Executive by Piers Anthony Page B

but that there need be no messenger for the next.”
    “Thank you, Ebony,” I said. I would certainly have to deal with Reba directly—but not until this crisis had been negotiated. “How is your own project going?”
    “There are too many people,” she said simply. “I went to the library and did some reading. We'd be better off with half our present number, but more keep coming in from RedSpot, and more keep being born. But the resources are running out.”
    “Have you a program to deal with this threat?”
    She spread her hands. “Sir, short of a planet-buster war, I don't think anything would work.”
    “Keep working on it,” I told her. “Root out some experts—Shelia can find their names for you—and see what they say. You're one of the common folk; I want to know what you think is best, once you know the full story.”
    “I'd rather just be your gofer,” she said.
    “Think larger,” I advised.
    We opened the QYV package. It was a miniature holo projector that projected the image of a sheet of paper on which was scribbled the military designation of a ship. As a former Navy man, I knew the system, but I didn't recognize the type.
    We summoned the Navy officer and showed him the designation. He squinted at it, puzzled. “That's not one of ours, sir.”
    “It has to be,” I said. “That's a JupeNav designation.”
    He frowned. “I realize that, sir, but I also know our listings. There's no ship by that designation.”
    I got a glimmer of a notion. “How about a sub?”
    “Sir, I wouldn't know about that. All subs are classified.”
    “Precisely. Because their location must be secret at all times, so the enemy cannot take them out by blind fire at the specific coordinates. But this could be one such.”
    “It could, sir,” he agreed, discomfited. Regular Navy personnel did not feel easy about subs, because a sub was a ship-destroyer. In my term in the Navy I had never dealt with a sub. I had, however, had some rather recent experiences with them and fully respected their devious potential.
    “Put out a call, Navy protocol, for that ship to contact the Tyrant,” I said.
    “But sir, without knowledge of its location, a sealed beam communication is impossible!”
    “An open call,” I clarified.
    “But a general call—anybody could read it!” he protested, appalled.
    “Saturn reads our sealed transmissions, too, and deciphers them as fast as we do,” I pointed out. “But how much attention do they pay to unclassified, uncoded calls?”
    “Very little,” he conceded. “It would hardly be feasible to track every open call. There are thousands of routine transmissions every minute. Still—”
    “So an open call may be the most private kind we can make, in practice.”
    “Well, sir, if you look at it that way...” He was obviously distressed.
    “That is the way I look at it,” I agreed.
    He stiffened and saluted. “As you wish, sir.”
    I returned his salute, and he turned stiffly and departed.
    “Sir,” Shelia said.
    “Woman, one of these days I'm going to gag you!” I exclaimed. “You don't even let me have five seconds to relax between crises!”
    “You told me to cut you off at ten o'clock, local time,” she reminded me. “It is that time.”
    Coral came forward. “Day is over, Tyrant. To bed with you.”
    “But that sub—”
    “Won't answer you directly. Those vessels don't keep their locations secret by sending any kind of transmission. It will reach you in its own time and fashion. You can relax.”
    “But there's still so much to—”
    She reached up and caught me by the ear. “Move, Tyrant!”
    Spirit smiled and sent Shelia an end-of-shift signal. I knew that the enforced break was for them as much as for me; we could not afford to run ourselves down to the point of irrationality. I went.
    But the notion of that sub still held me. A sub could take out a ship readily enough, but that would still be an overt act of war. Reba must have had something more