"I may be a hard man to please sometimes," Albrecht retorted, "but you're a disrespectful young whelp, sometimes, aren't you?"

"Isn't that one of my functions?" Benjamin's smile grew a bit broader. "You know, the lowly slave riding in the back of the chariot reminding Caesar he's only mortal while the crowd cheers."

"I wonder how many of those slaves actually survived the experience?" Albrecht wondered aloud.

"Odd how the history chips don't offer much information on that particular aspect of things," Benjamin agreed. Then his smile faded. "Seriously, though, Father, at this distance and this remove from Lovat it's hard to form any significant or meaningful opinion of what they've done this time." Albrecht grunted in semi-irate acknowledgment of Benjamin's point. Even with streak-drive dispatch boats, there was a limit to how quickly information could get around. And to be honest, they were overusing the Beowulf conduit, as far as he was concerned. He knew there was nothing to distinguish a streak-drive equipped vessel from any other dispatch boat as far as any external examination was concerned, but he didn't like sending them back and forth between Mesa and Manticore any more frequently than he had to. Beowulf had closed its terminus of the Manticore Wormhole Junction to all Mesan traffic from the day of its discovery, with Manticore's complete support and approval. None of the dispatch boats of the Beowulf conduit were Mesan-registered, of course, but there was always the unhappy possibility that Beowulfan or Manticoran intelligence might manage to penetrate that particular deception. It was unlikely in the extreme, but the Alignment had developed a wary respect for both Beowulf's and Manticore's analysts over the decades.

But there's not really any choice, he told himself. It's only sixty light-years from Beowulf to Mesa via the Visigoth Wormhole. That's only five days for a streak boat. We can't possibly justify not using that advantage at a time like this, so I guess I'll just have to hope the wheels don't come off . If he'd been the sort of man who believed in God, Albrecht Detweiler would have spent a few moments in fervent prayer that the wheels in question would remain firmly attached to the vehicle. Since he wasn't that sort of man, he only shook his head.

"One thing we do know is that Harrington just shot the shit out of another Havenite ambush attempt, though," he pointed out.

"Yes, we do," Benjamin agreed. "But we don't have any hard and fast numbers on the two sides' force levels, either. We think she was significantly outnumbered, but it's not exactly like the Manties' press releases are going to give out detailed strength reports on Eighth Fleet, now is it? And despite Collin's and Bardasano's best efforts, we still haven't been able to get anyone far enough inside the Manties' navy to give us that kind of information."

"That's all true enough, Ben," Daniel said. "On the other hand, there are a few straws in the wind. For example, it sounds like they've managed to improve the accuracy of their MDMs by a hell of a lot. And I'm inclined to think—mind you, I haven't had a chance yet for any sort of rigorous analysis of what information we do have—that the Havenites' missile defenses' effectiveness must've been reduced rather significantly, as well. Unless Harrington was reinforced a lot more powerfully than any of our admittedly limited sources have suggested, then the Manties' announced kills represent an awfully high ratio for the number of hulls they could have committed to the operation."

"I'd have to agree with that," Benjamin conceded. "Do you or your people have any idea about just how they might have accomplished that, though?"

Just as Everett Detweiler was the ultimate director of all of the Alignment's biosciences research and development, Daniel was the director of non-bioscience R&D, which meant he and Benjamin normally worked very closely together.

"I can only speculate," Daniel replied, looking at his brother, and Benjamin nodded in acknowledgment of the caveat. "Having said that, however," Daniel continued, "I'd have to say this sounds an awful lot like it's another example of their damned FTL capability."

He grimaced sourly. He felt fairly confident that his research people had finally figured out essentially what Manticore was doing, but duplicating the ability to create grav-pulses along the hyper-space alpha wall in anything but the crudest possible fashion wasn't a particularly simple proposition. It was going to take a lot of basic research to figure out how they were doing it, and even longer to duplicate their hardware, given that the Alignment, unlike the Republic of Haven, hadn't been able to lay its hands on any working examples of the technology.

And even the frigging Havenites can't begin to do it as well as the Manties can . . . yet, at least, he reminded himself once again.

"If I'm right about what they're doing, it's the next logical extension of what they've already accomplished, in a lot of ways," he said out loud. "We know they've got FTL-capable reconnaissance drones, so theoretically there isn't any reason they couldn't eventually cram the same capability into something the size of an MDM."

"Come on, Daniel!" Benjamin protested. "There's a hell of a size difference between a reconnaissance drone and even one of their big-assed missiles! And most missiles I know anything about are already crammed just about as full as they can be with other absolutely essential bits. Where would they put the damned thing?"

"I did say it was theoretically possible," Daniel pointed out mildly. " We couldn't do it, I'm pretty sure, even if we were certain how they were managing it in the first place. Not yet. But that's the significant point here, Ben— not yet. They've been using this thing for over twenty T-years, and they thought it up, in the first place. That means they know how to do it better than anyone else does, and it's obvious from the hardware they've deployed that they've been progressively downsizing the volume and mass constraints—and upsizing bandwidth—steadily. If I had to guess, I'd say that what they've probably done is to somehow squeeze an FTL receiver into a standard MDM. If they were to deploy one of their drones close enough to the target—and we know their stealth systems are probably as good as our own, if not better—then they'd have an effective FTL command and control loop. That would probably help to explain not only the increased accuracy, but also the apparent decrease in the effectiveness of the Havenites' defenses, as well. It would let the Manties manage their attack profiles and penetration EW on something a lot closer to a real-time basis than anyone has been able to manage since they started pushing missile ranges up in the first place."

"Does that sound reasonable to you, Ben?" Albrecht asked after a long, thoughtful moment, and Benjamin nodded. It was evident from his expression that he didn't much care for his brother's hypothesis, but he nodded.

"If Dan is right, though, then this constitutes a major— another major—shift in the balance of military capabilities, Father," he said. "Unless my staff's analysis of the two sides' overall relative ship strengths is way off, I don't think there's any way Haven is going to have enough of a numerical advantage to take Manticore out. Not if the Manties are able to get this thing into general deployment, at any rate. And once they do have it into general deployment, and their new construction programs start delivering, they're going to make what White Haven did to the Havenites in the last war look like a squabble at a kids' picnic."

"And even if Haven somehow manages to survive, it's only going to mean both of them are going to develop this capability—or at least its rough equivalent," Albrecht observed sourly.

"I'd say that follows logically, Father," Daniel agreed. "Haven comes closest to matching the Manties'

capabilities already. Their education system sucks, but they're fixing that. In fact, let's be fair, the main thing that was wrong with it to begin with wasn't that they didn't have at least a core cadre of competent teachers and scientists. It was that the Legislaturalists had managed to hobble the general system with so much political indoctrination and water it down with so much 'feel-good' insistence on passing students regardless of their actual academic achievements, that the ratio of competent researchers to useless drones was so far lower than Manticore's. Research priorities tended to be assigned on the basis of who the researchers' patrons were, rather than any impartial analysis of potential benefits, too. And the fact that they'd made so little investment in basic infrastructure improvement meant even the competent researchers they had didn't have the resources or the sophisticated industrial platform Manticore, had, either, regardless of who their patrons might've been. But they always had a bigger talent pool than most people would have thought looking at what they managed to accomplish, and whoever's running their R

and D now is obviously making the best possible use of the pool they have.

"Not only that, but they're the only ones who really have access to firsthand sensor readouts and observational data, not to mention captured hardware to examine. And let's not forget the old saying about the man about to be hanged. They have a considerably more pressing motivation to figure out what the Manties are up to, or at least how to counter whatever they're up to, even than we do. So either they're going to figure out how to do this—or something like it—on their own, or else they're going to get plowed under, like Ben says. And if Manticore doesn't completely disarm them, then they're going to do exactly what they did after the last war and go away and think about it until they have figured out how to do it. We'd probably have at least a few more years before they managed that, under that scenario, but that would be about it."

"Don't you think the Manties would insist on their complete disarmament this time, given what happened last time?" Albrecht asked.

"I think I would, in their place," Benjamin said before Daniel could answer. "On the other hand, let's say they do make that demand. Do you really think even Manticore could ultimately keep Haven from managing a secret rearmament program somewhere? I'm not talking about the short term. But as time passed, I'm sure someone who's already figured out how to build a completely secret shipyard complex and R and D center once could figure out how to do it again. It would still be the best-case scenario from our perspective, though, since I don't think it's very likely Haven could manage to pull it off before we were ready. And I imagine Manticore would probably accept at least a modest build-down in its own active wallers once it had disarmed Haven."

"Against which, they'd have the countervailing pressure to maintain fleet strength if this expansion of theirs into Talbott and Silesia prospers," Albrecht observed.

"Probably." Benjamin shrugged. "The problem is that all we can do at this point is speculate, and we don't have enough information—or enough penetration, especially of the Manties, to get enough information—to base any sort of solid projections on."

"Assume Daniel's hypothesis is accurate," Albrecht said. "On that basis, does this represent a significant threat to Oyster Bay?"

"No," Benjamin said promptly. "It's not range or fire control that could hurt us where Oyster Bay itself is concerned, Father, and there's absolutely no evidence that anyone else anywhere, even the Manties, has remotely considered the possibility of the spider. If they don't know about it, then the odds of their ever even seeing Oyster Bay are virtually nil. If they do find out about the spider, though, and if they have time to develop some sort of countermeasure, then this could be a major problem for us in any period of sustained warfare."

"So our real best-case scenario would be to see the Manties finished off before they get it into general deployment," Albrecht mused.

"Yes, it would," Benjamin agreed, looking at him a bit warily.

"Could you expedite Oyster Bay?"

"Not significantly, Father." Benjamin shook his head with the expression of a man who'd heard pretty much what he'd been afraid he was going to hear. "The spider is an entirely new technology. Daniel and I think we've gotten all of the bugs out of it, but like I told you before, we're still prototyping. Technically, I suppose, the Sharks are warships, but their primary function's always been to serve as testbeds and training vessels, not strike units. I don't see any way we could produce enough of the new hardware to carry out Oyster Bay much sooner than we've already been projecting."

"I see." Albrecht's expression was enough like Benjamin's to make it obvious he'd expected that response, and it was his turn to shrug. "In that case, I think this whole Lovat business gives rather more point to the desirability of remounting the Monica operation, covered by an appropriately new lambskin, as soon as we can, doesn't it?"

Chapter Twenty

"You wanted to see me, Albrecht?"

Albrecht Detweiler turned from his contemplation of the panorama of sugar-white beaches beyond his luxurious officer's windows as the dark-haired, boldly tattooed woman stepped through its door.

"Yes, I believe I did," he observed, and tilted one hand to indicate one of the chairs in front of his desk. Isabel Bardasano obeyed the wordless command, sitting with a certain almost dangerous grace and crossing her legs as he walked back from the windows to his own chair. Her expression was attentive, and he reflected once again upon the lethality behind her . . . ornamented façade. Bardasano belonged to one of Mesa's "young lodges," which explained the tattoos and the elaborate body piercings. The young lodges represented a "new generation" of the Mesan corporate hierarchy, one which had embraced a deliberately flamboyant lifestyle, flaunting its wealth and power under the nose of a virtuously disapproving galaxy. Very few members of any of the lodges had been admitted to the full truth of Mesa's plans, for several reasons. The largest one was that the wealth, sense of privilege, and arrogance which underlay their flamboyance had been deliberately encouraged as one more sign of Manpower and its fellow outlaw corporations' excesses and general degeneracy. It had been more necessary than ever to distract attention from the Alignment's activities now that the culminating moment was so rapidly approaching, and the "young lodges" had done that quite well. Of course, their members'

lifestyles had also made them rather more vulnerable to the activities of the Audubon Ballroom's assassins. That was unfortunate, but all the genotypes in question had been conserved elsewhere, and it had been well worth the price tag in terms of misdirection. And if it also convinced the rest of the galaxy that Mesa at large was increasingly dominated by hedonistic sybarites and useless drones, so much the better.

But some of those "hedonistic sybarites" were anything but useless drones, and Bardasano was a prime example. In fact, she was the prime example. The Bardasano genotype had been notable for at least half a dozen generations for its intelligence and ruthless determination. There'd been a few unfortunate and unintended traits, as well, unhappily, and at one point there'd been serious consideration of simply culling the line's last several iterations and starting over again from a significantly earlier point. The positive traits had been so strong, however, that a remedial program had been instituted, instead, and Isabel was the current example of how successful it had been. It had been necessary to eliminate two of her immediate predecessors when their inherent ruthlessness had made them just a bit too ambitious for anyone else's good, but intelligent ambition, properly tempered, was always a useful thing, as Bardasano herself demonstrated. And if there was still a slight tendency towards sexual disorders and mildly sociopathic behaviors, neither of those posed any serious handicap, especially for someone whose area of expertise was covert operations. Of course, they'd have to be dealt with in the next generation or two if the Bardasano line was going to earn back permanent alpha status within the Alignment, which Isabel understood.

In the meantime, however, she was quite possibly the best covert ops specialist the Alignment had produced in at least the last T-century. It amused Detweiler that those outside the Alignment's innermost circle often cherished doubts about Bardasano's sanity, particularly when it came to her attitude towards him. The fact that it was well known within Mesa's star lines that the Bardasanos had almost been culled meant that her apparent insouciance with him only added to her reputation for . . . oddness, and provided a valuable extra level of protection when he or one of his sons called upon her services. As he gazed at her across the desk, he toyed once more with the notion of telling her that a cross between the Bardasano and Detweiler genotypes was even then being evaluated, but decided against it. For now, at least.

"Well," he said, tipping back slightly in his chair, "I'd have to say that so far, at least, removing Webster—and, of course, Operation Rat Poison—seems to be working out quite well. Aside from whatever new weapons goody the Manties seem to have come up with."

"So far," she agreed, but there was the merest hint of a reservation in her tone, and his eyebrows arched.

"Something about it concerns you?"

"Yes, and no," she replied.

He waggled his fingers in a silent command to continue, and she shrugged.

"So far, and in the short term, it's had exactly the effect we wanted," she said. "I'm not talking about whatever they did at Lovat, you understand. That's outside my area of expertise, and I'm sure Benjamin and Daniel already have their people working on that full time. If either of them needs my help, I'm sure they'll tell me so, as well. But leaving that aside, it does look like we got what we wanted out of the assassinations. The Manties—or, at least, a sufficient majority of them—are convinced Haven was behind it; the summit's been derailed; and it looks as if we've managed to deepen Elizabeth's distrust of Pritchart even further. I'm just not entirely happy with the fact that we had to mount both operations in such a relatively tight time frame. I don't like improvisation, Albrecht. Careful analysis and thorough preparation have served us entirely too well for entirely too long for me to be happy flying by the seat of my pants, whatever the others on the Strategy Council may think."

"Point taken," Detweiler acknowledged. "And it's a valid point, too. Benjamin, Collin, and I have been discussing very much the same considerations. Unfortunately, we've come to the conclusion that we're going to have to do more and more of it, not less, as we move into the end game phase. You know that's always been part of our projections."

"Of course. That doesn't make me any happier when it's forced upon us, though. And I really don't want us to get into a make-it-up-as-we-go-along mindset just because we're moving into the end game. The two laws I try hardest to bear in mind are the law of unintended consequences and Murphy's, Albrecht. And, let's face it, there are some fairly significant potential unintended consequences to eliminating Webster and attacking 'Queen Berry.' "

"There usually are at least some of those," Detweiler pointed out. "Are there specific concerns in this case?"

"Actually, there are a couple of things that worry me," she admitted, and his eyes narrowed. He'd learned, over the years, to trust Bardasano's internal radar. She was wrong sometimes, but at least whenever she had reservations she was willing to go out on a limb and admit it, rather than pretending she thought everything was just fine. And if she was sometimes wrong, she was right far more often.

"Tell me."

"First and foremost," she responded, "I'm still worried about someone's figuring out how we're doing it and tracing it back to us. I know no one's come close to finding the proverbial smoking gun yet . . . so far as we know, at any rate. But the Manties are a lot better at bioscience than the Andermani or Haven. Worse, they've got ready access to Beowulf."

Detweiler's jaw tightened in an involuntary, almost Pavlovian response to that name. The automatic spike of anger it provoked was the next best thing to instinctual, and he reminded himself yet again of the dangers of allowing it to affect his thinking.

"I doubt even Beowulf will be able to put it together quickly," he said after a moment. "I don't doubt they could eventually, with enough data. They certainly have the capability, at any rate, but given how quickly the nanites break down, it's extremely unlikely they're going to have access to any of the cadavers in a short enough timeframe to determine anything definitive. All of Everett's and Kyprianou's studies and simulations point in that direction. Obviously, it's a concern we have to bear in mind, but we can't allow that possibility to scare us into refusing to use a capability we need."

"I'm not saying we should, only pointing out a potential danger. And, to be frank, I'm less worried about some medical examiner's figuring it out forensically than I am about someone reaching the same conclusion—that it's a bioweapon and that we're the ones who developed it—by following up other avenues."

"What sort of 'other avenues'?" he asked, eyes narrowing once again.

"According to our current reports, Elizabeth herself and most of Grantville's government, not to mention the Manty in the street, are absolutely convinced it was Haven. Most of them seem to share Elizabeth's theory that for some unknown reason Pritchart decided her initial proposal for a summit had been a mistake. None of them have any convincing explanation for what that 'unknown reason' might have been, however. And some of them—particularly White Haven and Harrington—don't seem very convinced it was Haven at all. Since the High Ridge collapse, we no longer have enough penetration to absolutely confirm something like that, unfortunately, but the sources we still do have all point in that direction. Please bear in mind, of course, that it takes time for information from our best surviving sources to reach us. It's not like we can ask the newsies about these things the way we can clip stories about military operations like Lovat, for example. At this point, and even using dispatch boats with streak capability on the Beowulf conduit, we're still talking about very preliminary reports."

"Understood. Go on."

"What concerns me most," she continued with a slight shrug, "is that once Elizabeth's immediate response has had a little time to cool, White Haven and Harrington are still two of the people whose judgment she most trusts. I think both of them are too smart to push her too hard on this particular issue at this moment, but neither of them is especially susceptible to spouting the party line if they don't actually share it, either. And despite the way her political opponents sometimes caricature Elizabeth, she's a very smart woman in her own right. So if two people whose judgment she trusts are quietly but stubbornly convinced that there's more going on here than everyone else has assumed, she's just likely to be more open-minded where that possibility is concerned than even she realizes she is.

"What else concerns me is that there are two possible alternative scenarios for who was actually responsible for both attacks. One, of course, is that it was us—or, at least, Manpower. The second is that it was, in fact, a Havenite operation, but not one sanctioned by Pritchart or anyone in her administration. In other words, that it was mounted by a rogue element within the Republic which is opposed to ending the war.

"Of the two, the second is probably the more likely . . . and the less dangerous from our perspective. Mind you, it would be bad enough if someone could convince Elizabeth and Grantville that Pritchart's offer had been genuine and that sinister and evil elements—possibly throwbacks to the bad old days of State Security—decided to sabotage it. Even if that turned around Elizabeth's position on a summit, it wouldn't lead anyone directly to us, though. And it's not going to happen overnight, either. My best guess is that even if someone suggested that theory to Elizabeth today—for that matter, someone may already have done just that—it would still take weeks, probably months, for it to reach the point of changing her mind. And now that they've resumed operations, the momentum of fresh casualties and infrastructure damage is going to be strongly against any effort to resurrect the original summit agreement even if she does change her mind.

"The first possibility, however, worries me more, although I'll admit it would appear to be a lower order probability, so far, at least. At the moment, the fact that they're convinced they're looking at a Havenite assassination technique is diverting attention from us and all of the reasons we might have for killing Webster or Berry Zilwicki. But if someone manages to demonstrate that there has to be an undetectable bio-nanite component to how the assassins are managing these 'adjustments,' the immediate corollary to that is going to be a matching suspicion that even if Haven is using the technique, it didn't develop the technique. The Republic simply doesn't have the capability to put something like this together for itself, and no one as smart as Patricia Givens is going to believe for a moment that it does. And that, Albrecht, is going to get that same smart person started thinking about who did develop it. It could have come from any of several places, but as soon as anyone starts thinking in that direction, the two names that are going to pop to the top of their list are Mesa and Beowulf, and I don't think anyone is going to think those sanctimonious bastards on Beowulf would be making something like this available. In which case Manpower's reputation is likely to bite us on the ass. And the fact that both the Manties and the Havenites' intelligence services are aware of the fact that 'Manpower' has been recruiting ex-StateSec elements is likely to suggest the possibility of a connection between us and some other StateSec element, possibly hiding in the underbrush of the current Republic. Which is entirely too close to the truth to make me feel particularly happy.

"That could be bad enough. If they reach that point, however, they may very well be willing to go a step further. If we're supplying the technology to some rogue element in Haven, then what would keep us from using it ourselves? And if they ask themselves that question, then all of the motives we might have—all of the motives they already know about because of Manpower, even without the additional ones we actually do have—are going to spring to their attention."

Detweiler swung his chair gently from side to side for several seconds, considering what she'd said, then grimaced.

"I can't disagree with the downsides of either of your scenarios, Isabel. Still, I think it comes under the heading of what I said earlier—the fact that we can't allow worry about things which may never happen to prevent us from using necessary techniques where we have to. And as you've just pointed out, the probability of anyone deciding it was us—or, at least, that it was us acting for ourselves, rather than simply a case of Haven's contracting out the 'wet work' to a third-party—is low."

"Low isn't the same thing as nonexistent," Bardasano countered. "And something else that concerns me is that I have an unconfirmed report Zilwicki and Cachat visited Harrington aboard her flagship at Trevor's Star."

"Visited Harrington?" Detweiler said a bit more sharply, letting his chair come upright. "Why is this the first I'm hearing about this?"

