Storm From the Shadows

Chapter Twenty-One

"Well, what do you make of it?" Gregor O'Shaughnessy asked with a crooked smile.

"If you're asking for my professional opinion on how we pulled it off, I don't have a clue," Commander Ambrose Chandler, Augustus Khumalo's staff intelligence officer, replied.

He sat across a small table from his civilian counterpart on Baroness Medusa's staff, the two of them enjoying the afternoon sunlight of the city of Thimble, the improbably named planetary capital of the planet Flax. Spindle-A, the G0 primary component of the distant binary system in which Flax made its home, was warm on their shoulders, the tablecloth flapped gently on the iodine-scented breeze, and their terrace table above the seawall looked out across the Humboldt Ocean's tumbled blue and silver.

"Even if you could tell me how we did it, it probably wouldn't mean very much to me, Ambrose," O'Shaughnessy pointed out, and Chandler chuckled. O'Shaughnessy had come up through the civilian side of the Star Kingdom of Manticore's intelligence community. He neither truly understood how the military mind worked nor shared the military's perspective on quite a few problems. Fortunately, he was aware of that, and he tried—not always successfully—to make allowances for it when it was necessary to coordinate with his naval colleagues.

"I was more concerned with what I suppose you'd call the strategic implications of it," O'Shaughnessy continued, and Chandler's smile faded.

"Militarily?" he asked.

"Militarily and politically." O'Shaughnessy shrugged. "I'm in a better position on the political side than on the military side, of course, but under the circumstances, any additional perspective I can get has to be worthwhile. I've got the oddest feeling that the entire Star Kingdom—excuse me, the Star Empire—is in the process of falling down that Old Earth rabbit hole."

" 'Rabbit hole?' " Chandler repeated, looking at him oddly, and O'Shaughnessy shook his head.

"Never mind. It's an old literary reference, not anything important. It just means I'm feeling mightily confused at the moment."

"Well, you're hardly alone there," Chandler pointed out, then took another swallow of his beer and leaned back in his chair.

"Militarily," he said bluntly, "Haven is screwed if—and please do note the qualifier, Gregor—whatever Duchess Harrington used at Lovat can be gotten into general deployment. I'm guessing that it has to be some further development of the grav-pulse telemetry we're already using in Ghost Rider. Exactly how Admiral Hemphill's shop did it, and what sort of hardware is involved, is more than I could guess at this point. I'm a spook, not a tactical officer, and I'm actually probably better informed aboutPeep hardware than I am about ours. Something about knowing your enemy. But it's clear enough even from the preliminary reports that whatever Duchess Harrington did enormously increased her MDMs' long-range accuracy, and that's always been the biggest problem where they're concerned."

O'Shaughnessy nodded to show he was following Chandler's logic. Despite his own lack of military experience, he wouldn't have been Medusa's senior intelligence analyst if he hadn't managed to acquire at least some grasp of the navy's current capabilities.

The dispatches informing Khumalo and Baroness Medusa about the Battle of Lovat had reached Spindle only the evening before. He had no doubt Chandler was still in the midst of assimilating everything else that had come with them, much as he himself was. And he also had no doubt that Loretta Shoupe, who—unlike Chandler—was a tactical specialist, would have been a better source if he'd been interested in the nuts and bolts of whatever was going on. He liked Shoupe, and he did intend to discuss Lovat's military aspects with her, but right now he needed the big picture more than the specifics. Besides, Chandler was a fellow analyst. He'd probably have a better feel for the sorts of details someone like O'Shaughnessy needed than Shoupe would.

"The MDM and the missile pod between them turned the balance between energy armaments and missile armaments on its head," Chandler continued, "but we've never been able to really take full advantage of the system because the range of the missiles has outstripped the effective range of our fire control. If Admiral Hemphill really has found a way to effectively integrate FTL telemetry into the system, that's changed, though, and if we can do that and the Peeps can't, then they're going to find themselves as outclassed as they were when Earl White Haven kicked their asses the last time around. But to do that, Duchess Harrington is going to have to have enough ships with the capability to do whatever it is they're doing. If she doesn't, if the Peeps have enough hulls to soak up her hits and keep closing, then we're back to worrying about whether or not our quality is sufficient to overcome their quantity."

