It seemed to take the Minister a long time to notice the ensign standing to attention at the door. He snapped, “Oh, come in, boy, come in. I won’t bite. Not you, anyhow.”
Pirius stepped forward. “Sir, I’ve come to deliver—”
“A message, I know, from your ragged-robed master. Well, you’ve done it.” He looked away and continued to eat.
Pirius waited awkwardly. He was becoming used to these nonmilitary types with their ignorance of protocol, but he was reluctant to move until he was dismissed. Maybe he’d be left standing here all night.
At length Gramm noticed him. “You still here? I suppose it’s been a difficult day for you. Must all be very strange.” He guffawed. “Though it was a delicious moment when you told that pompous old fool Kolo Yehn that he had an inferiority complex about the Xeelee. Hah! I’ll have to make sure that’s highlighted in the minute.”
Pirius felt color rise in his cheeks. “I was only speaking my mind. Sir.”
Gramm eyed him, chewing. “Lethe, you’re a spirited one. Look, Ensign, I can imagine what you think of me.” He brushed crumbs from his vast belly. “I can see myself through your eyes.”
“I have no personal opinions, sir.”
“Oh, garbage. But what you perhaps don’t see — look here. Do you know what my job is?”
“You’re Minister of—”
“That’s my role. My function is to prosecute this damn war. I take the strategic goals of the Coalition as a whole and turn them into operational goals. Maybe you’ve seen today that given the infighting that goes on at every level, even at the highest reaches of the Coalition, those strategic goals aren’t always clear. But that’s the principle.
“Now, all the time I am bombarded.” He waved a hand, and the bots and Virtuals around his couch swarmed like insects. “I have whole teams of experts, advisors, lobby groups, all battling for my ear, even within my own Ministry. And then, of course, there are the other agencies beyond Economic Warfare to be dealt with — negotiated with, beaten back, soothed. And all of this against the background of the war.” He sighed and pushed more food into his mouth. “The war, the damn war. It’s more than just a theater for heroic exploits by boy heroes like you, Ensign. You know, you’re lucky, out there in the Core. All you have to think about is your comrades, your ship, your own hide. I have to think of the bigger picture — of all the millions of little Piriuses running around and hunting for glory.”
He propped himself up on his elbow. “And here’s that bigger picture. We’ve beaten back the Xeelee. We’ve pushed them out of the disc of the Galaxy. It’s been an epochal achievement. But they still lurk in the Galaxy’s Core. We have them bottled up there — but the cost of that containment is huge. We have turned the whole Galaxy into a machine, a single vast machine dedicated to a single goaclass="underline" to keeping the Xeelee trapped. It’s dreadful, it’s costly — it’s working. But I have to be parsimonious with my resources.
“Now, whether you see it or not — and no matter what that old monster Luru Parz says — we’ve been responsible with your project so far. We’ve tried to apply resources sensibly, commensurate with the successes you’ve actually achieved, bit by bit as the concept has been proved. But now we’re being asked to take a much greater leap of faith. You might think a couple of dozen greenships isn’t much in a war that spans a Galaxy. You might think you’re under excessive scrutiny — that you’re being opposed, arbitrarily, through the mechanism of the funding. Perhaps some do have such a motive. But for me it’s not like that. We’re stretched thin, Ensign, thinner than you might understand. Even a single ship, lost unnecessarily, might make the difference, might cause it all to unravel. That’s the great fear — and Nilis’s is only one of a hundred, a thousand such requests I have to deal with right now. Do you see what you’re asking me to risk, if we commit to Nilis’s madcap jaunt?”
“You fear that if we draw resources away, the Front could collapse.”
“Yes. And if the Xeelee were to punch out of there, we’d be lost; they would surely never allow us to establish a position of dominance again. Nilis isn’t unique, you know. Especially in the Commission, there are many corners, lots of bits of unaccounted-for funding — plenty of places for the likes of Nilis to dream their dreams.”
“Nilis is more than a dreamer.”
“Well, perhaps. But, as I say, he isn’t unique. It doesn’t take a genius to perceive that our glorious war effort has stalled, that it is an exercise in monstrous waste. At any moment there must be dozens of Nilises running around with bright ideas for shortening or ending the war.” He rubbed his greasy jowl. “And maybe once a generation you will have a true Nilis, a plan so well thought-out, so convincing, that you believe it might, just might, work.”
“Once a generation?”
“It’s in the records. No doubt Nilis himself is aware of many of them.”
“But since the war began, there have been a lot of generations.”
Gramm laughed. “Quite so. And a lot of bright ideas. Some of them probably bore passing resemblances to Nilis’s scheme.”
“So what happened to them?”
“They were blocked. By people like me.” He shifted and stared at Pirius. “Look at it from my point of view. Now, I know that to win the war we’re going to have to take a risk. But the question is which risk? Is Nilis’s idea the one—”
“Or should you wait until a smarter idea comes along?”
Gramm’s eyes narrowed. “You do have qualities, Ensign; I can see why Nilis plucked you out of the mire. You see, the easiest thing for me to do would be to pass on this Project of yours — not even to turn it down; just to stall. I won’t be in this office forever. Let my successor make the difficult decisions, if she dares. This war has lasted three thousand years. The battle is not mine. I am merely… a custodian. How could I bear it if the crucial failure came on my watch?… But I fear deferral isn’t an option for me.”
“Sir? Why not?”
“Because we’re losing.”
The vast Galaxy-wide operation, held together by the rigid ideology and ruthless policies of the Coalition, was containing the Xeelee. But mankind really was stretched to the limit. And, bit by bit, entropy was taking its toll.
“You can forget about this theoretical Commissary nonsense of a perpetual war, of forging a perfect mankind in its cold fire. The machine isn’t that perfect, believe me. We won’t fall tomorrow, or the day after. I don’t know when it will come — probably not even in my time. But come it will.” He stared at the ensign again, and Pirius saw despair in his deep-sunk eyes. “Now do you see why I’m listening to Nilis?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I know Nilis understands this history, and he’s learned from it. He’s played the bureaucratic game with surprising skill, you know. But now we’re beyond games, and coming to the crunch decision. Can you promise me that your mentor’s lunatic scheme is going to work?”
“No, sir.”
“No. How easy it would be if you could!”
Pirius thought he understood. This man, so alien to anything in Pirius’s background, was conscientiously trying to make an impossible decision, a decision that could save or doom mankind, one of a hundred such decisions that faced him daily, against a background of half-truths, hope, promises, and lies. “We both have our duty, sir. As you implied, perhaps mine is easier.”