"Because the report came in on the same streak boat that confirmed Elizabeth's cancellation of the summit," she said calmly. "I'm still working my way through everything that was downloaded from it, and the reason I requested this meeting, frankly, has to do with the possibility that the two of them actually did meet with her."

"At Trevor's Star?" Detweiler's tone was that of a man repeating what she'd said for emphasis, not dubiously or in denial, and she nodded.

"As I say, it's an unconfirmed report. I really don't know how much credibility to assign it at this point. But if it's accurate, Zilwicki took his frigate to Trevor's Star, with Cachat—a known Havenite spy, for God's sake!—on board, which would mean they were allowed transit through the wormhole—and into close proximity to Harrington's fleet units—despite the fact that the entire system's been declared a closed military area by Manticore, with 'Shoot on Sight' orders plastered all over the shipping channels and newsfaxes and nailed up on every flat surface of the Trevor's Star terminus' warehousing and service platforms. Not to mention the warning buoys posted all around the system perimeter for any through traffic stupid enough to head in-system from the terminus! And it would also appear that Harrington not only met with Cachat but allowed him to leave, afterward. Which suggests to me that she gave fairly strong credence to whatever it was they had to say to her. And, frankly, I can't think of anything the two of them might have to say to her that we'd like for her to hear." Detweiler snorted harshly in agreement.

"You're right about that," he said. "On the other hand, I'm sure you have at least a theory about the specific reasons for their visit. So be a fly on her bulkhead and tell me what they probably said to her."

"My guess would be that the main point they wanted to make was that Cachat hadn't ordered Rat Poison. Or, at least, that neither he nor any of his operatives had carried it out. And if he was willing to confirm his own status as Trajan's man in Erewhon, the fact that he hadn't carried it out—assuming she believed him—would clearly be significant. And, unfortunately, there's every reason to think she would believe him if he spoke to her face to face."

Detweiler throttled another, possibly even sharper spike of anger. He knew what Bardasano was getting it. Wilhelm Trajan was Pritchart's handpicked director for the Republic's Foreign Intelligence Service. He didn't have the positive genius for improvisational covert operations that Kevin Usher possessed, but Pritchart had decided she needed Usher for the Federal Investigation Agency. And whatever else might have been true about Trajan, his loyalty to the Constitution and Eloise Pritchart—in that order—was absolute. He'd been relentless in his efforts to purge FIS of any lingering StateSec elements, and there was no way in the world he would have mounted a rogue operation outside channels. Which meant the only way Rat Poison could have been mounted without Cachat knowing all about it would have been as a rogue operation originating at a much lower level and using an entirely different set of resources. That was bad enough, but the real spark for his anger was Bardasano's indirect reference to the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned treecats of Sphinx. For such small, fuzzy, outwardly lovable creatures, they had managed to thoroughly screw over altogether too many covert operations—Havenite and Mesan alike—over the years. Especially in partnership with that bitch Harrington. If Cachat had gotten into voice range of Harrington, that accursed treecat of hers would know whether or not he was telling the truth.

"When did this conversation take place, according to your 'unconfirmed report'?"

"About a T-week after Elizabeth fired off her note. The report about it came from one of our more carefully protected sources, though, which means there was even more delay than usual in getting it to us. One of the reasons it's still unconfirmed is that there was barely time for it to catch the regular intel drop."

"So there was time for Harrington to go and repeat whatever they told her to Elizabeth or Grantville even before she headed out for Lovat, without our knowing anything about it."

"Yes." Bardasano shrugged. "Frankly, I don't think there's very much chance of Elizabeth or Grantville buying Haven's innocence, no matter what Cachat may have told Harrington. All he can tell them is that as far as he knows Haven didn't do it, after all, and even if they accept that he was telling her the truth in so far as he knew it, that wouldn't mean he was right. Even if he's convinced Harrington he truly believes Haven didn't do it, that's only his personal opinion . . . and it's damned hard to prove a negative without at least some outside evidence to back it up. So I strongly doubt that anything they may have said to her, or that she may have repeated to anyone else, is going to prevent the resumption of operations. And, as I said before, now that blood's started getting shed again, the war is going to take on its own momentum all over again, as well.

"What worries me quite a bit more than what Zilwicki and Cachat may have told Harrington, frankly, is that we don't know where they went after they left her. We've always known they're both competent operators, and they've shown an impressive ability to analyze any information they get their hands on. Admittedly, that's hurt us worse tactically than strategically so far, and there's no evidence—yet—that they've actually begun peeling the onion. But if Cachat is combining Haven's sources with what Zilwicki is getting from the Ballroom, I'd say they're more likely than anyone else to start putting inconvenient bits and pieces together. Especially after they start looking really closely at Rat Poison and how it could have happened if Haven didn't do it. Working on their own, they can't call on the organizational infrastructure Givens or Trajan have access to, but they've got plenty of ability, plenty of motivation, and entirely too many sources."

"And the last thing we need is for those Ballroom lunatics to realize we've been using them for the better part of a century and a half," Detweiler growled.

"I don't know if it's absolutely the last thing we need, but it would definitely be on my list of the top half-dozen or so things we'd really like not to happen," Bardasano said with a sour smile, and, despite himself, Detweiler chuckled harshly.

The gusto with which the Audubon Ballroom had gone after Manpower and all its works had been one more element, albeit an unknowing and involuntary one, in camouflaging the Alignment's true activities and objectives. The fact that at least some of Manpower's senior executives were members of at least the Alignment's outer circle meant one or two of the Ballroom's assassinations had hurt them fairly badly over the years. Most of those slaughtered by the vengeful ex-slaves, however, were little more than readily dispensed with red herrings, an outer layer of "the onion" no one would really miss, and the bloody warfare between the "outlaw corporation" and its "terrorist" opposition had helped focus attention on the general mayhem and divert it away from what was really going on.

Yet useful as that had been, it had also been a two-edged sword. Since all but a very tiny percentage of Manpower's organization was unaware of any deeper hidden purpose, the chance that the Ballroom would become aware of it was slight. But the possibility had always existed, and no one who had watched the Ballroom penetrate Manpower's security time and time again would ever underestimate just how dangerous people like Jeremy X and his murderous henchmen could prove if they ever figured out what was truly going on and decided to change their target selection criteria. And if Zilwicki and Cachat actually were moving towards putting things together . . .

"How likely do you really think it is that the two of them could pull enough together to compromise things at this stage?" he asked finally.

"I doubt anyone could possibly answer that question. Not in any meaningful way, at any rate," Bardasano admitted. "The possibility always exists, though, Albrecht. We've buried things as deeply as we can, we've put together cover organizations and fronts, and we've done everything we can to build in multiple layers of diversion. But the bottom line is that we've always relied most heavily on the fact that

'everyone knows' what Manpower is and what it wants. I'd have to say the odds are heavily against even Zilwicki and Cachat figuring out that what 'everyone knows' is a complete fabrication, especially after we've had so long to put everything in place. It is possible, however, and I think—as I've said—that if anyone can do it, the two of them would be the most likely to pull it off."

"And we don't know where they are at the moment?"

"It's a big galaxy," Bardasano pointed out. "We know where they were two T-weeks ago. I can mobilize our assets to look for them, and we could certainly use all of our Manpower sources for this one without rousing any particular suspicion. But you know as well as I do that what that really amounts to is waiting in place until they wander into our sights."

Detweiler grimaced again. Unfortunately, she was right, and he did know it.

"All right," he said, "I want them found. I recognize the limitations we're facing, but find them as quickly as you can. When you do, eliminate them."

"That's more easily said than done. As Manpower's attack on Montaigne's mansion demonstrates."

"That was Manpower, not us," Detweiler riposted, and it was Bardasano's turn to nod. One of the problems with using Manpower as a mask was that too many of Manpower's executives had no more idea than the rest of the galaxy that anyone was using them. Which meant it was also necessary to give those same executives a loose rein in order to keep them unaware of that inconvenient little truth . . . which could produce operations like that fiasco in Chicago or the attack on Catherine Montaigne's mansion on Manticore. Fortunately, even operations which were utter disasters from Manpower's perspective seldom impinged directly on the Alignment's objectives. And the occasional Manpower catastrophe helped contribute to the galaxy at large's notion of Mesan clumsiness.

"If we find them, this time it won't be Manpower flailing around on its own," Detweiler continued grimly.

"It will be us— you. And I want this given the highest priority, Isabel. In fact, the two of us need to sit down and discuss this with Benjamin. He's got at least a few spider units available now—he's been using them to train crews and conduct working up exercises and systems evaluations. Given what you've just said, I think it might be worthwhile to deploy one of them to Verdant Vista. The entire galaxy knows about that damned frigate of Zilwicki's. I think it might be time to arrange a little untraceable accident for it."

Bardasano's eyes widened slightly, and she seemed for a moment to hover on the brink of a protest. But then she visibly thought better of it. Not, Detweiler felt confident, because she was afraid to argue the point if she thought he was wrong or that he was running unjustifiable risks. One of the things that made her so valuable was the fact that she'd never been a yes-woman. If she did disagree with him, she'd get around to telling him so before the operation was mounted. But she'd also take time to think about it first, to be certain in her own mind of what she thought before she engaged her mouth. Which was another of the things that made her so valuable to him.

And I don't doubt she'll talk it over with Benjamin, too, he thought sardonically. If she has any reservations, she'll want to run them past him to get a second viewpoint on them. And, of course, so the two of them can double-team me more effectively if it turns out they agree with one another .

Which was just fine with Albrecht Detweiler, when all was said and done. The one thing he wasn't was convinced of his own infallibility, after all.

"All right," he said aloud, leaning back again with the air of the man shifting mental gears. "Something else I wanted to ask you about is Anisimovna."

"What about her?" Bardasano's tone might have turned just a tiny bit cautious, and she cocked her head to one side, watching Detweiler's expression intently.

"I'm not about to change my mind and have her eliminated, if that's what you're worrying about, Isabel," he said dryly.

"I wouldn't say I was exactly worried about it," she replied. "I do think doing that would be wasting a very useful asset, though, and as I said before, I don't think anything that happened in Talbott was her fault any more than it was mine. In fact, given the amount of information I had and she didn't, it was almost certainly more my fault than hers."

Bardasano, Detweiler reflected, was one of the very few people, even inside the Alignment's innermost circle, who would have made that last admission to him. Which was yet another of the things that made her so valuable.

"As I say, I'm not about to have her eliminated," he said. "What you've just said goes a fair way towards answering the question I was going to ask, though, I think. Which is—do you think it's time to bring her all the way inside? Is she a sufficiently 'useful asset' to be made a full member of the Alignment?"

"Um."

It wasn't often Detweiler saw Bardasano hesitate. Nor was that actually what he was seeing in this case, he realized. It wasn't so much hesitation as surprise.

"I think, maybe, yes," she said finally, slowly, her eyes narrowed in thought. "Her genome is an Alpha line, and she already knows more than most people who aren't full members. The only real concern I'd have about nominating her for full membership—and it's a minor one—would be that she's got a little more highly developed sense of superiority than I'd really like to see." Detweiler arched an eyebrow, and she shrugged.

"It's not just her, Albrecht. In fact, I'd say I was a lot more concerned about someone like Sandusky than I am about Aldona. The thing is that quite a few of us—including some who are already full members—have a tendency, I think, to automatically assume their superiority in any matchup with any normal. That's dangerous, especially if the 'normal' is someone like Zilwicki or Cachat—or, for that matter, Harrington, although, given her pedigree on her father's side, I suppose she's not actually a normal herself, wherever her loyalties might lie. It's also something I have to guard against in myself, however, and in Aldona's case, I think it's probably exacerbated by the fact that she isn't already a full member . . . and she thinks she is. Based solely on what she and the other members of the Strategy Council who aren't full members know, or think they know, about the stakes we're really playing for, most of her sense of superiority would be survivable. And she's certainly smart enough to understand what's really going on—and why—if you decide to tell her. So, if she does come all the way inside, I think we could probably count on knocking most of that . . . smugness out of her in fairly short order. May I ask why the question's arisen at this particular time?"

"In light of the implications of what happened at Lovat, I'm thinking about trying to resurrect the Monica operation using a different proxy," Detweiler replied. "And given the way we got our fingers burned last time, I want whoever is in charge of it this time around to know what we're really trying to accomplish."

" I knew what we were really trying to accomplish last time," Bardasano pointed out.

"Yes, you did. But one of the things which is such a useful part of your cover is your relative lack of official seniority outside the Alignment itself. That's why Anisimovna had primary responsibility, as far as the Strategy Council was concerned, at least, last time. And it's also one reason I couldn't send you back out to handle this solo this time around. There are other reasons, however, including the fact that I want you close to home to monitor the situation between Manticore and Haven. And to deal with Cachat and Zilwicki, if we can locate them. I don't want you out of reach if I need you, and there's a limit to how much we can send streakers zipping around the galaxy without someone starting to notice that our mail seems to get delivered just a little quicker than anyone else's."

"I see."

Bardasano leaned back in her chair, obviously thinking hard, then drew a deep breath.

"On that basis, I would definitely recommend bringing Aldona fully inside. Although I also think it would be a good idea to think things over very carefully before we decide whether or not we want to 'resurrect'

Monica. And to consider it in light of the concerns I've already expressed about flying by the seat of our pants."

"Granted," he agreed. "And I'm not saying I've firmly decided one way or the other. I'm still thinking about it. However, if we did decide to take this approach, it wouldn't be quite as improvisational as it might first appear, since we could use a lot of the spadework from the Monica operation. Oh," he waved one hand like a man swatting at a gnat, "not in Monica itself, obviously. But in Meyers, and with Crandall."

Bardasano frowned slightly, then nodded.

"Use Crandall to motivate Verrochio, you mean?"

"Use Crandall, yes. And Verrochio. But I'm thinking of Crandall more as . . . reassurance for Verrochio. The motivation we'll supply by way of Hongbo."

"You want to make an explicit approach to Hongbo?" Bardasano's tone was slightly dubious, and Detweiler snorted.

"We've already made an 'explicit approach' to Hongbo," he pointed out. "So far, he's done quite well out of us as our local manager for Commissioner Verrochio. It's not as if he should be particularly surprised if we 'request' his assistance once more."

"My impression is that he'd be . . . quite hesitant to try a variant on Monica this soon," she said. "He's smarter than Verrochio. I think he's probably a lot more aware of the potential consequences if they try something like this a second time and screw up. Oh, he's not worried about the Assembly or the courts. He's worried about what his and Verrochio's fellow OFS satraps will do to them if they get fresh egg on Frontier Security's face."

"I can see that," Detweiler conceded. "And, of course, he's not aware that if we succeed, his fellow Frontier Security commissioners are going to be the least of his worries. Be that as it may, though, I'm really hesitant to let all of our preparation go completely to waste. Especially since we'll have to eliminate Crandall and Filareta after this if we can't use them now."

"Sometimes it's better to just write an operation off, however much you've invested in it," Bardasano cautioned. "That old cliché about throwing good money after bad comes rather forcibly to mind. And so does the one about reinforcing failure."

"Agreed. And I fully intend to kick the entire notion around with Collin before we make any hard and fast decisions. I'll want you in on those conversations, as well, for that matter. But it's not just a case of pushing to recoup our investment. I'm genuinely concerned about the long term implications of whatever they used at Lovat. I think it's just become even more important to keep them under the maximum pressure and prune them back any way we can, and what's occurred to me is that with the summit off the table and the Manties going back to war with Haven, it shouldn't be too incredibly difficult to convince someone like Verrochio that they're under too much pressure from Haven to respond to a full bore threat from the Solarian League."

"A 'full bore threat'?" she repeated carefully.

"What I'm thinking is that with only a very little encouragement, New Tuscany would probably make an even better cat's-paw than Monica did last time around. Frontier Fleet's already dispatched a reinforcing detachment to Meyers, which is probably enough to start bolstering Verrochio's nerve all by itself. And I just happen to know that the senior officer of that detachment doesn't much care for 'neobarbs.' In fact, he doesn't care for Manties . Something to do with getting his fingers rather severely burned in an incident with a Manticoran freighter when he was a much more junior officer. Franklin's contacts in the League meant we could get him assigned without ever having to approach him directly, so he doesn't know a thing about our involvement in this. Given his background, though, I'm sure he's already quite upset about the Manties' wild allegations about the complicity of major League business interests—and, of course, those nasty Mesans—in what happened in Monica. If he were properly approached by H0ngbo and Verocchio, I'm fairly confident he'd be amenable to doing something about it, especially if the League's assistance was officially requested by someone with legitimate interests in the area. Like, oh, New Tuscany , perhaps. And one of Verrochio's outstanding characteristics has always been his temper. If Hongbo pumps a little hydrogen into the fire, instead of trying to put it out, Verrochio is going to be just itching for an opportunity to get even with Manticore for his current humiliation. And if he just happened to be aware—or to become aware—of the fact that our good friend Admiral Crandall is in his vicinity with an entire Battle Fleet task force of superdreadnoughts, it might stiffen his irate spine quite remarkably."

"And you want Aldona fully inside to handle New Tuscany and Hongbo," Bardasano said slowly.

"Which means we aren't going to be able to fob her off with any nonsense about Technodyne getting hold of Manty technology, or about us only wanting to prevent them from annexing the Talbott Cluster because of its proximity to Mesa, this time around."

"That's pretty much it, yes." Detweiler shrugged. "Without Technodyne and Levakonic to front for us by providing Monica with battlecruisers anymore, she's going to have to be aware of our real knuckleduster. And that's going to suggest to someone as smart as she is that we're up to rather more than she knew about last time. Especially since it's going to become obvious to her that Crandall's task force wouldn't be where it is if we hadn't arranged for it before the two of you ever set out for Monica. She's going to wonder why we didn't tell her about it then, and I don't think it will take her very long to start making some reasonably accurate guesses about just how much else is happening that she doesn't know about. I'd far rather tell her everything that really is going on than have her guess just enough to make some serious mistake trying to adjust for what she thinks is going on."

"I think you really should discuss this with Collin," Bardasano said. "If you still think it's a good idea after that—and I'm not saying it isn't; I just don't know whether or not it is at this point—then I'd certainly recommend explaining everything to Aldona and putting her back in charge of it. But she's going to need something more persuasive than mere greed and bribery to get Hongbo solidly behind her on this one."

"In that case," Detweiler said with a thin, sharklike smile, "it's probably a very good thing we have all those bank records about the payoffs he's accepted over the years from those nasty Manpower genetic slavers, isn't it? I realize he might try to turn stubborn even so. I mean, after all, it's not like the League judiciary is likely to do any more than slap him on the wrist over it. If he does, though, Aldona could always point out that if that same information were to the unfortunately leaked to those Ballroom lunatics . . ."

He let his voice trail off and shrugged as he raised both hands shoulder-high, palms uppermost.

"I suppose that probably would motivate him suitably," Bardasano agreed with a smile of her own. "The Ballroom does come in handy from time to time, doesn't it?"

Chapter Twenty-One

"Well, what do you make of it?" Gregor O'Shaughnessy asked with a crooked smile.

"If you're asking for my professional opinion on how we pulled it off, I don't have a clue," Commander Ambrose Chandler, Augustus Khumalo's staff intelligence officer, replied.

He sat across a small table from his civilian counterpart on Baroness Medusa's staff, the two of them enjoying the afternoon sunlight of the city of Thimble, the improbably named planetary capital of the planet Flax. Spindle-A, the GO primary component of the distant binary system in which Flax made its home, was warm on their shoulders, the tablecloth flapped gently on the iodine-scented breeze, and their terrace table above the seawall looked out across the Humboldt Ocean's tumbled blue and silver.

"Even if you could tell me how we did it, it probably wouldn't mean very much to me , Ambrose," O'Shaughnessy pointed out, and Chandler chuckled. O'Shaughnessy had come up through the civilian side of the Star Kingdom of Manticore's intelligence community. He neither truly understood how the military mind worked nor shared the military's perspective on quite a few problems. Fortunately, he was aware of that, and he tried—not always successfully—to make allowances for it when it was necessary too coordinate with his naval colleagues.

"I was more concerned with what I suppose you'd call the strategic implications of it," O'Shaughnessy continued, and Chandler's smile faded.

"Militarily?" he asked.

"Militarily and politically." O'Shaughnessy shrugged. "I'm in a better position on the political side than on the military side, of course, but under the circumstances, any additional perspective I can get has to be worthwhile. I've got the oddest feeling that the entire Star Kingdom—excuse me, the Star Empire—is in the process of falling down that Old Earth rabbit hole."

" 'Rabbit hole?' " Chandler repeated, looking at him oddly, and O'Shaughnessy shook his head.

"Never mind. It's an old literary reference, not anything important. It just means I'm feeling mightily confused at the moment."

"Well, you're hardly alone there," Chandler pointed out, then took another swallow of his beer and leaned back in his chair.

"Militarily," he said bluntly, "Haven is screwed if —and please do note the qualifier, Gregor—whatever Duchess Harrington used at Lovat can be gotten into general deployment. I'm guessing that it has to be some further development of the grav-pulse telemetry we're already using in Ghost Rider. Exactly how Admiral Hemphill's shop did it, and what sort of hardware is involved, is more than I could guess at this point. I'm a spook, not a tactical officer, and I'm actually probably better informed about Peep hardware than I am about ours. Something about knowing your enemy. But it's clear enough even from the preliminary reports that whatever Duchess Harrington did enormously increased her MDMs' long-range accuracy, and that's always been the biggest problem where they're concerned." O'Shaughnessy nodded to show he was following Chandler's logic. Despite his own lack of military experience, he wouldn't have been Medusa's senior intelligence analyst if he hadn't managed to acquire at least some grasp of the navy's current capabilities.

