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# Chapter Thirty-One

"How well did we time it, My Lady?" Admiral Alfredo Yu asked. He and Rafe Cardones had arrived in Honor's day cabin together, and now the slender, one-time Peep grinned broadly at his hostess while James MacGuiness began distributing potable refreshments. "I tried not to interrupt your breakfast."

"Mercedes and I were just finishing dessert, actually," Honor told him with an answering smile. She glanced at Brigham, almond eyes twinkling wickedly, and Nimitz groomed his whiskers cheerfully at the other woman from her shoulder.

"And did our arrival come as a pleasant surprise?" Yu asked as he also turned to the chief of staff . . . who'd commanded a division of SD(P)s in the Protector's Own before accepting her position on Honor's staff.

"After we got over the collective heart failure you and Her Grace managed to inflict on all of us," Brigham replied wryly, and shook her head. "I can't believe that neither of you even told me this was coming!"

"Well, it wouldn't exactly have been fair to tell you if I didn't tell anyone else on the staff, now would it?" Honor asked, and chuckled at the very old-fashioned look Brigham bestowed upon her.

"Was there a particular reason why you didn't tell the entire staff?" the older woman asked after a moment, and Honor shrugged.

"I suppose not, really," she conceded. "But since none of Alfredo's people knew they were headed out here when they first sailed, it just seemed that it would be . . . I don't know, inappropriate, perhaps, to tell you what they didn't know. Besides," her crooked smile turned impish, "Alfredo and I had already decided all of you could use a little unscheduled drill you didn't know was a drill. And it did get all of us up on our toes, didn't it?"

"I imagine someone given to understatement might put it that way, Your Grace," Cardones agreed in a dust-dry tone. "Not," he continued, turning to Yu, "that we're not all delighted to see you, Admiral."

"I believe Captain Cardones speaks for all of us in that, Sir," Andrea Jaruwalski put in, and shook her head. "You've just more than doubled our strength in both SD(P)s and CLACs, after all!"

"And no one knows you have. Not yet, at least," Brigham observed with profound satisfaction.

"But that cuts both ways," Jaruwalski pointed out. "If the Andies do decide to try something, then the fact that we have Admiral Yu's units to back us up is going to come as a profoundly unhappy surprise for them. But if they did know he was here, then his presence might well . . . dissuade them from any risky adventures."

"The word will get around soon enough," Honor reassured her, then paused to accept a stein of Old Tillman from MacGuiness. She smiled her thanks at the steward and turned back to the ops officer.

"The Silesian grapevine is the only genuinely faster than light means of interstellar communications I've ever encountered, Andrea," she continued. "And, frankly, I'm not at all unhappy at how quickly I expect the word to get out. The secrecy about Admiral Yu's destination wasn't aimed at the Andies in the first place."

"Worried about the Opposition in the Keys, Your Grace?" Brigham asked shrewdly, and Honor nodded.

"That doesn't get mentioned outside 'the family,' " she cautioned, and Jaruwalski, Brigham, and Cardones all nodded in understanding.

"May I ask how long the Protector's Own will be staying?" Jaruwalski inquired after a moment, glancing back and forth between Honor and Yu.

"Until Steadholder Harrington tells us to go home," Yu replied in an emphatic tone. Jaruwalski's expression showed her flicker of surprise at the strength of his response, and he shook his head. "Sorry, Captain. It's just that my instructions from High Admiral Matthews and the Protector were a bit on the . . . firm side."

"I appreciate that, Alfredo," Honor said. "At the same time, though, I don't see how I could justify hanging onto this much of the Protector's Own indefinitely."

"You don't have to justify a thing, My Lady," Yu told her. "Part of our mission profile is to demonstrate our ability to maintain ourselves out of our own resources. That's why we brought along our own supply and service ships. At the moment, we've got everything we need to meet our logistical needs for a minimum of five T-months, and the High Admiral told me that he doesn't expect to see me back until we reach the bottom of the barrel."

"That's very generous of him—" Honor began, only to have Yu interrupt, politely but firmly, before she could complete the sentence.