"Would we have used this thing in the first place if we didn't have it in general deployment?" O'Shaughnessy asked.

"I'd like to think we wouldn't have," Chandler said, rather more grimly, "but I'm a lot less confident of that than I'd like to be."

"Because of the collapse of the summit?"

"Exactly. Or, maybe to be more accurate, because of the way the summit collapsed. If I thought we'd backed away from it on the basis of a dispassionate analysis of our military advantages, I'd be a lot happier. But that isn't what happened, is it?Political considerations—political considerations that are driven at least as much by emotions as by analysis—dictated the Government's decision. Which means what we could be looking at here is a less than optimum military decision based on political necessity."

"Aren't all military decisions ultimately based on political necessities?" O'Shaughnessy asked just a bit challengingly, and Chandler snorted.

"You aren't going to get me involved in that discussion, Gregor! I don't have any problem at all with the notion that military policy and objectives have to be defined within a political context. And I'm an officer in the Queen's Navy, which means I fully accept the validity and necessity of civilian control of the military, which means the subordination of military decision making to the political leadership. All I'm saying in this instance is that the decision to resume active operations was essentially a political one. Admiral Caparelli and the Strategy Board are responsible for determining the best ways to carry out decisions like that, but they can only do that within the limitations of the tools available to them. So I'm saying they may have decided to use a weapon system that's not fully prepared for general deployment. Or, at least, to have used it at an earlier point in any deployment process than they would have under other circumstances."

"At least partly in an effort to bluff the Havenites into thinking it is ready for general deployment, you mean?"

"Maybe. And I could be worrying more about it than I ought to be, too," Chandler conceded. "After all, even if they're ready to go to general deployment tomorrow, they still have to use this thing for a first time somewhere."

"But you don't think they are ready for general deployment, do you?" O'Shaughnessy said shrewdly. "Why?"

"Because," Chandler replied, answering the blunt question with matching bluntness, "if we had this thing in general deployment already, we'd've gone straight for Nouveau Paris, not Lovat. Lovat's an important target, but not nearly as important as the Peeps' capital. And given the way everyone back home is feeling over Admiral Webster's assassination and that business on Torch, do you really think anyone at the Admiralty or the Palace wouldn't have gone for a knockout if they'd thought they had the capability?"

"Um." O'Shaughnessy frowned. He'd treasured a few reservations about the commander's imagination over the many months he and Chandler had worked together. There was nothing wrong with his imagination where that particular bit of analysis was concerned, however.

"Okay," the civilian continued after a moment. "Let's assume you're right. This new guidance system or whatever is limited right now to Eighth Fleet. Would you agree that we wouldn't have let Haven know we've got it unless we were at least getting ready to deploy it more broadly?"

He cocked an eyebrow at Chandler, who nodded.

"Good. So, assume we do get it into general deployment over the next few months. What happens then?"

"Assuming we get a few months in which to put it into deployment, the Peeps are history," Chandler replied. "It may take a few more months for the smoke to clear and the articles of surrender to get signed, but I can't see anything that would save them under those circumstances. And, frankly, I can't see any circumstances under which Her Majesty would settle for anything other than unconditional surrender this time around, can you?"

"Not hardly!" O'Shaughnessy snorted, but his expression was more worried than Chandler's. The commander looked a question at him, and he shrugged.

"I just wish we knew more about what the Sollies are going to do," he said. "I know it looks like they're going to fold their hand after what's happened at Monica, but I've just got this . . . I don't know, this itchy feeling."

"Itchy," Chandler repeated thoughtfully.

"I know. I know! It's not the sort of technical terminology that contributes to the mystique of our profession, Ambrose. Unfortunately, I can't come up with a better adjective."

"Why not?"

"If I knew that, I'd be able to find the better adjective I wanted," O'Shaughnessy said tartly. Then he sighed. "I think it's just the fact that it looks like the entire Monica operation was set up by Manpower and Technodyne. Not by Frontier Security, or any of the Solly bureaucracies—by a pair of corporate entities. Right?"

"So far," Chandler acknowledged. "I think it's obvious they had to be pretty sure they had Frontier Security—or at least Verrochio—safely tucked away in their pocket before they tried it, but that's what it looks like."

