“Oh, crap,” Honor whispered before she could stop herself, and Isvarian nodded.

“It gets worse, Ma’am,” he warned. “That was enough to confirm this shaman—whoever the hell he is—has some direct link both to the people who built the lab and whoever introduced the rifles, assuming they’re not the same people. I think we can abandon any hope that they aren’t, though. According to our dying nomad, the shaman’s had a direct vision from the gods. It’s time for the natives to drive the accursed off-worlders from the sacred soil of Medusa, and the gods have given him these magical weapons to do the job with. Worse, the gods have told him that not all off-worlders are evil. Some are servants of the gods and revere them with proper awe, and these godly off-worlders are the source of his ‘holy mekoha.’ It sounds like he’s been putting together some kind of nomad army, and he’s been promising them that when the evil off-worlders have been driven away or given to the gods as proper sacrifices, these good off-worlders will come to the nomads and give them even more wonderful weapons and all the mekoha they can ever want.”

The major fell silent, his face tight with strain and worry, and Honor bit her lip hard. Silence dragged out, broken at last by the Resident Commissioner.

“So there it is, Honor. It’s not some kind of criminal operation. It’s a deliberate attempt by someone to engineer a major native uprising and push the Kingdom right off the planet.”

“Haven,” Honor and Isvarian said simultaneously, and blinked at one another.

“That was my first thought, too,” Matsuko said quietly. “But because it’s the first possibility to occur to all of us, I think we’d better work on keeping an open mind about it. On the other hand, I can’t think of anyone else it might be, and Haven has certainly been the most persistent in insisting that we don’t have real sovereignty down here.”

“True,” Honor said. She rubbed the tip of her nose and frowned at the com screen. “I suppose it might be the Andermani,” she said at last. “Gustav XI wouldn’t mind getting a firm toehold in Basilisk, and he could figure we’d automatically jump to the conclusion that it was the Peeps. I can’t quite see it, though, however hard I try. His attention is focused on Silesia right now, and he’d be worrying more about the Midgard Federation than us. Any jump this way could only antagonize us, and he doesn’t need that if he’s thinking about taking on the Silesians and their allies.”

“What about somebody else? One of the single-system nations in the area?”

“I doubt it, Dame Estelle. Everybody out here is too busy keeping her head down and trying not to attract Haven’s attention. Besides, what good would Medusa do any of them?”

“But what good would Medusa do Haven?” Isvarian asked doubtfully.

“I’m not sure.” Honor rubbed her nose harder. “Haven’s ultimate objective would have to be the terminus, and I can’t quite see how getting us off Medusa would help them there, even if it got them onto the planet in our place. But just because you and I can’t see how it would help them doesn’t mean they can’t.”