"He told me that was exactly what you'd say, My Lady. Not that I really needed telling. And he also told me to tell you that you are a vassal of Protector Benjamin, and that as a loyal and obedient vassal you'll take the forces that the Protector chooses to send you, and you'll use them to accomplish the mission which you and the Protector discussed before your departure from Grayson. That was just before he added the bit about 'suffering your liege's displeasure' if you were foolish enough to turn down the reinforcements which both of you know you need."

"He's right, you know, Your Grace," Brigham said quietly. Honor looked at her, and the chief of staff shrugged. "I know you haven't specifically discussed this aspect of our assignment with any of us, but I think I've spent enough time in Grayson service to know what the Protector is thinking. As a Manticoran, I find it humiliating that we need someone else's support. As a Grayson, I can see exactly why the Protector is willing to provide that support. The last thing any of us need is for the situation in Silesia to blow up in all of our faces."

"Whether the Government recognizes that or not," Cardones agreed in an uncharacteristically grim tone.

"Well," Honor said mildly after a moment, a bit taken back, despite her ability to taste their emotions, by her subordinates' emphatic, unanimous agreement with one another, "I don't plan on sending Alfredo home tomorrow morning. For that matter, I don't really plan on sending him home at all until I'm certain the situation out here is under control. And to be completely honest, I expect that situation to work itself out, one way or another, within no more than another three or four T-months. Either the Andies will discover Alfredo's presence here and take it as conclusive proof that the Alliance means business and shelve any plans which might lead to a shooting incident, or else they'll go ahead and shoot anyway."

"And which way to you expect them to jump, My Lady, if I may ask?" Yu asked quietly.

"I wish I could tell you that," Honor replied.

* * *

"Now what do we do?"

Arnold Giancola looked up from the display of his memo pad as his brother asked the plaintive question. He hadn't heard Jason come in, and he grimaced as he realized his brother had just stepped in from the outer office . . . and that the door was standing wide open behind him.

"I think it might be a good idea if you came in and closed the door, first," he suggested testily. "I realize it's after hours, but I, for one, would just as soon not share our discussions with whoever happens along down the hallway."

Jason flushed at the acid tone, but it was one with which he had an unfortunate degree of familiarity. Arnold had never been a particularly patient individual, and he'd become progressively less patient over the past two T-years or so. In this instance, however, Jason had to admit he had a point, and he hastily stepped forward to clear the powered door's sensors and allow it to close.

"Sorry," he half-muttered, and Arnold sighed.

"No, Jase," he said, shaking his head ruefully. "I shouldn't have bitten your head off. I guess I'm even more irritated than I thought I was."

"I wouldn't be surprised if you were," Jason said, and produced an off-center smile. "Seems like every time we turn around someone's giving one of us a fresh reason to be pissed off, doesn't it?"

"Sometimes," Arnold agreed. He tipped back his chair and squeezed the bridge of his nose. It would have been nice if he could have squeezed the overwhelming sense of fatigue out of himself, but that wasn't going to happen.

Jason watched him for several seconds. Arnold had always been the leader. Partly that was because he was over ten T-years older than Jason was, but Jason was honest enough to admit that even if their ages had been reversed, Arnold would still have been the leader. He was smarter than Jason, for one thing, and Jason knew it. But more importantly, he possessed something that had been left out of Jason's personality. Jason wasn't entirely certain what that "something" was, but he knew it gave Arnold a spark, a presence. Whatever it was, it lay at the heart of the almost frighteningly powerful magnetism Arnold could exert upon those around him when he chose.

Well, upon almost all of those around him. Eloise Pritchart and Thomas Theisman appeared remarkably resistant to what several of their congressional allies referred to as the "Giancola Effect." Which unhappy reflection brought Jason back to the purpose of his visit.

"What do we do now?" he repeated, and Arnold lowered his hand to look up at him.

"I'm not sure," the Secretary of State admitted after a moment. "I hate to admit it, but Pritchart and Theisman completely surprised me with that news conference. I guess they were more alert to where I was headed than I thought they were."

"Are you sure? I mean, it could have been a genuine coincidence."

"Sure it could," Arnold said acidly. "But if you think it was, I've got some bottomland I'd like to sell you. Just don't ask me what it's on the bottom of!"

