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more trouble
than I could handle,” Tarrel reminded him.
    “Yes,
I know that,” Lake agreed. “Those are the chances we have to take. If this
situation is as desperate as I suspect— as you seem to suspect—I would even be
willing to make an alliance with the Starwolves against this new threat.”
    “The
Sector Families are not going to like that.”
    “Perhaps
not,” he agreed. “And they will have to accept certain restrictions upon their
ambitions, to appease the Starwolves. But, if they want to stay in business,
they will just have to accept it. I know how to sell the idea to them, so no
trouble there. I’m speaking to you this candidly now, so that you will understand
my own plans enough to act as my agent when you leave here. You might well find
yourself in the role of diplomat, either with these new attackers or the
Starwolves, and the alliances you make could save or destroy the Union. I want
you to feel free to do whatever it takes.”
    “You
could go with me,” Tarrel pointed out.
    “I
wish I could. The fact is, I’m about to do the Union itself a dirty trick, and
you have to help me. If I try to go, Councilor Debray will want to know why,
and end up replacing me with a professional diplomat. That person will be under
direct orders to guard the Union’s dignity and commercial interests at any
cost, not realizing that the cost would be those very things they want to
protect. There’s more going on here than you know. Things are a lot more
serious.”
    “What
do you mean?” Tarrel asked plainly.
    “No
mention was made of this during the council—most of those idiots don’t even
know yet—but there have been five known attacks just like the one you saw, most
of them worse,” Lake explained. “You just happen to be the first witness to
survive. That’s why I can say with great certainty that the Starwolves probably
are not behind this. Someone is systematically destroying all traffic, all the
stations, even the satellites, every piece of hardware we have in space, system
by system. If Starwolves were resorting to such dire tactics, they would be
trying to force us to surrender before they destroy our spaceflight
capabilities completely. And under those circumstances, they would want us to
know that they were the ones doing this to us.” Tarrel frowned. “I don’t
believe that you were going to tell me all this at first.”
    “I’m
not supposed to. I just don’t see how you can do what I need for you to
accomplish without knowing it. So, will you take the job?”
    Captain
Tarrel looked profoundly surprised. “Oh, I suppose I just didn’t understand. I
didn’t know that I had any options. I thought that this was an order. You know,
the things that you senior officers tell underlings to do and you expect done
no matter what.”
    “I
know about orders. I just want to know that you are devoted to this mission. ”
    “And
what if I say that I don’t want to volunteer?” she asked, but Lake was not
inclined to humor her. She hurried on, “I’ll do it, of course. And you can
trust me to do my best. That’s the only way to bring myself and my crew out of
this alive.”
    “I’ll
have your drones standing by within the next twelve hours. I’ve already sent
crews aboard your ship to repair her damage and make some necessary modifications.
Is there anything special you expect to need?”
    “Can
I get Carthaginian painted before we go out?” “You’re likely to need it more
when you get back.”
    “Then
paint it again,” Tarrel insisted. “I don’t want to present my ship to
Starwolves looking like a tramp.”
    Lake
considered that briefly. “All right, you get your paint.
    Who
knows what might impress Starwolves? They eat prodigiously, and they seem to
like furry little animals and other cute things. People who have talked to them
say that they are never what you would expect, that they can be intelligent,
gentle and in many ways rather innocent. Other than that, I really don’t