"And that's what bothers me," O'Shaughnessy said. "First, the sheer scale and . . . audacity of what they had in mind strikes me as being just a bit over the top even for one of the Mesa-based outfits. Second, look at the expense involved. I'm sure they'd have managed to recoup most of their investment one way or another if it had worked, but they invested literally hundreds of billions trying to bring this thing off. That's a pretty stiff risk exposure even for someone like Manpower or Technodyne. And, third, if I'd been Manpower, and if all I really wanted to do was to prevent the annexation of the Talbott Cluster, I could have found an approach that would have been a lot less expensive and risky . . . and probably at least as effective."

"Really?"

"Sure." O'Shaughnessy shook his head. "This was a case of using an awfully big, awfully expensive sledgehammer when a tack hammer would have done the job. Not only that, but they had the tack hammer they needed all along! Look at their return on Nordbrandt, alone. And if Terekhov and Van Dort hadn't literally stumbled across the Manpower connection—I'm not trying to downplay anything they accomplished, but they really did stumble across it, you know—then Westman would probably still be shooting at us in Montana, too. Investing a few hundred million in political action committees and funding and supplying other lunatics with guns and bombs would have let them keep the entire Cluster at the boil pretty much indefinitely, unless we wanted to resort to some sort of authoritarian repression. And it would have done that while simultaneously limiting Manpower's exposure, risk, and expense. They might not have been able to prevent the Constitutional Convention from voting out an acceptable constitution, although I'm not even sure of that. But even if the constitution had been voted out, they could probably have counted on keeping the political unrest going at a level which would have forced us to stay home and tend to our knitting instead of causing them problems in their own backyard. So why go for this sort of grandstanding operation? Why invest so much more money and risk the kind of beating they're taking in the Solly public opinion polls now that it's blown up in their faces?"

"I hadn't really considered it that way," Chandler admitted thoughtfully. "I guess I just assumed it was pure greed, as much as self-defense, from their perspective. Keeping us completely out of the Cluster and taking control of the Lynx Terminus would have to be the optimum solution from their viewpoint, after all."

"I don't disagree. I just think it's not the sort of solution Manpower would normally have reached for. With only a handful of exceptions—like Torch—the Mesan government's never shown any particular interest in playing the interstellar politics game. And virtually everything Manpower and the other Mesan corporations have done has been more . . . insidious. They've worked through acquiring influence, through bribery and coercion, at least where anyone who could potentially fight back might be concerned. This just isn't like them, and it makes me antsy when an established player suddenly starts changing. It leaves me with the feeling that there's something going on under the surface. Something we ought to figure out before it comes up out of the depths and bites us right square on the ass."

"You may have a point," Chandler acknowledged after several seconds. "On the other hand, whatever they had in mind this time around, it clearly didn't work."

"This time around," O'Shaughnessy agreed. "But we still don't know how the Sollies are going to react in the long haul. And if they've tried something like this once, who's to say they won't come up with something equally . . . inventive for us in the future? That's one reason I hope you're right about what's going to happen to the Havenites' military position in light of Lovat. I may not be sure what they're up to, but I know I want us to be as free as possible from other distractions if they decide to have a second try at getting us into a war with the Solarian League!"

"Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Junyan," Valery Ottweiler said as he stepped into the sun filled office and the door closed silently behind him.

"Your message indicated that it was rather urgent," Vice Commissioner Hongbo Junyan of the Office of Frontier Security replied, coming to his feet to shake Ottweiler's hand. "And on a personal level, it's always good to see you, Valery."

The vice commissioner didn't bother to lie very well in that last sentence, Ottweiler noted with a certain amusement. Given what had happened in Monica, he had to be one of the last people in the galaxy Hongbo Junyan actually wanted to see. Still, there were diplomatic niceties to be observed, even if the diplomats on both sides were fully aware of the total insincerity of the niceties in question. Unfortunately for Hongbo, he'd had no choice but to agree to this meeting. He'd been far too deep in Manpower's pocket for far too long to refuse to see a diplomatic representative of Manpower's home planet, since everyone knew the corporations of Mesa effectively were the government the Mesa System.

