The fact that her offer to resign hadn't been taken up seemed, in Dame Estelle's opinion, to validate her conclusion that Countess Marisa was in some sort of trouble back home. Honor wasn't so certain about that, but when she added it to the evidence of unanticipated support from her own superiors, she had to concede that the commissioner might just have a point.

The problem, of course, was that the support might well vanish if she and Dame Estelle couldn't carry through and deliver either the parties behind the drug lab (and, almost certainly, the new weapons, as well), or else demonstrate that those criminals' activities had been stopped once and for all. And the unhappy truth was that they had achieved exactly nothing further since Hauptman and the courier had taken themselves back through the Basilisk terminus to Manticore.

Honor half-reclined in her chair, crossing her legs and steepling her fingers under her chin while Nimitz napped on the chair back, and tried to think of anything else she might have done. Or, for that matter, might still do.

The tap on the power collector was, she was almost positive, a dead end. Oh, she had no doubt it had been installed when the collector was first put in by the Hauptman Cartel, but despite McKeon's savage counterattack on Klaus Hauptman and the investigations no doubt underway back home, it was unlikely anyone would ever be able to prove precisely how. If some highly placed individual within the cartel had ordered it, any records which might once have existed had very certainly been destroyed long since. And if someone had slipped it in when the prefabricated collector components were assembled here in Basilisk, it could have been any one or two of scores of people involved in the project. In either case, the chance of ever figuring out who'd done it was astronomically remote.

But Dame Estelle was right about one thing. Tapping off of the Government's own backup collector had shown a degree of arrogant self-confidence which sat very strangely with how meticulously the lab itself had been hidden. There'd been no need to tap that particular collector. Even if they hadn't wanted to use their own collector, a geothermal plant, or even a simple hydro generator, installed in the volcanic springs two kilometers from the lab could have provided the needed power. And it could have been run in by wire, without the betraying risk of beamed receptors and relays. It was as if their opponents had a split personality. One side of them hid the presence of their drug-making facilities with obsessive care, but the other ran utterly unnecessary risks that almost seemed to flaunt its nerve by stealing power for those same facilities from its enemies.

And, she thought grimly, there might even be a third personality, given the way the lab had been blown. That had been a terminally stupid thing for any criminal organization to do; the NPA would never give up looking for whoever had ordered it done. It was almost like a deliberate challenge, designed with malice aforethought to goad the authorities into the most violent reaction possible.

The problem was that none of it made sense. Not only did the bad guys seem to be going off in half a dozen directions at once in their planning, but the very scale of the operation was absurd. Dame Estelle was right. Whatever these people were after, it wasn't the profits from drug running or selling guns to the natives. It smacked of some organized off-world covert operation, but what was its purpose? Arming the Medusans and feeding them drugs that inspired violence had all the earmarks of an effort to engineer a native insurrection, yet no possible Medusan "uprising" could hope to defeat the forces Manticore could put into Basilisk to stop it. There might be a great deal of bloodshed before it ended, but most of the blood would be Medusan, not Manticoran, and the most likely upshot would be a powerful, permanent military presence on Medusa in place of the lightly-armed NPA troopers now stationed there.

Unless, of course, whoever was behind it (she very conscientiously avoided assuming it was the Republic of Haven) might be hoping for another response entirely. It was always possible that a bloodbath on Medusa would be grist for the Liberal/Progressive mill and wake such revulsion in Parliament as to enable the anti-annexationists to finally get Manticore entirely off the planet. It struck Honor as unlikely in the extreme, but it was possible. Yet even if that worked, it would never get the Kingdom to renounce its claim on the Basilisk terminus of the Junction, and what good would it do anyone—even Haven—to simply get the NPA off Medusa?

No, there was something else going on here. Something she and Dame Estelle were both missing, but something definitely linked to off-world interests other than a purely domestic Manticoran criminal operation. Honor was certain of that, even if she couldn't quite make the next connection in the chain, and that meant—

"Captain?"

Honor twitched up out of her reverie at the sound of Captain Papadapolous's voice. Her surprise roused Nimitz, and he sat up to yawn at the Marine.

"Yes, Major?" she replied. Then she noticed Barney Isvarian standing by the briefing room hatch, and her eyes narrowed. "You have that deployment plan for me?"

"Yes, Captain. Sorry it took so long, but Major Isvarian– Well, he was pretty worn out, Ma'am, and then we had to chase around assembling decent maps and some hard figures on what the NPA actually has on-planet."

"No problem, Major," Honor said, and meant it. If there'd been the least trace of defensiveness in Papadapolous's tone she might not have, but he was simply stating facts, not making excuses. She climbed out of her chair and shook herself, then looked over at the officer of the watch.

"Mr. McKeon?"

"Yes, Skipper?" The exec looked up from his displays, and Honor saw one or two heads twitch as if they wanted to turn and look at him. His use of the word "skipper" no longer sounded outright alien, but it didn't sound exactly natural, either. Not yet.

"I'd appreciate it if you could join Major Papadapolous, Major Isvarian, and me in the briefing room. I'd like your input on this."

"Of course, Ma'am." McKeon rose and looked down at Lieutenant Cardones. "You have the watch, Mr. Cardones."

"Aye, aye, Sir. I have the watch," Cardones replied, and McKeon walked briskly into the briefing room with Honor and Papadapolous.

The Marine, who had always seemed detached from Honor's relations with her naval officers anyway, appeared blissfully ignorant of any change in her relationship with McKeon. He crossed to the briefing room table and fed a pair of data chips into one of the terminals, then waited while Honor and McKeon found seats. Isvarian, who looked infinitely better than the last time Honor had seen him in this compartment, also found a seat, and Papadapolous cleared his throat.

"Basically, Captain, Commander McKeon, I'd like to give you a brief overview of our ideas before I show you the actual deployment order. Would that be acceptable?"

"Of course," Honor replied.

"Thank you, Ma'am. Very well, then. First, we had three basic problems to consider. One, we have to respond to a threat whose parameters we cannot establish with any degree of certitude. Two, our resources are limited, and those currently off-planet—Fearless's Marine detachment—aren't concentrated in one place at the moment. Three, the ideal solution requires the integration of our Marines and their firepower with the NPA's local expertise and troop strength into a single force operating under a unified field plan.

"After lengthy discussions with Major Isvarian, my platoon commanders and I have come to the conclusion that we won't know how powerful the opposition is until and unless we actually see it coming at us. There's simply no way for us to know at this time, though that may change if new intelligence is developed on Medusa. Anything that gives us some clear picture of potential enemy troop strength would be invaluable, and Major Isvarian has assured us that his people will do everything they can to get that information for us.