Mission of Honor

Chapter Thirty-Four

"So that's what happened, as best we can make out at this point."

Thomas Theisman looked around at the other members of Eloise Pritchart's cabinet, and his expression was grim.

"At the moment, no one has any idea how it was done," he continued. "I'm sure our current damage estimates are going to change—whether they're going to get better or worse is more than I can say at this point, but they're so preliminary change is inevitable. What worries me more, however, is the fact that we don't have a clue about what whoever did it used or what his ultimate objectives are."

"I don't want to sound callous," Tony Nesbitt said after a moment, "but do we really care what their 'ultimate objectives' may be?" It was his turn to look around at his colleagues' faces. "From our perspective, isn't the most important thing that someone has just kicked the Manties' legs out from under them? Surely they'd find it a lot more difficult to bring the war to us the way Admiral Alexander-Harrington was prepared to now that their home system and most of their industry's been trashed behind them."

"I have to admit the same thought's been occurring to me." Rachel Hanriot looked almost regretful—or possibly a bit ashamed—as she admitted that.

"And me," Henrietta Barloi said. The secretary of technology shrugged. "At the very least, doesn't this put us in a much stronger negotiating position?"

Unlike Hanriot, Pritchett noted, Barloi didn't look a bit regretful. In fact, she couldn't conceal a certain satisfaction at the thought . . . assuming she was trying to in the first place.

"Allow me to point out that changes in negotiating postures are two-edged swords," the president observed. "No one on Admiral Alexander-Harrington's negotiating team ever tried to pretend Elizabeth Winton's magically become one of the Republic's greater admirers. She offered to resume negotiations from a position of strength . In many ways, that was a statement of her confidence—her faith in her ability to control the situation if we chose not to be 'reasonable.' If she sees that margin of strength disappearing, if she finds herself with her back against the wall and faced by multiple threats, I'd say she's likely to ruthlessly destroy those threats in the order she can reach them. And guess who she can reach a lot sooner than she can reach the League or somebody she hasn't even been able to identify yet?"

Barloi didn't look convinced, but Nesbitt's expression became more thoughtful, and Hanriot nodded.

"My own feeling from the negotiations," Leslie Montreau offered, "is that Manticore—assuming the Admiral's attitude reflects the Star Empire's true desires—would rather have a negotiated settlement. I think they truly want one that comprehensively addresses the differences between us as the first step in a genuinely stable relationship with us. I'd have to agree Queen Elizabeth still doesn't like us very much, but despite her famous temper, she's also pragmatic enough to recognize that having a peaceful neighbor at her back is a lot safer than turning her back on someone she's beaten to her knees. But I have to agree that you're right, Madam President. Pragmatic or not, she's also demonstrated she can be as ruthless as any head of state I can think of. If she can't have a peaceful neighbor, she'll settle for an enemy she's thoroughly neutralized."

"And there's another aspect to this, too," Denis LePic observed. "Obviously Tom and his people are a lot more qualified to speak to the purely military implications of this attack, but Wilhelm Trajan's people over at Foreign Intelligence have been kicking it around, as well. They're looking less at what kind of hardware might have been used and more at why it was used in the first place . . . and by whom. They've come to the conclusion that it couldn't have been the Sollies, for a lot of reasons, including the timing. And we know it wasn't us. That leaves the famous 'parties unknown,' and based on what's been happening in the Talbott Cluster, suspicion's focusing on Manpower. Unfortunately, that raises at least as many questions as it may answer.

"For example, where did a transstellar corporation—or the Mesa System's official government, for that matter—get its hands on the military muscle to do something like this? And assuming it had the capability in the first place, why aim it at Manticore? And if Manticore is its target, and it had this sort of capability, why try to maneuver the Sollies into the mix? And if it turns out that Manpower—or whoever Manpower's fronting for—has ambitions where Manticore's concerned, how do we know those are the only ambitions it has out here in the 'Haven Quadrant'?"

He leaned back in his chair and looked around the table.

"We don't have answers to any of those questions. Given that, I'd be extraordinarily cautious about concluding that my enemy's enemy must be my friend."

"Those are all valid points, Denis," Nesbitt acknowledged after a moment. "Still, given the size of the Manty merchant fleet and the huge advantages the Manticoran Wormhole Junction provide to it, I can think of a lot of reasons that wouldn't have anything to do with us for someone to be interested in picking off Manticore."

"Maybe," Stan Gregory said. "On the other hand, don't forget the real reason the Manties and Manpower have been busting each other's chops for so long. They're probably the only people in the galaxy, outside of Beowulf, at least, who're every bit as serious as we are about enforcing the Cherwell Convention. In regard to which, let's all remember what happened in Congo five months ago. And Mesa's Green Pines fantasy. Not to mention who most probably tried to kill Queen Berry, since we know damned well it wasn't us ."

"A very good point," Theisman agreed. "Of course, it raises another question. If Manpower has, or even just has access to, the hardware that let them get in and out of the Manticore Binary System without even being detected, why did they use a bunch of ex-StateSec 'mercenaries' against Torch? Why not just blitz the Congo System and then send in a couple of conventional cruisers and a brigade of Marines to sweep up the pieces?"

"To preserve secrecy until they were ready to pull the trigger on Manticore itself?" Nesbitt suggested. "To try to point the Manties' suspicion at us, because of the StateSec connection?

"Either of those might make sense," Theisman acknowledged, "although, frankly, the first seems a lot more likely to me. After all, they know the Manties aren't idiots and that Admiral Givens has to've figured out someone was hiring and supporting SS refugees, so it seems a lot less plausible they'd think they could implicate us. Still, it's possible, I suppose. And the fact that we can't rule out even your second suggestion only emphasizes what the President and Denis are both saying. We don't know anything about the thinking behind this. My own view is that we can't afford to assume anything about anything at this point. Certainly, speaking as Secretary of War, I can't offer any assurances about our ability to prevent the same thing from happening to us. And given our abysmal ignorance about this entire episode, the fact that I can't think of any good reason for someone to do it to us as well doesn't exactly fill me with confidence."

