Pritchart had felt almost awed when she realized she was in the presence of a true romantic. A man who actually believed in the rule of law, the sanctity of solemn oaths, and the inviolability of personal responsibility.

She wondered if he'd always been so divorced from reality, or if he'd become that way as his own defense mechanism as he watched the star nation of his birth go insane about him. It didn't really matter. What mattered was that he was truly and absolutely committed to the very principles for which the Aprilist Movement had come into existence . . . and that she was almost as hopelessly romantic, in that respect, at least, as he was.

And so, just over eighteen T-months from Oscar Saint-Just's death, Eloise Pritchart, after organizing the transition government and bringing the old Constitution back from the ash heap of history, had become the first elected president of the Republic of Haven in almost two centuries, with Thomas Theisman as her Secretary of War.

There were times when she was highly tempted to shoot him for that.

"You know, Tom," she said, only half-whimsically, "you're a coward."

"Absolutely," he agreed instantly. "It's a survival trait."

"Is that what you call it?" She cocked her head at him. "I'd assumed it was more a combination of laziness and a desire to put someone else in the line of fire."

"A burning desire to put someone else there, actually," he corrected affably. Then his smile faded just a bit, and he shrugged.

"There's not quite as much humor in that as I wish there were," he said in a quieter voice. "I think I know my strengths, Eloise. And I hope to hell I know my limitations. There's no way I could've done the job you've done. I know you couldn't have done it, either, if I hadn't been here to do my job, but that doesn't change a thing about what you've accomplished."

She waved her hand in midair again, uncomfortable with the sincerity of his tone.

"At any rate," she went on again, after a moment, both her expression and her voice determinedly light, "you managed to arrange things very neatly so that you don't have to deal with the damned Manties. Or, for that matter, the rest of the Cabinet when they hear about the Manties' latest antics."

"And just what do those antics consist of this time?" Theisman asked, accepting her change of mood. "Besides, of course, their failure to accept our most recent proposal?"

"Nothing," she admitted. "But they don't have to do anything else to create enormous problems for us, Tom, and you know it."

"Yes, I suppose I do." He shrugged. "But like I said earlier, the fact that they can't find their ass with both hands has been useful as hell from my perspective. At least I didn't have to worry about them while Javier, Lester, and I ran around pissing on forest fires!"

"There is that," Pritchart agreed with a sober nod.

Not everyone had been prepared to accept Theisman's overthrow of the Committee of Public Safety gracefully. In fact, initially, he'd controlled only the capital system and its fleet. Capital Fleet was the Navy's largest, of course, and two-thirds of the other core systems of the People's Republic had declared for him—or, rather, for Pritchart's interim government—within the first three T-months. The majority of the rest of the People's Navy had also supported him, as well. But a large minority of the Navy had been under the control of other citizen admirals or, even worse, StateSec system commanders, who'd refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the new government.

It was, as Theisman had just suggested, extremely fortunate that the Manticorans had chosen to continue the negotiations Saint-Just had finessed them into beginning. If they'd decided to resume active military operations, instead, especially with the enormous technological superiority of their new hardware, the entire Republic would have disintegrated—within weeks, probably, but certainly within mere months. As it was, Theisman, with Giscard and Tourville as his primary field commanders, had found himself fighting a vicious, multi-cornered war against a shifting kaleidoscope of enemies. Pritchart had had more than one reason for being unhappy about that. As President, she'd hated the way it had distracted her from concentrating fully on the stalled negotiations with the Star Kingdom. On a more personal level, Giscard's responsibilities as Theisman's senior fleet commander had kept him away from Nouveau Paris—and one Eloise Pritchart's bed—for all but a few weeks out of the last three-plus years. Which, she admitted, she resented even more than the official headaches it created.

Fortunately, she'd never really been concerned (unlike some people) that Theisman might not succeed in his pacification efforts in the end . . . as long as the Manties stayed out of it. The fact that most of his adversaries distrusted one another even more than they distrusted him had given him a powerful advantage, but not even their merry-go-round of mutual betrayal would have been enough to permit the interim government to survive in the face of an active Manticoran resumption of the offensive.

"I know how important it was for you and Javier and Lester to keep the Manties talking while you tended to the shooting," Pritchart went on after a moment. "But the shooting is just about over now, isn't it?"

"Yes, thank God. I expect Javier's next report within another couple of days, and I'll be very surprised if it doesn't tell us that Mikasinovich is ready to call it quits."

"Really?" Pritchart brightened visibly. Citizen General Silas Mikasinovich was the last major StateSec holdout. He'd managed to hammer himself together a six-star vest-pocket empire which had proved a surprisingly tough nut to crack.

"Really," Theisman confirmed, then raised one hand in a brief throwing-away gesture. "I'm afraid you're going to have to amnesty him like the others, and I wish you weren't. But unless I'm badly mistaken, he's enough of a realist to recognize that his only real chance now is to cut the best deal with you that he can."

"I'll give him a lot better deal than he deserves," Pritchart said grimly. "But the bottom line is going to be that he surrenders every one of his capital ships, then gets the hell out of the Republic and stays out."

"I can live with that," Theisman agreed. Especially, he thought, the surrender of his ships. So far, as nearly as Theisman and his staff could tell, not a single Havenite ship above the size of a battlecruiser had managed to simply disappear. He knew damned well that at least some lighter units had elected to set up independent operations as pirates or small-scale warlords safely beyond his own reach, but at least he'd managed to prevent any ships of the wall from doing the same thing, and he intended to keep it that way.

"And now that Lester's moved in and kicked down Carson's little kingdom," he went on aloud, "all we have left are four or five isolated holdouts like Agnelli and Listerman. Give me another four months—six at the outside—and I'll have all of them out of your hair, as well, Madam President."

"And I will be delighted to see it happen," Pritchart said with a smile, then sobered. "But in some ways, getting Mikasinovich and the others out of the equation is going to make things even worse," she continued. "At least as long as they're still there and their units are still shooting back at yours, I can use him to keep the fire-eaters at bay."

"Giancola and his crowd?" Theisman asked, then snorted harshly at the President's confirming nod. "The man's an idiot!"

"Idiot or not—and much as I dislike him, I don't think he is one, actually—Arnold Giancola is also the Secretary of State," Pritchart pointed out. "I'll admit that the only reason I nominated him for the position was political expediency, despite a less than overwhelming admiration for his stellar intellect, but he does have the job. And the reasons I gave it to him are still in force."