Something like a cross between a snort and a laugh sounded from Thomas Theisman's general direction, and LePic raised one hand to hide a smile.

"I don't think I'd choose just that adjective to describe her, either, Madam President," Montreau said dryly. "But the reason I asked the question doesn't really have that much to do with her."

"No?" Pritchart gazed at her for a moment, then nodded. "I see where you're going, I think. But to be honest, I'm not certain I agree with you." One or two of the others looked puzzled, while others were slowly nodding in understanding of their own. "I'd like to keep this as small and nonadversarial as we can manage, Leslie. The last thing we need is to turn this into some sort of dog and pony show that bogs down. I don't think for a minute that Alexander-Harrington was blowing smoke when she said Elizabeth's unwilling to let negotiations stretch out forever."

"Neither do I," Montreau acknowledged, but her expression never wavered. "And, like you, I'd like to keep the negotiating teams small enough and sufficiently focused to move quickly. In fact, I'd really like to handle as much of this as possible one-on-one between her and myself, as Secretary of State. Or, failing that, between her and you, as the Republic's head of state. But if we do that, getting any agreement or treaty we manage to come up with approved by Congress is going to be a lot harder."

The puzzled expressions were changing into something else, and frowns were breaking out here and there. Somewhat to Pritchart's surprise, one of the darkest and least happy frowns belonged to Tony Nesbitt.

"I see where you're headed, Leslie," he said, "but inviting the Administration's political opponents to sit in on this—and that is what you had in mind, isn't it?" Montreau nodded, and he shrugged. "As I say, inviting the opposition to sit in on, even participate in, the negotiating process strikes me as a recipe for disaster, in a lot of ways."

Despite herself, one of Pritchart's eyebrows rose. Nesbitt saw it and barked a laugh which contained very few traces of anything someone might have called humor.

"Oh, don't get me wrong, Madam President! I'm probably as close to an outright member of the opposition as you've got sitting in this Cabinet, and I think you're well aware of exactly how little trust I'm prepared to place in anyone from Manticore. But compared to some of the other operators out there, I might as well be your blood brother! I don't like to admit it, but a lot of them are probably as self-serving as Arnold turned out to be . . . and about as trustworthy."

A flicker of genuine pain, the pain of someone who'd been betrayed and used by someone he'd trusted, flashed across the commerce secretary's expression, but his voice never wavered.

"However I might feel about Manticore, you and Admiral Theisman are right about how desperate our military position is. And if this is the one chance we've got to survive on anything approaching acceptable terms, I don't want some political grandstander—or, even worse, someone who'd prefer to see negotiations fail because he thinks he can improve his personal position or deep-six the Constitution in the aftermath of military defeat—to screw it up. And if we get far enough to actually start dealing with the matter of who did what to whose mail before the war, it's likely to be just a bit awkward tiptoing around someone who'd be perfectly willing to leak it to the newsies for any advantage it might give him!"

"I find myself in agreement with Tony," Rachel Hanriot said after a moment. "But even so, I'm afraid Leslie has a point. There's got to be someone involved in these negotiations who isn't 'one of us.' I'd prefer for it to be someone who's opposed to us as a matter of principle, assuming we can find anyone like that, but the bottom line is that we've got to include someone from outside the Administration or its supporters, whatever their motives for being there might be. Someone to play the role of watchdog for all those people, especially in Congress, who don't like us, or oppose us, or who simply question our competence after the collapse of the summit talks and what happened at the Battle of Manticore. This can't be the work of a single party, or a single clique—not anything anyone could portray as having been negotiated in a dark little room somewhere—if we expect congressional approval. And, to be honest, I think we have a moral obligation to give our opponents at least some input into negotiating what we hope will be a treaty with enormous implications for every man, woman, and child in the Republic. It's not just our Republic, whatever offices we hold. I don't think we can afford to let ourselves forget that."

"Wonderful." Walter Sanderson shook his head. "I can see this is going to turn into a perfectly delightful exercise in statesmanship. I can hardly think of anything I'd rather do. Except possibly donate one of my testicles to science. Without anesthetic."

Pritchart chuckled. One or two of Sanderson's colleagues found his occasional descents into indelicacy inappropriate in a cabinet secretary. The president, on the other hand, rather treasured them. They had a way of bringing people firmly back to earth.

"Given what you've just said," she told him with a smile, "I think we'll all be just as happy if we keep you personally as far away as possible from the negotiating table, Walter."

"Thank God," he said feelingly.

"Nonetheless," Pritchart went on in a voice tinged with more than a little regret, "I think you and Rachel have a point, Leslie. Tony, I'm as reluctant as you are to include any 'negotiators' whose motivations are . . . suspect. And your point about the correspondence issue's particularly well taken. In fact, it's the part of this which makes me the most nervous, if I'm going to be honest. But they're still right. If we don't include someone from outside the Administration, we're going to have a hell of a fight in Congress afterward, even if Rachel didn't have a point of her own about that moral responsibility of ours. And to the brutally frank, I think we'll have a better chance of surviving even if we end up having to air some of our political dirty linen in front of Admiral Alexander-Harrington, if it lets us move forward with a least a modicum of multi-party support, than we will if we find ourselves in a protracted struggle to get whatever terms we work out ratified. The last thing we need is to have any of those people in Manticore who already don't trust us decide that this time around we're being High Ridge and deliberately stringing things out rather than acting in good faith."

"What's the current status of Bogey Two, Utako?"

"No change in course or heading, Sir," Lieutenant Commander Utako Shreiber, operations officer of Task Group 2.2, Mesan Alignment Navy, replied. She looked over her shoulder at Commodore Roderick Sung, the task group's CO, who'd just stepped back onto MANS Apparition 's tiny flag bridge, and raised one eyebrow very slightly.

Sung noted the eyebrow and suppressed an uncharacteristic urge to snap at her for it. He managed to conquer the temptation without ever allowing it to show in his own expression, and the fact that Schreiber was probably the best ops officer he'd ever worked with, despite her junior rank, helped. He'd hand-picked her from a sizable pool of candidates when Benjamin Detweiler handed him this prong of Oyster Bay largely because he valued her willingness to think for herself, after all. And the fact that he'd worked hard to establish the relationship of mutual trust and respect which let a subordinate ask that sort of silent question helped even more.

All the same, a tiny part of him did want to rip her head off. Not because of anything she'd done, but because of the tension building steadily in the vicinity of his stomach.