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# Chapter Fifty-Nine

The planet of Manticore was a blue-and-white-swirled beauty as the pinnace from GSNS Seneca Gilmore swooped into its outermost atmosphere. Admiral Lady Dame Honor Harrington, Duchess and Steadholder Harrington, sat in its large passenger compartment, alone but for her three-man security team, and watched the seas of featureless white turn into fluffy, wind-textured billows of cloud as the pinnace swept lower and lower towards the City of Landing.

It was a short flight, the last leg of the journey home from Sidemore which had begun two weeks earlier when the Protectors' Own was finally recalled to Grayson by way of Manticore, and she sat very still, feeling the emptiness and the tension within her as the pinnace banked gracefully onto its final heading and settled towards the private landing pad behind Mount Royal Palace.

Queen Elizabeth had wanted to welcome Honor home in the manner in which she insisted Honor deserved to be welcomed, but Honor had managed to avoid that ordeal, at least. It was already obvious to her that there would be other ordeals, just as public and just as exhausting, which she would not be able to avoid. She'd seen the HD of the cheering crowds, celebrating wildly in the capital's streets when news of the Second Battle of Sidemore was announced, and she dreaded what would happen when those same crowds learned "the Salamander" was home. But in this instance, her monarch—well, one of her monarchs, she supposed—had agreed to relent, and so there was no huge honor guard, no crowd of newsies, to observe her arrival once again upon the soil of her birth-kingdom's capital planet.

There was a greeting party, however. One that consisted of four humans and three treecats. Queen Elizabeth herself and her consort, Prince Justin, headed the small group of two-footed people awaiting her. Ariel rode on Elizabeth's left shoulder, while Monroe rode on Justin's right shoulder. Behind them stood Lord William Alexander and his brother, the Earl of White Haven, with Samantha standing high and proud on his shoulder, eyes glowing as she tasted the mind-glow of her mate for the first time in far too long. Colonel Ellen Shemais stood alertly to one side, overseeing the small squad of Palace Security and Queen's Own personnel guarding the perimeter of the landing pad, but that was their only function here. There were no bands, no flourishes and salutes. There were only seven people, friends all of them, waiting for her as she came home once more.

"Honor." Elizabeth held out a hand to her, and Honor took it, only to find herself enveloped in a fierce hug. Five or six T-years before, she wouldn't have had a clue how to respond to her Queen's embrace. Now she simply returned it, tasting the equally fierce welcome which came with it.

Other emotions washed over her, flooding through her as she, too, sampled the mind-glows of those about her. Samantha's spiraling joy and delight as she rose still higher on White Haven's shoulder and began signing to Nimitz in joyous welcome. Prince Justin, as glad to see her, in his own way, as Elizabeth, and William Alexander, her friend, political mentor, and ally.

And then there was Hamish. Hamish, standing there, looking at her with his soul in those ice-blue eyes from the heart of a firestorm of welcome and joy that turned even Elizabeth's into a candle's glow by comparison. She felt herself reaching out to him—not physically, not moving as much as a centimeter in his direction, yet with all of the irresistible power of a stellar gravity well. And as she looked into his eyes over the Queen of Manticore's shoulder, she saw the echo of that same reaching out. Not with the same sharpness or acuity as her own empathy. Not even with any conscious recognition of what it was he felt. It was . . . blinder than that, and she suddenly realized it must be what treecats saw when they looked at their mind-blind people. A sense of a presence that was asleep. Unaware yet immensely powerful and somehow linked to them. Yet not totally unaware. He had no idea what he was feeling, yet he felt it anyway, and a part of him knew he did. She tasted that confused, groping sensitivity in the sudden flare of his mind-glow, and saw Samantha stop signing to Nimitz and turn to stare in wonder at her person.

Honor had never felt anything quite like it. In some ways, it was like her link to Nimitz, but weaker, without the strength anchored by a treecat's full-blown empathic sense. And yet, it was also far stronger, for its other end was not a treecat, but another human mind. One that matched her own. That . . . fitted on levels that hers and Nimitz's would never be able to fully share. There was no "telepathy," no sharing of thoughts. Yet she felt him there, in the back of her brain as he had already been in her heart. The other part of her. The welcoming fire ready to warm her on the coldest night.

And with it the knowledge that whatever else might have happened, the impassable barriers which held them apart still stood.

"It's good to see you home," Elizabeth told her, her voice slightly husky, as she stood back, still holding Honor's upper arms, and looked up into her face. "It's very good."

"It's good to be here," Honor replied simply, still tasting Hamish, still feeling his amazement as the echo of her awareness flowed through him, however faintly, as well.

"Come inside," Elizabeth urged. "We have a lot to talk about."

* * *

"—so as soon as word came in about Grendelsbane, High Ridge had no choice but to resign," Elizabeth said grimly.

