A murmur rushed through the Council, gaining volume. “We have to approve the war!… We’re committed!…It’s too late to turn back!”
Shouts, angry voices, insistent waves of sound lapped around Margaret Duffe. “I’m as much for the war as anybody,” she said sharply. “I’m only urging moderation. An inter-system war is a big thing. We’re going to war because a machine says we have a statistical chance of winning.”
“There’s no use starting the war unless we can win it,” Reinhart said. “The SRB machines tell us whether we can win.”
“They tell us our chance of winning. They don’t guarantee anything.”
chance“What more can we ask, beside a good chance of winning?”
Margaret Duffe clamped her jaw together tightly. “All right. I hear all the clamor. I won’t stand in the way of Council approval. The