"What is it I can do for you this morning?" Hongbo continued, waving his visitor into one of the office's chairs. From his tone, it was apparent he didn't intend to do one single thing more for Mesa—or Manpower—than he absolutely had to. And since both of them were fully aware of that state of affairs, Ottweiler saw no point in beating about the bush.

Especially since I'm probably going to have to twist his arm to the point of dislocation anyway before this is over, he thought.

"Actually," he said out loud, "I've just received fresh instructions from home."

"You have?" Ottweiler wasn't particularly surprised that a certain wariness had crept into Hongbo's voice. The man was no fool, after all.

"Yes. It seems that several powerful interests in my government—and in the Mesan business community, as well, if we're going to be honest—aren't at all happy about how that business in Monica was finally resolved."

"Really? I can't imagine why." The sarcasm dripping from Hongbo's response was a mark of his own unhappiness with "that business." And also a pointed comment on just who he thought was to blame for its outcome.

"Please, Junyan." Ottweiler shook his head wearily. "Can we just take it as a given that no one involved in that entire operation is very happy about it? There was plenty of egg to go around for everyone's faces, I assure you."

He held Hongbo's eye for a moment until, finally, the Solarian nodded.

"Thank you," Ottweiler said, and sat back in his chair.

"Having said that, however," he continued, "the same considerations that inspired my government to become involved then continue to apply. A Manticoran presence in our area poses a significant threat not simply to our business community's commercial interests, but to the security of the Mesa System itself. I'm sure you can understand that the failure of our sponsorship of Monica has led to a certain reevaluation of our options and requirements back home."

"Yes, I can see that," Hongbo acknowledged. "On the other hand, I'm not sure I see what sort of 'options' you have left at the moment. They've ratified their precious constitution, the Star Kingdom has officially expanded itself into this 'Star Empire' of theirs, and the beating you people—and us—have taken in the press back home doesn't leave any of us very much room for maneuver, does it?"

"Yes . . . and no," Ottweiler replied, and Hongbo stiffened behind the desk. That was obviously the last response he'd wanted to hear, Ottweiler reflected.

"Before you go any further, Valery," the Solarian said, "let's be clear about one thing, shall we? I'm prepared to do a great many things to accommodate you and your 'government,' and so is Lorcan, but there are distinct limits to what we can do. Especially after what happened in Monica. And, not to put too fine a point on it, assassinating Webster didn't help any."

"That wasn't us," Ottweiler said mildly. "I thought everyone knew it was the Republic of Haven."

"Of course it was," Hongbo snorted. "But whoever it was, it's got the newsies all in a flutter back home, especially combined with what he was saying about you people's modest efforts out here in Talbott. When a mess is this big and gets this much play in the 'faxes, even our public starts to get interested. And when that happens, the Justice Department can't hush it up forever. The newsies demand show trials, so Justice has to give them exactly that. Hell, they've actually indicted half a dozen of Technodyne's top people!"

"Yes, that was unfortunate," Ottweiler said. "On the other hand, neither you nor I work for Technodyne, do we?"

"No, but Lorcan and I do work for the Office of Frontier Security," Hongbo said tartly, "and we're already hearing about this from the home office. So far, OFS has managed to stay out of the limelight, and that busybody Corvisart hasn't been all that interested in pulling us into it. So far," he repeated.

"Of course she hasn't." It was Ottweiler's turn to snort. "You think the Manties want to take on the League Navy? Especially now that this summit thing has collapsed and they've got Haven back on their backs again?"

"Of course they don't, but that's not really my point." Hongbo tilted back in his chair and tapped the desk blotter with one forefinger for emphasis. "While it would undoubtedly be very unfortunate for Manticore if they should find themselves in a direct shooting confrontation with the Navy, that could also be very unfortunate for whoever helped to . . . arrange that confrontation. Nobody in OFS wants to hand the newsies—or the Manties—even more ammunition to use against us. It's bad enough that we look incompetent enough to have let this happen under are very noses, as it were. After all, the Manties are hardly your typical neobarbs. They have far better connections on Old Terra than most people do, as you people—oh, excuse me, I meant Haven—clearly recognized when the decision was made to eliminate Webster. The truth is, Valery, Lorcan and I have been told in no uncertain terms to lay off Manticore. Which, to be perfectly blunt, is exactly what I would have decided on my own."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Ottweiler said calmly. "Unfortunately, my instructions are somewhat different."