Honor nodded, her own expression equally grim. She, her hostess, and Elizabeth's other guests all sat in deep, old-fashioned, comfortable chairs in Elizabeth's's private retreat in King Michael's Tower. It was a welcoming, cheerful room, but Honor could taste the tangled flow of conflicting emotions deep inside Elizabeth. Emotions which stood in stark contrast to their surroundings.

Horror and dismay over the disastrous defeat the Navy had suffered at Grendelsbane. An awareness of how brutally the Fleet's strength had been wounded that terrified even the woman treecats called "Soul of Steel," especially in light of what the new Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence had reported about the probable strength of the Republican Navy. And mingled with all of that, the savage, vengeful joy she'd felt when the merciless requirements of formal protocol ground High Ridge's face into the totality of his ruin and disgrace as he surrendered his office.

"Is it true about Janacek?" she asked quietly, and it was White Haven's turn to nod.

"According to the Landing Police, there's no question but that it was suicide," he confirmed.

"Not that very many people were prepared to accept that in the immediate aftermath," his brother added with a harsh snort. "He knew where an awful lot of the bodies were buried, and quite a few people found it suspiciously . . . convenient that he should decide to blow his own brains out."

"Descroix?" Honor asked.

"We're not sure," Elizabeth admitted. "She tendered her resignation along with High Ridge, of course. And then, a couple of days later, she headed out to Beowulf on one of the day excursion ships . . . and didn't come back. From the looks of things, there was no foul play involved, unless it was her own. I think she planned on not coming back, although at this point no one has the least idea where she may have headed. All we know for sure it is that she transferred about twenty million dollars through a numbered DNA account on Beowulf to another account in the Stotterman System." The Queen grimaced. "You know what the Stotterman banking laws are like. It's going to take us at least ten or twelve T-years to get access to their records."

"Where did the money come from?" Honor wondered.

"We're working on that one from our end, Your Grace," Colonel Shemais put in diffidently. "So far, we don't have any definite leads, but there are a couple of at least slightly promising avenues for us to follow up. If we find what I expect to, we may be able to break Stotterman open a little sooner. They are part of the Solarian League, after all, and Sollie banking regulations are pretty specific about cooperating with embezzlement and malfeasance investigations."

"And New Kiev?" Honor asked, and blinked in surprise as Elizabeth laughed out loud.

"Countess New Kiev," the Queen said after a moment, "has . . . retired from politics. It might be more appropriate to say that she was fired, actually. Your friend Cathy Montaigne led something of a coup d'état within the Liberal Party leadership."

"She did?" Honor couldn't keep the delight out of her response, even though she hadn't been aware that Elizabeth even suspected that she herself had been in contact with Montaigne and Anton Zilwicki.

"She certainly did," William Alexander replied with a grin. "Actually, the Liberal Party as we've known it doesn't really exist anymore. Things are still in the process of working their way out, but when the dust settles, it looks like there are going to be two separate political parties, each calling themselves the Liberal somethings. One is going to be a substantial majority of the old Liberal Party, centered in the Commons behind Montaigne's leadership. The other's going to be a rump of diehard ideologists who refuse to admit how completely they were used by High Ridge. They're probably going to be concentrated in the Lords . . . since the only way someone that out of touch with reality could possibly survive as a political figure is by inheriting his seat."

"North Hollow is also lying conspicuously low just now," White Haven put in, and Shemais chuckled nastily. Honor cocked an eyebrow at her, and the colonel smiled.

"One of the more interesting consequences of the destruction of the 'North Hollow Files'—I mean, one of the consequences of the ridiculous assertion that something which never existed, like the so-called 'North Hollow Files,' had been theoretically destroyed—is that quite a few people seem to want to discuss certain concerns with Earl North Hollow. It's almost as if he'd had some sort of hold over them and now that it's gone, well . . ." She shrugged, and Honor found it very difficult not to smile as she tasted the colonel's vengeful delight. A delight, she admitted, which she shared to the full.

"So now that High Ridge and his cronies are gone, who's running the Star Kingdom?" she asked after a moment. "Besides Willie, I mean." She grinned. "The dispatch boat that delivered my recall orders also brought the 'fax stories about High Ridge's resignation and the fact that you'd asked Willie to form a government, Elizabeth. But they were short on details."

"Well," Elizabeth replied, leaning back in her armchair, "Willie's Prime Minister, of course. And we've brought back Baroness Mourncreek—except that I've decided to create a new peerage for her and make her a countess—as Chancellor of the Exchequer. We've brought in Abraham Spencer to run the Ministry of Trade for us, and I've convinced Dame Estelle Matsuko to take over the Home Office. Given the state High Ridge and that idiot Descroix managed to let the entire Manticoran Alliance get into—it's confirmed, by the way, that Erewhon has definitely signed a mutual defense treaty with the Peeps—Willie and I figured we needed someone the smaller members of the Alliance would trust as Foreign Secretary, so we asked Sir Anthony Langtry to take over there."