* * *

"Well what do you think?" Pritchart asked some time later.

Most of the cabinet secretaries had departed, leaving her with Theisman, LePic, and Montreau. Not only were they her key advisers on military affairs, intelligence, and foreign policy, but Montreau had joined the other two as one of her closest political allies.

The Secretary of State remained aware of her status as the newest member of Pritchart's inner circle, however, and she glanced at Theisman and LePic, as if waiting for one of them to respond. When neither of them spoke up immediately, she shrugged.

"I think we just spent the last hour and a half thrashing around and basically admitting to one another that we don't know a damned thing about a damned thing, at present," she said frankly. "I also think that between you, you, Tom, and Denis managed to at least cool Tony's ardor for suddenly getting more aggressive at the peace table, though—assuming there's any more peace table to get aggressive at. I wish I could feel more confident Henrietta's convinced that this isn't the time to start pushing back as well, though."

"I wish we knew more," Pritchart fretted, with an openness she would have risked with very few other people. "You're right, we don't know a damned thing." She looked at LePic. "Have Wilhelm's people got any leads, Denis?"

"None I haven't already shared with you." LePic grimaced. "I wish we had confirmation one way or the other about Cachat and Zilwicki! If anyone might be able to shed at least a little light on whatever the hell is going on in Mesa and with Manpower, it would be them."

"You don't think that whatever they got involved with led to this, do you?" Montrose asked. The others looked at her, and she shrugged. "I don't see how it could have, myself, but as Denis just implied, we don't have a clue what's going on inside Mesa, whatever we used to think we knew about it. Since that's true, we can't know if Officer Cachat and Captain Zilwicki didn't stumble across something that provoked whoever's really calling the shots into attacking Manticore."

"I think that's unlikely, Leslie," Theisman said. "This was obviously a carefully planned and prepared operation. I don't think it was a panic reaction, and given how long ago Zilwicki, at least, was killed on Mesa without anyone here or in Manticore making any huge new revelations, they're probably feeling pretty confident on that front."

"I'm still not prepared to write Cachat off," LePic said stubbornly. Theisman looked skeptical, and the attorney general shrugged. "I'm not saying I expect him to make it home this time, just that he's managed to run between the raindrops so long that I'm not going to accept he's actually dead until someone delivers his body. And even then, I'll want proof it wasn't a clone!"

"Well," Pritchart said, "I'm going to hope you're right, Denis, and not just because lunatic or not, he's our lunatic. As you say, if he's been poking around Manpower, maybe he can give us at least some clue as to what the hell's going on. In fact, I've had a disturbing thought, one that occurred to me after Tom's briefing."

"I've had quite a few of those myself," Theisman observed. "Which one were you referring to?"

"You made the point that we don't know what whoever hit Manticore's ultimate objectives may be, but we have to suspect Manpower's involved, for all the reasons you enumerated. And then we have Cachat's suspicion that Manpower was involved in the attempt on Queen Berry from which it's only a short step to their being involved with Admiral Webster's assassination in Old Chicago. For which"—her eyes bored suddenly into Theisman's—"some form of suicidal compulsion appears to have been used. Very much, now that I think about it. like what happened to a certain Yves Grosclaude."

It was suddenly very, very quiet.

"Are you suggesting Manpower was working with Giancola?" LePic asked very carefully.

"No, I'm suggesting Arnold was working with Manpower ," Pritchart replied grimly. "If they're willing—and able—to manipulate the Solarian League into going to war with the Manties, why in the world wouldn't they figure they could do the same with us? I mean, look how much easier it would be, given the fact that we didn't even have a formal peace treaty from our last war!"

"My God." Montreau shook her head almost numbly, her face suddenly ashen."That never even occurred to me!"

"No reason it should have, before," Pritchart pointed out.

"It's possible we're seeing conspiracies where there aren't any," Theisman said warningly.

"I know. And the only thing more dangerous than not seeing conspiracies that are there is seeing ones that aren't ," Pritchart acknowledged. "But talking about conspiracies and suicidal assassins, there's that attempt on Alexander-Harrington, too. We know we didn't do it, although I've never blamed the Manties for figuring we were the ones with the best motive. But if Manpower's been moving chess pieces around like this, and if they have the technology—or whatever—they used to control the assassin who killed Webster and that poor patsy who carried out the Torch attack, why shouldn't they have tried to pick off one of the Manties' best military commanders? Especially if the object of the exercise was for us to trash Manticore for them?"

"Oh, how I do hope you're engaging in flights of paranoia," Theisman said after a moment.

"So do I I think." Pritchart frowned thoughtfully for several seconds, then gave herself a shake.

"Maybe I am indulging my paranoia, but maybe I'm not, too. You know, I almost went ahead and told Alexander-Harrington about Arnold."

The other three stared at her, visibly aghast, and she chuckled.

"I did say 'almost,'" she pointed out. "Frankly, does anyone in this room think she wouldn't have been more likely to respect my confidence then several members of Congress we could mention right off hand?"

"Put that way, I suppose she would have," Theisman admitted.

"There's no 'supposing' to it," LePic said sourly. "Younger? McGwire?" He shuddered.

"Now, I almost wish I'd gone ahead and told her," Pritchart continued thoughtfully. "Given the depth and murkiness of the water we're all floundering around in at the moment, I'd really like to know what she'd think about the possibility of a Giancola-Manpower connection."