"I didn't say I thought it was a coincidence," Jason said with some dignity. "I only said that it could have been, and it could have."

"In the theoretical sense that anything could be a coincidence, you probably have a point, Jase," Arnold replied a bit more patiently. Not a lot, but a bit. "In this particular case, though, it had to be deliberate. They knew we'd been talking to people, and they must have suspected that we were just about ready to announce the existence of the new ships ourselves. So Pritchart had Theisman made the announcement instead as a way to take the wind out of our sails."

"McGwire asked me about her speech," Jason told him, and Arnold grunted. The mysterious speech all of the news services planned to carry live from Eloise Pritchart's presidential office the next evening was another source of his current unhappiness.

"He wanted to know what she intends to announce," the younger Giancola continued, then shrugged. "I had to tell him I don't really know. I don't think that was what he wanted to hear."

"No, I doubt it was," Arnold agreed. He swiveled his chair gently from side to side for two or three seconds, gazing at his brother contemplatively, then shrugged. "I haven't seen a draft of her speech, but based on a few things she's said to me over the last week or so, I have a pretty shrewd notion of what she plans to say, and I can't say I'm exactly thrilled by it."

"You think she's going to talk about the negotiations with the Manties, don't you?" Jason said.

"I think that's exactly what she's going to talk about," Arnold acknowledged. "And I think she's going to tell Congress—and the voters—that she intends to pursue an actual peace treaty with considerably more vigor. Which is why there's no way in Hell Theisman's news conference was a coincidence."

"I was afraid that was what she was going to say," Jason admitted. He sighed. "She's taking your position away from you."

"Tell me something I don't already know." Arnold snorted. "It has to be Pritchart, too. She's a much better political tactician than Theisman. Besides, Theisman was our best ally as far as timing the announcement of the new fleet elements was concerned. He was so obsessed with maintaining operational security that we could have counted on him to keep his mouth shut until we were completely ready to go public. No, it was Pritchart. She overruled him, and now, like you say, she plans to co-opt my position on the negotiations."

"Is there anything we can do about it?" Jason asked.

"Not that I can think of right off the top of my head." Arnold's voice was sour. "I'm beginning to wonder if maybe she didn't deliberately let me entirely commit myself on the issue. Maybe she was just giving me enough rope to be sure I hung myself with every insider in Nouveau Paris. Everyone we've talked to knows exactly where I stand, and now that she's going to very publicly give me what I wanted all along, it cuts the legs right out from under any opposition to her I could mount."

He tipped his chair even further back and gazed up at the ceiling, eyes slightly unfocused in thought, and Jason watched him silently. He knew better than to interrupt his brother when he was thinking that hard, so he found himself a chair and sat down to wait it out.

It took a while, but finally Arnold's eyes dropped back into focus, and he smiled at Jason. It was unkind, but true, that Jason wasn't exactly the sharpest stylus in the box. He was loyal, energetic, and enthusiastic, but on his best day, no one had ever accused him of having an excess of intellect. There were times when he let his enthusiasm get the better of him, and he was entirely capable of putting his foot squarely into his mouth. And, to be honest, he had a way of asking irritating questions—the sort which either had no answer at all, or whose answer was so blatantly obvious any moron ought to know what it was without asking. But at the same time, there was something about him, something about those selfsame irritating questions, which had a way of striking sparks in Arnold's own thinking. It was as if the need to figure out how to explain things to his brother caused his own thoughts to gel magically.

Jason sat up straighter as Arnold smiled at him. He knew that expression, and his flagging spirits perked up instantly.

"I think, Jase, that I've been coming at this the wrong way ever since Theisman opened his mouth," Arnold said thoughtfully. "I've been thinking about the way Pritchart is about to try to take over my own position and squeeze me out. But when you come right down to it, she can't. Not as long as I'm Secretary of State. She can try to take credit for any success our negotiations might achieve, and she can try to convince the public that she's the one who decided to take a firmer position with the Manties. But in the end, I'm the one who's going to be carrying out those negotiations."

"So she's going to have to share at least some of the credit for any successes with you," Jason said, nodding slowly.