"I see." Honor cocked her head to one side and frowned at the Queen. "Excuse me, Elizabeth, but if you've asked Francine to take over at the Exchequer, who's going to be running the Admiralty?"

"Interesting that you should ask," Elizabeth said around a bubble of treecat-like delight. "I knew I'd need someone particularly reliable to dig out the unholy mess Janacek and those idiots Houseman and Jurgensen left in their wake. So I turned to the one person I knew Willie and I could absolutely rely on." She nodded at Hamish. "Allow me to introduce you to First Lord of Admiralty White Haven."

Honor's head whipped around in astonishment, and White Haven smiled crookedly. It was a very ambivalent smile, and it matched the taste of his emotions perfectly.

"Actually," Elizabeth said much more seriously, "it was a hard call to make. God knows that taking Hamish out of a fleet command position at a time like this wasn't anything that I wanted to do. But it would be impossible to exaggerate the gravity of the wreckage Janacek left behind." She shook her head, her eyes now completely grim. "That son-of-a-bitch is damned lucky he committed suicide before I got my hands on him. I could probably have made a case for treason out of the way he mishandled his responsibilities and duties. ONI was the worst, and at the very least Jurgensen is going to be dismissed the service as unfit to wear the Queen's uniform. There may well be criminal charges, as well, once the full story comes out, although I hope we can avoid witch hunts for the 'guilty men.' I fully intend to see those responsible for the unmitigated disaster of our present position punished, one way or another, but Justin—and Willie, not to mention Aunt Caitrin—have lectured me very firmly on the absolute necessity of administering justice evenhandedly and fairly. No star chambers, and no twisting of the law. Anything I can nail them for legitimately, yes, damned straight I will. But if I can't, then the bastards walk."

She brooded darkly for a moment, then shook herself.

"At any rate," she went on more briskly, "just as Willie and I agreed that we needed someone we could trust at the Exchequer and someone our alliance partners could trust at the Foreign Office, we desperately needed someone at the Admiralty who both the governments and navies of all our alliance partners could trust. As a matter of fact, we decided that was especially important because we're both confident that we're only just beginning to fully understand the damage Janacek managed to do. There are going to be still more public revelations that won't do a thing for public confidence in the integrity of the Navy—or its war-fighting ability, for that matter—and that made it absolutely imperative to put a face people could feel comfortable trusting on the Admiralty. Since you weren't available," the Queen smiled wickedly at Honor's expression, "we drafted Hamish."

"And working on the same principle that it's vital to restore confidence in the Admiralty," White Haven put in, "I've brought Tom Caparelli back as First Space Lord as well as bringing Pat Givens back in as Second Space Lord. And," his wry grin became absolutely astringent, "Sonja Hemphill to run BuWeaps."

Honor was hard put not to goggle at his last sentence, and he chuckled.

"I expect there to be the occasional, um . . . clash of personalities," he acknowledged. "But I think it's time Sonja and I put our silly feuds behind us. As you pointed out to me once, the mere fact that she's the one who had an idea doesn't automatically mean it's a bad one. And one thing we're going to need badly in the immediate future is as many good ideas as we can get."

"I'm afraid that's true," Honor admitted sadly. She leaned further back in her chair and sighed. "I'm still trying to come to grips with it all. It's like that old Pre Diaspora children's book—the one about wonderland. I can understand, in a way, what happened to us here, domestically. But the rest of it . . ." She shook her head. "I've met Thomas Theisman. I just can't understand how this all happened!"

"It happened because they're Peeps," Elizabeth said, and Honor felt a sudden stab of alarm at the cold, bottomless hatred that flowed through the Queen in the wake of her bleak reply.

"Elizabeth," Honor began, "I understand how you feel. But—"

"Don't, Honor!" Elizabeth said sharply. She started to say something else, quickly and angrily, then made herself stop. She drew a deep breath, and when she spoke again, Honor didn't need her own empathic sense to recognize the effort the Queen made to keep her voice calm and reasonable.

"I know that you personally admire Thomas Theisman, Honor," Elizabeth said. "In an intellectual way, I can even understand that. And I fully realize that you have certain . . . advantages when it comes to assessing someone's motivations and sincerity. But in this instance, you're wrong."

She met Honor's eyes levelly, and her own eyes were like flint. In that instant, Honor recognized how completely accurate her treecat name truly was, for she tasted the unyielding steel in the Queen of Manticore's soul.

