"Forced him?" Edith was puzzled. "The Army can't force the Civil Government—"
"He threatened to do it himself. Intervene and suspend civil rule."
"But I thought only the Navy could do that."
"Any planetary commander of Armed Forces can, in a state of extreme emergency. I think you'll both agree that this emergency is about as extreme as they come. Kovac knew that Maith was unwilling to do it—he'd have to stand court-martial to justify his action—but he also knew that a governor general who has his Colony taken away from him by the Armed Forces never gets it back; he's finished. So it was just a case of the weaker man in the weaker position yielding."
"Where does this put us?"
"We are a civilian scientific project. You are under orders of General Maith. I am under your orders. I don't know about Edith."
"Can I draft her, or do I have to get you to get General Maith to do it?"
"Listen, don't do that," Edith protested. "I still have to work for Government House, and this martial rule won't last forever. They'll all be prejudiced against me—"
"You can shove your Government job on the air lock," Miles told her. "You'll have a better one with Planetwide News, at half again as much pay. And after the shakeup at Government House, about a year from now, you may be going back as director of EETA. When they find out on Terra just how badly this Government has been mismanaging things there'll be a lot of vacancies."
The shoonoon had been watching the fighting in the viewscreens. Then somebody noticed that the spot of light on the navigational globe was approaching a coastline, and they all rushed forward for a look.