"So the shah's guardsmen brought the thief in, and the shah said, 'Didn't you know stealing one of my horses is punishable by death, fellow?' And the thief looked at him and said 'Of course I knew that, Your Majesty. But everyone knows you have the finest horses in all the world, and what horse thief worthy of the name would choose to steal any but the finest?'

"The shah was amused, but the law was the law, so he said 'Give me one reason why I shouldn't have your head chopped off right this minute.' The horse thief thought about it for a few moments, then said, 'Well, Your Majesty, I don't suppose there's any legal reason why you shouldn't. But if you'll spare my life, I'll teach your horse to sing.'

"'What?' the shah demanded. 'You claim you can actually teach my horse to sing? ' 'Well, of course I can!' the thief replied confidently. 'I'm not just a common horse thief, after all, Your Majesty. I don't say it will be easy, but if I can't teach your horse to sing within one year, then you can chop off my head with my blessings.'

"So the shah thought about it, then nodded. 'All right, you've got your year. If, at the end of that year, you haven't taught the horse to sing, though, I warn you—a simple beheading will be the least of your problems! Is that understood?' 'Of course, Your Majesty!' the horse thief replied, and the guards hauled him away.

"'Are you crazy?' one of them asked him. 'No one can teach a horse to sing , and the Shah's going to be even more pissed off when he figures out you lied to him. All you've done is to trade having your head chopped off for being handed over to the torturers! What were you thinking? ' So the thief looks at him and says 'I have a year in which to do it, and in a year, the Shah may die, and his successor may choose to spare my life. Or the horse may die, and I can scarcely be expected to teach a dead horse to sing, and so my life may be spared. Or, I may die, in which case it won't matter whether or not the horse learns to sing.' 'And if none of those things happen?' the guard demanded. 'Well, in that case,' the thief replied, 'who knows? Maybe the horse will learn to sing!'"

Matthews chuckled, and the protector's grin broadened. Then it slowly faded, and he let his chair come back upright, laying his forearms on his desk and leaning forward over them.

"And in some ways, that's where we are, isn't it?" he asked. "We've been too closely allied with Manticore for too long, and we've already had personnel involved in active combat with the SLN. If the League decides to hammer the Star Kingdom over something that was clearly the League's fault in the first place, what makes anyone think they'll hesitate to hammer any of the uppity neobarbs' uppity neobarb friends, at the same time? What's one more star system when you're already planning on destroying a multi-system empire, with the largest independent merchant marine in the entire galaxy, just because you can't admit one of your own admirals screwed up by the numbers?"

Matthews looked back at his protector, wishing he could think of an answer to Benjamin's questions.

"So that's where we are," the protector repeated quietly. "In the long term, unless we're prepared to become another nice, obedient Frontier Security proxy and go around bashing other 'neobarbs' for the League, I'm sure they'll decide one of their flag officers should have another unfortunate little accident that gets our Navy trashed along with Manticore's before we turn into a threat to them. So all I can see for us to do is the best we can and hope that somewhere, even in the Solarian League, someone's going to be bright enough to see the shipwreck coming and try to avoid it. After all," Benjamin grinned again, this time without amusement, "the horse really may learn to sing."

* * *

"All right, boys and girls," Commander Michael Carus said. "It's official. We can go home now."

"Hallelujah!" Lieutenant Commander Bridget Landry said from her quadrant of his com display. "Not that it hasn't been fun," she continued. "Why I haven't enjoyed myself this much since they fixed that impacted wisdom tooth for me."

Carus chuckled. The four destroyers of the Royal Manticoran Navy's Destroyer Division 265.2, known as "the Silver Cepheids," had been sitting a light-month from Manticore-A for two weeks, doing absolutely nothing. Well, that wasn't exactly fair. They'd been sitting here maintaining a scrupulous sensor watch looking for absolutely nothing, and he was hardly surprised by Landry's reaction.

No, I'm not , he admitted. But somebody had to do it. And when it comes to perimeter security for the entire star system, better safe than sorry any day, even if it does mean somebody has to be bored as hell .

DesDiv 265.2 had been sent to check out what was almost certainly a sensor ghost but which could, just possibly, have been an actual hyper footprint. It was extraordinarily unlikely that anyone would have bothered to make his alpha translation this far out, be his purposes ever so nefarious, since his impeller signature would certainly have been detected long before he could get close enough to the Manticore Binary System to accomplish anything. But Perimeter Security didn't take chances on words like "unlikely." When a sensor ghost like this one turned up, it was checked out—quickly and thoroughly. And if the checker-outers didn't find anything immediately upon arrival, they stayed put for the entire two T-weeks SOP required.

Which was precisely what the Silver Cepheids had just finished doing.

"Should I assume, Bridget," Carus said, "that you have some pressing reason for wanting to head home at this particular moment?"

"Oh, how could you possibly suspect anything of the sort?" Lieutenant Commander John Pershing asked from the bridge of HMS Raven , and Lieutenant Commander Julie Chase, CO of HMS Lodestone chuckled.

"I take it your senile old skipper is missing something?" Carus said mildly.

"She's got one of those creative archaism thingies," Chase said.

"That's creative anachronisms , you ignorant lout," Landry corrected with a frown.

"Are you going off to play dress-up again , Bridget?" Carus demanded.

"Hey, don't you start on me!" she told him with a grin. "Everyone's got her own hobby—even you. Or was that someone else I saw tying trout flies the other day?"

"At least he eats what he catches," Chase pointed out. "Or is it that what catches him eats him?" She frowned, then shrugged. "Anyway, it's not as silly as all those costumes of yours."

"Before you go around calling it silly, Julie," Pershing suggested, "you might want to reflect on the fact that 'the Salamander' is an honorary member of Bridget's chapter."

"What?" Chase stared at him from her display. "You're kidding! Duchess Harrington's part of this silly SCA thing?"

"Well, not really," Landry said. "Like John says, it's an honorary membership. One of her uncles is a real big wheel in the Society on Beowulf, and he sponsored her back, oh, I don't know . . . must've been thirty T-years ago. I've actually met her at a couple of meetings though, you know. She took the pistol competition at both of them, as a matter of fact."

"There you have it," Carus said simply. "If it's good enough for the Salamander, it's good enough for anyone. So let's not have anyone abusing Bridget over her hobby anymore, understand? Even if it is a remarkably silly way for an adult human being to spend her time, at least she's being silly in good company. So there."

Landry stuck out her tongue at him, and he laughed. Then he looked sideways at Lieutenant Linda Petersen, his astrogator aboard HMS Javelin .

"Got that course figured for us, Linda?"

"Yes, Skipper," Petersen nodded.