"I will go as far as acknowledging that Theisman, as an individual, may be an honest and an upright human being. I will certainly acknowledge his personal courage, and his dedication to his own star nation. But the fact remains that the so-called 'Republic of Haven' has cold-bloodedly, systematically lied with a cynical audacity that not even Oscar Saint-Just could have matched. From Pritchart and Giancola on down—including your friend Theisman—without a single voice raised in dissent, their entire government has presented the same distorted, deceitful face to the entire galaxy. They've lied, Honor. Lied to their own people, to our people, and to the Solarian League. God knows that I could sympathize with anyone who was as systematically used and abused as the Peeps were by High Ridge and Descroix! I don't blame them for being angry and wanting revenge. But this 'diplomatic correspondence' they've published—!"

Elizabeth made herself stop and draw another deep breath.

"We have the originals of their correspondence in our own files, Honor. I can show you exactly where they made deletions and alterations—not just in their own notes, but in ours. It's too consistent, too all pervasive, to have been anything but a deliberate plot. Something they spent literally months putting into place to justify the attack they launched against us. They're busy telling the rest of the galaxy that we forced them to do this. That they had no intention of using this new navy they've built up in some sort of war of revenge until we left them no choice. But not even High Ridge did the things they say he did. They invented the entire crisis out of whole cloth. And what that tells me is that Peeps . . . don't . . . change."

She gritted her teeth and shook her head fiercely, like a wounded animal.

"They murdered my father," she said flatly. "Their agents here in the Star Kingdom tried to murder Justin. They murdered my uncle, my cousin, my Prime Minister, and Grayson's Chancellor. They tried to murder me, my aunt, and Benjamin Mayhew. God only knows how many men and women in my Navy they've butchered in this new war already, not to mention all the people they killed in the last one. It doesn't seem to matter how good or honest or well-intentioned anyone who comes to power in that cesspool of a nation may be. Once they do, something about the way power works in Haven turns them into exactly what came before them. Peeps. They can call themselves whatever they want, Honor, but they're still Peeps. And there's only one way in the universe that there will ever finally be peace between this Star Kingdom and them."

* * *

Later that same evening, Honor found herself once again in the dining room of the White Haven family seat. In some respects, it was even harder on her than her first visit had been.

There were no pretenses now, and she was grateful for that, at least. The painful truths had been spoken. There were no more masks, no more attempts at self-deception or refusal to face reality. And there was no anger, for this had gone beyond anger. But the jagged edges remained. She had yet to even begin to explore the new bond, her new awareness of Hamish, nor had she had any opportunity to discuss it with him. But, wonderful as it was, she already recognized its potential to make the pain infinitely worse. She knew herself well enough to know she could not feel what she felt and refuse to act upon it. Not for very long. And with a new certainty, and ability to see even more deeply and clearly into Hamish Alexander's soul, she knew that he couldn't, either.

If there had been any way in the world to refuse tonight's dinner invitation without wounding Emily, Honor would have done it. She couldn't be here. She didn't know where she could be, but she knew it wasn't here. Yet she'd had no choice but to come, and she and Hamish had done their level best to act completely normally.

She was quite certain she'd failed, but for the first time in years, however hard she tried, her own empathic sense had failed her. She couldn't sample Emily Alexander's emotions for the simple reason that she could not separate herself from those of Emily's husband. Not yet. It would take time, she knew—lots of time, and matching amounts of effort—for her to learn to tune down and control this new awareness. She could do it. If she had enough time, enough peace to work at it, she could learn to control its "volume" just as she had finally learned to control the sensitivity of her original empathic awareness. But for now, the blinding power of her bond to Hamish was still growing, still gaining in power, and until she could learn to control it, its power and vibrancy would drown out the mind-glow of anyone else as long as he was present. And she couldn't do it yet. She couldn't disengage herself from the glowing background hum of Hamish, and she felt oddly blinded, almost maimed, by her inability to reach out to Emily.

"—so, yes, Honor," Emily was saying in response to Honor's last attempt to keep something like a normal dinner table conversation moving, "I'm afraid Elizabeth is entirely serious. And to be honest, I don't know if I blame her for her attitude."

"Willie certainly doesn't," Hamish put in. He handed Samantha another stick of celery, and she took it with dainty, delicate grace. Even without that maddeningly glorious link with Hamish, Honor would have recognized the ease and familiarity into which their adoption bond had blossomed.

"I suppose I can understand it, myself," Honor admitted with a troubled expression. "It's just that she's painting with such a broad brush. She's lumping Sidney Harris, Rob Pierre, Oscar Saint-Just, and Thomas Theisman into the same group, and I'm telling you, there is no way in the universe that Theisman belongs in that same category."

"But what about this Pritchart?" Hamish asked in a tone of reasonable challenge. "You've never met her, and she is their President. Not to mention having been some sort of terrorist before the Pierre Coup. What if she's the one driving it all and Theisman is just going along? From all you told me about him, he sounds like someone who would do his duty and obey duly constituted authority whatever his personal feelings."