The dispatches informing Khumalo and Baroness Medusa about the Battle of Lovat had reached Spindle only the evening before. He had no doubt Chandler was still in the midst of assimilating everything else that had come with them, much as he himself was. And he also had no doubt that Loretta Shoupe, who—unlike Chandler— was a tactical specialist, would have been a better source if he'd been interested in the nuts and bolts of whatever was going on. He liked Shoupe, and he did intend to discuss Lovat's military aspects with her, but right now he needed the big picture more than the specifics. Besides, Chandler was a fellow analyst. He'd probably have a better feel for the sorts of details someone like O'Shaughnessy needed than Shoupe would.

"The MDM and the missile pod between them turned the balance between energy armaments and missile armaments on its head," Chandler continued, "but we've never been able to really take full advantage of the system because the range of the missiles has outstripped the effective range of our fire control. If Admiral Hemphill really has found a way to effectively integrate FTL telemetry into the system, that's changed, though, and if we can do that and the Peeps can't, then they're going to find themselves as outclassed as they were when Earl White Haven kicked their asses the last time around. But to do that, Duchess Harrington is going to have to have enough ships with the capability to do whatever it is they're doing. If she doesn't, if the Peeps have enough hulls to soak up her hits and keep closing, then we're back to worrying about whether or not our quality is sufficient to overcome their quantity."

"Would we have used this thing in the first place if we didn't have it in general deployment?" O'Shaughnessy asked.

"I'd like to think we wouldn't have," Chandler said, rather more grimly, "but I'm a lot less confident of that than I'd like to be."

"Because of the collapse of the summit?"

"Exactly. Or, maybe to be more accurate, because of the way the summit collapsed. If I thought we'd backed away from it on the basis of a dispassionate analysis of our military advantages, I'd be a lot happier. But that isn't what happened, is it? Political considerations—political considerations that are driven at least as much by emotions as by analysis—dictated the Government's decision. Which means what we could be looking at here is a less than optimum military decision based on political necessity."

"Aren't all military decisions ultimately based on political necessities?" O'Shaughnessy asked just a bit challengingly, and Chandler snorted.

"You aren't going to get me involved in that discussion, Gregor! I don't have any problem at all with the notion that military policy and objectives have to be defined within a political context. And I'm an officer in the Queen's Navy, which means I fully accept the validity and necessity of civilian control of the military, which means the subordination of military decision making to the political leadership. All I'm saying in this instance is that the decision to resume active operations was essentially a political one. Admiral Caparelli and the Strategy Board are responsible for determining the best ways to carry out decisions like that, but they can only do that within the limitations of the tools available to them. So I'm saying they may have decided to use a weapon system that's not fully prepared for general deployment. Or, at least, to have used it at an earlier point in any deployment process than they would have under other circumstances."

"At least partly in an effort to bluff the Havenites into thinking it is ready for general deployment, you mean?"

"Maybe. And I could be worrying more about it than I ought to be, too," Chandler conceded. "After all, even if they're ready to go to general deployment tomorrow, they still have to use this thing for a first time somewhere ."

"But you don't think they are ready for general deployment, do you?" O'Shaughnessy said shrewdly.

"Why?"

"Because," Chandler replied, answering the blunt question with matching bluntness, "if we had this thing in general deployment already, we'd've gone straight for Nouveau Paris, not Lovat. Lovat's an important target, but not nearly as important as the Peeps' capital. And given the way everyone back home is feeling over Admiral Webster's assassination and that business on Torch, do you really think anyone at the Admiralty or the Palace wouldn't have gone for a knockout if they'd thought they had the capability?"

"Um." O'Shaughnessy frowned. He'd treasured a few reservations about the commander's imagination over the many months he and Chandler had worked together. There was nothing wrong with his imagination where that particular bit of analysis was concerned, however.

"Okay," the civilian continued after a moment. "Let's assume you're right. This new guidance system or whatever is limited right now to Eighth Fleet. Would you agree that we wouldn't have let Haven know we've got it unless we were at least getting ready to deploy it more broadly?" He cocked an eyebrow at Chandler, who nodded.

"Good. So, assume we do get it into general deployment over the next few months. What happens then?"

"Assuming we get a few months in which to put it into deployment, the Peeps are history," Chandler replied. "It may take a few more months for the smoke to clear and the articles of surrender to get signed, but I can't see anything that would save them under those circumstances. And, frankly, I can't see any circumstances under which Her Majesty would settle for anything other than unconditional surrender this time around, can you?"

"Not hardly!" O'Shaughnessy snorted, but his expression was more worried than Chandler's. The commander looked a question at him, and he shrugged.

"I just wish we knew more about what the Sollies are going to do," he said. "I know it looks like they're going to fold their hand after what's happened at Monica, but I've just got this . . . I don't know, this itchy feeling."

"Itchy," Chandler repeated thoughtfully.

"I know. I know! It's not the sort of technical terminology that contributes to the mystique of our profession, Ambrose. Unfortunately, I can't come up with a better adjective."

"Why not?"

"If I knew that, I'd be able to find the better adjective I wanted," O'Shaughnessy said tartly. Then he sighed. "I think it's just the fact that it looks like the entire Monica operation was set up by Manpower and Technodyne. Not by Frontier Security, or any of the Solly bureaucracies—by a pair of corporate entities. Right?"

"So far," Chandler acknowledged. "I think it's obvious they had to be pretty sure they had Frontier Security—or at least Verrochio—safely tucked away in their pocket before they tried it, but that's what it looks like."

"And that's what bothers me," O'Shaughnessy said. "First, the sheer scale and . . . audacity of what they had in mind strikes me as being just a bit over the top even for one of the Mesa-based outfits. Second, look at the expense involved. I'm sure they'd have managed to recoup most of their investment one way or another if it had worked, but they invested literally hundreds of billions trying to bring this thing off. That's a pretty stiff risk exposure even for someone like Manpower or Technodyne. And, third, if I'd been Manpower, and if all I really wanted to do was to prevent the annexation of the Talbott Cluster, I could have found an approach that would have been a lot less expensive and risky . . . and probably at least as effective."

"Really?"

"Sure." O'Shaughnessy shook his head. "This was a case of using an awfully big, awfully expensive sledgehammer when a tack hammer would have done the job. Not only that, but they had the tack hammer they needed all along! Look at their return on Nordbrandt, alone. And if Terekhov and Van Dort hadn't literally stumbled across the Manpower connection—I'm not trying to downplay anything they accomplished, but they really did stumble across it, you know—then Westman would probably still be shooting at us in Montana, too. Investing a few hundred million in political action committees and funding and supplying other lunatics with guns and bombs would have let them keep the entire Cluster at the boil pretty much indefinitely, unless we wanted to resort to some sort of authoritarian repression. And it would have done that while simultaneously limiting Manpower's exposure, risk, and expense. They might not have been able to prevent the Constitutional Convention from voting out an acceptable constitution, although I'm not even sure of that. But even if the constitution had been voted out, they could probably have counted on keeping the political unrest going at a level which would have forced us to stay home and tend to our knitting instead of causing them problems in their own backyard. So why go for this sort of grandstanding operation? Why invest so much more money and risk the kind of beating they're taking in the Solly public opinion polls now that it's blown up in their faces?"

"I hadn't really considered it that way," Chandler admitted thoughtfully. "I guess I just assumed it was pure greed, as much as self-defense, from their perspective. Keeping us completely out of the Cluster and taking control of the Lynx Terminus would have to be the optimum solution from their viewpoint, after all."

"I don't disagree. I just think it's not the sort of solution Manpower would normally have reached for. With only a handful of exceptions—like Torch—the Mesan government's never shown any particular interest in playing the interstellar politics game. And virtually everything Manpower and the other Mesan corporations have done has been more . . . insidious. They've worked through acquiring influence, through bribery and coercion, at least where anyone who could potentially fight back might be concerned. This just isn't like them, and it makes me antsy when an established player suddenly starts changing. It leaves me with the feeling that there's something going on under the surface. Something we ought to figure out before it comes up out of the depths and bites us right square on the ass."

"You may have a point," Chandler acknowledged after several seconds. "On the other hand, whatever they had in mind this time around, it clearly didn't work."

" This time around," O'Shaughnessy agreed. "But we still don't know how the Sollies are going to react in the long haul. And if they've tried something like this once, who's to say they won't come up with something equally . . . inventive for us in the future? That's one reason I hope you're right about what's going to happen to the Havenites' military position in light of Lovat. I may not be sure what they're up to, but I know I want us to be as free as possible from other distractions if they decide to have a second try at getting us into a war with the Solarian League!"

"Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Junyan," Valery Ottweiler said as he stepped into the sun filled office and the door closed silently behind him.

"Your message indicated that it was rather urgent," Vice Commissioner Hongbo Junyan of the Office of Frontier Security replied, coming to his feet to shake Ottweiler's hand. "And on a personal level, it's always good to see you, Valery."

The vice commissioner didn't bother to lie very well in that last sentence, Ottweiler noted with a certain amusement. Given what had happened in Monica, he had to be one of the last people in the galaxy Hongbo Junyan actually wanted to see. Still, there were diplomatic niceties to be observed, even if the diplomats on both sides were fully aware of the total insincerity of the niceties in question. Unfortunately for Hongbo, he'd had no choice but to agree to this meeting. He'd been far too deep in Manpower's pocket for far too long to refuse to see a diplomatic representative of Manpower's home planet, since everyone knew the corporations of the Mesa effectively were the government the Mesa System.

"What is it I can do for you this morning?" Hongbo continued, waving his visitor into one of the office's chairs. From his tone, it was apparent he didn't intend to do one single thing more for Mesa—or Manpower—than he absolutely had to. And since both of them were fully aware of that state of affairs, Ottweiler saw no point in beating about the bush.

Especially since I'm probably going to have to twist his arm to the point of dislocation anyway before this is over, he thought.

"Actually," he said out loud, "I've just received fresh instructions from home."

"You have?" Ottweiler wasn't particularly surprised that a certain wariness had crept into Hongbo's voice. The man was no fool, after all.

"Yes. It seems that several powerful interests in my government—and in the Mesan business community, as well, if we're going to be honest—aren't at all happy about how that business in Monica was finally resolved."

"Really? I can't imagine why." The sarcasm dripping from Hongbo's response was a mark of his own unhappiness with "that business." And also a pointed comment on just who he thought was to blame for its outcome.

"Please, Junyan." Ottweiler shook his head wearily. "Can we just take it as a given that no one involved in that entire operation is very happy about it? There was plenty of egg to go around for everyone's faces, I assure you."

He held Hongbo's eye for a moment until, finally, the Solarian nodded.

"Thank you," Ottweiler said, and sat back in his chair.

"Having said that, however," he continued, "the same considerations that inspired my government to become involved then continue to apply. A Manticoran presence in our area poses a significant threat not simply to our business community's commercial interests, but to the security of the Mesa System itself. I'm sure you can understand that the failure of our sponsorship of Monica has led to a certain reevaluation of our options and requirements back home."

"Yes, I can see that," Hongbo acknowledged. "On the other hand, I'm not sure I see what sort of

'options' you have left at the moment. They've ratified their precious constitution, the Star Kingdom has officially expanded itself into this 'Star Empire' of theirs, and the beating you people—and us—have taken in the press back home doesn't leave any of us very much room for maneuver, does it?"

"Yes . . . and no," Ottweiler replied, and Hongbo stiffened behind the desk. That was obviously the last response he'd wanted to hear, Ottweiler reflected.

"Before you go any further, Valery," the Solarian said, "let's be clear about one thing, shall we? I'm prepared to do a great many things to accommodate you and your 'government,' and so is Lorcan, but there are distinct limits to what we can do. Especially after what happened in Monica. And, not to put too fine a point on it, assassinating Webster didn't help any."

"That wasn't us," Ottweiler said mildly. "I thought everyone knew it was the Republic of Haven."

"Of course it was," Hongbo snorted. "But whoever it was, it's got the newsies all in a flutter back home, especially combined with what he was saying about you people's modest efforts out here in Talbott. When a mess is this big and gets this much play in the 'faxes, even our public starts to get interested. And when that happens, the Justice Department can't hush it up forever. The newsies demand show trials, so Justice has to give them exactly that. Hell, they've actually indicted half a dozen of Technodyne's top people!"

"Yes, that was unfortunate," Ottweiler said. "On the other hand, neither you nor I work for Technodyne, do we?"

"No, but Lorcan and I do work for the Office of Frontier Security," Hongbo said tartly, "and we're already hearing about this from the home office. So far, OFS has managed to stay out of the limelight, and that busybody Corvisart hasn't been all that interested in pulling us into it. So far," he repeated.

"Of course she hasn't." It was Ottweiler's turn to snort. "You think the Manties want to take on the League Navy? Especially now that this summit thing has collapsed and they've got Haven back on their backs again?"

"Of course they don't, but that's not really my point." Hongbo tilted back in his chair and tapped the desk blotter with one forefinger for emphasis. "While it would undoubtedly be very unfortunate for Manticore if they should find themselves in a direct shooting confrontation with the Navy, that could also be very unfortunate for whoever helped to . . . arrange that confrontation. Nobody in OFS wants to hand the newsies—or the Manties—even more ammunition to use against us. It's bad enough that we look incompetent enough to have let this happen under are very noses, as it were. After all, the Manties are hardly your typical neobarbs. They have far better connections on Old Terra than most people do, as you people—oh, excuse me, I meant Haven— clearly recognized when the decision was made to eliminate Webster. The truth is, Valery, Lorcan and I have been told in no uncertain terms to lay off Manticore. Which, to be perfectly blunt, is exactly what I would have decided on my own."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Ottweiler said calmly. "Unfortunately, my instructions are somewhat different."

"That's too bad, since there's nothing I can do about it."

"Oh, but there is."

"No," Hongbo disagreed flatly, "there isn't . You know as well as I do how OFS works, Valery. Yes, for the most part the commissioners have pretty much free rein to manage their own sectors. And everybody knows that means all of us have 'special friends' who get preferential treatment. But in the end, all of us are subject to the Ministry's control, and I'm telling you the word's gone out. No more bad press out of Talbott, at least until the current mess has had a chance to settle and recede in the public's memory. Given the fact that the public in question has the attention span of a fruit fly, that shouldn't impose too great a delay on whatever it is your superiors want to accomplish, but for right now, my hands are tied."

Ottweiler cocked his head to one side, his expression thoughtful as he presented the appearance of a man carefully considering what Hongbo had just said. From the Solarian's position, it made perfectly good sense, of course. When he spoke of "the Ministry's control," he wasn't talking about anything as unimportant or ephemeral as the current Solarian Minister for Foreign Affairs, whoever that might happen to be at the moment. What he was really talking about was the deeply entrenched bureaucracy which truly ran the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, just as similar bureaucracies ran every other aspect of the League's government and military. And although the bureaucrats in question were effectively free of any interference by their nominal political masters, the Solarian public's occasional outbursts of indignation over government corruption could be unpleasant for all concerned. That was the real reason Governor Barregos—who had somehow acquired a towering reputation for efficiency and honesty—hadn't been recalled from the Maya Sector long since. So it was hardly surprising that Hongbo's superiors and Verrochio's fellow commissioners and sector governors wanted this whole business to go away as quickly as possible so they could all climb back under their rocks and get on with business as usual.

"I'm sorry," he repeated aloud after several seconds, "but I'm afraid my superiors are rather insistent in this case, Junyan."

"Aren't you listening to me?" Hongbo was beginning to sound exasperated. "There isn't anything I can do!"

"But there is." Ottweiler allowed a little deliberate patience to creep into his own tone. "I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you if there weren't."

"Valery—"

"Just listen for a minute, Junyan," Ottweiler interrupted, and Hongbo's eyes narrowed at the peremptory note in his voice. It was not the sort of note he was accustomed to hearing from anyone in his own office, and there was no mistaking the flare of anger in those dark, narrow eyes. But he throttled the anger, tightened his jaw, and nodded curtly.

"All right," the Mesan said then. "Cards on the table time. The people I work for—and you know who they really are, as well as I do—aren't happy. In fact, they're very unhappy , and they intend to do something about it. That's why I'm sitting here, and to be honest, I'm more than a little astonished myself at the resources they have available. Just for starters, did you really think it was a coincidence Admiral Byng wound up in command of the Frontier Fleet detachment they sent out here to bolster your position after Monica? Please! " He rolled his eyes. "Byng is one of those sanctimonious Battle Fleet pricks. He wouldn't have wound up commanding a Frontier Fleet detachment without somebody making damned sure he did. And just who do you suppose that 'somebody' was?"

Hongbo's eyes were even narrower than they had been, but speculation was beginning to replace—or supplement, at least—the anger which had filled them.

"Then there's the little matter that Admiral Crandall has decided to conduct 'training exercises' at McIntosh."

"What?" Hongbo straightened in his chair. "What are you talking about? Nobody's told us anything about any exercises at McIntosh!"

"I'm afraid you may have failed to get the memo. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Crandall is Battle Fleet, not Frontier Fleet. Battle Fleet doesn't really talk to you Frontier Security peasants very much, does it?"

"Battle Fleet," Hongbo repeated. The depth of his surprise over that particular bit of information was obvious. It was even deep enough to distract him from the flick of Ottweiler's whip as he emphasized Battle Fleet's deep contempt for Frontier Fleet and Frontier Security.

"Yes," the Mesan said, then shook his head. "Frankly, I didn't know anything about it before Monica, but it would appear Admiral Crandall has selected McIntosh as the site for her latest fleet exercises." He shrugged. "I know it's a bit unusual for Battle Fleet to venture this far out into the Verge, but apparently Crandall wanted to exercise the Fleet Train, as well as the battle squadrons. According to my information, it's been over ninety T-years since Battle Fleet has deployed more than a single squadron all the way out to the frontier, and there's been some question as to whether or not it still has the logistics capacity to support its own operations outside the Old League's established system of bases."

"So am I supposed to infer that Admiral Crandall is exercising in greater strength than 'a single squadron,' then?" Hongbo asked slowly.

"As a matter of fact, I believe she has somewhere around a hundred of the wall," Ottweiler said in an offhand sort of way, and Hongbo sat suddenly back, deep in his chair.

"What's occurred to my superiors," Ottweiler continued, "is that with three full squadrons of Frontier Fleet battlecruisers, with screening elements, already attached to the Madras Sector to reinforce your own units, and with such a powerful Battle Fleet backup fortuitously so close at hand, it may be time for Commissioner Verrochio to repair the damage the League's prestige has suffered out of this entire ugly situation in Monica. I'm sure I hardly need to point out to you how unfortunate it could be if other Verge systems began to take Frontier Security lightly or got the mistaken notion that OFS won't take punitive measures if someone steps on your toes in public this way. And all of that exercised public opinion you're so concerned about back home could certainly use pointing towards another target, don't you think? A target like . . . oh, the proof that, whatever Manticore may have been saying, and however their mouthpieces back on Old Terra may have managed to spin events at Monica, the truth is that they're just as imperialistic and exploitive as we've always known they are."

"And we would accomplish this retargeting exactly how?" Hongbo asked.

"According to my latest information, the New Tuscany System Government is already experiencing severe problems with the Talbott Cluster's new management," Ottweiler replied. "Indeed, I expect it won't be very much longer before you and Commissioner Verrochio receive a request for a Frontier Security investigation of Manticore's systematic harassment of New Tuscany's merchant shipping." Hongbo's expression was a curious mixture of anticipation and unhappiness. Although his disposition was far less naturally choleric than Verrochio's, he clearly hadn't enjoyed his own humiliation after Monica. And Ottweiler's point about the damage to Frontier Security's reputation had also been well taken. OFS had worked hard to make sure no Verge system wanted to risk pissing Frontier Security off at it , and letting Manticore get away with what it had pulled off at Monica wasn't the best way to shore up that perception. So, for a lot reasons, Hongbo obviously wanted some of his own back. But, equally obviously, he hadn't forgotten how foolproof the Monica operation had been supposed to be, and he was leery of sticking his foot back into the bear trap. And he was also smart enough to realize—just as Ottweiler himself had—that Byng and Crandall's involvement suggested that the interests in play were both much more powerful and even more ruthless than he'd first thought.

"I don't know, Valery." He shook his head slowly. "Everything you say may make perfectly good sense, and under normal circumstances, I'd be only too happy to help your superiors out. You know that. But the messages we've been getting through official channels have been what you might call brutally clear. Lorcan and I are supposed to sit here and behave like good little boys until the powers that be tell us differently. Besides, even if that weren't the case, Lorcan is almost as scared as he is pissed off. What the Manties did to Monica's battlecruisers shook him up badly."

"I don't blame him for that," Ottweiler said frankly. "On the other hand, you can always point out to him that they were manned by Monicans, not Sollies. And that they didn't have the entire SLN standing directly behind them. I'm sure the Manties are aware of those minor differences, at any rate, and with the resumption of operations against Haven, they aren't going to have a lot of combat power to be diverting this way even if they were stupid enough to take the SLN on directly. Certainly not enough to pose any sort of significant threat in the face of Crandall's presence."

"But if they don't know any more about Crandall's presence than we did before you told me about her, then it's not likely to exercise very much of a deterrent effect on their thinking, is it? Unless, of course, someone is going to make this minor fact known to them, as well."

He was watching Ottweiler's face very carefully, and the Mesan shrugged.

"I don't have any official information on that either way," he said. "On the other hand, it's my strong impression that no one's going to be going out of his way to tell the Manties a damned thing. Still, Commissioner Verrochio is a sector governor, himself. If he felt the need to request it, I'm sure Admiral Crandall would move her forces from McIntosh to Meyers. Purely as a precautionary measure, you understand."

Hongbo nodded slowly, his expression intent. Ottweiler could almost literally see the calculations working themselves out behind his eyes and wondered if the Solarian would reach the same conclusions he had.

