“Not a bad strategic decision,” White Haven complimented him now, and took a sip from his own glass. Then he set it down and looked up at Lieutenant Robards. “Is Captain Albertson ready for that briefing, Nathan?”

“Yes, My Lord. At your convenience.”

“Um.” White Haven looked down into his glass for several seconds, then nodded at something no one else could see. “Would you go and tell him that we’ll be—oh, another thirty or forty minutes or so?”

“Of course, My Lord.” It was a moderately abrupt change in plans, but Robards’ brown eyes didn’t even flicker at his dismissal. He simply drained his own glass, bowed to his admiral’s guests, and vanished almost as unobtrusively as Chief Jamieson had.

“A well-trained young man,” William Alexander observed as the hatch closed behind him, then looked at his brother. “May I assume there was a reason you sent him on his way?”

“There was,” White Haven agreed. He looked up from his wine and gazed at both his guests. “Actually, there were two, but the more pressing is my feeling that there have to be more reasons for the two of you to come out here than the official communique listed. I also have an unhappy suspicion about what one of those reasons might be. Under the circumstances, I thought I’d clear the decks, as it were, so we could discuss my suspicion from a purely Manticoran viewpoint.”

“Ah?” William sipped wine once more, regarded his brother with a half-quizzical, half-wary expression, then crooked an eyebrow, inviting him to continue.

“I’ve been trying to assemble Eighth Fleet for the better part of a T-year now,” White Haven said flatly. “The process was supposed to be complete over nine standard months ago, and I still haven’t received the strength my original orders specified. More to the point, perhaps, I have received the units I was promised by Grayson, Erewhon, and the other Allied navies. What I haven’t seen have been the Manticoran units I was promised. I’m still better than two complete battle squadrons—seventeen ships of the wall—short on the RMN side, and nothing I’ve seen in my dispatches from the Star Kingdom suggests that those ships are going to turn up tomorrow. Should I assume that one reason Allen Summervale sent the second ranking member of his Government and the Admiralty’s senior serving officer out here was to explain to myself—and possibly the Protector—just why that is?”

He paused, and Caparelli and William looked at one another, then turned back to him.

“You should,” Caparelli said quietly after a moment, “and they aren’t. Going to turn up tomorrow I mean, My Lord. We won’t have them to send you for at least another two T-months.”

“That’s too long, My Lord,” White Haven said in an equally quiet voice. “We’ve already waited too long. Have you seen last month’s estimates on the Peep strength at Barnett?”

“I have,” Caparelli admitted.

“Then you know Theisman’s numbers are going up faster than mine are. We’re giving them time—time to get their feet under them and catch their breath—and we can’t afford that. Not with someone like Esther McQueen calling the shots on their side for a change.”