"Hamish," Honor said, "this is the man who overthrew State Security, probably shot Saint-Just personally, single-handedly convinced Capital Fleet to support him, called a constitutional convention, turned power over to the first duly elected President of the star nation whose constitution he had personally rescued from the dust bin, and then spent the better part of four T-years fighting a six or seven-cornered civil war in order to defend that constitution." She shook her head. "That's not the description of a man who's a weakling. And a man who would do all of that because he believes in the principles the old Republic of Haven's constitution enshrined, is not a man who's going to stand by and watch someone else grossly abuse power."

"Put that way, Hamish," Emily said slowly, "Honor certainly seems to have a point."

"Of course she does," White Haven said a bit testily. "And as far as I'm aware, she's the only person in the 'inner circle,' as it were, who's ever personally met the man. Not to mention the . . . special insight she has into people. I'm not trying to discount anything she's said. But the central, unpalatable fact remains. Why ever he did it, he's publicly signed off on the Pritchart version of the negotiating process." He shrugged. "Honor, he hasn't simply said that he's 'following orders' because Pritchart is his President, or even because he believes what she's told him. He's publicly on record as having seen diplomatic correspondence which we know for a fact didn't exist."

He shook his head, and Honor sighed and nodded in unhappy acknowledgment of his point. She still couldn't believe it, not of the Thomas Theisman she'd met. And yet, there it was. Whether she could believe it or not, it had happened. And God knew people often changed. It was just that she couldn't imagine what sort of process could have so completely warped the internal steel of the man she'd known in so short of time.

"Well, whatever is going on there," she said, "how bad is it, really, on the military front? And can we really afford to have you sitting in a dirtside office as First Lord instead of in a fleet command? I'm supposed to visit the Admiralty tomorrow afternoon for a formal briefing from Admiral Givens, but the bits and pieces I've already heard aren't very encouraging."

"I suppose that's one way to put it," White Haven said grimly. He reached for his wineglass and sipped deeply, then put it down and leaned back in his chair.

"As far as where we can 'afford' for me to be, I don't see any alternative to my taking on the Admiralty. I don't want to, but someone has to do it, and Elizabeth and Willy are right about how important is it for that someone to be a person the entire Alliance trusts. Which, for our sins, means either me or you. And, to be perfectly honest about it, it makes a lot more sense for it to be me. So I suppose—" he smiled crookedly at her "—that this war is going to be yours, Honor. Not mine.

"As for how bad the situation is, High Ridge and Janacek between them, with more than a little help from Reginald Houseman, managed to do even more damage than we'd guessed. Of course, what happened when the Peeps hit us made it far worse, but if they hadn't set us up for the blow, our backs wouldn't be so firmly against the wall.

"Basically, we've lost in excess of twenty-six hundred LACs, seventy cruisers and light cruisers, forty-one battlecruisers, and sixty-one superdreadnoughts." Honor inhaled sharply as he listed the figures. "None of which includes all of the ships which were currently under construction at Grendelsbane, or the construction personnel we lost there and in half a dozen minor repair facilities scattered around what were occupied Peep star systems. And we've lost," he finished in a granite voice, "every single system we'd taken away from them—with the sole exception of Trevor's Star—since the war started. We're back where we were strategically on Day One, aside from controlling all of the Junction termini, and proportionately, we're much weaker now compared to the Peep navy than we were before the Battle of Hancock."

Honor gazed at him in dismay, and he shrugged.

"It's not all doom and gloom, Honor," he told her. "First of all, thank God for Grayson! Not only did they save our asses at Trevor's Star and help bail you out at Sidemore, but they constitute the only true strategic reserve the Alliance has. Especially now that Erewhon has effectively gone over to the Peeps." He glowered again. "Erewhon didn't have the full Ghost Rider tech package, or the beta-squared nodes, or the LAC fission plants, but they had just about everything else . . . including the newest compensator version and the latest grav-pulse transmitters. When Foraker gets her hands on that and starts reverse-engineering it, we're going to be in an even worse mess than we are now.

"Maybe even worse than that, though, Pat has been engaged in a massive reevaluation of ONI's files, cross-indexed with information Greg Paxton has made available, and she's come up with some possible ballpark figures for what the Peeps may still have in reserve. I'm inclined to think that she's probably overestimating their capabilities, which would be a natural enough reaction to how badly we were surprised by what they hit us with. On the other hand, I've seen her basic analysis, and it certainly doesn't seem to me that she's being alarmist in the way she approaches it. So it may be that she's right. But if she is, then the Peeps have a minimum of another three hundred of the wall currently under construction. A minimum, Honor. That's at a time when Grayson has just under a hundred SD(P)s, and we're all the way up to seventy-three. Since we seem to have observed damned close to two hundred of them in action exclusive of the ones they sent to Sidemore, we're looking at what might conservatively be called an unfavorable balance of forces."

