“So here we are, at something of an impasse. And all the power is in your hands at this moment. So let me tell you your choices. There are only two of them.
“The first choice is the hard one. It will make your skin crawl. Some of you will go home and sleep for three days in fetal position with your thumbs in your mouths. But there’s no negotiation. This is what you’ll do:
“You’ll give Lieutenant Graff real power. Don’t give him a high rank and a desk and a bureaucracy. Give him genuine authority. Everything he wants, he gets. Because the whole reason he is alive will be this: To find the best possible commander for the fleets that will decide the future of the human race.
“To do this he first has to find out how to identify those with the best potential. You’ll give him all the help he asks for. All the people he asks for, regardless of their rank, training, or how much some idiot admiral hates or loves them.
“Then Graff will figure out how to train the candidates he identifies. Again, you’ll do whatever he wants. Nothing is too expensive. Nothing is too difficult. Nothing requires a single committee meeting to agree. Everybody in the IF and everybody in the government is Graff’s servant, and all they should ever ask him is to clarify his instructions.
“What I require of Graff is that he work on nothing but the identification and training of my replacement as battle commander of the International Fleet. If he starts bureaucratic kingdom building—in other words, if he turns out to be just another idiot—I’ll know it, and I’ll stop talking to him.
“In exchange for your giving Graff this authority is that once I’m satisfied he has it and is using it correctly, then I’ll turn this ship around immediately. I’ll get home a few years earlier than the original plan. I’ll be part of training whatever commander you have. I’ll evaluate Graff’s work. I’ll help choose among the candidates for the job, if you have more than one that might potentially do the job.
“And all along the way, Graff will communicate with me constantly by ansible, so that everything he does will be done with my counsel and approval. Thus, through Graff, I am taking command of the search for our war leader now.
“But if you act like the idiots who led the fleet during the war I won, and try to obfuscate and prevaricate and procrastinate and misdirect and manipulate and lie your way out of letting Graff and me control the choice and training of the battle commander, then I won’t turn this ship around, ever.
“I’ll just sail on out into oblivion. Our campaign will fail. The Buggers will come back to Earth and they’ll finish the job this time. And I, in this ship, will be the last living human being. But it won’t be my fault. It will be yours, because you did not have the decency and intelligence to step aside and let the people who know how to do the job of saving the human race do it.
“Think about it as long as you want. I’ve got all the time in the world. But keep this in mind: Whoever tries to take control of this situation and set up committees to study your response to this vid—those are the people you need to assign to remote desk jobs and get them out of the IF right now. They are the allies of the Buggers—they’re the ones who will end up getting us all killed. I have already designated the only possible leader for this program: Lieutenant Graff. There’s no compromise. No maneuvering. Make him a captain, give him more actual authority than any other living human, stand ready to do whatever he tells you to do, and let him and me get to work.
“Do I believe you’ll actually do this? No. That’s why I reprogrammed my ship. Just remember that I am the guy who saved the human race, and I did it because I was able to see exactly how the Buggers’ military system worked and find its weak spot. I have also seen how the human military system works, and I know the weak spot, and I know how to fix it. I’ve just told you how. Either you’ll do it or you won’t. Now make your decisions and don’t bother me again unless you’ve made the right one.”
Mazer turned back to the desk and selected save and send.
When he was sure the message was sent, he returned to his sleeping space and let himself think again about Kim and Pai and Pahu, about his grandchildren, about his wife’s new husband and what children they might have. What he did not let himself think about was the possibility of returning to Earth to meet these babies as adults and try to find a place among them as if he were still alive, as if there were anyone left on Earth for him to know and love.
The answer did not come for a full twelve hours. Mazer imagined with amusement the struggles that must be going on. People fighting for their jobs. Filing reports proving that Mazer was insane and therefore should not be listened to. Struggling to neutralize Graff—or suck up to him, or get themselves assigned as his immediate supervisor. Trying to figure out a way to fool Mazer into thinking they had complied without actually having to do it.
The answer, when it came, was from Graff. It was a visual. Mazer was pleased to see that while Graff was, in fact, young, he wore the uniform in a slovenly way that suggested that looking like an officer wasn’t a particularly high priority for him.
He wore a captain’s insignia and a serious expression that was only a split second away from a smile.
“Once again, Admiral Rackham, with only one weapon in your arsenal, you knew right where to aim it.”
“I had two missiles the first time,” said Mazer.
“Do you wish me to record—” began the computer.
“Shut up and continue the message,” growled Mazer.
“You should know that your former wife, Kim Arnsbrach Rackham Summers—and yes, she does keep your name as part of her legal name—was instrumental in making this happen. Because whenever somebody came up with a plan for how to fool you and me into thinking they were in compliance with your orders, I would bring her to the meeting. Whenever they said, ‘We’ll get Admiral Rackham to believe’ some lie or other, she would laugh. And the discussion would pretty much end there.
“I can’t tell you how long it will last, but at this point, the IF seems to be ready to comply fully. You should know that has involved about two hundred early retirements and nearly a thousand reassignments, including forty officers of flag rank. You still know how to blow things up.
“There are things I already know about selection and training, and over the next few years we’ll talk constantly. But I can’t wait to take actions until you and I have conferred on everything, simply because there’s no time to waste and time dilation adds weeks to all our conversations.
“However, if I do something wrong, tell me and I’ll change it. I’ll never tell you that we’ve already done this or that as if that were a reason not to do it the right way after all. I will show you that you have not made a mistake in trusting this to me.
“The thing that puzzles me, though, is how you decided to trust me. My communications to you were full of lies or I couldn’t have written to you at all. I didn’t know you and had no clue how to tell you the truth in a way that would get past the committees that had to approve everything. The worst thing is that in fact I’m very good at the bureaucratic game or I couldn’t have got to the position to communicate directly with you in the first place.
“So let me tell you—now that no one will be censoring my messages—that yes, I think the highest priority is finding the right replacement for you as battle commander of the International Fleet. But once we’ve done that—and I know that’s a big if—I have plans of my own.