He strangled the thought stillborn, understanding-really understanding-at last why GFGHQ had decreed the primacy of Battle Fleet for the duration. And why Andrew Prescott had run the "unwarranted risk" of getting close enough for a detailed evaluation of the Bugs' defenses.

"I never imagined anything like this-certainly not on this scale," he said in a more normal voice, then shook his head irritably. "Oh, I know Old Terra is almost this strongly defended, but that's only a single planet, for God's sake! They've got three of the things, and you have to be right: all of them must be fortified to this extent."

"I wish I weren't right, George," Prescott said quietly, feeling his own initial reaction afresh as he watched Snyder's shocked expression. He glanced across the briefing room table to smile briefly at an ashen-faced Melanie Soo, returned-along with the rest of Concorde's nonessential personnel-from the other ships of the flotilla now that the flagship had rejoined. "And we got a look at a couple of their warp points, too," he added, and nodded to Leopold. The chief of staff touched his own console's controls, and a fresh schematic showed the icon of a warp point surrounded by no less than sixty of those massive OWPs. Snyder swallowed audibly, and the rear admiral gave him a wintry smile. "Both the ones we were able to get into scanner range of had identical fortifications. We were too far out for detail resolution, but I'll lay whatever odds you like that they're mined to a fare-thee-well, too."

"They'd have to be," Snyder agreed almost absently. "It wouldn't make sense even to Bugs to fort up on this scale and not stuff the warp point approaches with mines and energy platforms." He shook his head again, less stunned than before. "Do we actually have anything strong enough to take this place on even with the element of surprise, Admiral?"

It was the Survey specialist asking Battle Fleet for an answer, and Prescott pursed his lips and leaned back in his chair.

"If we don't now, we soon will, I think," he said after a moment. "But only if they do have the element of surprise when they go in. And only if they know there's someplace for them to be going in the first place. But think about this side of it, too, George. The defenses may be tough, but that's because of what they're protecting. I don't care who or what the Bugs are, losing a system like this one-especially after what already happened to Home Hive Three-has got to knock the stuffing out of them!"

"You've got that right, Sir," Snyder murmured, eyes narrow as he came back on stride. "And with all due respect, I suggest we get started taking this news home. Now."

"Or even a little sooner," Prescott agreed, and looked at Leopold. "Josh, please ask Captain Kolontai to have Commander Isakovic put the flotilla on a course for home immediately."

Survey Flotilla 62 was underway within twenty minutes, but the drive's fusion-backed snarl was muted compared to the chatter on the ships' mess decks. The grapevine functioned with its wonted speed, and jubilation was the order of the day.

It was understandable enough, Prescott thought. The full details of what Concorde had found on the far side of the El Dorado warp point were restricted to the flotilla's senior officers. All the rest of their personnel knew was that they'd found what every survey mission had dreamed of finding since the Bugs massacred Commodore Floyd Braun's Twenty-Seventh Survey Flotilla in the opening shot of the war. They spent their off-duty time thinking long and homicidal thoughts about what the assault carriers and the monitors about to enter service would do with the information they'd won, and who could blame them? They hadn't seen the raw ranks of orbital destruction awaiting those monitors and assault carriers.

"Whatever's the matter with you, Andy?" Melanie Soo demanded as she gathered the pinochle cards and began to shuffle.

"What? Oh, nothing. Nothing." He waved a dismissive hand.

" 'Nothing' my caduceus! You missed three easy tricks, and you knew I had the ace of trump, but you sure didn't play it that way!"

"And about time," Kadya Kolontai said with a huge grin. "Josh and I may even break even with you two yet!"

Kolontai's partner, Commander Leopold, grinned back at her. Their ill luck against the team of Soo and Prescott was proverbial.

"Sorry, Melly," Prescott said with a smile. "Just thinking, is all."

"About all the nice medals for El Dorado?" she teased.

"No," the admiral said quietly. "Or, yes, in a way. I'm just hoping we get home to collect them."

"Admiral," Kolontai said with the respectful familiarity of almost two years service as his flag captain, "the Terran Cross is as good as on your chest."

"I'd like to think so, but right now I'd settle for the Plazatoro Award," Prescott replied, and his companions laughed. The Plazatoro Award was the fictitious medal awarded to the officer who ran away the fastest.

"Then ask for it, Sir," Kolontai advised. "After this, the Navy will give you anything you want."

"Wait a minute, Andy," Dr. Soo said, her voice as much that of his chief surgeon as of his friend. "Why the gloom? We've got the data. We're headed home, using only warp points we scouted on the way out, so we won't get lost. Come on, confess. What's eating you badly enough to distract you from a pinochle game?"

"It's an admiral's job to worry, Doctor," Kolontai answered for him. "And at the moment, he's worried we may stub our toe on a Bug battle force at the last minute."

"Isn't that sort of unlikely?"

"Unlikely? Of course." Prescott shook his head. "But it was 'unlikely' that Captain Vargas and Small Claw Maariaah would run into a Bug home hive only two transits from Rehfrak. Or that the Bugs would stumble onto two closed warp points in a row and hit Kliean. Just the fact that these warp lines are new to us and there weren't any Bugs-that we know of-around on the way out doesn't mean there won't be any on the way back. And remember what I told you about their cloaked picket ships. It's remotely possible one of them spotted us on our way through in the first place, you know. Or that one could spot us now if we happen to run through a system they know about."

"But if they knew about any of the systems we've explored, then surely they would have explored them themselves," Soo protested. "And if they'd done that, they'd know about the closed warp point from El Dorado. But they don't, because if they did, they would have fortified it just as heavily as they did everything else in that system!"

"You're undoubtedly correct that they don't know about the closed point," Prescott conceded. "I can't conceive of anyone, even a Bug admiral-if there are Bug admirals-leaving an opening like that for any reason at all. But as I also mentioned to you, Admiral LeBlanc's people have concluded, partly on the basis of information not available to me, that the Bugs simply don't explore as extensively as we do. As I understand the logic, LeBlanc thinks it's a conscious security decision on their part. The further they expand in peacetime, the more risk there is of running into another sentient race-like us. And the more they explore in wartime, the greater the risk that they'll contact the enemy somewhere they don't want to, which seems to be what happened initially at Centauri."

Soo snorted, and Prescott cocked an eyebrow at her.

"I suppose it's inevitable that anything that looks like a Bug would prefer to sit like a spider at the heart of its web until the opposition comes to it," she said sourly, and he gave a brief, mirthless chuckle.