"That all sounds very comforting," Hongbo said finally. "But the fact remains that Lorcan isn't going to want to do it. To be honest, that's at least partly my fault. I didn't have any idea something like this might be in the wind, so when we started getting word from the home office, I did my very best to sit on Lorcan's temper, and that took some pretty firm sitting. You know how he is. I'm afraid I may have sat on it too hard. He's swung from breathing fire and brimstone to worrying that he may give the Manty bogeyman another excuse to jump on him. It's going to take time to turn that around."

"Time is something we don't have very much of," Ottweiler said flatly. "Trust me, New Tuscany is going to be ready to start moving on this very soon."

"You're sure of that? New Tuscany's three hundred and sixty light-years from here. How can you be so confident they're going to play along when they're over a month away even for a dispatch boat?"

"Trust me," Ottweiler repeated. "The representative my superiors are sending to New Tuscany is very convincing, and what the New Tuscans stand to get out of this is going to be very attractive to them. They'll come through for us."

"Maybe you're right. Maybe I even believe you're right. But Lorcan isn't going to jump for something like this until he's got confirmation of that. Even with that confirmation, he's not going to be happy about it. I expect him to dig his heels in every centimeter of the way."

"Then you're just going to have to be even more convincing than usual," Ottweiler told him. "Obviously, my superiors aren't going to forget what they owe the two of you for pulling this off, so I'm certain you can expect to be extremely well compensated for your efforts."

"I'm sure you're right about that much, at least. But that doesn't change the fact that I'm going to have to bring him around to this gradually."

"Our time window for this is too narrow for 'gradually,' " Ottweiler said. "Even though Crandall's set up for a lengthy deployment as part of her logistics test, she can't stay on station here forever. We've got to get this rolling while she's still around to back our play if it comes to that. That's what restricts our time frame so tightly, and I'm sure the commissioner is going to want to know she's around if he might need her. In any case, my instructions to get this all moving ASAP are about as firm as they get. So if you think you need a little more leverage with him, remind him of this. My superiors have records of all of their past transactions with him. And unlike him, they aren't citizens of the League and aren't subject to its laws." Hongbo stiffened, and not just because of the icy chill which had invaded Ottweiler's voice. His eyes met the Mesan's, and their unspoken message was abundantly clear. If they had records of their transactions with Verrochio, then they just as certainly had records of their transactions with him . And if they were prepared to feed Verrochio to the wolves if he failed to follow instructions, then they were equally prepared to feed him to the same hungry fangs.

Hongbo Junyan had always recognized that Manpower and the other Mesan corporations could be dangerous benefactors. The chance of exposure was virtually nonexistent under normal circumstances, and everyone knew everyone else did exactly the same things. It was the way the system worked, how business was done. Even if some unfortunate personal arrangement should inadvertently intrude into the light, it could be expected to disappear quickly into the "business as usual," "everyone does it" basket. The rest of the system could be counted upon to make that happen smoothly and promptly. But if Manpower chose to make his past dealings with them public knowledge, they could be counted upon to do it as loudly—and effectively—as possible. And after everything that had already gone wrong out here, the newsies would be just salivating for fresh, spectacular evidence of corruption and conspiracy. Which meant his fellows within the system would cheerfully throw both Verrochio and Hongbo to the howling mob. Indeed, his colleagues would probably lead the pack, shouting louder than anyone else as a way to prove their own innocence.

All of that was bad enough, but there was worse, because the Audubon Ballroom had made it abundantly clear over the years that bureaucrats and administrators who conspired and collaborated with Manpower when they were supposed to be working diligently to suppress the genetic slave trade were not among the Ballroom's favorite people. In fact, they'd made a point of coming up with especially inventive ways of demonstrating that fact. Ways that were usually punctuated with showers of body parts.

"I don't think the good commissioner is likely to prove too difficult if you bring that little point to his attention, do you, Junyan?" Valery Ottweiler asked softly.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Aldona Anisimovna had never expected to be back in the Talbott Cluster this quickly, and for more than one reason.

The mere thought of how disastrously the Monica operation had failed was enough to send cold chills down anyone's spine—even that of a Mesan alpha line. She'd been more than a little astonished that she and Isabel Bardasano had survived the catastrophic unraveling of the Strategy Council's carefully crafted plans.

But even allowing for her unanticipated survival, she wouldn't have imagined she could make the trip back to the Cluster so quickly. Then again, she hadn't known about the top-secret "streak drive," either. She was going to have to remember that it had taken her much longer—officially, at least—to make the voyage than it actually had.

And she supposed she might as well go ahead and admit there was another reason for her surprise; she'd never imagined it might be possible to mount a replacement for the disastrous failure in Monica this quickly.

It would have helped if Albrecht—and Isabel—had told me just what we'd really been supposed to achieve last time. Or how many resources were really available, for that matter , she thought as she and her new bodyguard rode the luxurious, if old-fashioned, elevator towards the upcoming meeting. Of course, I'm not sure exactly what else I could have done to make use of them, even if I'd known they were there. And I don't suppose they could tell me about them . . . not without telling me everything else, at least .

It was amazing how completely her galaxy had shifted with Albrecht's explanation of what was really going on. A part of her was absolutely stunned that the entire Mesan Strategy Council and all of its deep laid plans and machinations had really been only a part—and not the largest part—of the real strategy she'd served, albeit unknowingly, for so many decades. Another part of her was more than a little irked to discover just how much of what she'd thought she knew, even in an operational sense, had been less than complete or even deliberately falsified. Like the "fact" that the Congo Wormhole hadn't been properly surveyed before those Audubon Ballroom fanatics took the system away from Mesa, for example, or who'd really been in charge of "her" operation in Monica. Discovering that someone else could manage her puppet strings as well as she'd always prided herself on managing others' strings hadn't been especially reassuring. But her irritation over lack of complete information and need-to-know compartmentalization of knowledge was as nothing compared to the sheer shock of what was really happening. Aldona Anisimovna was a hardy soul, yet she was both awed and more than a little terrified by the grand, sweeping scope of the Mesan Alignment's true objectives and resources. I thought it was just the usual dogfight over political power, she admitted to herself. And, to be honest, I always thought the political aspects were purely self-defense, a way to protect our operations and our economic power. I never dreamed anyone could be thinking on such a . . . grand scale .

Or that so much of the groundwork could already have been in place. The elevator stopped. Kyrillos Taliadoros—the newly assigned bodyguard from the same gamma line which had produced Albrecht Detweiler's bodyguard—stepped through the opening doors first, glancing up and down the corridor. Taliadoros' physical senses had been sharply enhanced as part of his genotype's modifications, and Anisimovna knew additional odd bits and pieces of hardware had been surgically implanted to help suit him for his present function. She'd discovered that even Detweiler's bodyguard's fearsome reputation actually understated what he was capable of, and the same was true of Taliadoros. Which, in some ways, was almost as frightening as it was comforting. Then again, a lot of the things she'd had to wrap her mind around in the past couple of weeks were almost as frightening as they were comforting.

She pushed that thought aside and followed Taliadoros out of the elevator when his tiny gesture indicated his satisfaction with their immediate surroundings. He fell back into his properly deferential position at her heels as she led the way down the short corridor, and the ornate secretary seated behind the desk at its far end looked up with a professional smile at her approach. My, she's a pretty one, Anisimovna thought appreciatively, taking in the young woman's flowing raven hair, striking blue eyes, and near-perfect complexion. She'd almost do for one of the pleasure lines without any modification at all. Of course, there is that little mole. And I think her left eyebrow may be just a tad higher than the right. But in her case, that actually helps. I think she'd look . . . too perfect without those little flaws .

"Aldona Anisimovna," she said aloud. "I believe President Boutin is expecting me."

"Of course, Ms. Anisimovna." The secretary's voice was exactly the right melodious contralto to match her striking appearance, Anisimovna thought appreciatively. "Just a moment." She pressed a button on her panel.

"Ms. Anisimovna is here, Mr. President," she said, and listened to her earbug for a moment. "Yes, Sir," she said then, and looked back up at Anisimovna. "President Boutin is ready to see you now, Ma'am." She pressed another button and a rather splendidly decorated door slid open. "Right through that door, Ma'am."

"Thank you." Anisimovna smiled a bit more warmly than she normally smiled at servants, then nodded to Taliadoros and the two of them stepped through the open door.

"Excuse me a moment, Ma'am," a broad shouldered young man said as they entered the anteroom of the luxurious office suite.

"Yes?" Anisimovna gave him a rather cool glance, and he smiled with just a touch of apology.

"I'm afraid some of your bodyguard's implants have flashed several alarms on our security scans. I'm sorry, but security regulations prohibit allowing someone with unidentified implanted hardware into the President's presence."

"I see." Anisimovna considered him for a moment, then turned to Taliadoros.

"I'm afraid you're going to have to wait here for me, Kyrillos," she said.

"Ma'am, under the regulations, I'm not supposed—" he began, exactly as if they hadn't already rehearsed this moment.

"I realize it's against the rules," her own tone mingled patience with just a touch of brusqueness, "but at the moment, we're guests on someone else's planet. It's only polite of us to abide by their rules and customs."

"I know that, Ma'am, but—"

"This discussion is finished, Kyrillos," she said firmly, then smiled. "I'll take full responsibility, but this time good manners trump the regulations. Anyway, I'm sure the President's security team is up to the task of protecting me, right along with him, if it comes to that. And I really don't expect anyone to try to assassinate me in the middle of a meeting with him, anyway."

"Yes, Ma'am," Taliadoros said with manifest unwillingness, and Anisimovna turned back to the broad-shouldered young man.

"I believe that's settled," she said crisply.

"Yes, Ma'am. Thank you for being so understanding. If you'll follow me, please?" Anisimovna followed him across the anteroom. She wasn't certain that little bit of theater had been necessary, but it wouldn't hurt to make her hosts aware of her own importance, especially since she was officially here as a private person. Of course, most private persons didn't travel in their personal hyper-capable yachts or come equipped with personal enhanced bodyguards. And Taliadoros' reference to "the regulations" should also neatly suggest that whether she was supposed to be a private person or not, she actually wasn't.

Which is fair enough, since I'm not, even if everyone is about to spend the next few hours pretending I am .

She stepped through yet another door into an absolutely magnificent office overlooking downtown Siena, the capital of the planet of New Tuscany. Several people were waiting for her. President Alain Boutin, the official head of state of the New Tuscany System, stood in courteous greeting behind his shuttle-sized desk as she entered. System Prime Minister Maxime Vézien, the real head of government, turned from the floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the capital city of Livorno with a smile of welcome of his own, and Alesta Cardot, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Nicholas Pélisard, the Minister of War, turned from their quiet side conversation with Honorine Huppé, the Minister of Trade. Damien Dusserre, the New Tuscan Minister of Security, stood by himself by the bookcases lining one wall of the office, and his smile was much cooler—and less professional—than Vézien's.

I wish there'd been time for a little more research, Anisimovna thought as she crossed the large room to the desk. There'd barely been time on the voyage here for her to fully absorb the in-depth briefing on New Tuscany's current state of affairs; there certainly hadn't been enough time for any sort of detailed historical study, and she had absolutely no idea, for example, why a planet named for a region of Old Terra's Italy should be inhabited by people with almost uniformly French names.

"Ms. Anisimovna!" Boutin offered his hand across the desk. When she took it, he raised her hand to his lips and brushed a kiss across its back, and she smiled at him.

"It was most gracious of you to agree to see me, Mr. President. And especially on such short notice."

"Mr. Metcalf made it clear your business was urgent," Boutin replied. "And, to be frank, that you . . . unofficially represent, shall we say, import interests on Mesa."

"Yes, I suppose I do," she said with a whimsical smile. She rather wished that Valery Ottweiler, the Mesan attaché who had been her official aide in Meyers when the Monica operation was first mounted, had been available here, as well. She'd found his competence both impressive and comforting. But he was still back in Meyers, where he had his own part to play, and Jansen Metcalf, the Mesan trade attaché who had been upgraded into a full ambassador when New Tuscany withdrew from the Spindle Constitutional Convention, was supposed to be a competent type, as well. He wouldn't be present today, however, of course. The fact that Mesa's official representative was absent—and that he had emphasized her own "unofficial" status ahead of time—were two more of the little clues that, in fact, she not only did speak for the true rulers of Mesa but that what she had to say was very important indeed.

"Please, allow me to introduce my colleagues," Boutin said, and Anisimovna nodded pleasantly to each of the others in turn as the President murmured their names. Not that anyone in that room at that moment actually needed to be introduced to anyone else, she was quite certain.

Introductions completed, she settled into a comfortable chair, crossed her long legs, and leaned back. During her first visit to Roberto Tyler, Anisimovna had deliberately chosen a gown which emphasized the rich perfection of her own figure. Boutin and—even more importantly—Vézien were far less likely to be swayed by any physical charms, however provocatively displayed, and so she had chosen a severely tailored outfit in midnight blue. And, while she had no qualms about using whatever tactics—or attributes—would get the job done, she had to admit that she much preferred not feeling like a gussied up pleasure slave.

"And now, Ms. Anisimovna, may we know what it is that brings you to New Tuscany?"

"To be totally frank, Mr. President, I'm here in no small part because of the rather disastrous occurrences in Monica," she said, and hid a smile at the shock in the New Tuscans' faces. Didn't expect me to own right up to the fact that we were involved in that little catastrophe, did you? she thought sardonically. Well, I've got a few more surprises in store for you, as well .

"I'm sure you're all well aware of what happened to the Union of Monica," she continued calmly. "That regrettable state of affairs was the result of a combination of coincidences no one could have predicted, coupled with a certain degree of botched execution on the Monicans' part."

"We have had reports on those . . . events," Boutin said slowly, his eyes flickering sideways to Dusserre. "May I ask exactly what about them has brought you to speak to us?"

"Frankly, Mr. President, we have no interest in seeing the Manties expanding their control and influence into this region of space," she replied with an air of total candor. "I'm sure all of you are very well aware of the long-standing hostility between the business community of Mesa and the Star Kingdom of Manticore. And as Manticore has demonstrated quite often in the past—and very recently, in Monica—the 'Star Kingdom' has never been shy about resorting to the use of naked force in the pursuit of its policy objectives. It seems very evident to us in the Mesa System that the establishment of a Manticoran bridgehead here in Talbott will almost inevitably lead to further harassment of Mesa and, quite possibly, to actual Manticoran military operations against Mesa in the not-too-distant future. That, to be completely honest, was the reason for our initial contacts with President Tyler.

"Unfortunately, as all of you are also aware, the Constitutional Convention in Spindle has ratified this new constitution, turning virtually the entire Cluster into another lobe of the Star Kingdom. Which means, of course, that what we hoped to prevent as a measure of self-defense by means of our support for President Tyler has become an established fact."

Several faces had tightened at her mention of the Constitutional Convention, and she concealed a mental smile of catlike satisfaction as she saw them. Frankly, she'd been flabbergasted—initially, at least—to learn that New Tuscany had, in fact, declined to ratify the new constitution. In their place, she would have been falling all over herself to get under the Manticoran security umbrella and share in the flood tide of commerce and investment which was likely to be coming the Cluster's way. Except, of course, for that other little problem they had. She'd already concluded, just in the short trip from the spaceport to this meeting, that Bardasano's analysis of the New Tuscan oligarchs and their motivations had been right on the money. In fact, the lid was screwed down even more tightly here on New Tuscany than she'd expected from Bardasano's briefings. Uniformed security forces had been a high-visibility part of the ground car drive from the shuttle pad, and she'd noticed an extraordinarily high number of extraordinarily obvious (for a planet with New Tuscany's tech base) security cameras on light standards and at intersections. No doubt there were other, far less obtrusive measures in place to monitor the situation without giving away their presence, but clearly the New Tuscan security forces wanted to do more than simply keep a close eye on things. They also wanted to make any potential troublemakers abundantly aware of the point that they were keeping that eye on things.

Between the devil and the deep blue sea, weren't you, Mr. President? Her mental tone was mocking, although she supposed it wasn't very funny from the New Tuscans' perspective. If you didn't ratify the constitution, you got left out in the cold where all that lovely investment and capital flow were involved. But if you did ratify it, you'd've had the Manties swarming all over New Tuscany, and they wouldn't have approved of your 'security measures' at all, would they?

Looked at from that perspective, she supposed the New Tuscan decision to opt out of the constitutional process when Manticore and their fellow Talbott delegates declined to give them the domestic security carte blanche they'd insisted upon actually made a degree of sense. The last thing any properly exploitative oligarchs could afford was for their social inferiors to get uppity notions, after all. Unfortunately for New Tuscany, the mere example of what was about to happen in the rest of the Cluster was virtually certain to contaminate their star system with those very notions. Their only real hope had been to siphon off enough of the increasing commerce and Manticoran investment to provide an at least modest but real improvement in the general New Tuscan standard of living. Frankly, the chance of their ever having been able to control the situation through any combination of carrot and stick had never been realistic, in Anisimovna's opinion, but it appeared to be the only one they'd been able to come up with. Not surprisingly, since the only other approach would have been to recognize when they were beaten and try to make the best terms they could with the people they've been systematically pissing on—and pissing off— for the last two or three generations, she thought. Somehow, I don't think they would have enjoyed the only terms they could get .

"As you say, it would appear the organization of this 'Talbott Quadrant' is an accomplished fact, Ms. Anisimovna," Prime Minister Vézien said. His tone was sour, but she noticed he was regarding her shrewdly. "Yet somehow I can't avoid the suspicion that you wouldn't have come to call on us—or been so . . . forthcoming, shall we say?—about your involvement with Monica unless you thought that state of affairs could somehow still be . . . rectified."

"I see you're as perceptive as my briefings suggested you were, Mr. Prime Minister. Yes, we do believe the situation can be rectified, which I'm sure you here in New Tuscany would find almost as welcome as we would in Mesa. And, to anticipate your next question, yes, again. I have come here to discuss ways in which the two of us could assist one another in bringing that rectification about."

"Forgive me for pointing this out, Ms. Anisimovna," Alesta Cardot said, "but the last star system you recruited for this no doubt laudable objective doesn't seem to have fared very well."

"And there's also the little matter of certain collateral damage inflicted by your previous efforts, if you'll pardon me for saying so," Dusserre added. The Security Minister met Anisimovna's eyes very levelly, and she nodded slightly in acknowledgment of his point.

"Madam Minister," she said to Cardot, "you're absolutely correct about what happened to Monica. As I've already said, however, that was due to a completely unpredictable coincidence of circumstances—circumstances which are unlikely, at the very least, to ever repeat themselves. Moreover, even if they—or something like them—did repeat, they would have no significant impact on the strategy we have in mind this time. And, Mr. Dusserre," she said, turning to face the Security Minister squarely,

"I'm afraid we must plead guilty to supplying Agnes Nordbrandt and her fellow lunatics with the wherewithal for their campaign against the Kornatian authorities. I'm sure that's made subsequent difficulties for you here on New Tuscany, and my own reading of events suggests that it helped Alquezar and his allies force through the constitutional provisions they favored all along. I regret that, but, in fairness, I ought to point out that at the time we decided to supply Nordbrandt, our objectives revolved around Monica, not anyone here in the Cluster itself. The consequences here on New Tuscany are unfortunate, but to be brutally honest, at that time New Tuscany was completely secondary to our calculations and concerns."

"Well, that's certainly frank enough, Ms. Anisimovna," Cardot said dryly.

"In this case, Madam Secretary," Anisimovna replied, "candor is clearly the best policy. And since that's the case, there's very little point in pretending that what I'm here to discuss is anything except a marriage of pragmatic self-interest. I'd be the first to admit you have a lovely planet here. Indeed, I quite enjoyed observing it from orbit and on the flight down, and the scenery around the spaceport is breathtaking. Nonetheless, it would be dishonest of me to pretend that Mesa has any intrinsic interest whatsoever in New Tuscany . . . aside from the fashion in which the two of us can assist one another in bringing about a state of affairs we both desire."

"I see." President Boutin folded his hands in front of him on his desk blotter and cocked his head to one side. "I think you're probably correct that there's no need for New Tuscany and Mesa to pretend they're bosom friends. At the same time, however, Alesta's point about what happened to Monica is entirely valid. I'm sure I speak for the rest of my colleagues when I say we have absolutely no interest in experiencing the same unfortunate consequences. And, to return candor for candor, Mesa's sheer distance from the Cluster, and your planet's habit of . . . acting from behind the scenes, shall we say, offers you quite a bit of protection which would not be available to us if we should arouse the Manties'

ire. As you've already said, they have a pattern of using military force to achieve their policy ends, and please don't be offended, but I'd really prefer not to have the Royal Manticoran Navy do to us what it did to Monica."

"Mr. President, frankness is unlikely ever to offend me. And I entirely understand your feelings. However, I believe I can explain why what happened to Monica most definitely will not be happening to New Tuscany."

"Speaking for myself, as Minister of War, and, I'm sure, for all of us, I would be fascinated to hear that explanation," Nicholas Pélisard said, and his tone was even drier than Cardot's had been.

"The most important single difference between what we're envisioning this time around and the Monican operation is that we've decided our biggest mistake in Monica was attempting to maintain too great a degree of deniability. We stayed too far out of the loop—and relied too heavily on Monica to 'front' for us—when we arranged to supply President Tyler with the battlecruisers he required for his part of the operation."

"Which was?" Dusserre inquired mildly, and she looked at him. "We've heard several possible explanations. I was simply wondering which one—if any of them—was accurate?" the security minister added mildly, and he smiled.

It was cynical, that smile, but behind it she saw something else. Something not even his years of calculation and power could hide. Dusserre was a player, someone who gravitated as naturally to power—and to his own position as New Tuscany's chief policeman—as a moth gravitated towards an open flame, yet she wondered if he was truly aware of the fear she saw behind that smile. The sense that the entire power structure of his homeworld was sliding inexorably towards collapse . . . Albrecht and Isabel were right, Anisimovna thought. These people are desperate enough to save their little house of cards to be nicely receptive. What was it that Old Earth king said? Something about 'After me, the flood'? Well, these people already feel the water lapping around their ankles, don't they? That's good .

