"Let them. There are few enough pleasures in this life without taking away all delusions."
Behind them the computer thunked and was suddenly still.
"This is it," Neel said, and pulled out the tape. He ran it quickly through his fingers, mumbling under his breath. Just once he stopped and set some figures into his hand computer. The result flashed in the window and he stared at it, unmoving.
"Good? Bad? What is it?"
Neel raised his head and his eyes were ten years older.
"Positive. Bad. Much worse than it was when we left Earth."
"How much time do we have?"
"Don't know for certain," Neel shrugged. "I can set it up and get an approximation. But there is no definite point on the scale where war has to break out. Just a going and going until, somewhere along the line—"
"I know. Gone." Costa said, reaching for his gun. He slid it into his side pocket. "Now it's time to stop looking and start doing. What do I do?"
"Going to kill War Marshal Lommeord?" Neel asked distastefully. "I thought we had settled that you can't stop a war by assassinating the top man."