Honor had felt her face become stiff and drawn as the figures rolled over her. She'd already had first-hand experience of how effectively the Republic was using its new ships and hardware. Now she had a sense for the sheer size and mass of the juggernaut which had been assembled to smash the Alliance.

"We're not dead yet, Honor," Hamish told her almost gently, and she shook her head as if she could physically banish her sense of doom.

"What do you mean?" she asked after a moment.

"First of all, what you managed to accomplish at Sidemore seems to have had a profound impact on their thinking. Obviously, they don't know exactly what happened yet—it's going to take their commander on the spot a lot longer to get home, since he can't use the Junction. But they know they got reamed, if only from news reports of what we've already announced. Willie and I have discussed it with Elizabeth, and we're going to go ahead and announce their loss figures officially tomorrow morning, as well. I doubt that we're going to really astonish anyone, after the rumors have already been flying for so long. But when we confirm that you managed to destroy well over half of their attack force and damage most of the rest of it, I think it will give them even more pause. Not to mention what it's already done for our own civilian—hell, not just civilian!—for our civilian and military morale. What you pulled off out there is the only really bright spot in this entire disaster."

"What about what you and Niall managed at Trevor's Star?" she challenged.

"What we managed there was a negative event," he replied. She started to say something else, and he shook his head. "I'm not trying to be falsely modest, Honor. And I'm not trying to downplay what we accomplished, or to pretend that the public as a whole and the San Martinos in particular don't realize that what we staved off would have turned the Peep offensive into a total and complete disaster for the Alliance. But the fact remains that the fleet we had a shot at escaped intact, with nothing worse than the loss of a few LACs. The fleet that you had a shot at didn't just retreat—it was destroyed. I'm prepared to admit that in a strategic sense Sidemore is infinitely less vital to the Star Kingdom than Trevor's Star, and even that the ships they committed to the attack there seem to have included a higher percentage of obsolescent types which, in the final analysis, they could afford to lose much more readily than they could have afforded to lose the ships they committed to Trevor's Star. All of that may be true, but it's also beside the point.

"Given the increases in their technical capabilities, especially now that Erewhon is on their side of the line, the moral ascendancy we established before the cease-fire is even more vitally important. Frankly, they've just demonstrated that we don't have a right to that ascendancy any longer, but they may not realize it. For that matter, our people may not realize it . . . if we're lucky. The fact that you defeated them so decisively in the one place where effectively equal forces stood and fought is what we want them to remember. It's what we want our own people to remember, too, but it's even more important where the Peeps are concerned.

"The fact that they refused to engage at roughly equal odds at Trevor's Star is also going to loom in their thinking, I hope, of course. But that refusal takes on an entirely new light in the wake of what happened at Sidemore. Now it could be seen not simply as prudence—which, between you and me, is precisely what it actually was—so much as cowardice. Or, at least, an admission of their continued inability to meet us on equal terms."

"I suppose I can follow your argument," Honor said a bit dubiously. "It all seems very thin to me, though."

"Oh, it's certainly that," White Haven agreed with feeling. "But there's a second string to our bow, as well. And, to be honest, you created the preconditions for it, as well."

"I did? And what sort of 'second string' are you talking about?"

"Sir Anthony has already been in touch with the Andermani," White Haven told her. "Given the Gregor terminus, we can communicate back and forth with New Berlin faster than the Havenite fleet could retreat from Trevor's Star to the Haven System, and Willie and Elizabeth didn't lose any time taking advantage of that.

"The Andermani are as shocked by what happened as we were. No one outside the Republic of Haven so much as guessed this was coming, or would have believed how completely their initial offensive would succeed even if they'd seen it coming. The Andermani certainly never anticipated anything like it. And, to be honest, I think it frightened them. Badly, in fact. You know how little Emperor Gustav trusts 'Republican' forms of government in the first place. I think that predisposed him to believe our side when we explained that Pritchart and Giancola manufactured the diplomatic correspondence they're busy publishing to the galaxy. In addition, he's admitted to us that Pritchart deliberately encouraged them to pursue an aggressive policy in Silesia at the same time she was turning up the heat on us at the truce negotiations. My impression from what Willie's said is that the Peeps' obvious willingness to use the Empire as one more cat's paw in what was obviously a very carefully planned policy of deception has had a profound effect on the Emperor's view of the galactic balance of power.

"At any rate, it looks very much as if the Andermani Navy is about to come in on our side."

Honor stared at him in disbelief.

"Hamish, we were shooting at each other less than two months ago!" she protested.