"The objective," she said aloud, looking him straight in the eye, "was for Tyler to secure control of the Lynx Terminus of the Manticoran Wormhole Junction. Commissioner Verrochio, of the Office of Frontier Security, was prepared to support his actions—completely impartially, of course—while the League arranged for a new plebiscite, under OFS supervision, to determine the validity of the original plebiscite returns in favor of seeking annexation by Manticore. I'm afraid the commissioner anticipated discovering widespread fraud in the Manticoran plebiscite." She shook her head sadly. "If that had turned out to be the case, then obviously Frontier Security would have had no choice but to set those flawed results aside in favor of the results of its own plebiscite. Which would undoubtedly have led to the endorsement of a Cluster-wide government under the leadership and protection of the Monican Navy and recognized by the Solarian League as the legitimate government of the Cluster."

She had the satisfaction of seeing even Dusserre's eyes widen slightly as she admitted the breadth and scope of the original plan. She'd thought it was an audacious but workable plan herself, when she sold it to Roberto Tyler in the first place. Of course, she hadn't realized then what the Alignment's real objective was. And she had absolutely no intention of explaining that real objective to these people, either.

"I don't think New Tuscany would have liked that very much, Ms. Anisimovna," Honorine Huppé said after a moment, and Anisimovna chuckled.

"I don't imagine you would have, Madam Minister. Of course, that wasn't exactly foremost in our thinking when we formulated the plan. And, for that matter, New Tuscany's unhappiness would all have been a matter of perspective, wouldn't it?" She smiled winsomely as several of the New Tuscans bridled.

"After all, the perspective is always different, depending upon who's on the bottom and who's on the top."

Boutin had been about to say something. Now the President paused, his expression arrested, and closed his mouth slowly.

"Are we to understand, Ms. Anisimovna," Cardot asked just a bit caustically, "that you now propose to take us to the mountaintop and show us the same vista you offered to President Tyler?"

"In general terms, yes," Anisimovna told the foreign minister calmly. "Except for a couple of minor changes."

"What sort of 'minor changes'?" Vézien asked.

"Instead of striking directly for the Lynx Terminus and using its disputed possession—plus, of course, the brutal repression of patriotic resistance groups spontaneously arising in reaction to the corrupt plebiscite—as the opening wedge for inviting Frontier Security to intervene to prevent additional bloodshed, we intend to demonstrate Manticoran vengefulness and arrogant imperialism to the galaxy at large," Anisimovna replied. "In particular, we're well aware of the fashion in which Baroness Medusa and Prime Minister Alquezar are already attempting to freeze New Tuscany out of the Cluster's new economic order. Alas, we have reason to believe this is only the first step in Manticore's attempt to punish New Tuscany for its principled stand against that bogus Constitutional Convention from which you withdrew your delegates. Worse, we feel confident, is still to come."

"What sort of 'worse'?" Huppé asked, her dark eyes narrow.

"Harassment of your shipping, violations of your territory, that sort of thing," Anisimovna replied with a sigh. "Indeed, I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover that they've already been harassing your merchant shipping, trying to squeeze you out of the Cluster's markets."

"And assuming we could provide you with documentation of such harassment, just what would you do with it?" Pélisard asked.

"Why, we wouldn't do anything with it." Anisimovna widened her eyes innocently. "I'm sure, however, that if you were to draw these weighty matters to the attention of Commissioner Verrochio, he would feel constrained to take them most seriously. Especially after the fashion in which Manticore brutally assaulted the Union of Monica in time of peace. Under the circumstances, I feel positive that he would dispatch a significant force here to New Tuscany to fully investigate matters. And, should it transpire that your allegations of harassment are justified, that same significant force would be under orders to protect you from further infringements of your territoriality."

"Forgive me for pointing this out," Pélisard said, "but the naval resources Commissioner Verrochio personally controls are quite limited. I'm afraid a handful of destroyers, or even a cruiser division or two, would scarcely constitute a significant deterrent to the Manticoran Navy."

"No, they wouldn't," Anisimovna agreed. "However, a full squadron or two of Frontier Fleet battlecruisers would, I suspect."

"A squadron or two ?" Pélisard blinked.

"Or even three," she said calmly. "I just happen to know that a Frontier Fleet task force has been dispatched to the Madras Sector to reinforce Commissioner Verrochio's OFS naval detachment. It's under the command of an Admiral Byng, I understand. And it just happens I have a small file on him with me." She extracted a data chip folio from her slender purse and laid it on the corner of Boutin's desk. "It's fascinating viewing, actually. Or I think so, at least. Admiral Byng would appear to be the sort of League officer who recognizes Manticoran arrogance and imperialism for what they are. The sort of officer who would be naturally disposed to at least listen to the complaints of some single-system star nation which finds itself being bullied and harassed by the 'Star Kingdom.' If Commissioner Verrochio—or, for that matter, your own government—were to request him to send a detachment here to New Tuscany to investigate matters personally, I feel confident he would agree."

"And if it happened when he did that there was a . . . confrontation between him and the Manties . . ." Pélisard's voice trailed off, and Anisimovna nodded.

"Of course, by far the most likely outcome would be for the Manticorans to back down," she said.

"They may have been willing enough to take on Solarian battlecruisers in Monican hands—after all, the Monican Navy had neither the experience to make full use of them nor the industrial power to replace them if they were damaged or destroyed—but I suspect they'd be far more leery of facing battlecruisers crewed by the Solarian Navy. And if they were foolish enough to do anything of the sort, I'm sure the SLN would make short work of them."

Pélisard looked less than confident of that last sentence's accuracy. On the other hand, Anisimovna thought, he had to be aware of the enormous imbalance between the Solarian League's resources and those of the Star Kingdom of Manticore. Ultimately, no other star nation had the wherewithal to resist the juggernaut might of the League. Which meant . . .

She could almost see the gears turning inside his head as he worked his way through the implications of what she'd just said. She could tell the exact moment when he reached the end of the process, because his eyes narrowed suddenly and he looked at her very intently.

"In some ways, it would almost be a pity if they did back down, wouldn't it?" he observed slowly.

"Well, it would mean the situation would remain . . . unresolved," Anisimovna agreed. "It's sometimes necessary to lance a boil to drain its poisons. It's seldom a pleasant experience, but that doesn't make it any less necessary in the long run. So, yes, it would be . . . suboptimal."

"But if their local commander chose to be imprudent," Pélisard said even more slowly, "and if there happened to be some sort of shooting incident, then this Admiral Byng you've mentioned would almost be forced to take steps."

"Not just a minute, Nicholas!" Dusserre said sharply. " 'Shooting incidents' are all very well, I suppose. But I'm not at all happy about the thought of having one of them right here in New Tuscany!"

"I don't blame you a bit, Mr. Dusserre," Anisimovna said calmly. "I wouldn't much care for the thought of having something like that happen in my star system, either. As I say, though, it would be unlikely for anything of the sort to happen if Admiral Byng were present in strength. I'm thinking—as I'm sure Mr. Pélisard was—more of an incident which occurs somewhere else. One that could be . . . suitably tweaked, shall we say, to demonstrate the ruthlessness and viciousness of the Manticorans. Say, one of your warships, badly damaged or even destroyed by an unprovoked Manty attack. The trick would be to time the incident properly. Ideally, we'd have Admiral Byng already in the vicinity when we complain about this atrocity to Commissioner Verrochio."

"At which point he would presumably move that detachment you referred to to New Tuscany immediately," Pélisard said. "With orders not to allow any further Manticoran aggression. In fact, he'd probably sail straight to Spindle to demand an explanation, wouldn't he?"

"Oh, I feel confident he would." Anisimovna smiled. "And I imagine the odds of an unfortunate confrontation between him and the Manties would be considerably enhanced when he did. Oh, and I suppose I should also mention that my sources tell me a sizable force from Battle Fleet is also in this general neck of the galaxy. Carrying out training exercises in the McIntosh System, I believe." It was very, very quiet in President Boutin's office. The McIntosh System was barely fifty light-years from Meyers, and Meyers was only a very little over three hundred light-years from New Tuscany. Which meant any task group carrying out exercises at McIntosh could reach New Tuscany in as little as thirty-two T-days.

"Given McIntosh's proximity to Meyers, I strongly suspect Commissioner Verrochio would send the Battle Fleet senior officer there a message, requesting her assistance, at the same time as he dispatched Admiral Byng—or one of the admiral's squadrons, at least—to New Tuscany to investigate your allegations. Which would mean, of course, that even if some Manticoran officer were foolish enough to fire upon New Tuscan units or anything of the sort, Admiral Byng would have ample forces in close proximity which he could call upon to . . . stabilize the situation once more." The quiet was more intense than ever, and as Aldona Anisimovna listened to it, she knew she had their complete attention.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Just under twenty-five T-days after leaving Spindle, Michelle Henke's flagship crossed the alpha wall into the star system of Monica. Michelle sat in her command chair on Artemis ' flag deck, watching her displays and wondering what sort of reception she and her ships were likely to receive. The dispatch boat with O'Malley's orders had sailed directly from the Lynx Terminus to Monica, without detouring by Spindle. That had saved it the better part of eleven days in transit, and the boat which had brought copies of his orders to Spindle had arrived there three days before Michelle had departed. Which meant, by her math, that O'Malley's task group had received its marching orders just under two T-weeks ago. Assuming Hexapuma 's and Warlock 's repairs had completed on schedule, they should have been ready to head home even before that, which would have freed O'Malley from any concerns for their security if he withdrew immediately in response to his orders. So, assuming everything had gone the way it was supposed to, there would be no Manticoran warship waiting here in Monica to greet her. And somehow I don't really think 'President Tyler' is going to be particularly happy to see me, either, even if we are "treaty partners" now, she thought sardonically. So maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to sort of scout the area before I head in-system .

The planet of Monica itself lay just over eleven light-minutes inside the G3 primary's 20.6-light-minute hyper limit, and Captain Conner's division's closing speed was barely two thousand kilometers per second. At maximum military power with zero safety margin on her inertial compensator, Artemis'

maximum acceleration was better than 6.5 KPS2, which was a third again what any prewar ship of her tonnage could have turned out. Even at the eighty percent of maximum power which was the RMN's normal top acceleration, she could produce 5.3 KPS2, which was still the next best thing to half a kilometer per second better than the old-style compensators could have produced running flat out. Given the present . . . delicate state of affairs with the Solarian League, the Admiralty had decided it might be wiser not to flaunt all of the Navy's current capabilities where Solly warships might see them. According to ONI's best current appreciations, the Solarians remained unaware of many of those capabilities. Some people—including Michelle—took that appreciation with a certain grain of salt, although she had to admit it wasn't as preposterous as it might have been if they'd been talking about any other navy in space. It was obvious to anyone who'd ever had to deal with the Solarian League Navy that the SLN suffered from an extraordinarily severe case of professional myopia. The League's navy was divided into two primary components: Battle Fleet and Frontier Fleet. Of the two, Battle Fleet was the bigger and the more prestigious, but Frontier Fleet actually did the lion's share of the SLN's real work. Given the League's enormous size, population, and industrial power, it was scarcely surprising that the SLN was far and away the biggest fleet in human history. Unfortunately for the League, the SLN knew it was the biggest, most powerful, most advanced fleet in human history . . . and at least one—and possibly two—of those well known facts were no longer true.

The League's towering sense of superiority where any "neobarb" star nation was concerned, while scarcely one of its more endearing qualities, didn't normally constitute a direct threat to the League's security. When it's navy shared that same sense of superiority (and burnished it with the institutional arrogance of a service which had existed literally for centuries and never known defeat), that wasn't exactly the case, however. Despite the fact that several of the League's member planets had sent observers from their locally raised and maintained system-defense forces to both Manticore and Haven, the SLN itself, so far as Michelle was aware, never had. There was, after all, no reason for it to concern itself with what a couple of minor, neo-barbarian polities on the backside of beyond might be up to. Even assuming that Manticore and Haven hadn't been too busy killing each other (no doubt with the equivalent of clubs and flint hand-axes), both of them together couldn't possibly have built a fleet large enough to threaten the League, and the thought that two such insignificant so-called star nations could have appreciably improved upon the technology of the incomparable Solarian League Navy was ludicrous. No one at ONI doubted for a moment that the SDF observers had offered their reports to the SLN. The majority opinion, however, was that the SLN's institutional blinkers were so solidly in place that those reports had been quietly filed and ignored . . . assuming they hadn't simply been tossed. The SDFs were only local defense forces, after all—the backup, second-string militia to the SLN's professional, first-string team. They were obviously going to be more parochial in their viewpoints, and, without the SLN's sound basis of training and vast experience, they were also likely to be unduly alarmist. Not to mention the fact that without the solid core of institutional and professional competence of the regular navy, their "observers" were far more prone to misunderstand—or even be deliberately misled by—what the neobarbs in question made sure they actually saw. Even if Solly naval intelligence was willing to grant their complete sincerity, the analytical methods already in place, relying upon tested and proven techniques, were bound to be more reliable than reports from what were little more than reservist observers who'd probably been steered to what the locals wanted them to see in the first place. That, at any rate, was how ONI read the SLN's current attitudes and decision trees, and the Sollies'

failure to deploy any significant improvements in their own military hardware certainly seemed to validate that interpretation, although Michelle, for one, preferred not to invest too much confidence in that particular assumption. The mere fact that no new hardware was being deployed didn't necessarily mean it wasn't being developed , after all, and for all its arrogance and condescension, the fact remained that the League had the greatest pool of human talent and wealth of any political unit in human history. If the SLN

ever got its collective head out of its ass, that talent and wealth could almost certainly make it just as scary as it already thought it was.

Whether or not there was more R&D going on than anyone was mentioning, ONI's sources within the Solly navy all seemed pretty much in agreement that the vast majority of Solarian naval officers put very little credence in the obviously wildly exaggerated claims about Manticoran and Havenite military technology. Based on evidence from the Battle of Monica, the Sollies (or one of their major defense suppliers, at any rate) were at least experimenting with newer-generation missile pods, which was something they'd previously disdained, and their missiles drives had proven surprisingly powerful and with greater endurance than anyone had really expected. But none of the missiles they'd fired—or, rather, supplied to Monica—had been MDMs, their pods hadn't had the new-generation grav-drivers which were so much a part of Manticore's designs, and there'd been no reports of increases in basic Solarian warship acceleration rates, which were incredibly low and inefficient compared to those of the Manticoran Alliance or even the Republic of Haven. After stirring all of that together and pondering it carefully, the Office of Naval Intelligence had come to the conclusion that at least some improvements could be anticipated out of the SLN, possibly as the result of privately sponsored in-house research and development by people like Technodyne, but that significant improvements were unlikely, at least in the short term.

Bearing that in mind, the Admiralty had instructed all of its captains not to exceed seventy percent of maximum military power in the presence of Solarian warships. The use of Ghost Rider and FTL coms was also to be minimized. And no MDM live-fire exercises were to be conducted in Solarian space. All of which meant that Artemis' maximum allowable acceleration was only 4.7 KPS2, and that it would take almost three and a half hours to reach a parking orbit around Monica. That was plenty of time for her to deploy recon drones to take a close look at the local real estate and report back, even using light-speed communications links.

"All right, Dominica," Michelle said, glancing at Commander Adenauer. "Confirm that the grav-pulse coms are shut down, then go ahead and fire them off."

"Aye, aye, Ma'am," the operations officer replied. She checked her own readouts carefully, then keyed in the command. "Drones away, Ma'am."

"Very good."

Michelle tipped back her command chair, waiting patiently as Artemis and the other ships of her first-division accelerated steadily—if slowly—towards Monica.

"Well, this is a fine kettle of fish," Michelle murmured an hour later as she gazed at the data codes on the master plot.

Artemis' combat information center had analyzed the (slowly) arriving sublight transmissions from the recon probes, and it was apparent that there had, indeed, been some changes since Vice Admiral Khumalo had received Vice Admiral O'Malley's latest update. The absence of any Manticoran units was scarcely a surprise, and while she couldn't precisely call the arrival of a visiting squadron of Frontier Fleet battlecruisers a surprise , the number of ships present was certainly unpleasant.

"CIC makes these eight their new Nevada-class, Ma'am," Dominica Adenauer said, highlighting the icons in question. "The other nine battlecruisers are Indefatigables . The IDs on the destroyers are a lot more tentative than that. CIC thinks they're all Rampart-class, but they can't guarantee it." She grimaced.

"Frontier Fleet's modified and refitted so many of the Ramparts that no two of their emission signatures really match one another."

"I don't suppose the tin-cans really matter all that much," Michelle replied, still gazing at the icons. Then she turned and glanced at Edwards. "Still no communications from them, Bill?"

"No, Ma'am." Edwards' tone could not have been more respectful, but it was undeniably . . . patient, and a smile flitted across Michelle's lips.

Guess I must be a little more nervous than I'm trying to pretend. If anybody over there had wanted to talk to us, Bill would have told me. Maybe I need to ask less obviously time-killing questions if I want to look suitably imperturbable during these little moments of stress?

Still, she supposed she could forgive herself for feeling just a little tense, under the circumstances. Finding seventeen Solarian battlecruisers in orbit around the planet Monica constituted a rather significant escalation in potential threat levels. Whatever else might be happening, she had an unpleasant suspicion that their presence was evidence the Solarian League wasn't planning on pulling in its horns quietly after all.

Don't borrow trouble, she scolded herself. It could be as simple as a reassuring gesture to a longtime "ally" like President Tyler. Frontier Security wouldn't like the perception that it's prepared to abandon its stooges at the drop of a hat to get around, after all. For that matter, they could just be here to show the flag and shore up the League's prestige in the area after the hammering Monica took .

The problem with both of those comforting theories was that it didn't really require two full squadrons of battlecruisers to make either of those points. And the fact that no one had taken the slightest notice of the arrival of her own four ships struck her as ominous. Either they really hadn't noticed her, which seemed . . . unlikely, or else they were deliberately ignoring her as if she were unworthy of their attention. Which was precisely the sort of dismissive arrogance all too many Manticoran officers had experienced from Sollies in the past.

And if they did send these people out to make some kind of statement, and if the officer in command of them really is a typically arrogant, pompous twit, things could get messy , she thought grimly.

"Do you want to open communications with them, Ma'am?" Cynthia Lecter asked quietly.

"Eventually, one of us is going to have to talk to the other one," Michelle replied wryly. "But while I don't really want to get into some sort of stare-the-other-fellow-down pissing contest about it, I'll be damned if we're going to be the whiny, nervous little kid begging the great big bully to take notice of us, either." Lecter nodded, although Michelle thought she detected at least a faint shadow of concern behind the chief of staff's eyes. If so, she wasn't exactly surprised. One of the jobs of a good chief of staff was to worry about the mistakes her boss might be making rather than play yes-woman.

"We're still two and a half hours out of Monica orbit," Michelle observed, "and they're the people already in orbit. Besides, we're squawking our transponders, and technically this is still Monican space." Lecter nodded again. The accepted interstellar convention was that the fleet in possession of a star system or a planet initiated contact with any newcomers. If contact wasn't initiated, if no challenge was offered, it indicated the fleet in possession wasn't planning on shooting at anyone who got too close. Besides, as Michelle had just pointed out, the Union of Monica was not a member system of the Solarian League, which made any Solarian units in Monican space at least as much visitors as the First Division. No doubt everyone understood perfectly well that Monica's sovereignty—such as it was, and what there was of it—currently existed only on sufferance, but there were still appearances to maintain. Which meant that unless the Sollies had, in fact, occupied the star system, any contact—or challenges—should be coming from Monican traffic control, not from the Sollies.

Or, for that matter, from Manticore.

"Somehow, I think this is going to be an interesting port call, Ma'am," Lecter said quietly.

"Oh, I think you could safely put the odd thousand-dollar bet on that one, Cindy."

"We've been hailed by the Monicans, Ma'am," Captain Armstrong said from Michelle's com screen.

"Finally."

Her voice was dust-dry, and Michelle chuckled as her flag captain added the final word.

"And they said?" she inquired.

"And they said we're welcome to Monica, Ma'am. Personally, I expect they're lying diplomatically through their teeth, given what happened the last time Queen's ships came calling here, but at least they're being polite."

"Did they happen to mention their Solarian visitors?"

"Not in so many words. They did instruct us to assume a parking orbit a minimum of eight thousand klicks clear of the closest Solly, though."

"Probably not a bad idea even if they hadn't made the suggestion official," Michelle said. "All right, Vicki. Go ahead and park us."

"Yes, Ma'am. Clear."

Armstrong nodded respectfully to Michelle, then disappeared from the display, and Michelle turned to Lecter, Edwards, and Adenauer, who stood in a loose semicircle around her command chair.

"So far, so good," she said. "And God knows I don't want to ruffle any Solly feathers any more than we have to. Nonetheless, Dominica, I think it would be a good idea to keep a very close eye on them. Let's make it passives only, but if a gnat breaks wind aboard one of those ships, I want to know about it. And inform all units that we'll maintain our own status at Readiness Two indefinitely."

"Yes, Ma'am."

Adenauer's expression was sober, and Michelle didn't blame her. Readiness Two was also known as

"General Quarters." It meant that all of a ship's engineering and life-support systems were fully manned, of course, but it also meant her combat information center and tactical department were fully manned, as well. That her passive sensors were fully manned; that her active sensors were at immediate readiness; that her point defense laser clusters were active and enabled under computer control; that her counter-missile launchers had rounds in the tubes and backup rounds in the loading arms; that her passive defensive systems and EW were on-line, ready for instant activation; that her offensive missile tubes were prepped and loaded; and that the human backup crews for half her energy weapons were sealed into their armored capsules with the atmosphere in the surrounding spaces evacuated to protect them against the effects of blast. The other half of her energy weapons would be brought up and manned on a rotating basis to allow crew rest for the on-mount personnel, and twenty-five percent of her watch personnel from all other departments would be allowed rotating rest breaks, in order to allow her to remain at Readiness Two for extended periods.

