i_

up and lets your people pick him up, that's a pretty bad sign. The Manties' sensors are a lot better than anything you've got—quite a bit better than anything we've got, for that matter, despite the opinions of several of our own senior R and D people that ours are the best in the universe, if our field reps' reports are accurate. We haven't been able to get any of those idiots in the SLN's R and D departments to pay any attention to us, of course. They're all locked into the 'Not Invented Here' automatic rejection reflex. Well," he added with a charming little-boy grin, "that and an equally automatic suspicion that we're only telling them all those tall tales about Manty capabilities to scare them into funneling more money into our R and D programs. Which there might be just a teeny-tiny bit of truth to.
"But my point is, that if you people can pick him up, then it's for damned sure the Manties could."
"Don't doubt you," Hegedusic said with a grin. "But this is still very early days. Hell, he's only had eighteen days to practice, and one thing about Janko, he's always had a pretty steep learning curve. I'm sure he'll manage to sneak tracelessly up on us soon enough, but there's an expensive dinner and an even more expensive bottle of wine riding on how well he does today. So, if it's all the same to you, I'll settle for his surprising hell out of us tomorrow as long as I don't have to feed his greedy face tonight."
"Ah! I hadn't realized the military stakes in today's exercises were quite that weighty. Now, of course, I fully understand."
"Good. And don't worry, I'll let you know as soon as—"
"Excuse me, Admiral."
Hegedusic turned his head at the interruption. A youthful-looking lieutenant stood in the open office hatch.
"Yes, what is it?" the admiral asked, with a trace of irritation at having someone break in on him in a private conversation.
"Admiral, I'm very sorry to disturb you. But we've just picked up a sizable hyper footprint."
"Hyper footprint? Where?"
For just a moment, Hegedusic wondered if it could be Horster. He was supposed to be "sneaking up" on Eroica Station, but Janko believed The Book had been written solely for him to personally ignore.