Pritchart blinked at her, then those topaz eyes narrowed in thought, and the President began nodding—slowly, at first, then more rapidly.

“So that’s why you make such a fiendishly effective diplomat!” she said with something very like an air of triumph. “I couldn’t believe how well a total novice was reading us. Now I know—you were cheating!”

The last word came out in something very like a laugh, and Honor nodded back.

“Where diplomacy’s concerned, according to my mentors in the Foreign Office, there is no such thing as ‘cheating,’ Madam President. In fact, one of those mentors quoted an old axiom to me. Where diplomacy is involved, he said, if you aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying hard enough.”

Elizabeth snorted in amusement, and Theisman shook his head.

“In this instance, however,” Honor continued more seriously, “what Her Majesty is asking me is whether or not I can tell if Dr. Simões is telling the truth. I already informed her”—she looked directly at Pritchart—“that I knew you were, Madam President. On the other hand, I also assumed you would have expected from the beginning that Nimitz would have been able to tell me and that I would have passed his observations on to Her Majesty, so I didn’t feel any particular scruples about that.”

Pritchart nodded again, and Honor shrugged.

“What I can tell you about Simões is that his anger—his outrage—at this ‘Alignment’ is absolutely genuine. The pain inside that man is incredible.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, and her nostrils flared.

“Everything I can ‘taste’ about his ‘mind-glow’ tells me he’s telling us the truth, in so far as he knows the truth. Whether or not McBryde might have been passing along disinformation is more than I can say, of course. But, on balance, I think he was telling the truth, as well. It all fits together too well with what we’ve already seen, and with what Simões can tell us about their hardware.”

“And there are still so damned many holes in it,” Elizabeth half-snarled.

“Yes, there are,” Honor agreed. “On the other hand, I’d say the Star Empire knows infinitely more than we knew yesterday, Elizabeth…given that we didn’t know anything at that point.”

Elizabeth nodded slowly, then looked at Pritchart.

“So, I guess what it comes down to,” she said slowly, “it’s where we go from here. Whatever happens, I want you to know I’m enormously grateful for the information you’ve provided us. And I think we can both agree that the war between Haven and Manticore is over.”

She shook her head, as if, even now, she couldn’t quite believe what she’d just said. Not because she didn’t want to, but because it seemed impossible, like something which couldn’t possibly be true because of how badly everyone wanted it to be true.