In short, except for bringing up her wedge and sidewalls and running out her energy weapons, Artemis and every one of Michelle's other battlecruisers, would be ready to respond almost instantly to any Solarian act of aggression.

Of course, it's that "almost instantly" that's the killer, Michelle reflected. Especially at this piddling little range. They could reach us with their damned laser clusters , far less their broadside mounts! Keeping our wedges and sidewalls up in parking orbit would certainly be construed as a hostile act by the Sollies or the Monicans, and rightly so. But that means that if someone else decides to pull the trigger, they'll probably blow the ever-loving shit out of us before we can respond, anyway. Still, it's the thought that counts.

"I don't want to do anything that could be construed as provocative, Cindy," she continued aloud, switching her attention to the chief of staff.

It wasn't as if Lecter didn't already know that perfectly well, but Michelle had learned a long time ago that it was far better to make absolutely certain of something like that than it was to discover the hard way that someone hadn't in fact known something "perfectly" . . . or, for that matter, at all.

"At the same time," Michelle went on as Lecter nodded, "I don't have any intention of letting these people 'Thunderbolt' us while we sit here fat, happy, and stupid. So I want you to help Dominica ride herd on CIC. If we pick up any status change aboard any of those Solly ships, I want to know about it before they do."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Good. And now," Michelle drew a deep breath and turned her attention to Edwards, "I suppose it's time I did my duty and checked in with our hosts personally. And, of course," she smiled without any humor at all, "with our fellow visitors to this pleasant little corner of the universe. Please raise the Monican port admiral for me, Bill."

"Yes, Ma'am."

The conversation with Rear Admiral Jane Garcia, Monica Traffic Control's senior officer, went rather better than Michelle had anticipated.

Garcia didn't even attempt to pretend she was happy to see Michelle's battlecruisers, for which Michelle couldn't blame her. Having been a prisoner of war herself, she had a better appreciation than many Manticoran officers might have of just how bitter a pill it must have been to see the destruction of virtually Monica's entire navy. Undoubtedly a great many of Garcia's personal friends—quite probably family members, as well, given the way military service tended to run in families in most star nations—had been killed along the way. And however much Manticore might have regarded Monica as a corrupt, venal tool of Frontier Security, the Union was Garcia's star nation. Its ignominious surrender, and the fashion in which Manticore had dictated peace terms afterward, could only have made Garcia's anger worse. Despite that, the other woman's demeanor had been crisp and professional. Although she hadn't welcomed Michelle to Monica, she'd been surprisingly courteous otherwise. Her lips might have tightened just a moment when Michelle asked her to pass her compliments to President Tyler, but she'd nodded almost naturally, then asked if Michelle had any pressing service requirements. With that out of the way, unfortunately, Michelle no longer had any excuse for not contacting the Solarian senior officer. Fortunately, Garcia had volunteered the Solly's name.

"All right, Bill," Michelle sighed. "Go ahead and raise Admiral Byng's flagship. I suppose—"

"Just a minute, Ma'am," Cynthia Lecter interrupted respectfully. Michelle paused and looked at her chief of staff, one eyebrow arched, and Lecter nodded towards the display in front of her at her own command station.

"I've just been looking at ONI's records, Ma'am," she said. "I punched in Admiral Byng's name, and it looks like I got a direct hit."

"Really?"

Both of Michelle's eyes rose in surprise. The Office of Naval Intelligence did its best to keep track of the senior personnel of other navies, but its records on the SLN were sparser than on, say, the Republic of Haven or the Andermani Empire. Despite the Manticoran merchant marine's deep penetration of the League's carrying trade, the Solarian Navy had been assigned a far lower priority than more local—and pressing—threats over the past half-century or so. And the fact that the SLN was so damned big didn't help. The same absolute number of officers represented a far smaller percentage of the total Solly officer corps, all of which helped to explain why it was actually unusual to find any given Solarian officer in the database.

"I think so, at any rate," Lecter replied. "It's always possible they have more than one Admiral Josef Byng, I suppose."

"Given the size of their damned navy?" Michelle snorted. "I'd say the odds were pretty good, actually." She shrugged. "Well, go ahead and shoot me whatever you've found."

"Yes, Ma'am."

The entry which appeared on Michelle's display a moment later was surprisingly long. For reasons which became depressingly clear as she skimmed through it.

The file imagery showed a tall, aristocratic-looking man with chestnut hair, just starting to go gray at the temples, and sharp blue eyes. He had a strong chin and sported a bristling mustache and a neatly trimmed goatee. Indeed, he looked every centimeter the complete professional naval officer in his immaculately tailored dress whites.

The biographical synopsis which went with that sharp, taut imagery, however, was . . . less aesthetically pleasing.

"It says here he's a Battle Fleet officer," Michelle said aloud, and even to herself, her tone sounded plaintive, like someone protesting that there surely had to be some sort of mistake.

"I know, Ma'am." Lecter looked profoundly unhappy.

"I hope—oh, how I hope—that either you've got the wrong man or else this is just a very unhappy coincidence," Michelle said, and Lecter nodded.

In many ways, Josef Byng was a typical product of the SLN, according to the ONI file. He came from a family which had been providing senior officers to the League Navy for the better part of seven hundred T-years; he'd graduated from the naval academy on Old Terra; and he'd gone directly into Battle Fleet, which was far more prestigious than Frontier Fleet. He was a second-generation prolong recipient who was just over a T-century old, and he'd been an admiral for the last thirty-two T-years. Unlike the Royal Manticoran Navy, the SLN had not developed the habit of routinely rotating senior officers in and out of fleet command to keep them current both operationally and administratively, and it looked as if Byng (or his family) had possessed sufficient pull to keep him in what were at least technically space-going commands for virtually his entire flag career.

That didn't mean as much in Battle Fleet as it might have in other navies, given the huge percentage of Battle Fleet's wall which spent virtually all of its time in what the SLN euphemistically referred to as

"Ready Reserve Status." It was quite possible for an admiral to spend several T-years in command of a squadron of superdreadnoughts, accruing the seniority—and drawing the pay—which went with that assignment, while the superdreadnoughts in question simply went right on floating around in their mothballed parking orbits without a single soul on board.

What was much more interesting to Michelle at the moment, however, was the fact that fifty-nine T-years ago, a young, up-and-coming Captain Josef Byng had been officially reprimanded—and moved back two hundred names on the seniority list—for harassing Manticoran shipping interests. Her skimming eyes slowed down as she reread that particular portion of the entry again, and she grimaced. Despite the ONI analyst's dry, rather pedantic writing style, it was easy enough to read between the lines. Captain Byng had clearly been one of those Solly officers who regarded neobarbs—like Manticorans—as two or three steps below chimpanzees on the evolutionary tree. It also appeared that his wealthy and aristocratic family (although, of course, Old Terra didn't have an aristocracy . . . officially) was deeply involved in interstellar commerce. It was common enough in Manticore for families involved in the Star Kingdom's vast shipping industry to provide officers for the Navy, as well, and Michelle was perfectly well aware that more than one of those officers had used and abused her authority in her family's interest. When the RMN became aware of those instances of abuse, however, it usually took action. On those rare occasions—which no longer occurred with anything like the frequency they once had—when the officer involved had proved too well connected for the JAG to deal with the situation, she'd normally been eased out of any command which might give her the opportunity to repeat the offense.

That, unfortunately, was not the case in the Solarian League, where cronyism and the abuse of power were both common and accepted. Especially in the Shell and the Verge, officers with "comfortable" relationships with the local OFS structure routinely used their positions to feather their own nests or promote their own interests. Captain Byng had obviously seen no reason why he shouldn't do the same thing, but his harassment had been far more blatant than most. He'd gone so far as to impound three Manticoran freighters on trumped up smuggling charges, and the crew of one of them had spent almost two T-years in prison without ever even being given the opportunity to face a judge. The Star Kingdom had attempted to deal with the problem locally, without raising it to the level of a major diplomatic incident, but Byng had flatly refused even to discuss the matter with the local Manticoran trade and legal attachés. The terms in which he had expressed his refusal had been . . . less than diplomatic, and the second time around, the legal attaché, without Byng's knowledge, had recorded the entire conversation. Which had then been presented formally to the Solarian Foreign Minister by the Manticoran ambassador to the Solarian League—who'd happened to be an admiral himself—with a polite but pointed request that the minister look into the problem. Soon.

Unfortunately for Captain Byng, the Star Kingdom of Manticore carried far more clout than the

"neobarbs" he was accustomed to browbeating. Faced with the politely veiled suggestion that failure to return the impounded vessels—and to free the imprisoned crewmen, with apologies and reparations—might very well result in higher junction transit fees for all Solarian merchantmen, the League's bureaucracy had sprung ponderously into action. It had taken another six T-months, but eventually, the ships and the imprisoned crewmen had been released, the League had paid a sizable damages award, and Captain Byng had been required to apologize formally for "exceeding his authority." Despite that, he'd gotten off incredibly lightly for someone whose actions—and stupidity—had embarrassed an entire star nation, Michelle thought. He'd been allowed to make his apology in written form, rather than in person, and any Manticoran officer who'd acted in the same fashion would undoubtedly have been dismissed from the Queen's service. In Byng's case, however, there'd never really been any possibility of that outcome. In fact, it was astonishing he'd even been moved back on the promotion lists.

It would appear from his subsequent record that he held everyone but himself responsible for that outcome, however. It had undoubtedly delayed his promotion to flag rank by several T-years, and it seemed evident that he blamed Manticore for his misfortunes.

Michelle would have found all of that sufficiently unhappy reading under any circumstances, but the fact that he was out here commanding a Frontier Fleet task force—and what looked, despite the fact that it was far larger than one normally saw in the Verge, to be a rather small one, for an officer of his seniority—made her even more unhappy.

Battle Fleet and Frontier Fleet were not fond of one another. Battle Fleet, despite the fact that none of its capital ships had fired a shot in anger in over two T-centuries, received the lion's share of the SLN's funding and was by far the more prestigious of the two organizations. Its officer corps was populated almost exclusively with officers whose family backgrounds were similar to Byng's, making it virtually a closed caste. Whereas the RMN had a surprisingly high percentage of "mustangs"—officers who had risen from the enlisted ranks to obtain commissions—there were none at all of them in Battle Fleet. That helped contribute to an incredible (by Manticoran standards) narrowness of focus and interest on the part of the vast majority of Battle Fleet officers. Who not only tended to look down particularly long and snobbish noses at all non-Solarian navies—and even the planetary defense forces of major Solarian planets—but even looked down upon their Frontier Fleet counterparts as little more than jumped up policeman, customs agents and neobarb-bashers who obviously hadn't been able to make the cut for service in a real navy.

Frontier Fleet, for its part, regarded Battle Fleet officers as overbred, under-brained drones whose obsolescent capital ships—as outmoded and useless as they were themselves—soaked up enormous amounts of funding Frontier Fleet desperately needed. Personally, Michelle would have been even more incensed by the fact that so much of the funding officially spent on those same capital ships actually disappeared into the pockets of various Battle Fleet officers and their friends and families, but she supposed it would have been unrealistic to expect Frontier Fleet to feel the same way. After all, graft and

"family interest" were as deeply ingrained a part of Frontier Fleet's institutional culture as they were for Battle Fleet. And to be fair, Frontier Fleet was also dominated by its hereditary officer caste, which resented the hell out of the juicier opportunities for peculation which came the way of its Battle Fleet counterpart. Still, its commissioned ranks contained a significantly higher percentage of "outsiders," and even a relatively tiny handful of mustangs of its own.

Bearing all of that in mind, no Battle Fleet admiral would have been happy to find herself assigned to command a mere Frontier Fleet task force. And no Frontier Fleet task force would have been happy to find her assigned to command it, either. Under any circumstances Michelle could think of, a Battle Fleet officer of Byng's seniority would have to regard a command like this as a demotion, probably even a professional insult, and he damned well ought to have had the family connections to avoid it. If, of course, he'd wanted to avoid it.

Oh, I don't like this at all, she thought. This bastard must have "I hate Manticore" embroidered on his underwear, which means the situation out here just got one hell of a lot more . . . delicate. I wonder if it was all his idea? In fact, I hope it was. Because if it wasn't, if someone else pulled strings to get him assigned to this particular task force and he went along with it willingly, I think we can all be damned sure it's not going to be a reason we're going to like. On the other hand, I doubt anything I could say to him is going to make him like us any better, so I suppose I can just go ahead and be my normal, infinitely tactful sort.

"Well," she said finally, "I suppose I'd better go ahead and talk to him. Give me a minute to get my happy face put back on, Bill, then go on and hail him."

Chapter Twenty-Four

"Sir, the Manty admiral is on the com," Captain Willard MaCuill said. "It's a Vice Admiral Gold Peak. She's asking to speak to you."

"Oh, she is, is she?" Admiral Josef Byng smiled sardonically as he turned his command chair to face his staff communications officer. "Took her long enough to get around to it, didn't it? I wonder why that was?"

"Probably took her that long to get back out of the head after she changed her underwear, Sir," Rear Admiral Karlotte Thimár, Byng's chief of staff, replied with a nasty chuckle. "Not quite like the last time one of their ships was here, after all."

"No, it isn't," Byng agreed, and glanced at the tactical display on SLNS Jean Bart 's flag bridge. He didn't quite curl his lip as he considered the flag bridge's old-fashioned instrumentation and cramped size. He understood that Frontier Fleet had a lower priority for the Fleet 2000 upgrades, after all, so he'd also known from the beginning that it was unrealistic to expect better, but he didn't exactly attempt to conceal his feelings, either. There was no need, since all of his staff officers had come over with him from Battle Fleet. All of them shared his awareness of the step down they'd been forced to take for this particular mission, although they did do their best to conceal their feelings whenever any of their Frontier Fleet "brothers in arms" were present.

Not that anyone on either side of that particular division was actually likely to fool anyone very much, he supposed.

Still, even though they were only battlecruisers—and Frontier Fleet battlecruisers, at that—rather than the superdreadnought squadrons he should have had under command, Karlotte was undoubtedly correct about the Manties' reaction when they found seventeen Solarian League warships sitting here to greet them. Indeed, Byng's only real regret was that the Manty ships which had previously occupied the system had already withdrawn before his own command came over the hyper wall. He would've loved to see their reaction to his arrival. Or, for that matter, how they would respond when his third battlecruiser squadron arrived in a couple of T-weeks.

His eyes moved to the scarlet icons of the Manticoran ships, and this time his lip did curl ever so slightly as he considered CIC's data bars. Of course, it was a Frontier Fleet combat information center with a Frontier Fleet tactical crew, so one had to take its analyses with a grain of salt. Still, at this piddling little range, it was unlikely that even Frontier Fleet could get its sums wrong. Which meant the "battlecruisers" on his plot really did mass well over two million tons apiece.

Just like them and their so-called "navy," he thought contemptuously. No wonder the doomsayers have been whining and moaning about how "dangerous" Manty warships are all of a sudden. Hell, if we built "battlecruisers" twice the size of anyone else's, we could probably stick a lot of firepower into them, too! Sure, I'll bet they can take a lot of damage, too, but ONI's right. The real reason they're building them that damned big is the fact that they realize they couldn't go toe-to-toe with a real first-line navy without the tonnage advantage. And the biggest frigging

"battlecruisers" in the galaxy won't help them if they ever come face to face with Battle Fleet!

Before deploying to command Task Group 3021, Byng had dutifully read through all of the intelligence appreciations. Not surprisingly, those from Frontier Fleet's analysts had been much more alarmist than anyone else's. Frontier Fleet had always had a tendency to jump at shadows, in large part because viewing with alarm was one way to try to twist the accountants' arms into diverting additional funding to it. Then too, one had to consider the quality of the officers making those reports. Still, even Frontier Fleet's reports had sounded almost rational and reasonable compared to the ludicrous claims being made by some of the system-defense forces. God only knew why any of them had bothered to send observers to watch two batches of neobarbs five hundred light-years from nowhere in particular butchering each other with muzzle-loading cannon and cutlasses in the first place. Perhaps that was part of the explanation for the wild exaggerations some of those observers had included in their reports? Not even an SDF admiral was going to send a competent officer that far out to the back of beyond. No, he was going to send someone whose services could be easily dispensed with . . . and who wouldn't be missed for the weeks or months he'd spend in transit.

Oh, there was no doubt the Manties and their Havenite dance partners had managed to fall into at least some innovations as they stumbled about the dance floor with one another. For example, they obviously had improved their compensator performance to at least some extent, although clearly not to the level some of those "observers" were claiming. And even though it irritated him to admit it, fair was fair; that improvement in their compensators had sparked Solarian R&D efforts in the same direction. Given the difference between the basic capabilities of their respective scientific communities, however, there was no doubt that the Manties' advantage—never as great as those exaggerated reports had asserted—had already been pared away. He only had to look at the acceleration rate of those outsized "battlecruisers" to know that!

Oh, well, he thought. I suppose I'd better get this over with .

"Very well, Willard," he said, turning back from the plot. "Go ahead and put her through."

Well, so much for my hope that there were two Josef Byngs on the Solly officer list, Michelle thought as the Solarian admiral's face appeared on her display.

It had taken him long enough to get around to taking her call, but that had scarcely been surprising. A lot of Solarian naval officers liked to keep their inferiors waiting as a not-so-subtle way of emphasizing that inferiority.

"I'm Admiral Josef Byng, Solarian League Navy," the white-uniformed man on her display said. "To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?"

Michelle managed to keep her jaw from tightening. She'd never thought much of SLN officers'

efficiency, but she rather suspected that Byng's subordinates had at least bothered to inform him of the identity of his caller. And she'd asked for him by name and rank, which made his self-introduction a deliberate and patronizing insult.

I can already see how this is going to go , she thought.

"Vice Admiral Gold Peak," she replied. "Royal Manticoran Navy," she added helpfully, just in case he hadn't recognized the uniform, and had the satisfaction of seeing his lips tighten ever so slightly.

"What can I do for you today . . . Admiral Gold Peak?" he inquired after a moment.

"I only screened to extend my respects. It's not often we see a full Frontier Fleet admiral this far out in the sticks."

From the look in Byng's eyes, he appreciated being called a Frontier Fleet officer even less than Michelle had expected him to. That was nice.

"Well, it's not often we have the sort of . . . incident which occurred here in Monica, either, Admiral Gold Peak," Byng replied after a moment. "Given the Union of Monica's long-standing and friendly relations with the League, I'm sure you can understand why it seemed like a good idea to send someone of our own out here for a firsthand impression of events."

"I certainly can," Michelle agreed. "We felt a need to do the same thing after the unfortunate events here in Monica." She shook her head. "I'm sure all of us regret what happened after Captain Terekhov attempted to ascertain exactly what President Tyler's intentions were. According to our own investigations, those battlecruisers provided to him for his projected attack on the Lynx Terminus were supplied by Technodyne. Have your people been able to turn up anything more about that, Admiral?"

"No." Byng showed his teeth in something a professional diplomat might have described as a smile. "No, we haven't. In fact, according to the briefings I received when I was dispatched, we still haven't managed to confirm where they came from."

"Aside from the fact that they obviously came from the SLN. Originally, I mean." Michelle smiled, adding the carefully timed qualifier as Byng appeared to swell visibly. "Obviously, once ships are listed for disposal and handed over to private hands for scrapping, the Navy's responsibility for them is pretty much at an end. And the paper trail can easily become . . . obscured, as we all know. Especially if some criminal—and civilian, of course—type is doing his best to make it obscure."

"No doubt. My own experience in those areas is somewhat limited, however. I'm sure our own investigation will be looking very carefully at the recordkeeping of our various suppliers. No doubt Technodyne will be included in that process."

Michelle toyed with the notion of telling him about the indictments which had already been handed down against several of Technodyne's senior executives. Given the Beowulf Terminus of the Manticoran Wormhole Junction, her own information loop from the Old League was far shorter than Byng's could possibly be. She strongly suspected that he must at least have known which way the wind was setting before he set out for Monica, and the possibility that she might be able to push his blood pressure up into stroke levels made the temptation to rub his nose in the evidence that Technodyne had been caught with its hand in the cookie jar clear to the elbow almost overwhelming.

Down, girl, she told herself, suppressing the desire right womanfully.

"I'm sure it will be," she said instead. "In the meantime, however, may I assume you're also here in something of the role of observer of the Talbott Quadrant's integration into the Star Empire?"

"Star Empire?" Byng repeated, raising his eyebrows in polite surprise. "Is that what you've decided to call it?" He gave her a small, almost apologetic wave of his hand. "I'm afraid I hadn't heard that before I was deployed."

His tone made his own opinion of the delusions of grandeur involved in calling something the size of Manticore's new star nation article in "empire," and Michelle smiled sweetly at him.

"Well, we had to call it something , Admiral. And given the political arrangements the Talbotters came up with at their constitutional convention, the term sounded logical. Of course, it's early days yet, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is." Byng smiled back at her, but his smile was considerably colder than hers had been. "I'm sure it's going to be interesting to see how . . . successfully your experiment works out."

"So far, it seems to be going quite well," Michelle said.

"So far," he agreed, with another of those smiles. "In answer to your question, however, yes. I have been instructed to observe events out here in the Talbott area. I'm sure you're aware the public back home was deeply interested in events out here. Especially after that unfortunate business on Kornati began to make it into the newsfaxes." He shook his head sadly. "Personally, I'm confident the entire affair was grossly exaggerated—newsies do need to sell subscriptions, after all. Still, the Foreign Ministry does feel a certain responsibility to get a firsthand impression of events there, as well as throughout the Cluster. I'm sure you can understand why that would be the case."