"And your point is?" he asked, and chortled at her expression. Then he sobered. "Honor, 'real politik' is the guiding deity of the Anderman Dynasty. What Gustav Anderman is seeing right this minute is that the Peeps are unpredictable, that they attempted to use him, and that they're lying to the entire galaxy. Oh, and that they once again have the biggest Navy this side of the Solarian League." He shrugged. "On that basis, they're obviously a much greater danger to him than we are. Remember, the Andermani never really thought of us as a threat to their own security. What they resented was our interference in their efforts to secure what they regarded as their 'natural frontiers' in Silesia. Everybody, on the other hand, regarded the old People's Republic as a threat. And now that the new Republic has demonstrated that it has the same leopard spots as the old one, the Andermani see it in very much the same light.

"So since they never had anything personally against us in the first place, they're suddenly much more receptive to the notion that their enemy's enemy is their friend. Especially when Willie and Elizabeth agreed to sweeten the pot just a bit."

"How?" Honor asked, regarding him suspiciously now, rather than disbelievingly.

"With a little real politik of our own," White Haven told her. "The Conservative Association and the Liberal Party are effectively nonexistent at the moment. You haven't been to the Lords recently, so you can't begin to appreciate just how completely the entire Parliament is supporting Willie's new government right now. To give you some idea, the Lords have already agreed to take up a bill to transfer the power of the purse to the Commons over a five-T-year transition period. Unless something very drastic happens, it will be passed on third reading next week."

Honor was too astonished even to speak, and he shrugged.

"I know. Stupid, isn't it? The very issue that High Ridge was able to ride into power. The huge political bogeyman the entire peerage was so terrified of that a majority of them actually signed off on High Ridge's manipulations and dirty little deals. And now, in less than a month from the time shooting resumes, something on the order of an eighty percent majority is prepared to give it all up. If the stupid bastards had just been willing to consider making the same concession three years ago, none of this would've happened. Or, at least, if it had, it would've happened in a way which would have deprived Pritchart of the fig leaf of justification she's manufactured.

"But as far as the Andermani are concerned, the Lords' support for domestic finance reform is beside the point. What's going to bring the Empire in on our side is the fact that all of that ideological resistance to anything smacking of 'imperialism' went down the toilet along with High Ridge and New Kiev. Something like it would probably have materialized again soon enough, except for the fact that it's not going to have the chance to. Because later this week, Willie is going to propose to a joint session of Parliament that the Star Kingdom and the Andermani Empire finally bring an end to the incessant bloodletting and atrocities in Silesia."

"Oh, my God. You can't be serious!"

"Of course I can. I don't say it would have been my first choice of how to proceed, but I certainly understand the logic. And the Peeps haven't left us very much choice, either. We need the Andies to survive, Honor, and their price is the extension of their frontier into Silesia." He shrugged. "Well, if we're going to be in for a penny, we may as well be in for a dollar."

"And if the Confederacy government objects to being partitioned between two foreign powers?" Honor demanded.

"You've been to Silesia more than most of our officers," White Haven said. "Do you really think the average Silly wouldn't actively prefer to be a Manticoran subject?"

Honor started to reply quickly, then stopped. He had a point. All the average Silesian really wanted was safety, order, and a government that actually considered her wishes and well-being rather than seeing her as one more potential source of graft and corruption.

"Whatever the average Silly wants, the Confed government may not see things quite the same way," she pointed out.

"The Confed government consists of a bunch of corrupt, self-seeking, moneygrubbing grifters, thieves, and conmen whose concerns begin and end with their own bank accounts," White Haven said flatly. "For God's sake, Honor! You know perfectly well that the government of the Silesian Confederacy is probably the only bunch of crooks who could actually make High Ridge and Descroix look good by comparison."

Despite her grave reservations, Honor's lips quivered in appreciation of White Haven's comparison.

"Willie and Sir Anthony are already in the process of coming up with what's going to amount to a massive bribe," he went on with an expression of distaste. "Together with Gustav, they're going to buy the existing government off. Most of its members will do very well out of the deal. But the hook they don't know about is that we're going to be serious about requiring them to obey the law afterward. We may pay them off now and effectively amnesty them for past crimes, but we'll come down on them like the Hammer of God the first time they try to go back to business as usual under new management." He shrugged. "I'm not too sure how I feel about the methodology, but the final outcome is going to be that we get an ally we desperately need, a problem which has been a source of tension between us and the Empire for the last sixty or seventy T-years gets resolved once and for all, and—maybe most important of all—we finally bring an end to a situation which has been costing literally hundreds of thousands of lives every single year in Silesia."

"And along the way, we become the Star Empire of Manticore," Honor replied with a troubled expression.

"I don't see that we have any choice," White Haven said. "And what with Trevor's Star and the Talbott Cluster, we're already moving in that direction."

"I suppose so," Honor said pensively. "I guess maybe what worries me the most about it is that it could be seen as validating the Republic's charges that we were already expansionist. That that's the reason High Ridge never had any intention of negotiating with them in good faith for the return of the occupied systems."

