A few of his initial appointees had disappointed him in that respect, succumbing to the temptation to regard themselves as the new masters of the Republican Navy, and not as its stewards and servants. Some of them had responded to his subtle promptings and gotten themselves reorganized. Those who hadn't had been quietly but firmly shunted aside into duties which still let him make use of their undeniable talents but took them out of any position to put their imprint on his Navy.
"Tell me," he said, bringing his gaze back to Foraker as she sat in a facing chair, "why do you call Captain Anders 'Five'?"
"Haven't the foggiest," Foraker replied. "I started out calling him William, and he politely but firmly informed me that he preferred 'Five.' I'm not sure where the nickname came from, but I'm guessing it was some disreputable event in his lower-deck past. On the other hand, I don't really care what he wants to be called as long as he goes on doing his job as well as he does."
"I can live with that," Theisman told her with a chuckle. Then he sobered slightly. "You know, much as I loathed and despised the Committee of Public Safety, I have to admit Pierre and his cronies actually accomplished some good. Like the way they eventually managed to turn the economy around for one, and the way they broke the Legislaturalists' stranglehold on the officer corps, for another. Under the old regime, someone like Anders would never have gotten a commission. Which would have been an enormous loss."
Foraker nodded in complete agreement. Anders had been a petty officer with over thirty-five T-years of service when Rob Pierre overthrew the Legislaturalists, but that was as high as he ever would have gone under the old regime, and that truly would have been a loss for the entire Navy. Like Foraker, his childhood experience with the old Legislaturalist educational system had taught him that he was going to have to teach himself anything he really wanted to learn, and that was precisely what he'd done. Unfortunately, he hadn't been a Legislaturalist. In fact, his family had been Dolists, which had made his attainment even of petty officer's rank quite an achievement.
But the destruction of the old Legislaturalist order, coupled with the People's Navy's desperate need for competence, regardless of its sources, had changed all of that. By the time Thomas Theisman shot Saint-Just (assuming that the rumors about the mechanics of the ex-Chairman's demise were as accurate as Foraker strongly suspected they were), PO Anders had become Lieutenant Commander Anders. He might not have gone a lot higher even under Pierre and Saint-Just, though. In fact, he might well have found himself shot by the Committee, instead, because he had a contrary streak at least a meter wide. Somehow, he seemed to lack the admiration for the "People" which had been the magic key to promotion in the brave new world created by people like Rob Pierre and Cordelia Ransom. Personally, Foraker suspected that his contrariness stemmed from the fact that he knew he had overcome the limitations of his childhood and the People's Republic's ramshackle excuse for an educational system to make something out of himself and had nothing but contempt for people who hadn't even made the same attempt.
However that might have been, she was delighted to have him as her chief of staff, and his promotion since the fall of the Committee was amply deserved. In some ways, she regretted pulling him out of his original slot in R&D, because he was one of the best practical engineers in the Navy, if not the entire Republic. Unhappily, she needed him even more where he was, interpreting for the engineers who had to communicate with those less gifted individuals who happened, in this less than perfect universe, to be their superior officers. And, she admitted, she needed him to do the same interpreting for her when she spoke to those engineers' superiors.
Now, if the only people I had to communicate with were the engineering types themselves, she thought, maybe I could get Five back where he belongs. Unfortunately, this is the real world.
"I don't know about the rest of the Navy, Sir," she said after a moment, "but I, for one, am delighted to have him out here."
"I'm delighted to have both of you out here," Theisman told her with simple sincerity. "Lester Tourville told me you were the right woman for Bolthole, and the job you've done only reconfirms my faith in his judgment."
Foraker felt her cheekbones heat, but she managed to meet his regard steadily enough, then glanced up with a hint of relief as Callahan returned with a tray of sandwiches and raw vegetables. He positioned it on a small table between their chairs, poured each of them a cup of coffee, set the coffee carafe beside the sandwiches, and disappeared once more.
"That's someone else I'm delighted to have out here," Foraker said wryly, contemplating the food and drink which had so magically appeared.
"I can't imagine why," Theisman murmured with a small smile, and reached happily for one of the sandwiches. "Ummm... delicious!" he sighed.
"He has a way about him," Foraker agreed, and selected a carrot. She sat back, nibbling politely to keep the Secretary company while he ate, and waited.
It wasn't a long wait. Theisman finished one sandwich and ate half of a second one, then built himself a small plate of celery and carrot sticks with just a little more of the rich bleu cheese dip than he really ought to be eating, and leaned back in his own chair.
"Now that the pangs of starvation have been blunted, I suppose I should get down to the reason for my visit," he said, and his eyes gleamed as Foraker sat up straighter, her expression intent.
"To be perfectly honest," he continued, "one of the reasons I'm here is to do a personal eyeball check of your reports. Not that I have any concerns about their accuracy, but because a part of me just has to see the reality behind them." He shook his head. "I sometimes wonder if you really realize all you've managed to accomplish out here, Shannon."
"I think you can safely assume all of us realize that, Sir," she told him dryly. "At least, we all know we've spent the better part of four T-yearssome of us over fivemore or less in exile while we did it!"
"I know you have, and I expect the entire Navy is going to appreciate it just as much as I do when we finally tell them what you've been doing," he said seriously. "And although I have rather mixed feelings about the timing, it's possible that the rest of the Service is going to begin finding out just a bit sooner than we thought."
"It is?" Foraker's eyes narrowed, and he nodded.
"I know you've been working to my original timetable. And to be candid, I'd really prefer to stick to that timetable. Unfortunately, that may not be possible. And if it isn't, at least you and Captain Anders and the rest of your people have gotten more done in less time then I'd believed would be possible when I first sent you here."
"I'm happy to hear that...mostly, Sir," she said cautiously when he paused. "At the same time, and as much as all of my people deserve to be recognized, we're still well short of the deployment levels you specified when you assigned me here. And while I've gotten the number of building slips up to target levels, we've only laid the first keels in a third of them within the last six months or so."
"Believe me, Shannon, you can't be more aware of that than I am. On the other hand, there are things going on back at Nouveau Paris that may not leave me much choice about accelerating the deployment schedule."
"May I ask what sort of things, Sir?" she inquired even more cautiously, and he snorted.
"Nothing catastrophic!" he reassured her. "Probably not even anything serious...yet, at least. But basically, and for your private information, the President and I are finding ourselves more and more likely to be locking horns with Secretary Giancola. That," his eyes narrowed and his voice turned just a bit crisper, "doesn't leave this day cabin, Shannon."