"Oh, believe me," Michelle assured him with deadly affability, "I can understand exactly why that would be the case, Admiral Byng. And, speaking for Her Majesty and Her Majesty's government, I'm sure all of the Star Empire's new member systems will be prepared to extend every possible courtesy to you."

"That's very welcome news, Admiral."

"And, while you're here, Admiral, if there's any way Her Majesty's Navy can assist you—for example, if you would care to set up joint anti-piracy or anti-slavery patrols—I'm sure Admiral Khumalo would be as delighted as I would to coordinate our operations with you."

"That's very kind of you." Byng smiled again. "Of course, unlike your new Star Empire, the League has no direct territorial interests in this region. Aside from the security of our own allies in the area, that is. And, of course, the security—and territorial integrity—of those star systems which have been taken under the protection of the Office of Frontier Security. I believe we can see to those obligations out of our own resources. At least, it's difficult for me to conceive of a threat to those interests which we couldn't deal with out of our own resources."

"No doubt." Michelle smiled back at him. "Well, in that case, Admiral Byng, I won't keep you any longer. We won't be in Monica for very long. This was just in the nature of making certain our new allies here were secure, so I imagine we'll be on our way to Tillerman shortly. I need to pay a courtesy call on President Tyler first, however. Governor General Medusa has instructed me to inform him that the Star Empire is prepared to extend government-guaranteed loans to any of its citizens who might be interested in investing here." Her smile turned sweeter. "I believe Baroness Medusa—and Her Majesty—believe it's the least we can do to help Monica recover from the consequences of that unfortunate event."

"That's remarkably generous of your Star Empire," Byng said.

"As I said, I'm sure everyone regrets what happened here, Admiral Byng. And Manticore's experience has been that extending a helping hand to ex-enemies and treating them as equals is one of the better ways to see to it that there's no repetition of all that unpleasantness."

"I see." Byng nodded. "Well, since you seem to have quite a lot that still needs doing, Admiral Gold Peak, I'll bid you good day."

"Thank you, Admiral. I hope your mission here is a successful one. Henke, clear."

Chapter Twenty-Five

"Take a seat, Matt," Commander Ursula Zeiss invited, pointing at one of the chairs in front of her desk as Lieutenant Maitland Askew stepped through her shipboard office door.

Askew obeyed the polite command, seating himself in the indicated chair, then watched as she punched the console button to close the door behind him.

Askew was twenty-eight T-years old, with sandy-brown hair, brown eyes, and a wiry build. He was slightly below average in height—in fact, the compactly but solidly built Zeiss was at least a centimeter taller than he was—and something about him gave an impression of continual bemusement. Zeiss was one of the people who knew better than to take that "bemusement" at face value. There was a brain behind those mild brown eyes, and it seldom truly shut down.

Which, of course, was part of her current problem, she thought, sitting back and contemplating him thoughtfully across her desk.

"You wanted to see me, Ma'am?" he observed after several moments of her silent scrutiny, and she snorted.

"Of course I wanted to see you. I always want to see you, don't I?" Askew's lips twitched ever so slightly at her acerbic tone. Zeiss was SLNS Jean Bart 's tactical officer, and Askew had been her assistant tac officer for almost two T-years now. They'd worked well together over that time, but there was no denying that they had fundamentally different personalities. Zeiss was an excellent training officer, and her main interest—and strength—lay in recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of her human material and adjusting for them. Askew's personnel management skills, while adequate, were nowhere near as strong as hers were, and his main interest was in what he called the

"nuts and bolts" of the tactical officer's trade. As a result, Zeiss tended to leave hardware issues in his hands while she got on with other things. As a rule, that worked well, but sometimes the difference in their emphases led to a certain amount of . . . friction, perhaps. That wasn't really the exact word Askew was searching for, but it came closer than anything else he could come up with.

"I'd like to think you're usually able to at least tolerate my presence, Ma'am," he said now. "On the other hand, I had the impression that there was something specific you wanted to discuss with me."

"You had the right impression, then," Zeiss said, straightening in her chair with a considerably more serious expression. She looked at him for another few moments, then waggled one hand in the air in front of her.

"Captain Mizawa had a little discussion with Captain Aberu yesterday," she said, "and it would appear your name came up."

" My name?" Askew repeated carefully, and frowned when Zeiss nodded. Captain Warden Mizawa, Jean Bart 's CO, was one of the better officers Askew had ever served under. He was also career Frontier Fleet, like Askew—and, for that matter, Zeiss—and not particularly fond of Battle Fleet officers, like Ingeborg Aberu, Admiral Byng's staff operations officer. It wasn't likely the two of them had just gotten together for a friendly chat over a stein of beer. Coupled with Zeiss'

expression, that lent a somewhat ominous aspect to the thought that his name might have come up in conversation between them.

"May I ask the context, Ma'am?" he inquired even more cautiously..

"It would appear, Matt, that Captain Aberu is not one of your greater admirers. Did you do something at some point that might have personally stepped on her toes? Something that might explain why she'd take a certain degree of dislike to you?"

"Ma'am," Askew said, "I don't even know Captain Aberu. Aside from the dinner party Captain Mizawa hosted when the admiral and his staff came aboard, I don't think I've ever even been introduced to her." Which, he did not add aloud, would not be the case if she were on the staff of a Frontier Fleet Admiral .

There was remarkably little love lost between Battle Fleet and Frontier Fleet at the best of times, and Askew wasn't immune to that institutional lack of mutual admiration. All the same, Admiral Byng and his staff seemed to have taken the traditional rivalry between the two services to an all-time high. There'd been virtually no social interaction between them and Captain Mizawa's officers, despite the lengthy voyage involved in just getting to the Madras Sector. Obviously, they'd had better things to do with their time. And they'd made it abundantly—one might almost have said painfully—clear that the sole function of the none-too-bright ship's company of SLNS Jean Bart was to chauffeur them around the galaxy while they got on with the business of sorting out everything Frontier Security and the local Frontier Fleet detachment had managed to screw up beyond all repair here in the Madras Sector. Probably because none of them knew how to seal their flies after taking a leak.

So why, after totally ignoring Jean Bart 's entire company ever since they'd come aboard, should Captain Aberu find herself "discussing" Maitland Askew with Captain Mizawa? Right offhand, he couldn't think of a single reason, and he doubted very much that he was going to like where this was headed.

"I didn't think you'd ever crossed swords with her," Zeiss said, "but apparently you've managed to really piss her off. I suspect this had a little something to do with it." She reached into her drawer, withdrew a fairly thick sheaf of hard copy, and slid it across the deck to him. He picked it up, glanced at the header on the first page, then looked quickly back at her with his eyes full of questions.

"No," she answered the first of those questions, "I don't know how Aberu got hold of it. I suspect that neither the captain, nor I, nor the exec is going to be very happy if we ever manage to find out. The salient point in your case, however, is that the admiral's operations officer has apparently read your little treatise and been singularly . . . unimpressed by it."

Askew looked back down at the header. "A Preliminary Appreciation of Potential Technology Advances of the Royal Manticoran Navy," it said, and in the originating officer's name block it said

"Askew, Maitland, LT."

"Ma'am, this is the report the captain asked me for," he began carefully, "and I never meant for it to—"

"I'm well aware that it was never intended for general circulation, Matt," Zeiss interrupted him. "That's why I said I don't expect to be particularly happy when I find out how it came to be in Aberu's hands. One thing I do know, though, is that it didn't get there by accident. So either someone from the ship's company gave it to her, or else . . ."

The tactical officer let her voice trail off, and Askew nodded. Bad enough if someone in their own company was passing potentially "interesting" information on to Admiral Byng's staff without authorization. But if it had come into Aberu's possession because Byng's people were hacked into the tactical department's information net—or, even worse, Captain Mizawa's personal internal com channels—it said even worse things about Task Force 3021's command structure. And in either case—whether she got it from a spy or through some illegal hack—the fact that Aberu decided to tell the captain she had the access isn't exactly a good sign either, now that I come to think about it.

"Should I take it that she complained about my conclusions to the captain, Ma'am?" he asked after a moment.

"She objected to your conclusions, your assumptions, your estimates, and your sources," Zeiss said almost dispassionately. "She characterized you as alarmist, credulous, ignorant, incompetent, and

'obviously not to be trusted with any significant independent analysis.' That last phrase is a direct quote, by the way. And she informed the captain that if this represented the caliber of his officers' work and capabilities, the entire task force was obviously in deep and desperate trouble." Askew swallowed. Naval service had run in his family for the last eight generations, but all of those generations had been spent in Frontier Fleet. That wouldn't cut a lot of ice with a Battle Fleet captain—or admiral—and he couldn't even begin to call upon the level of patronage and family alliances someone like Aberu could. If Byng or his staff decided an example had to be made of Maitland Askew, the destruction of his own naval career would become a virtual certainty.

"Ma'am—" he began, with absolutely no idea where he meant to take the sentence. Fortunately, Zeiss interrupted him again before he had to find out.

"You did exactly what the captain and I asked you to do, Matt," she said firmly. "I realize that may seem like cold comfort if someone like Aberu decides to set her sights on you, but neither of us have any intention of simply cutting your air line because she's a little miffed. Having said that, however, I have to admit that what she's chosen to be miffed over actually worries me more than the potential fate of one of my subordinates, however much I like and value him."

Askew couldn't pretend he was happy about that last sentence, but neither could he argue with her professional priorities.

Captain Mizawa had commissioned the report to which Aberu had taken such exception as part of his own background planning for their current mission. Askew had no idea how much of the report's content Mizawa was prepared to take at face value. For that matter, the assistant tactical officer wasn't really certain how much of it he was prepared to take at face value. Nonetheless, he was now convinced—and he knew Zeiss was, as well—that the official ONI estimates of the Manties' capabilities were badly flawed . . . to put it mildly.

Askew hadn't given much thought to the Royal Manticoran Navy himself before Jean Bart had been posted to the Madras Sector in the wake of the attack on the Republic of Monica. He knew the RMN

was a lot bigger than most of the neobarb fleets floating around out in the Verge and beyond. It could hardly be otherwise, given the size of the Manticoran merchant marine, the need to protect it, and the fact that Manticore and the People's Republic of Haven had been at war with one another for the last twenty-odd T-years. That much he'd been prepared to admit, in a sort of offhand, casually incurious way, but his own assignments had kept him clear on the other side of the Solarian League's vast volume. He'd had rather more pressing concerns in his own area of operations. So even if he'd been vaguely aware of the Manty navy's sheer size, that awareness hadn't inspired him to think about it with any particular urgency. And if he'd thought about the ridiculous rumors about new "super weapons" coming out of the so-called Havenite Wars at all, it had mostly been to dismiss them as the sort of wildly exaggerated propaganda claims to be expected out of such a backward and distant corner of the explored galaxy. He certainly would have agreed that it was ludicrous to suggest that a single neobarb star system, be it ever so deeply involved in interstellar commerce, could have put together an R&D

effort that could manage to outpace that of the Solarian League Navy!

Askew had found it extremely difficult to wrap his mind around the possibility that his initial estimate of the situation might have been seriously defective, but Captain Mizawa had asked him to keep an open mind when he undertook his appreciation of the Manticoran threat's severity. He'd done his dead level best to do exactly that, and the more he'd looked, the more . . . concerned Maitland Askew had become.

The actual hard data available to him was painfully limited. There'd never been much of it to begin with, and he'd decided at the outset that if he was going to come at his task with the "open mind" Captain Mizawa wanted, he'd have to start out by discarding the ONI reports which flatly dismissed the possibility of any threatening Manticoran breakthroughs. That left him gathering data on his own, and since they'd already been in hyper-space, on their way to their new duty station, there'd been precious little of that around until they reached the Meyers System, the Madras Sector's administrative center, and he was able to quietly talk things over with some of the officers of the Frontier Fleet detachment on permanent assignment to Commissioner Verrochio's office.

Commodore Thurgood, the senior officer in Meyers prior to Admiral Byng's arrival, had been more than willing to share all of the information, analysis, and speculation available to him. At first, Askew had been strongly inclined to dismiss Thurgood as an alarmist, but he'd dug into the commodore's documentation, anyway. And, as he'd dug, he'd begun to feel more than a little alarmed himself. There was virtually no hard data from the actual attack on Monica. Any sensor data which had been available had either been destroyed along with Eroica Station's military components and the ships the Manticorans had engaged, or else swept up afterward by the Manticoran "investigation teams" which had swarmed over the Monican wreckage. Yet even though hard data was effectively impossible to come by, Thurgood had drawn certain very disturbing conclusions from the reports of as many Monican survivors as he'd been able to interview.

First, unlike a majority of Solarian Navy officers, Thurgood had declined to write off what had happened as due solely to Monican incompetence. He'd personally known the Monican flag officers involved—especially Isidor Hegedusic and Janko Horster, the two admirals who had actually engaged the Manticorans and gotten themselves killed for their pains. While the highest levels of the Republic of Monica's military had been as riddled by cronyism and political favoritism as any other Verge "star nation," Thurgood had respected the personal abilities of both Hegedusic and Horster, and he'd also informed Askew that the Monican Navy's basic level of competence had been surprisingly high. Second, although he wasn't supposed to have been, Thurgood had been briefed on the missile pods Technodyne had made available to Monica. As a consequence, he'd been aware that the missiles in those pods had possessed a substantially higher rate of acceleration and drive endurance—and therefore a substantially greater effective range—than the standard missiles of the Solarian League Navy. Third, ten Manticoran warships, four of them mere destroyers and only three of them as powerful as a heavy cruiser, had taken the combined fire of all of the pre-deployed missile pods and, although quite obviously surprised by the missiles' range and sheer numbers, not only survived as a fighting force but managed to destroy the entire military component of Eroica Station and nine of the fourteen modern battlecruisers Technodyne had provided to the Monicans. Not only that, but the six damaged Manticoran survivors of the engagement with Eroica Station had destroyed three more modern, fully functional battlecruisers in stand up combat. And they'd apparently managed to do that using nothing but their internal missile tubes, without any interference from pods at all.

Fourth, although there was no hard sensor data to explain exactly how they'd done it, it had been made abundantly clear—both during the engagement against Horster's three battlecruisers and afterward—that the Manticorans had managed to emplace what amounted to a system-wide surveillance system without being caught at it. And while Thurgood readily admitted that the supporting evidence and logic were much more speculative, the speed of the Manties' reaction to both Horster's attack and Admiral Bourmont's later maneuvers suggested that they might very well be capable of FTL communication with their recon platforms, after all.

There'd been more, but even Thurgood had conceded that a lot of it—like the preposterous missile attack ranges some of the system-defense forces observers had been reporting from the main Manticore-Haven front and the ridiculously high acceleration rates attributed to Manticoran starships—sounded unlikely. On the other hand, he'd pointed out, he had absolutely no effective way of personally testing or evaluating those outrageous claims. He hadn't said so in so many words, but it had been evident to Askew that whether or not he could test or evaluate the claims in question himself, he was . . . strongly disinclined to reject them out of hand.

Askew had been taken aback by Thurgood's attitude. His original response had been strongly skeptical, but rather than simply reject the commodore's concerns, he'd painstakingly retraced Thurgood's logic, searching for the flaws he suspected had to be there. Unfortunately, he hadn't found them. In fact, as he'd dutifully searched for them, he'd come more and more firmly to the belief that Thurgood had a point. In fact, it looked as if he had several points.

And that was what he'd reported to Mizawa, Zeiss, and Commander Bourget, Jean Bart 's executive officer. He'd been a bit cautious about the way he'd reported it, of course. He was an SLN officer, after all, well versed in the ways of equivocation and careful word choices, and his own initial reaction to Thurgood had suggested how his superiors would probably respond to any wild-eyed, panicky warnings about Manticoran super weapons. Besides, even though the analysis had been requested only for Captain Mizawa's internal use, there'd always been the possibility that it might—as, indeed, appeared to be the case—have come into someone else's possession. If that happened, some other superior officer might prove rather less understanding than Captain Mizawa if young Lieutenant Askew came across as too alarmist.

Apparently I wasn't cautious enough, he reflected grimly.

"Should I assume, Ma'am, from what you said about Captain Aberu's response, that Admiral Byng feels the same way?" he asked.

"I don't have any idea how Admiral Byng feels," Zeiss told him. She shook her head and grimaced.

"From the way Captain Mizawa described the 'conversation' to me, it sounds like Aberu was expressing her own opinions. From what I've seen of her so far, I'd guess she's one of those staffers who sees it as her duty to prevent obvious nonsense from cluttering up her admiral's desk. So I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that she'd taken it upon herself to quash this sort of 'panicky defeatism' on her own, without ever discussing it with Admiral Byng at all. Unfortunately, Matt, we don't know that that's the case. It's equally possible that Admiral Byng sent her out to suggest rather firmly to the captain that he leave the threat analysis business to the task force staff without the admiral himself getting involved."

"I see, Ma'am." Askew gazed at her for several silent seconds, then cleared his throat. "May I ask what the captain intends to do about Captain Aberu's concerns?"

"He's not about to toss you out the nearest airlock, if that's what's worrying you." Zeiss actually produced a chuckle, but then her expression sobered again. "At the same time, though, he has to be a bit cautious about how he proceeds."

Askew nodded glumly. Captain Mizawa's family connections went quite a bit higher than Askew's own, but they still ended well short of the lofty sort of influence Byng could bring to bear. Given that, especially against the background of the traditional Battle Fleet-Frontier Fleet rivalry, Mizawa would have to pick his ground carefully for any quarrel with Byng. Coming to the impassioned defense of his assistant tactical officer probably wouldn't be the most career-enhancing move a flag captain could make. And it wouldn't solve the problem of Aberu's pigheadedness, either, he thought.

"For the moment," Zeiss continued, "he wants you to lie as low as possible. Just go about your duties, and he and I—and the exec—will keep you as far away from Flag Bridge and the admiral's staff as we can. Bearing in mind that we don't know exactly how your report came into Captain Aberu's hands, it would probably be a good idea for you to keep your mouth shut about its contents, as well." She looked at him levelly, and he nodded again. If they did have someone working as Byng's—or Aberu's—informant, talking about his and Thurgood's theories could very well get him charged with spreading defeatism.

"Yes, Ma'am," he said. Then, a bit more daringly, "And may I ask how the captain reacted to my analysis?"

Zeiss rocked back in her chair, regarding him narrowly for several heartbeats, then shrugged.

"Captain Mizawa—like Commander Bourget and myself—is inclined to take your more alarming hypotheses with a sizable grain of salt. I think the captain was as impressed as I was by the caliber of your work, but as you yourself point out, the supporting data is really pretty damned thin on the ground, Matt. You and Commodore Thurgood may very well be onto something, but I think we're all inclined to reserve judgment for the moment. I will say that your appreciation of the potential threat is likely to make all three of us approach the situation much more cautiously than we might have otherwise. It's just that until we've acquired some of that missing hard data we can't afford to get overly timid in our relations with the Manties." She gave him another of those hard, level looks, then added, "Or with anyone else."

"Yes, Ma'am. I understand."

Askew didn't try to keep his own worry—and not just for the possible implications for his naval career—out of his own voice, but he understood, all right.

"I thought you would, Matt," Zeiss said quietly. "I thought you would."

Chapter Twenty-Six

"I understand you're not a professional reporter, Captain," the attractive brunette said in an almost soothing tone. "And I know it makes people a bit nervous the first time they have to go through an interview like this. But I promise you, I've done this hundreds of times, and none of my interviewees have ever died yet."

The man sitting across the small desk from her in the uniform of a merchant service deck officer, grinned and chuckled just a bit nervously. Then he nodded.

"I'll, uh, try to bear that in mind, Ms. Brulé."

"Good. And remember, we don't have to get it perfect the first time. Just tell us what really happened, in your own words, and then we'll play it back and if you realize you've misspoken at some point, we can correct it. And if you realize you've left anything out, we can put it in at that point, too. The object is to get all of the information into the right people's hands, not to try to be perfect while we do it. Okay?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Good," the brunette repeated, then looked directly into the waiting pickup.

"This is a recorded interview with Captain Tanguy Carmouche, commander of the New Tuscany-registry freighter Antelope, concerning certain events which occurred in the San Miguel System. I am Anne-Louise Brulé, conducting this interview for the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Trade, and the Treasury. This record is being made on July 7, 1921 Post Diaspora, on the planet of New Tuscany." She finished the official tag, then turned back to Captain Carmouche.

"Very well, Captain Carmouche. Could you please explain to us, in your own words, exactly what happened?"

"In San Miguel, you mean?" Carmouche said, then grimaced in obvious embarrassment. "Sorry. I guess I really am a little nervous."

Brulé smiled encouragingly, and the captain cleared his throat and straightened slightly in his chair.

"Well, we'd arrived in San Miguel early last month to collect a cargo which had been chartered before this Constitutional Convention in Spindle voted out its 'constitution.' Now, San Miguel's always been part of the Rembrandt Trade Union, and the Union's always favored using its own bottoms instead of chartering foreign-registry ships, so there've been occasional problems for skippers who don't belong to the RTU, but generally, we've been able to work things out without too much trouble.

"This time, though, when Antelope made her parking orbit, we were boarded by a Manticoran customs party, not one from San Miguel or the Trade Union. That was unusual, but I just figured it was part of the new political set up, so I didn't worry about it too much. Until, that is, the Manties started tearing the ship apart looking for 'contraband.' "

Carmouche's face tightened in remembered anger, and he shrugged jerkily.

"I wasn't any too happy about that," he said. "I mean, I can understand wanting to keep a handle on smuggling, especially out here in the Verge. I don't have a problem with that. For that matter, I know our own customs people keep a close eye on ships entering New Tuscany, especially if they aren't regular visitors on this run. But there's courteous ways to go about it, and then there's ways that . . . aren't so courteous. Like the way these bas—"

He broke off, shook himself, and grimaced.