"That's my greatest concern, too," Emily put in, then moved her right hand in the gesture she used for a shrug as Honor and White Haven both looked at her. "Interstellar relations are so often a matter of perceptions rather than realities," she said. "If the Republic is trying to convince someone else—like the Sollies—that we're the villains of the piece, then this could play straight into their hands. They'll treat it as proof that we were expansionist all along, exactly as Honor has just suggested they will, and that in effect they had no choice but to attack us in self-defense."

"You may be right," her husband said after a few moments' thought. "Unfortunately, I don't think it changes the imperatives Willie and Elizabeth have to deal with. The bottom line, again, is that we have to have the Andie fleet if we're going to survive. There's not much point in worrying about anything else if we don't do that, after all. If we do," he shrugged, "then we can worry about other PR problems then."

Honor sat back in her chair, gazing at him intently, and then, finally, nodded. Her reservations hadn't disappeared, but as Hamish said, the imperatives of survival trumped them.

"Well," Emily said into the brief silence which followed, "I think that's quite enough politics for tonight."

"More than enough, as far as I'm concerned," White Haven agreed with a sour chuckle. "Your autocratic, aristocratic, stiff-necked, politics-hating husband is going to be up to his neck in them for the foreseeable future. I'm sure we'll be spending all too many nights discussing the entire depressing topic over dinner."

"That's as may be," she replied serenely, then smiled ever so slightly. "Actually, it should be rather interesting. You may not like politics, but that doesn't mean I don't, my dear!"

"I know," he said glumly. "In fact, that's about the only consolation I see."

"Oh, come now!" she scolded. "There's always Samantha, you know. I'm sure she'll be happy to bring her perspective to bear on your political problems."

"That's all we'd need!" Honor laughed. "I've spent decades trying to explain two-leg-style politics to Stinker here." She reached out and tugged on one of Nimitz's ears, and he swatted her wrist with a true-hand. "I can hardly wait to see what Her Nibs would have to say about them!"

"You might be pleasantly surprised, my dear," Emily told her. "In fact, Samantha and I have been having long and fascinating conversations about the differences between the People and us two-legs."

"You have?" Honor looked at her with interest.

"Oh, yes." Emily laughed quietly. "Fortunately, I only had to learn how to read her signs. She understood me just fine when I spoke to her, which was a good thing, since it would be just a little difficult to sign with only one hand. But poor Hamish has been so busy, what with one thing and another, that Samantha and I have had an opportunity for some uninterrupted 'girl talk' behind his back. It's amazing what . . . acute observations she had to make about him."

" 'Observations,' is it?" Hamish regarded her suspiciously.

"No one's telling tales out of school, dear," Emily reassured him. "On the other hand, Samantha did have several interesting pithy observations on the thickheadedness of humans in general."

"What sort of observations?" Honor asked.

"Largely on the inevitable differences between a race of empathic telepaths and a race which is 'mind-blind,' " Emily replied in a voice which was suddenly considerably more serious. "In fact," she went on quietly, "one of her most telling comments, I thought, was that by treecat standards, it's insane for two people not to admit what they feel for one another."

Honor froze in her chair, stunned by the totally unanticipated direction Emily had abruptly taken the conversation. She wanted to dart a glance at Hamish, but she couldn't. All she could do was stare at Emily.

"The societies are quite different, of course," Emily continued, "so it's inevitable that there shouldn't be a direct point-to-point correspondence between them. But the more she and I spoke about it, the more I came to see why a race of empaths would feel that way. They're right, you know. It's worse than just senseless for two people who love each other deeply, and who have no desire or intention to hurt anyone else, to condemn themselves to so much suffering and such bitter unhappiness just because two-leg society is mind-blind. That's not just foolish, it's insane. And the fact that the two people involved are doing it to themselves because they're such splendid and responsible human beings that they would rather suffer themselves than risk the possibility of hurting someone else doesn't make it any less insane. It may make them both people to be deeply admired . . . and trusted. But if they really thought about it, perhaps they would realize that the person whose pain they're trying to spare knows how much pain they're causing themselves. And perhaps, you know, she wouldn't want them to be hurt any more than they want her to be. And so, if they were treecats instead of humans, all three of them would know what each of them felt. And that no one was betraying anyone by being a loving, caring individual . . . and expressing that love."

She sat there in her life support chair, looking at Honor and Hamish with a small, gentle smile, and then she waved her right hand in that same shrug-equivalent gesture.

"I've given it quite a lot of thought, you know," she said, "and I've come to the conclusion, my dears, that treecats are really most remarkably sane individuals. I suspect that if you spent some time talking with them, or possibly even with each other, you might come to the same conclusion."

She smiled at them again, and then her life support chair moved silently back from the table.

"You might want to think about that," she told them as her chair floated towards the door. "But for now, I'm going to bed."

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