“Sorry, Commander. I think I just punched one of my own buttons.”

“Don’t apologize, Commissioner. It sounds like you’re even more hamstrung than I thought you were.”

“Oh, it’s not really as bad as I sometimes feel it is,” Dame Estelle said judiciously. “The physical restriction of the enclaves to a single central location here in the Delta, coupled with my authority to control the use of off-world transport outside them, limits the physical reach of the trade networks. It doesn’t stop off-worlder-to-off-worlder smuggling, if in fact there is any, and it can’t completely stop the flow of off-world goods to the Medusans, but it slows it and means that most of them trickle through native merchants before they reach more distant destinations. And, truth to tell, concerned as I am about the impact on the Medusans, I’m even more concerned—as the Crown’s local representative—by what else may be going on under the surface.”

“Oh?” Honor sat straighter, and Nimitz raised his head as she stopped stroking his ears.

“I’ve reported my suspicions—well, ‘feelings’ might be a more honest word for them—that there’s more involved here than native trade, or even smuggling, to Countess New Kiev, but no one back home seems particularly concerned.” Matsuko gave her a sharp glance, but Honor kept her face carefully expressionless. Countess Marisa of New Kiev was Minister for Medusan Affairs; she was also the leader of the Liberal Party.

Dame Estelle snorted softly, as if Honor’s very lack of expression confirmed her own opinion of her superior, then sighed.

“I suppose I could be paranoid, Commander, but I just can’t avoid the conclusion that… certain parties are much more concerned with their trading rights than the dollar value of the trade itself—legal and illegal alike—could possibly justify.”

“Would those ‘certain parties’ happen to include the Republic of Haven?”Honor asked quietly, and the commissioner nodded.

“Exactly. Their consulate has an awfully large staff, in my opinion, and I don’t think they need that many ‘trade attaches.’ Granted, a lot of their traffic passes through the terminus—the western third of the Republic is closer to Basilisk than it is to Trevor’s Star, after all—but they keep pushing for more freedom to trade with the Medusans, as well. In fact, their consulate is officially accredited to one of the local Medusan city-states, not to Her Majesty’s Government. Both the Government and Haven know that’s a legal fiction under the circumstances, and I’ve been able to sit on them reasonably successfully so far, but it seems to me that what they’re really after is more contact with the natives, a more active role in shaping the Medusans’ relations with off-worlders generally.”

“As a counter presence to our own?”

“Exactly!” Matsuko repeated even more enthusiastically. She produced her first genuine smile of the meeting and nodded firmly. “I think they’re hoping the anti-annexationists back home may get their way after all. If that happens, Haven would be well-placed to move in and assert its own sovereignty, especially if they were already involved in native affairs. Lord knows they don’t need any more motive than controlling the terminus, but they like to have ‘moral justifications’ for their propaganda machine to report to their own population and the Solarian League. That’s why they’re so stubborn about maintaining the official position that the terms of the Act of Annexation amount to a unilateral renunciation on our part of any legal claim in the first place. If we do pull out, they want the planet to fall into their laps like a ripe plumapple.”