"Sorry," he said again. "I meant like the way these people did it. I don't necessarily expect anyone to bow down to me. I mean, I know I'm merchant service, not the Navy. But, by God, Antelope is my ship! I'm the one responsible to the owners, and even if I'm only merchant service, there's a certain amount of respect any skipper has a right to expect out of visitors aboard his ship. I don't care who they are!

"But these people didn't waste any respect on anyone aboard Antelope . They were rude, insulting, and what I have to think was deliberately antagonistic. They didn't make requests; they demanded whatever it was they wanted. They insisted on bringing aboard all kinds of scanners and detection equipmet, too, and they went through every cargo space with a fine tooth comb. Took hours , given the size of our holds, but they insisted. Just like they insisted on checking every bill of lading individually against its cargo container—didn't matter whether or not the container's port-of-origin customs seals were intact, either. They even made us open a whole stack of containers so they could physically eyeball the contents! And they made it pretty clear that if we didn't do exactly what they wanted, they'd refuse us entry for the planet and prohibit any orbital cargo transshipment."

Carmouche leaned forward in his chair, his face and body language both more animated in an evident combination of anger and increasing confidence under Brulé's encouraging, gravely sympathetic expression.

"Well, I managed to put up with their 'customs inspection' without popping a blood vessel or slugging anyone, but it wasn't easy. We got them back off the ship—finally—and we got our clearances from them, but that was when we found out we were going to have to submit to a medical examination before we were allowed to take on or discharge cargo. We weren't discharging cargo, anyway, and they damned well knew it. And I've never been asked for a medical certification to take on cargo! At a port of entry, sure. Anyone wants to keep a close eye on anyone who might be bringing in some kind of contagion. But when there's not going to be any contact between any of my people or the planetary environment—for that matter, not even between any of my people and an orbital warehouse, for God's sake, since the cargo was coming aboard in San Miguel shuttles!—it didn't make any sense at all. For that matter, they'd checked our current medical records as part of their customs inspection!

"I didn't understand it then, but it started making sense later, when I realized it didn't have anything to do with medical precautions. Not really. No matter what we did, there was always another hoop waiting for us to jump through before we were going to be allowed to load our cargo. After the medical examination, they insisted on checking our engineering logs to make sure we weren't going to suffer some sort of catastrophic impeller casualty in heavily traveled volumes of the star system. And after that , they decided they had to inspect our enviro plant's waste recycling and disposal systems, since they didn't want us littering in their precious star system!"

He shook his head angrily.

"The only thing I could come up with, since every one of those 'inspections' of theirs was completely bogus, as far as I could tell, was that it was a systematic effort to make it very clear that Antelope wasn't welcome in San Miguel. The RTU's always been protective of its own interests, but I was under the impression from everything everyone was saying before the Constitutional Convention that the Manties supported free trade. Well, maybe they do, and maybe they don't, but I can tell you this—if they do think free trade is a good idea, they obviously don't think it's a good idea for everyone! And after I figured out what was going on, I asked around. There were a couple of other ships in orbit, but we were the only one from New Tuscany. And by the oddest coincidence, we were also the only one being subjected to all those 'inspections.' Which suggested to me that maybe what this was all about was the fact that we hadn't ratified their 'constitution,' and this was an example of payback. I don't know about that for sure, of course, but as soon as I got back to New Tuscany, I spoke to the Ministry of Trade about it, and I don't mind telling you I was just a bit hot when I did. Apparently, I'm not the only New Tuscan skipper this has happened to, either. Or that was my impression, anyway, when they asked me to make an official statement for the record."

He looked at Brulé and raised an eyebrow, but she shook her head with a commiserating smile.

"I'm afraid I don't really know about that, Captain Carmouche," she said, in the tone of voice someone used to add "and if I did know, I couldn't tell you," without ever saying so out loud.

"Well, whatever," Carmouche said after a moment, "that's about the size of it. Were there any specific questions you wanted to ask, Ma'am?"

"There were a few points where the ministries wanted a little more detail, Captain," Brulé said, keying a memo pad and glancing down at the display. "Let me see . . . All right, first, did you get the name and rank of the Manticoran officer in charge of the original customs inspection?"

"No," Carmouche replied with another grimace. "Never offered it. Suppose I should have insisted, but it's the first time I ever had a regular navy officer come aboard my ship and not give his name and rank. Personally, I think he didn't want me to have it in case I ended up lodging any formal protests. Of course, I didn't know then that I was going to be doing that, either. So, instead of asking, I—"

They were good, Aldona Anisimovna thought, watching approvingly from the studio's control room. In fact, the New Tuscan Information Ministry had shown a far more sophisticated touch where little things like propaganda and special effects were concerned than she would have expected out of someone with a Verge tech base. Of course, they'd probably needed a bit more sophistication than most, given their local proles' evident unhappiness.

She particularly liked the touch with the pre-interview conversation and Brulé's efforts to put Captain Carmouche more at his ease. They wouldn't be part of the formal report, of course . . . but they would

"just happen" to have been left attached to the raw footage which would accompany the formal report. Where, of course, Commissioner Verrochio's people would "just happen" to discover them. They'd give a certain additional sense of veracity to the final report when it was presented to Verrochio as part of the evidence supporting claims of harassment. Of course, while there'd been no particular effort to hide the fact that Anne-Louise Brulé worked for the Ministry of Information, no one had bothered to mention the fact that 'Captain Carmouche' was actually being portrayed by one Oliver Ratté, who was also employed by the Ministry of Information. Unlike Brulé, whoever, who was a recognizable anchor from the New Tuscan news broadcasts, Ratté was effectively anonymous. Although he'd appeared in innumerable propaganda efforts, he'd never appeared under his own face. Instead, his job had been to provide the body language, voice, and facial expressions the computers transformed into someone else entirely. It was still the best and simplest way to produce high-quality CGI, especially for someone whose tech base might not have all of the latest bells and whistles. In fact, New Tuscany's computer technology was probably at least a couple of centuries behind that of the Solarian League in general. They'd demonstrated over the years just how much could be accomplished by substituting technique and practice for technology, however, and this time around, Ratté was appearing under his own face. There would be absolutely no computer chicanery with this little masterpiece, and the same held true for all the others the New Tuscans were working up. After all, it would never do for any of the Manties' contacts in the League to demonstrate that sort of fancy tricks by analyzing the recording. And by the time Dusserre and his little helpers over at the Security Ministry get done massaging the planetary database, there won't be any way to prove that Captain Carmouche and the good ship Antelope have never existed. In fact , she thought with amused satisfaction, there'll be all kinds of evidence that they have existed. Of course the Manties are going to claim that neither of them have ever visited San Miguel, but who is Frontier Security supposed to believe? The poor, harassed New Tuscans who are asking for their intervention, or the nasty Manties who are trying to come up with reasons why Frontier Security shouldn't investigate?

It was a nice touch, although it was scarcely necessary. Not that she had any intention of telling the New Tuscans that. From their viewpoint, there was every reason to set up an invulnerable defense in depth, since they could anticipate the Manties' protestations of innocence. Especially given the fact that the Manties were innocent, she admitted. But what the Mesan Alignment in the person of one Aldona Anisimovna had seen no reason to worry New Tuscany over was that it really didn't matter at all. No one was going to be looking at any records on New Tuscany. The Solarian League wouldn't feel any particular need to do so; the Manties weren't going to be in a position to do so; and both sides were going to be far too busy with what the Alignment really wanted them to be doing to each other for it to matter one way or the other to anyone.

She watched Brulé and Ratté working their way smoothly through the well-written and carefully rehearsed script and wondered if the sense of almost godlike power she felt as she watched the entire New Tuscany System dancing to the Alignment's script was the same sort of thing Albert Detweiler felt?

And if so, was it as addictive for him as she realized it could easily become for her? For that matter, if it was, did he care?

I understand what we're trying to accomplish and why—now, at least, she thought. I wouldn't have understood before he and Isabel explained it all to me, but I do now. But knowing only makes the game even more intoxicating. It defines the scope, the scale, in a way nothing else ever has before. But ambitious as it is, it's still all . . . intellectual for me. The game is what's real . I wonder if it's that way for Albrecht and the others? And if it is, what are they going to do when we've finally pulled it off and there are no more games to play?

"He said what?"

Lieutenant Commander Lewis Denton frowned at Ensign Rachel Monahan. The ensign sat just a little nervously in a chair across the desk from him in his compact day cabin. Despite the fact that Denton was only a lieutenant commander, and that HMS Reprise was only a somewhat elderly and increasingly obsolescent destroyer, he was still the captain of one of Her Majesty's starships, and at the moment, Monahan seemed only too well aware of the fact that she was the most junior officer aboard that same starship.

She was also conscientious and, although Denton had absolutely no intention of saying so to a single living soul, remarkably easy on the eye. She wasn't the very smartest junior officer he'd ever encountered, but she had a generous helping of common sense, and she was a long, long way from stupid. In fact, Denton was one of those officers who preferred attention to duty and common sense to erratic or careless (or, even worse, lazy ) intelligence, and he'd been entirely satisfied with her performance since she'd joined Reprise's ship's company. That was one of the reasons he'd been giving her progressively bigger opportunities to demonstrate her competence and self-confidence, and, so far, she'd met all of them quite handily.

Which was what had led directly to her request for this interview, even if Denton didn't have a clue in Hell what was going on.

"He said he was going to formally complain about our 'harassment,' Sir," Monahan repeated now.

" Your harassment," Denton said in the tone of a man trying to get some ridiculous concept straight in his own mind.

"Yes, Sir."

Monahan sounded more than a little anxious, and Denton could understand that well enough. A great many junior officers who'd screwed up would make it their first order of business to get their version of what had happened in front of their commanding officers before any inconvenient little truths could come along to make matters worse. In Monahan's case, though, that very notion was preposterous.

"About the harassing you obviously hadn't done, Rachel. Is that what he was implying?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Had you done anything that could have gotten him pissed off enough at you to fabricate some sort of complaint in an effort to make trouble for you?"

"Sir, I can't think of a single thing," she said, shaking her head. "I did everything exactly by The Book, the way I've done it every time before. But it was like . . . I don't know, exactly, Sir, but it was like he was waiting for me to do something he could complain about. And if I wasn't going to do it, then he was ready to claim I had, anyway! I've never seen anything like it, Sir."

She was obviously even more confused than she was worried, and Denton made another mental check mark of approval for her end-of-deployment evaluation. Despite her evident concern that he might wonder if she was trying to cover her posterior, she'd reported the entire episode to the XO as soon as she'd come back aboard ship. And the XO had been sufficiently perplexed—and concerned—to pass her report along to Denton before she'd even left his office. Which was the reason Monahan was now sitting in Denton's day cabin repeating her account of the customs inspection.

"So you went aboard, asked for his papers, checked them, and did a quick walk-through, right?"

"Yes, Sir."

"And he was giving you grief from the very beginning?"

"Yes, Sir. From the minute I cleared the personnel tube. It was like he was on some kind of hair trigger, ready to bite my head off over anything, no matter how polite my people and I were. Skipper, I think I could have complimented him on the color of the bulkheads and he would have managed to turn it into some sort of mortal insult!"

The young woman—she was only twenty-two T-years old—had clearly never experienced anything like it. Denton had, on the other hand, although it had usually been from a Solarian merchant spacer, not someone from New Tuscany. Some Sollies went out of their way to attempt to provoke a Manticoran officer into providing a basis for complaints and allegations of harassment. It was something Astro Control back in the home system encountered with depressing frequency from Solarian ships passing through the Manticoran Wormhole Junction, as well. Some Sollies simply resented the hell out of the fact that a single little out-system star nation dominated such a huge percentage of the League's total carrying trade. They went around with planet-sized chips on their shoulders where the Star Kingdom was concerned as a consequence.

But the Sollies who did that also knew they were representatives of the Solarian League. They were armed and armored with all of the arrogant Solly assurance that there was nothing any mere Manticoran could really do to punish them if they got out of line. That was one of the things Denton himself personally most hated about Solarians. And it was also what puzzled him about this incident, because New Tuscany was a single-system star nation, so poor it didn't have a pot to piss in. So what could possibly possess a New Tuscan merchant skipper to risk deliberately antagonizing the Royal Manticoran Navy here in a star system which had just become Manticoran territory?

"Sir?"

Denton shook himself back up out of his thoughts and looked back at Monahan.

"Sorry, Rachel." He gave her a quick smile. "Wool gathering, I'm afraid. You had something else you wanted to add?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Well, add away," he encouraged.

"Sir, it's just, well . . ." She seemed a bit hesitant, then visibly steeled herself for the plunge.

"Sir, it's just that I had this funny feeling that he wasn't really saying any of it for my benefit."

"What do you mean?" Denton's eyes narrowed.

"It was more like he was talking about me than to me," she said, sounding as if she were picking her words carefully, trying to find the ones to explain whatever it was she was groping towards.

"Like . . . like somebody in one of the Academy's training holos, almost."

"Like he knew it was being recorded ," Denton said slowly. "Is that what it felt like?"

"Maybe, Sir." Monahan looked more worried than ever. "And it wasn't just me he was complaining about, either."

"Meaning?" Denton tried to keep any note of tension out of his voice, but it was hard, given the mental alarm bells trying to ring somewhere deep down inside him.

"Meaning that he didn't say just 'you' when he was complaining about what a hard time I'd been giving him. He said that, but he also said things like 'you people ,' too. Like there were dozens of me, all trying to give him and his friends trouble."

"I see."

Denton sat in thought for several more seconds, not particularly liking the speculations chasing around the inside of his brain like hamsters in an exercise wheel, then returned his attention to the ensign sitting before him.

"Rachel, I want you to know that you did exactly the right thing reporting this. And that neither the XO

nor I believe for a minute that you did a single thing wrong aboard that ship. I don't know exactly what his problem was, but I'm sure you handled yourself just as well as you always have in the past."

"I tried to, Sir," she said, unable to hide her enormous relief at his firmly supportive tone. "The more it went on, though, the more I started wondering if I had done something to tick him off!"

"I doubt very much that you did anything at all," Denton said in that same firm tone of voice.

"Unfortunately, you may well encounter the same thing again. God knows most of us have run into it a time or two, although it's usually from the Sollies, not from someone like the New Tuscans. I'm sorry it happened to you here, but it's probably just as well to get the first dose out of the way early in your career."

"Yes, Sir," she said, and he flashed her a smile of approval.

"All right," he said with an air of finality. "I think you've probably given me everything you've got, so there's no point our sitting here chewing it over any more or wondering what kind of wild hair might have inspired him to go off that way. I would like you to go ahead and record a formal report on this, though. If he does actually decide to complain to someone, I want to have your version of the encounter already on the record to help shoot him down."

"Yes, Sir," she said again.

"In that case, why don't you go ahead and get that taken care of right now, while events are still fresh in your mind?"

"Yes, Sir."

Monahan obviously recognized her dismissal, and she rose, braced briefly to attention, and left. Denton gazed at the closed door for several moments, then punched a combination into his com terminal.

"Bridge, XO speaking," a voice said. "What can I do for you, Skipper?"

"I've just finished talking with Rachel, Pete. I see why you sent her to see me."

"She did seem more than a little upset," Lieutenant Peter Koslov said. "But it was the nature of what that New Tuscan bastard said that really worried me ."

"Agreed. I don't want to make a big thing out of this and worry her any more than she' already is, especially not before she gets her formal report together for me. But, that said, I want you to have a word with the rest of her boarding party, especially Chief Fitzhugh. And have a quiet word with any of the other JOs who've been running the customs inspections. See if any of them may have heard some of the same kind of remarks and just not been as willing as Rachel to bring them to our attention. And if they have heard anything like that, I want details of time, place, and content."

"Yes, Sir."

Koslov sounded rather grimmer than he had a moment ago, Denton noticed.

"One other thing," the CO continued. "I want every party that goes aboard anybody's merchant shipping wired for sound and vision. I don't especially want you to mention it to anyone aboard ship, either, because I don't want anyone obviously playing to the camera from our side. So find someplace to put a parasite cam. I don't want to give away any image quality unless we have to, but I'm less worried about picture than I am about sound."

"Skipper, I don't think I like what I think you're thinking."

"Well, if you hadn't been thinking in the same direction yourself, you wouldn't have gotten Rachel in to see me quite this promptly, now would you?" Denton shot back.

"It was more an itch than any sort of full-blown suspicion, Sir."

"In that case, your instincts may just have been serving you entirely too well, I'm afraid," Denton said grimly. "I don't have any idea why this might be going on, and it may be that you and I are both just imagining things. But it may be that we aren't, either, and Admiral Khumalo made the point that he wanted us to keep our eyes and ears open when he sent us out. So go ahead and make those inquiries for me. And get those bugs planted. Maybe we can sneak them into the boarding officer's memo boards or something. I don't know, but I do know I want the best hard records we can get of every visit to a New Tuscan ship. And I want the same thing from our inspections of anyone else's shipping, as well, to serve as a base for comparison. Clear?"

"Clear, Skipper," Koslov replied. "I don't like where we seem to be going with this, but it's clear."

Chapter Twenty-Seven

"Not much of a picket, is it?" Michelle Henke commented quietly to Cynthia Lecter, twelve days after her conversation with Josef Byng, as HMS Artemis and the other three ships of the first division of Battlecruiser Squadron 106 decelerated towards a leisurely rendezvous with the ships Augustus Khumalo had detached to keep an eye on the Tillerman System when he returned to Spindle from Monica.

"No, Ma'am," Lecter agreed, equally quietly. "On the other hand, Admiral Khumalo didn't have a lot to work with. And I don't think anyone expected Vice Admiral O'Malley to be recalled quite so . . . precipitously."

"You do have a way with words, don't you, Cindy?" Michelle smiled without very much humor, but she had to admit that Lecter had made an excellent point. Two of them, in fact. Which leaves me with a not-so-minor problem of my own, she thought dryly. Nobody had a clue the Sollies were going to send such a big-assed task force straight out to Monica to wave in our face. But now we know they have . . . and that we are going back to war with Haven, too. So do I reinforce Tillerman by detaching a couple of battlecruisers, or do I leave Tillerman like it is and take everybody I've got back to Spindle to keep things concentrated?

The question was, unfortunately, one she wouldn't be able to duck, much as she might have wished she could do exactly that. The mere notion of dividing her forces in the face of any potential threat from the Solarian League was calculated to inflict insomnia on any fleet commander. On the one hand, the three days she'd spent in Monica had convinced her that whatever else Josef Byng might be in the vicinity to accomplish, it wasn't to reassure one Michelle Henke of his friendly and pacific intent. So if she didn't reinforce the pair of over-aged light cruisers and the single destroyer Khumalo had been able to station here, she risked sending the entirely wrong signal not just to him but to everyone else in the Talbott Quadrant. She dared not give anyone—especially Byng—the impression that she would be unwilling to run serious risks, or even fight, to defend the territory and citizens of the newborn Star Empire of Manticore. For that matter, she had both a legal and a moral responsibility to do just that, regardless of the nature of the threat.

On the other hand, even a pair of Nikes might find themselves hard-pressed against all of Byng's battlecruisers at once. Despite the advantages in range and hitting power the Mark 16 and Mark 23

provided for the RMN, enough effective missile defense could go a long way towards blunting that advantage, and no one had any way to assess just how effective SLN missile-defense doctrine might actually be. Michelle strongly doubted that it would be enough to tip the odds in the Sollies' favor, but she couldn't be positive of that before the fact. Worse, even if it turned out after the fact that two Nikes were, indeed, a match for everything Byng had, Byng wouldn't know that ahead of time, either. For that matter, he'd never admit it—probably even to himself—no matter how much evidence anyone presented to him before the shooting started. Michelle had seen enough Manticoran officers who were capable of that sort of self-delusion when it suited their prejudices. Someone like Byng would be able to pull that off effortlessly.

And if he doesn't recognize—or admit—the threat even exists, then the "threat" won't deter him for a moment, will it? she thought bitingly. Aside, of course, from the possibility that taking out our

"outnumbered and outgunned" picket would be crossing a line he may have specific orders not to cross.

Yeah. Sure he does. If you're willing to bank on that , girl, don't be accepting any real estate deals that involve bridges or magic beans!

She grimaced, then inhaled deeply and glanced over her shoulder at Lieutenant Commander Edwards.

"Contact Devastation , Bill. My compliments to Commander Cramer, and would it be convenient for him to join me for dinner here aboard Artemis at, say, eighteen-thirty hours?"

"Aye, aye, Ma'am," the com officer replied, and Michelle turned her attention to Gervais Archer.

"As for you, Gwen," she said with a smile, "you get to go tell Chris that Commander Cramer will be joining us for dinner. Make sure Captain Armstrong and Commander Dallas know they're invited, as well."

"Yes, Ma'am," Gervais replied gravely. He supposed some might argue that the admiral was being just a bit presumptuous to be organizing dinner parties when the guest of honor hadn't confirmed that he'd be present. On the other hand, it was just a bit difficult for Gervais to conceive of any commander who wouldn't somehow find it possible to fit an invitation from any admiral into his schedule, no matter how busy it might be.

"Oh, and, Bill," Michelle said, glancing back at Edwards. "While you're sending out the invitations, go ahead and invite Captain Conner and Commander Houseman, too."

Commander Wesley Cramer of Her Majesty's Starship Devastation was a hard-bitten looking officer, forty-one T-years old (which made him three T-months younger than his own cruiser), with dark hair and quartz-hard gray eyes. His neatly clipped mustache mostly hid a scar on his upper lip, one of several souvenirs of a bruising Saganami Island rugby career, and it didn't look as if he'd mellowed a great deal since leaving the Academy.