. He looked at Patricia. “That will require an executive order.”

“I can probably arrange one,” she said.

“It would need to be integrated with the rest of the Commonwealth’s security arrangements,” Rafael Columbia said.

“The rest of them?” Patricia repeated warily.

“If the navy is to have an effective defensive role, then the current Commonwealth security Directorates should be brought together to perform the service. The Special Sciences Supervisory Directorate and the Internal Security Directorate could be combined under the aegis of my own Directorate.”

“Isn’t that a little drastic?” Justine asked. “Not to mention alarmist? What relevance is the Serious Crimes Directorate to all this?”

“We’re the ones already fighting this conflict,” Rafael said. “It is my Directorate which is tracking down the terrorists who attacked the Second Chance. That act amounts to antihuman treachery as far as I’m concerned.”

Justine sat back in astonishment. Talk about gung ho.

LET HIM HAVE IT, her father sent to her. IT’S JUST PAPER EMPIRE BUILDING, AND THE AGENCY’S PLANETARY DEFENSE OFFICE HAS TO START WITH SOMETHING.