"The fact that San Martino MPs are going to be card-carrying Centrists or Crown Loyalists lends that particular concern added point. Technically, San Martin still doesn't have any MPs, either, but their 'special representatives' in the Commons are serving a lot of the same functions, even if they can't actually vote yet. And there's no question where their loyalties lie. Nor have any of the peers failed to take note of that little fact.

"And that, Mike, is why otherwise reasonably decent members of the House of Lords are actively supporting a piece of work like High Ridge and let him get away with his damage control on the Manpower Scandal. None of them really like him, very few of them have any illusions about the 'thoroughness' of his investigation of Countess Tor's charges, and most of them wouldn't trust him or any of his allies to look after their dogs, much less their children. But their general position is that even if the present Constitution is imperfect, the system it's created has served the Star Kingdom well, and at the moment, he's the one defending the status quo. I doubt that many of them are blind to the degree of self-interest inherent in their opposition to changing it, but that doesn't make their opposition any less genuine."

"I see." Henke leaned back in her own seat, facing Honor across the passenger compartment of the luxurious vehicle. It still startled her whenever she heard Honor Harrington, of all people, analyzing politics so clearly and concisely. It shouldn't, she supposed, given how acutely Honor had always been able to analyze military problems, but for almost forty T-years, it had always been Henke who understood the Star Kingdom's internal politics better than Honor did. Of course, Henke's understanding had been based on her own family connections. As the Queen's first cousin, she'd absorbed that understanding almost by osmosis, without ever really having to think very much about it. Which, she admitted now, might be part of the reason Honor saw the current situation so much more clearly than she did, for Honor hadn't been born into those rarified circles. She'd come to them with a lack of instinctive insider awareness which had forced her to really think about her new environment.

But the fact that her friend hadn't been born to power and nurtured within the ranks of the Star Kingdom's hereditary elite also created some dangerous blind spots, Henke reflected with carefully hidden anxiety. Blind spots that left her unaware of dangers someone like Henke herself would have recognized instantly, despite any distaste for politics. In spite of all that had happened to place Honor at the very pivot of political power in two separate star nations, she continued to think of herself—and her private life—as the yeoman's daughter she had always been.

Michelle Henke faced her friend and wondered yet again if she should say something to her, remind her of how her private life could and would be used against her by her political foes if she gave them an opening. If she should ask Honor if there were any truth to the rumors beginning to be whispered ever so quietly.

"That sounds like it makes sense," she said instead, after a moment. "It still surprises me to hear it coming from you, though, I guess. May I ask if Lord Alexander shares your analysis?"

"Of course he does. You don't think I haven't discussed it with him—at length—do you?" Honor snorted. "Between my own position in the Lords and my role as Benjamin's friend at court, I've spent more hours than I care to think about in skull sessions with the man who ought to be Prime Minister!"

"Yes, I suppose you'd have to," Henke agreed slowly, and cocked her head ever so slightly. "And has Earl White Haven been able to add anything to your perspective, as well?"

"Yes," Honor replied, reaching down to stroke Nimitz's spine. Her eyes, Henke noticed, dropped to watch her own hand on the treecat's silken pelt rather than meet her guest's gaze, and the brevity of her one-word response struck Henke as . . . ominous.

For one moment, the countess considered pressing further, making the question explicit. After all, if she couldn't ask Honor, who could? But the problem was that she couldn't, and so she only leaned back in her own chair and nodded.

"That tallies with what Mom was saying, too," she said then. "And I guess she figured I should have known enough about what was going on to understand it without her drawing a detailed map for me the way you just did." She shrugged. "Sometimes I think she never realized how much I left all that sort of thing to Cal. I was too busy with the Navy."

A fresh memory of sorrow flowed across her face, but she banished it quickly and produced a lopsided smile.

"Now that you have explained it, though, I see what you meant about historical imperatives. I still say Beth's temper didn't help things any, though."

"No, it didn't," Honor agreed, looking up from her lapful of 'cat once more with a slight air of what might have been relief. "If nothing else, it made the stakes personal for High Ridge, New Kiev, and Descroix. But from the moment the Duke of Cromarty and your father were killed, it was almost inevitable that we'd wind up where we are. Except, of course, that no one on either side could have realized what was going to happen in the People's Republic while we were tending to our domestic squabbles."

"You can say that again," Henke agreed somberly, and cocked her head. "Do you think Pritchart and Theisman understand what's happening any better than I did?"

"I certainly hope so," Honor said dryly.

"What the hell do they think they're doing?" Eloise Pritchart half snarled.

The President of the Republic of Haven picked up a chip folio and shook it violently in the direction of Admiral Thomas Theisman as he stepped into her private office. Her expression was so stormy that the Republic's Secretary of War raised an eyebrow in surprise. The platinum-haired, topaz-eyed President was perhaps the most beautiful woman he'd ever personally met. In fact, she was one of those rare human beings on whom even an expression of fury looked good. But others rarely saw her wearing one, because one of her greatest virtues was her ability to remain cool and collected even in the face of the most severe pressure. That virtue had been fundamental to her survival under Oscar Saint-Just's State Security and its reign of terror. It was not much in evidence at the moment, however.

"What's who up to?" he asked mildly, settling into one of the comfortable chairs angled to face her desk while simultaneously providing her visitors with a breathtaking panorama of downtown Nouveau Paris. The work crews were almost finished rebuilding the towers Saint-Just had destroyed when he detonated the nuclear bomb under the Octagon, and Theisman's eyes moved automatically to the gleaming edifice of the New Octagon which had replaced it.

"The damned Manties, that's who!" Pritchart shot back with an undisguised venom that snapped his full attention back to her, and tossed the folio onto the desk. When she put it down, Theisman saw the ID flashes which marked it as an official State Department briefing paper, and he grimaced.

"I take it they haven't responded appropriately to our latest proposals," he observed in that same mild tone.

"They haven't responded to them at all! It's as if we never even presented the position papers."

"It's not like they haven't been dragging their heels for years now, Eloise," Theisman pointed out. "And let's be honest—until recently, we were just as happy they were."

"I know. I know."

Pritchart leaned back in her own chair, drew a deep breath, and waved a hand in a small apologetic gesture. It wasn't an apology for her anger at the Manticorans, only for the way she'd allowed it to show. If anyone in the galaxy had earned the right not to have her snarling at him, it was Thomas Theisman. He and Denis LePic, the People's Commissioner the SS had assigned as his political watchdog, were the ones who'd managed to overthrow the ruthless dictatorship Saint-Just had established as the sole surviving member of the Committee of Public Safety. Saint-Just hadn't survived his removal from office, and Pritchart had no doubt that the rumors about how he'd come to be "killed in the fighting" were accurate. And if those rumors were true—if Theisman had shot him out of hand—then thank God for it. The last thing the People's Republic of Haven had needed was yet another agonizing show trial, followed by the inevitable, highly public purges of the deposed leader's supporters pour encourager les autres.