"And even if your cover holds up perfectly," she went on forcefully, "how can you even consider trusting anyone from the officer corps? You said it yourself: we've killed too many of them and made too many others, and their families, disappear. They'll never forgive us for that!"

"I think you underestimate the power of self-interest," Pierre replied for StateSec's commander. "Whoever we offer a slice of the pie to will have his own reasons to keep us in the saddle. For one thing, everyone will know he had to make some major accommodations with us to get the slot, and any power he has will depend on our patronage. And if we ease up on the officers..."

"They'll think he's the one to thank for it and have even more reason to be loyal to him rather than to us!" Ransom half snapped.

"Maybe," Pierre conceded. "But maybe not, too. Especially if we see to it that we put his advice into practice and do it very openly." Ransom started to open her mouth again, but his raised hand stopped her, for the moment. "I'm not suggesting that whoever we pick won't get at least some of the credit. For that matter, he'll probably get almost all of it, initially. But if we're going to win this war, we have to enlist our military as something more than slave labor. We've tried 'collective responsibility' with some success, after all," he smiled thinly, "knowing your family will suffer for your failures gives you a powerful incentive. But it's also counterproductive, and it produces obedience, not allegiance. By threatening their families, we become as much the enemy as the Manties. Probably even more than the Manties, for a lot of them. The Manties may be trying to kill them, but the Alliance isn't threatening to kill their wives or husbands or children.

"Frankly, it would be irrational for the officer corps to trust us under the present circumstances, and I think our past failures demonstrate that we have to 'rehabilitate' ourselves in their eyes if we expect them to become an effective, motivated, fighting force. We were incredibly lucky that the Navy didn't just stand by and watch the Levelers roll over us. In fact, I remind you that only one ship of the wall, just one, and not even a unit of the Capital Fleet, at that, had the initiative and nerve to intervene. If Rousseau had stayed out of it, you and Oscar and I would all be dead now, and we can't count on that sort of support again without demonstrating that we at least know we owe the people who saved our hides a debt. And the only way I can see to do that is to give them a voice at the highest level, make sure the rank and file know we've done it, and actually pay that voice some attention... publicly, at least."

"Publicly?" Ransom repeated with a cocked eyebrow and an arrested expression, and Pierre nodded.

"Publicly. Oscar and I have already discussed the sort of insurance policy we'll need if our tame war dog gets out of hand. Oscar?"

"I've considered each of the officers Rob's nominated," the SS man told Ransom. "It wasn't too hard to edit their records and their peoples commissioners' reports. Any one of them will look like a knight in shining armor when we introduce him to the public, and all of them are quite competent in their own field, but we've got enough time bombs hidden in their dossiers to blow them away any time we have to. Of course," he smiled thinly, "it would be convenient if the officer in question were already dead before we make those bombs public. It's ever so much harder for a dead man to defend himself."

"I see." It was Ransom's turn to lean back and rub her chin in thought, and she nodded slowly. "All right, that's a good first step," she admitted finally. Her tone was still grudging, but it was no longer adamant. "I'll want a good look at those 'time bombs,' though. If we want this talking head to be vulnerable to charges down the road, Public Information's going to have to be careful about just how we initially build him up for public consumption. We wouldn't want any avoidable inconsistencies in there."

"No problem," Saint-Just assured her, and she nodded some more. But her expression was still dissatisfied, and she let her chair snap back upright as she stopped rubbing her jaw and leaned over the table towards Pierre.

"This is all well and good as far as it goes, Rob," she said, "but it's still a hell of a risk. And we're going to be sending some very mixed signals, however we do it. I mean, we just shot Admiral Girardi for losing Trevor’s Star, and whatever we may have told the Proles, we all know it wasn't entirely his fault." Pierre was a bit surprised she was willing to make even that much of a concession to a Navy officer, but perhaps it was because even she had to admit dead men could no longer plot treason. "The Navy's senior officers certainly don't think it was, anyway. They're convinced we only shot him to 'prove' to the Mob that it wasn't our fault, and even some enlisted personnel resented our turning him into a 'scapegoat'! I don't see your proposal making much of a dent in that any time soon."

"Ah, but that's because you don't know who I'm planning to appoint!" Pierre said, then sat without another word, grinning at her. She glared at him, trying to pretend his effort to play on her impatience wasn't working. Unfortunately, they both knew it was. The better part of a full minute dragged past, then she shrugged impatiently.

"So tell me already!"

"Esther McQueen," Pierre said simply, and Ransom jerked upright in her chair.

"You're joking!" she snapped, and her face darkened when Pierre only shook his head. "Well, you damned well ought to be! Damn it, Oscar!" The glare she turned on Saint-Just should have been sufficient to incinerate the SS chief on the spot. "The woman's personal popularity is already at dangerous levels, and your own spy's reported that she's got ambitions, and plans, of her own. Are you seriously suggesting putting a loaded pulser into the hands of someone we know is looking for one already?"

"First of all, her ambition may be our best ally," Pierre said before Saint-Just could reply. "Yes, Brigadier Fontein's warned us that she has her own agenda. In fact, she's made one or two efforts to set up some sort of clandestine network among her fellow flag officers. But she hasn't met with much success, because they know what she has in mind as well as we do. Most of them are too cowed to stick their necks out, and the ones who aren't consider her as much a political animal as a military one. Given the, um, finality with which politics are played these days, they're not about to trust even one of their own if she's shown she wants to join the game. If, on the other hand, we give her a place at the table, that very ambition will give her every reason to make sure the Committee, and, with it, her power base, survives."

"Hmph!" Ransom relaxed just a bit and folded her arms across her chest as she considered. Then she shook her head again, but this time the gesture was slower and more thoughtful. "All right," she said at last, "let's assume you have a point there. But she's still dangerous. The Mob sees her as the Committees savior against the Levelers, hell, half the damned Committee thinks she can walk on water right now! But we don't even know that she actually intended to save us at all, do we? If her pinnace hadn't crashed, she might just have kept right on rolling with the momentum and finished us off herself!"

"She might have, but I don't believe for a minute she planned to," Pierre said, just a bit more emphatically than his level of confidence deserved. "The Committee at least has the legitimacy of the original resolution which created it, not to mention almost six T-years as the Republic's functioning government. Even if she'd managed to wipe us out herself, what would she have had for a power base? Remember that only her own flagship supported her when she came to rescue us, and she was clearly doing her duty then. There's no way she could have counted on the rest of the Fleet to support any sort of putsch on her part, especially not given her reputation for political ambition."