Benoni nodded and walked around the desk to a large sliding door. This time the sentries checked his full I.D. as did the scan machines, despite the fact that they knew him. The Chairman trusted no one, and even inside Benoni knew he’d be under computer-controlled defense mechanisms that would evaluate his every move and mood and would make their own decisions as to whether or not he was a threat to the Chairman. It wasn’t that Benoni didn’t mind—he just didn’t give a damn.

Max Shumb, Chairman of the Leadership Council of the Democratic Motherworld, was a handsome man in his middle years, the kind of man age helped rather than hurt. He sat behind his huge, U-shaped desk looking over some papers and didn’t immediately acknowledge the colonel’s entrance. Benoni, however, knew just what to do, and took the comfortable chair opposite the desk and waited.

The Chairman looked up at him, nodded, and put down the papers, but he did not smile. “Well, Eric, we were lucky this time.”

Benoni nodded. “But perhaps not next time, and certainly not the time after that.”

Shumb sighed. “You’d think they’d run out of rocks at the rate they send them here.” He stared straight at the officer. “The project isn’t working. They’ve countered you at every turn. If anything, we’re slightly worse off than we were. We have to have the energy you’re bleeding away, Eric.”

“It won’t matter. That’s why you approved the project to begin with. Little by little the defenses break down. Before we began, we had an optimistic estimate that they would be able to invade within nine years at current rates. I have cost you perhaps a year, certainly no more than two. You could not shut down anyway. If they win, it’s the only exit available.”

Shumb did not attempt to rebut the truth. He spent too much of his time doing that as a politician. “I assume you’re here for permission to make another try.”

“We’ve run this through the computers and it looks most promising.