"Well, yes, she is," Arnold agreed. "But that isn't really what I was thinking about." Jason looked confused, and Arnold grinned. "What I was thinking about," he explained, "was that any communication with the Manties is going to pass through my office. Which means that what I really need to be concentrating on is the opportunity that offers to put my own little imprint on things."

Jason still looked less than totally enlightened, and Arnold decided not to be any more specific. Not yet. In fact, he almost wished he hadn't said as much as he already had, given Jason's propensity for occasionally blurting out things at inconvenient moments.

Fortunately, Jason was accustomed to leaving the heavy intellectual lifting to him. It wasn't really necessary to explain things at this point. Indeed, it might be just as well not to explain them at all. Jason was very good at carrying out instructions, as long as those instructions were specific and uncomplicated, so perhaps it would be wisest not to burden him with more than he absolutely needed to know.

Jason was also accustomed to the way Arnold wandered off into his own thoughts, and he was perfectly content to sit and wait in companionable silence for however long it took for Arnold to complete the process and remember his presence. Which was just as well, since Arnold was very busy thinking indeed just now.

Yes, indeed. He'd been overlooking his greatest single advantage all along. Or, no, not "overlooking" it precisely. He just hadn't realized how big an advantage it truly was if he handled it properly. But now that it had occurred to him, he could see all sorts of possibilities. The public might be gulled into believing any new, assertive negotiating stance was Eloise Pritchart's idea, not Arnold Giancola's. But whatever the public might be prepared to think, Arnold knew that, in the end, and despite any confidence she might project through her much anticipated speech, Pritchart lacked the intestinal fortitude to go to the mat with the Manties if that was what success required. If it came down to going to eyeball-to-eyeball with the real possibility of a resumption of hostilities, Pritchart—and Theisman—would blink and let the damned Manties walk all over them all over again.

But Arnold had spent too much time dealing directly with the Manticoran negotiators and corresponding personally with Elaine Descroix. He knew that if the Republic only had the guts to really turn the screws on them, it was the Manties who would blink. Baron High Ridge, Lady Descroix, and Countess New Kiev between them had the moral fortitude of a flea and the spine of an amoeba. It might have been different when Cromarty was Prime Minister, but that had been then, and this was now, and the present Manticoran government was composed of pigmies.

So the trick was going to be stage managing things properly. He had to create the right atmosphere, the right confluence of events. A situation in which anyone who didn't know the Manties as well as he did would believe the resumption of hostilities had to be the next step in the process . . . unless the Republic conceded every single thing they demanded. If he could generate a situation which gave Pritchart her opportunity to cave in and reveal her lack of grit to the electorate while simultaneously allowing him to step into the breach her indecision created and push things to a successful conclusion despite her . . .

Oh, yes. He smiled deep inside at the alluring prospect. It would be tricky, of course. He'd have to find a way to lure her into provoking the proper response from the Manties, but that shouldn't be too difficult, given the arrogance which was so much a part of High Ridge and Descroix. Of course, he'd need to find someone reliable he could assign as his direct contact with the Manties, especially since he might have to do a little . . . creative editing here and there. Whoever passed on those communiques would have to be in the loop and prepared to support the process, but he rather thought he had the perfect candidate for that job.

Of course, if it did become necessary to do any editing he'd have to be careful to see to it that that busybody Usher didn't find out what he was up to. After all, if the President wanted to get picky about it, what he was thinking about might technically be illegal. He'd have to check on that. Maybe Jeff Tullingham could advise him if he was careful to keep his inquiry sufficiently hypothetical? But illegal or not, it would certainly be embarrassing—possibly terminally so—if anyone ever figured out just how he'd shaped the international situation. But in the end, he would emerge as the iron-willed, insightful statesman who'd seen what was needed and done it despite the interfering instructions of the nonentity who happened to hold the presidency.

Of course, part of the trick would be to copper his bets by making certain the Manties wouldn't actually be willing to go back to war when Pritchart thought they would. But there was a way to see to it they were suitably distracted.

Now then, he thought. The first thing to do is to invite to the Andermani ambassador to lunch. . . .

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