"Perseus Two is more conventional. We would assemble our forces at DuQuesne Base in the Barnett System, far enough inside the frontier that Manticore couldn't tell what we were up to. From there, we'd attack southwest against Yeltsin, the thinnest point in their perimeter. With Yeltsin in our hands, we would advance directly against Manticore, taking out the bases on our flanks to protect our rear as we went. Losses would be higher than a successful Perseus One, but we'd avoid the risk of the total destruction of our forces which Perseus One entails.

"Perseus Three is a variant of Perseus Two, directing two prongs from Barnett, one against Yeltsin and a second striking northwest, against Hancock. The intention is to present Manticore with two axes of threat, forcing them to split their forces against them. There's some risk of their concentrating their total strength to defeat one attack in detail, but the odds are against it because of the risks it would force them to accept against the other arm of our offensive. In my staffs opinion, our exposure to that sort of attack would also be offset by our own ability to dictate the pace of operations by choosing when to push with either prong.

"Finally, there's Perseus Four. Unlike the others, Four envisions a limited offensive to weaken the Alliance rather than take Manticore completely out with one blow. In this instance, we would attack northwest once more, toward Hancock Station. There are two possible variants. One is to reinforce our forces at Seaford Nine and attack Hancock directly, while the other is to send a separate force out from Barnett, take Zanzibar, then hook up to the north while our Seaford Nine forces attack southwest to take Hancock in a pincer. The immediate objective is to destroy the only major Manty base in the area and conquer Zanzibar, Alizon, and Yorik, after which we should offer to negotiate a ceasefire in place. The loss of three inhabited star systems—especially in an area only recently added to the Alliance—would have to shake the Manties' other alliance partners, and possession of the region would position us quite nicely for a later activation of Perseus One or Three."

"And if Manticore chooses to continue operations rather than accept our peace terms?" Palmer-Levy asked.

"In that case we could proceed with Perseus Three—unless we've been hurt far worse than I expect—or retreat to our pre-war positions and negotiate a ceasefire from there. The second option would be far more disadvantageous, but it would still be available if military operations blow up in our faces."

"And do you have a preference for one of the four attack plans, Amos?" Harris asked.

"My personal preference is for Perseus Three, if we want a permanent decision, or for Perseus Four, which substantially lessens our overall risk, if our objectives are more limited. Exactly what our actual objective is, of course, is a political decision, Mr. President."

"I see." Harris pinched the bridge of his nose again, then looked around the table. "Comments, ladies and gentlemen?"

"We've got to continue expanding our economic base if we're going to maintain the Basic Living Stipend payments," De La Sangliere said heavily, "And if the CRU did take Walter out, I think we have to be very cautious about curtailing the BLS."

Harris nodded somberly. Two-thirds of Havens home-world population was now on the Dole, and rampant inflation was an economic fact of life. Faced with a treasury which had been effectively empty for over a century, desperation had driven Frankel to propose limiting BLS adjustments to the inflation rate, maintaining its actual buying power without increase. The carefully phrased "leaks" Jessup had arranged to test-flight the idea had provoked riots in virtually every Prole housing unit, and, two months later, Kanamashi had put twelve explosive pulser darts into Frankel's chest, requiring a closed-coffin state funeral.

It was, Harris reflected grimly, one of the less ambiguous "protest votes" on record, and he understood the near panic thoughts of actual BLS cuts woke in his cabinet colleagues.

"Given those considerations," De La Sangliere went on, "we've got to gain access to the systems beyond Manticore, especially the Silesian Confederacy. If anyone knows some way we can grab them off without fighting Manticore first, I, for one, would be delighted to hear of it."

"There isn't one." Palmer-Levy looked around the table, daring anyone to disagree with her flat assertion. No one did, and Jessup endorsed her comment with a sharp nod. Bergren looked far more unhappy than either of his colleagues, but the dapper foreign minister also nodded unwilling assent. "Besides," the security minister went on, "a foreign crisis might help cool off the domestic front, at least in the short term. It always has before."

"That's true." There was an almost hopeful note in De La Sangliere's voice. "Traditionally, the People's Quorum's always accepted a freeze in the BLS for the duration of actual military operations."

"Of course they have." Dumarest snorted. They know we're fighting for more slops for their trough!"

Harris winced at her caustic cynicism. It was just as well Elaine was in charge of the war ministry and not something with more public exposure, he reflected, but he couldn't fault her analysis.

"Exactly." Palmer-Levy's smile was cold as she glanced at Parnell. "You say we may take losses against the Manticorans, Admiral?" Parnell nodded. "But would operations against them be extended?"

"I don't see how they could be too extended, Ms. Secretary. Their fleet simply isn't large enough to absorb the kind of losses we can. Unless they somehow managed to inflict an incredibly lopsided loss ratio, it would have to be a fairly short war."

"That's what I thought," Palmer-Levy said in a satisfied tone. "And it might actually work in our favor to take a certain number of casualties. I'm sure you could put the right spin control on it and use the deaths of our gallant defenders to mobilize public opinion in our time of crisis, couldn't you, Duncan?"

"I could, indeed." Jessup almost licked his chops—and did rub his hands—at the prospect of such a propaganda coup, oblivious to the sudden, angry glitter in Parnell's eyes "In fact, we can probably build up a balance of support for future need, if we handle it right. It would certainly be a far cry from the kind of growing unrest we're seeing now, anyway."

"There you are, then," Palmer-Levy said. "What we need is a short, victorious war... and I think we all know where we can find one, don't we?'

Dame Honor Harrington dropped her long, rolled bundle and removed a hat someone on Old Earth of two millennia past would have called a fedora. She dried the sweatband with a handkerchief, then sat on the weatherworn rock outcrop with a sigh of relief, laid the hat beside her, and looked out over the magnificent panorama.

Wind cold enough to make her grateful for her leather jacket ruffled sweat-damp hair that was longer than it had been before her convalescence. It was still far shorter than current fashion decreed, but she ran her fingers through it with a curiously guilty sensuality. She'd worn it cropped close for helmets and zero-gee for so long she'd forgotten how satisfying its curly, silken weight could feel.

She lowered her hands and stared out over the endless reaches of the Tannerman Ocean. Even here, a thousand meters above its wrinkled blue and silver, she smelled salt on the chill wind. It was a smell she'd been born to, yet it was perpetually new, as well. Perhaps because she'd spent so little time on Sphinx in the twenty-nine T-years since joining the Navy.

She turned her head and looked down, down, down to where she'd begun her climb. A small splash of bright green stood out boldly against the red-gold and yellow of autumn-touched grass, and she twitched the muscles of her left eye socket in one of the patterns she'd learned in the endless months of therapy.