* * *

"Well what do you think?" Pritchart asked some time later.

Most of the cabinet secretaries had departed, leaving her with Theisman, LePic, and Montreau. Not only were they her key advisers on military affairs, intelligence, and foreign policy, but Montreau had joined the other two as one of her closest political allies.

The Secretary of State remained aware of her status as the newest member of Pritchart's inner circle, however, and she glanced at Theisman and LePic, as if waiting for one of them to respond. When neither of them spoke up immediately, she shrugged.

"I think we just spent the last hour and a half thrashing around and basically admitting to one another that we don't know a damned thing about a damned thing, at present," she said frankly. "I also think that between you, you, Tom, and Denis managed to at least cool Tony's ardor for suddenly getting more aggressive at the peace table, though—assuming there's any more peace table to get aggressive at. I wish I could feel more confident Henrietta's convinced that this isn't the time to start pushing back as well, though."

"I wish we knew more," Pritchart fretted, with an openness she would have risked with very few other people. "You're right, we don't know a damned thing." She looked at LePic. "Have Wilhelm's people got any leads, Denis?"

"None I haven't already shared with you." LePic grimaced. "I wish we had confirmation one way or the other about Cachat and Zilwicki! If anyone might be able to shed at least a little light on whatever the hell is going on in Mesa and with Manpower, it would be them."

"You don't think that whatever they got involved with led to this, do you?" Montrose asked. The others looked at her, and she shrugged. "I don't see how it could have, myself, but as Denis just implied, we don't have a clue what's going on inside Mesa, whatever we used to think we knew about it. Since that's true, we can't know if Officer Cachat and Captain Zilwicki didn't stumble across something that provoked whoever's really calling the shots into attacking Manticore."

"I think that's unlikely, Leslie," Theisman said. "This was obviously a carefully planned and prepared operation. I don't think it was a panic reaction, and given how long ago Zilwicki, at least, was killed on Mesa without anyone here or in Manticore making any huge new revelations, they're probably feeling pretty confident on that front."

"I'm still not prepared to write Cachat off," LePic said stubbornly. Theisman looked skeptical, and the attorney general shrugged. "I'm not saying I expect him to make it home this time, just that he's managed to run between the raindrops so long that I'm not going to accept he's actually dead until someone delivers his body. And even then, I'll want proof it wasn't a clone!"

"Well," Pritchart said, "I'm going to hope you're right, Denis, and not just because lunatic or not, he's our lunatic. As you say, if he's been poking around Manpower, maybe he can give us at least some clue as to what the hell's going on. In fact, I've had a disturbing thought, one that occurred to me after Tom's briefing."

"I've had quite a few of those myself," Theisman observed. "Which one were you referring to?"

"You made the point that we don't know what whoever hit Manticore's ultimate objectives may be, but we have to suspect Manpower's involved, for all the reasons you enumerated. And then we have Cachat's suspicion that Manpower was involved in the attempt on Queen Berry from which it's only a short step to their being involved with Admiral Webster's assassination in Old Chicago. For which"—her eyes bored suddenly into Theisman's—"some form of suicidal compulsion appears to have been used. Very much, now that I think about it. like what happened to a certain Yves Grosclaude."

It was suddenly very, very quiet.

"Are you suggesting Manpower was working with Giancola?" LePic asked very carefully.

"No, I'm suggesting Arnold was working with Manpower ," Pritchart replied grimly. "If they're willing—and able—to manipulate the Solarian League into going to war with the Manties, why in the world wouldn't they figure they could do the same with us? I mean, look how much easier it would be, given the fact that we didn't even have a formal peace treaty from our last war!"

"My God." Montreau shook her head almost numbly, her face suddenly ashen."That never even occurred to me!"

"No reason it should have, before," Pritchart pointed out.

"It's possible we're seeing conspiracies where there aren't any," Theisman said warningly.

"I know. And the only thing more dangerous than not seeing conspiracies that are there is seeing ones that aren't ," Pritchart acknowledged. "But talking about conspiracies and suicidal assassins, there's that attempt on Alexander-Harrington, too. We know we didn't do it, although I've never blamed the Manties for figuring we were the ones with the best motive. But if Manpower's been moving chess pieces around like this, and if they have the technology—or whatever—they used to control the assassin who killed Webster and that poor patsy who carried out the Torch attack, why shouldn't they have tried to pick off one of the Manties' best military commanders? Especially if the object of the exercise was for us to trash Manticore for them?"

"Oh, how I do hope you're engaging in flights of paranoia," Theisman said after a moment.

"So do I I think." Pritchart frowned thoughtfully for several seconds, then gave herself a shake.

"Maybe I am indulging my paranoia, but maybe I'm not, too. You know, I almost went ahead and told Alexander-Harrington about Arnold."

The other three stared at her, visibly aghast, and she chuckled.

"I did say 'almost,'" she pointed out. "Frankly, does anyone in this room think she wouldn't have been more likely to respect my confidence then several members of Congress we could mention right off hand?"

"Put that way, I suppose she would have," Theisman admitted.

"There's no 'supposing' to it," LePic said sourly. "Younger? McGwire?" He shuddered.

"Now, I almost wish I'd gone ahead and told her," Pritchart continued thoughtfully. "Given the depth and murkiness of the water we're all floundering around in at the moment, I'd really like to know what she'd think about the possibility of a Giancola-Manpower connection."

Honor Alexander-Harrington sat silently on her flag bridge as HMS Invictus decelerated steadily towards the planet of her birth. Nimitz was on the back of her command chair, but not lying stretched along it as he usually was. Instead, he sat bolt upright, gazing into the visual display with her. The two of them might have been carved out of stone, and the silence on the bridge was absolute.

Honor's expression was calm, almost serene, but inside, where thoughts and emotions ought to have been, there was only a vast, singing silence, as empty as the vacuum beyond her flagship's hull.

She no longer needed to look at the plot. Its icons had already told her how short of reality her dread had fallen. The space about the system's two inhabited planets was crowded with shipping, showing far greater numbers of impeller signatures than would have been permitted in such proximity when Eighth Fleet departed for the Haven System. But those ships weren't the evidence her fears might have been too dark—that the damage had actually been less severe than she'd dreaded. No, those ships were the proof it had been even worse, for they were still only sorting through the wreckage, better than two weeks after the actual attack, and warning beacons marked prodigious spills of debris—and bodies—which had once been the heart and bone of the Star Empire of Manticore's industrial might.