"That's too bad, since there's nothing I can do about it."

"Oh, but there is."

"No," Hongbo disagreed flatly, "there isn't. You know as well as I do how OFS works, Valery. Yes, for the most part the commissioners have pretty much free rein to manage their own sectors. And everybody knows that means all of us have 'special friends' who get preferential treatment. But in the end, all of us are subject to the Ministry's control, and I'm telling you the word's gone out. No more bad press out of Talbott, at least until the current mess has had a chance to settle and recede in the public's memory. Given the fact that the public in question has the attention span of a fruit fly, that shouldn't impose too great a delay on whatever it is your superiors want to accomplish, but for right now, my hands are tied."

Ottweiler cocked his head to one side, his expression thoughtful as he presented the appearance of a man carefully considering what Hongbo had just said. From the Solarian's position, it made perfectly good sense, of course. When he spoke of "the Ministry's control," he wasn't talking about anything as unimportant or ephemeral as the current Solarian Minister for Foreign Affairs, whoever that might happen to be at the moment. What he was really talking about was the deeply entrenched bureaucracy which truly ran the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, just as similar bureaucracies ran every other aspect of the League's government and military. And although the bureaucrats in question were effectively free of any interference by their nominal political masters, the Solarian public's occasional outbursts of indignation over government corruption could be unpleasant for all concerned. That was the real reason Governor Barregos—who had somehow acquired a towering reputation for efficiency and honesty—hadn't been recalled from the Maya Sector long since. So it was hardly surprising that Hongbo's superiors and Verrochio's fellow commissioners and sector governors wanted this whole business to go away as quickly as possible so they could all climb back under their rocks and get on with business as usual.

"I'm sorry," he repeated aloud after several seconds, "but I'm afraid my superiors are rather insistent in this case, Junyan."

"Aren't you listening to me?" Hongbo was beginning to sound exasperated. "There isn't anything I can do!"

"But there is." Ottweiler allowed a little deliberate patience to creep into his own tone. "I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you if there weren't."

"Valery—"

"Just listen for a minute, Junyan," Ottweiler interrupted, and Hongbo's eyes narrowed at the peremptory note in his voice. It was not the sort of note he was accustomed to hearing from anyone in his own office, and there was no mistaking the flare of anger in those dark, narrow eyes. But he throttled the anger, tightened his jaw, and nodded curtly.

"All right," the Mesan said then. "Cards on the table time. The people I work for—and you know who they really are, as well as I do—aren't happy. In fact, they're very unhappy, and they intend to do something about it. That's why I'm sitting here, and to be honest, I'm more than a little astonished myself at the resources they have available. Just for starters, did you really think it was a coincidence Admiral Byng wound up in command of the Frontier Fleet detachment they sent out here to bolster your position after Monica?Please!" He rolled his eyes. "Byng is one of those sanctimonious Battle Fleet pricks. He wouldn't have wound up commanding a Frontier Fleet detachment without somebody making damned sure he did. And just who do you suppose that 'somebody' was?"

Hongbo's eyes were even narrower than they had been, but speculation was beginning to replace—or supplement, at least—the anger which had filled them.

"Then there's the little matter that Admiral Crandall has decided to conduct 'training exercises' at McIntosh."

"What?" Hongbo straightened in his chair. "What are you talking about? Nobody's told us anything about any exercises at McIntosh!"

"I'm afraid you may have failed to get the memo. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Crandall is Battle Fleet, not Frontier Fleet. Battle Fleet doesn't really talk to you Frontier Security peasants very much, does it?"

"Battle Fleet," Hongbo repeated. The depth of his surprise over that particular bit of information was obvious. It was even deep enough to distract him from the flick of Ottweiler's whip as he emphasized Battle Fleet's deep contempt for Frontier Fleet and Frontier Security.

