Honor let out a long, slow breath of relief, for the feel of his emotions matched his words. He truly meant them.

“And will the other people on Hell share your opinion?” she asked after a moment.

“Probably not all of them,” he admitted. “But if you pull this off, you’ll have the moral authority to keep them in line, I think. And if you don’t have that,” his tone turned bleaker, but he continued unflinchingly, “you’ll still have all the guns and the only way off the planet. I don’t think enough of us will want to buck that combination just to lynch Black Legs, however much we hate them.”

“I see. In that case, may I assume that you’re in, Commodore Ramirez?”

“You may, Commodore Harrington.” A hand the size of a small shovel came out of the darkness, and she gripped it firmly, feeling the strength in it even as she savored the determination and sincerity behind it.

· · • Book Three • · ·

Chapter Fifteen

“THANK you for coming, Citizen Admiral. And you, too, Citizen Commissioner.”

“You’re welcome, Citizen Secretary,” Citizen Admiral Javier Giscard said, exactly as if he’d had any choice about accepting an “invitation” from the Republic’s Secretary of War. Eloise Pritchart, his dark-skinned, platinum-haired People’s Commissioner, limited herself to a silent nod. As the Committee of Public Safety’s personal representative (“spy” would have been much too rude—and accurate—a term) on Giscard’s staff, she was technically outside the military chain of command and reported directly to Oscar Saint-Just and State Security rather than to Esther McQueen. But McQueen’s star was clearly in the ascendant—for now, at least. Pritchart knew that as well as everyone else did, just as she knew McQueen’s reputation for pushing the limits of her personal authority, and her topaz-colored eyes were wary.

McQueen noted that wariness with interest as she waved her guests into chairs facing her desk and very carefully did not look at her own StateSec watchdog. Erasmus Fontein had been her political keeper almost since the Harris Assassination, and she’d come to realize in the last twelve months that he was infinitely more capable—and dangerous—than his apparently befuddled exterior suggested. She’d never really underestimated him, but—

No, that wasn’t true. She’d always known he had to be at least some better than he chose to appear, but she had underestimated the extent to which that was true. Only the fact that she made it a habit to always assume the worst and double- and triple-safe her lines of communication had kept that underestimation from proving fatal, too. Well, that and the fact that she truly was the best the People’s Republic had at her job. Then again, Fontein had discovered that she was more dangerous than he’d expected, so she supposed honors were about even. And it said a lot for Saint-Just’s faith in the man that he hadn’t replaced Fontein when the scope of his underestimation became evident.

Of course, if Fontein had recommended I be purged before that business with the Levelers, then there wouldn’t be a Committee of Public Safety right now. I wonder how the decision was made? Did he get points for not thinking I was dangerous when I proved my “loyalty” to the Committee? Or for supporting me when I moved against LaBoeuf’s lunatics? Or maybe it was just a wash?