"Yes," the Mesan said, then shook his head. "Frankly, I didn't know anything about it before Monica, but it would appear Admiral Crandall has selected McIntosh as the site for her latest fleet exercises." He shrugged. "I know it's a bit unusual for Battle Fleet to venture this far out into the Verge, but apparently Crandall wanted to exercise the Fleet Train, as well as the battle squadrons. According to my information, it's been over ninety T-years since Battle Fleet has deployed more than a single squadron all the way out to the frontier, and there's been some question as to whether or not it still has the logistics capacity to support its own operations outside the Old League's established system of bases."

"So am I supposed to infer that Admiral Crandall is exercising in greater strength than 'a single squadron,' then?" Hongbo asked slowly.

"As a matter of fact, I believe she has somewhere around a hundred of the wall," Ottweiler said in an offhand sort of way, and Hongbo sat suddenly back, deep in his chair.

"What's occurred to my superiors," Ottweiler continued, "is that with three full squadrons of Frontier Fleet battlecruisers, with screening elements, already attached to the Madras Sector to reinforce your own units, and with such a powerful Battle Fleet backup fortuitously so close at hand, it may be time for Commissioner Verrochio to repair the damage the League's prestige has suffered out of this entire ugly situation in Monica. I'm sure I hardly need to point out to you how unfortunate it could be if other Verge systems began to take Frontier Security lightly or got the mistaken notion that OFS won't take punitive measures if someone steps on your toes in public this way. And all of that exercised public opinion you're so concerned about back home could certainly use pointing towards another target, don't you think? A target like . . . oh, the proof that, whatever Manticore may have been saying, and however their mouthpieces back on Old Terra may have managed to spin events at Monica, the truth is that they're just as imperialistic and exploitive as we've always known they are."

"And we would accomplish this retargeting exactly how?" Hongbo asked.

"According to my latest information, the New Tuscany System Government is already experiencing severe problems with the Talbott Cluster's new management," Ottweiler replied. "Indeed, I expect it won't be very much longer before you and Commissioner Verrochio receive a request for a Frontier Security investigation of Manticore's systematic harassment of New Tuscany's merchant shipping."

Hongbo's expression was a curious mixture of anticipation and unhappiness. Although his disposition was far less naturally choleric than Verrochio's, he clearly hadn't enjoyed his own humiliation after Monica. And Ottweiler's point about the damage to Frontier Security's reputation had also been well taken. OFS had worked hard to make sure no Verge system wanted to risk pissing Frontier Security off at it, and letting Manticore get away with what it had pulled off at Monica wasn't the best way to shore up that perception. So, for a lot reasons, Hongbo obviously wanted some of his own back. But, equally obviously, he hadn't forgotten how foolproof the Monica operation had been supposed to be, and he was leery of sticking his foot back into the bear trap. And he was also smart enough to realize—just as Ottweiler himself had—that Byng and Crandall's involvement suggested that the interests in play were both much more powerful and even more ruthless than he'd first thought.

"I don't know, Valery." He shook his head slowly. "Everything you say may make perfectly good sense, and under normal circumstances, I'd be only too happy to help your superiors out. You know that. But the messages we've been getting through official channels have been what you might call brutally clear. Lorcan and I are supposed to sit here and behave like good little boys until the powers that be tell us differently. Besides, even if that weren't the case, Lorcan is almost as scared as he is pissed off. What the Manties did to Monica's battlecruisers shook him up badly."

"I don't blame him for that," Ottweiler said frankly. "On the other hand, you can always point out to him that they were manned by Monicans, not Sollies. And that they didn't have the entire SLN standing directly behind them. I'm sure the Manties are aware of those minor differences, at any rate, and with the resumption of operations against Haven, they aren't going to have a lot of combat power to be diverting this way even if they were stupid enough to take the SLN on directly. Certainly not enough to pose any sort of significant threat in the face of Crandall's presence."

"But if they don't know any more about Crandall's presence than we did before you told me about her, then it's not likely to exercise very much of a deterrent effect on their thinking, is it? Unless, of course, someone is going to make this minor fact known to them, as well."

He was watching Ottweiler's face very carefully, and the Mesan shrugged.

"I don't have any official information on that either way," he said. "On the other hand, it's my strong impression that no one's going to be going out of his way to tell the Manties a damned thing. Still, Commissioner Verrochio is a sector governor, himself. If he felt the need to request it, I'm sure Admiral Crandall would move her forces from McIntosh to Meyers. Purely as a precautionary measure, you understand."

Hongbo nodded slowly, his expression intent. Ottweiler could almost literally see the calculations working themselves out behind his eyes and wondered if the Solarian would reach the same conclusions he had.

"That all sounds very comforting," Hongbo said finally. "But the fact remains that Lorcan isn't going to want to do it. To be honest, that's at least partly my fault. I didn't have any idea something like this might be in the wind, so when we started getting word from the home office, I did my very best to sit on Lorcan's temper, and that took some pretty firm sitting. You know how he is. I'm afraid I may have sat on it too hard. He's swung from breathing fire and brimstone to worrying that he may give the Manty bogeyman another excuse to jump on him. It's going to take time to turn that around."

"Time is something we don't have very much of," Ottweiler said flatly. "Trust me, New Tuscany is going to be ready to start moving on this very soon."

"You're sure of that? New Tuscany's three hundred and sixty light-years from here. How can you be so confident they're going to play along when they're over a month away even for a dispatch boat?"

"Trust me," Ottweiler repeated. "The representative my superiors are sending to New Tuscany is very convincing, and what the New Tuscans stand to get out of this is going to be very attractive to them. They'll come through for us."

"Maybe you're right. Maybe I even believe you're right. But Lorcan isn't going to jump for something like this until he's got confirmation of that. Even with that confirmation, he's not going to be happy about it. I expect him to dig his heels in every centimeter of the way."

"Then you're just going to have to be even more convincing than usual," Ottweiler told him. "Obviously, my superiors aren't going to forget what they owe the two of you for pulling this off, so I'm certain you can expect to be extremely well compensated for your efforts."

"I'm sure you're right about that much, at least. But that doesn't change the fact that I'm going to have to bring him around to this gradually."

"Our time window for this is too narrow for 'gradually,' " Ottweiler said. "Even though Crandall's set up for a lengthy deployment as part of her logistics test, she can't stay on station here forever. We've got to get this rolling while she's still around to back our play if it comes to that. That's what restricts our time frame so tightly, and I'm sure the commissioner is going to want to know she's around if he might need her. In any case, my instructions to get this all moving ASAP are about as firm as they get. So if you think you need a little more leverage with him, remind him of this. My superiors have records of all of their past transactions with him. And unlike him, they aren't citizens of the League and aren't subject to its laws."

Hongbo stiffened, and not just because of the icy chill which had invaded Ottweiler's voice. His eyes met the Mesan's, and their unspoken message was abundantly clear. If they had records of their transactions with Verrochio, then they just as certainly had records of their transactions with him. And if they were prepared to feed Verrochio to the wolves if he failed to follow instructions, then they were equally prepared to feed him to the same hungry fangs.

Hongbo Junyan had always recognized that Manpower and the other Mesan corporations could be dangerous benefactors. The chance of exposure was virtually nonexistent under normal circumstances, and everyone knew everyone else did exactly the same things. It was the way the system worked, how business was done. Even if some unfortunate personal arrangement should inadvertently intrude into the light, it could be expected to disappear quickly into the "business as usual," "everyone does it" basket. The rest of the system could be counted upon to make that happen smoothly and promptly.

But if Manpower chose to make his past dealings with them public knowledge, they could be counted upon to do it as loudly—and effectively—as possible. And after everything that had already gone wrong out here, the newsies would be just salivating for fresh, spectacular evidence of corruption and conspiracy. Which meant his fellows within the system would cheerfully throw both Verrochio and Hongbo to the howling mob. Indeed, his colleagues would probably lead the pack, shouting louder than anyone else as a way to prove their own innocence.

All of that was bad enough, but there was worse, because the Audubon Ballroom had made it abundantly clear over the years that bureaucrats and administrators who conspired and collaborated with Manpower when they were supposed to be working diligently to suppress the genetic slave trade were not among the Ballroom's favorite people. In fact, they'd made a point of coming up with especially inventive ways of demonstrating that fact. Ways that were usually punctuated with showers of body parts.

"I don't think the good commissioner is likely to prove too difficult if you bring that little point to his attention, do you, Junyan?" Valery Ottweiler asked softly.