“You’re right about all of that, of course, Admiral.” Pritchart agreed in a tone which diplomatically failed to notice the anger and pain which were seldom far from Honor’s surface these days. “And it may convince us, and probably even Congress or your Parliament. But it isn’t going to to change the woman-in-the-street’s mind if she’s not already inclined to go along with it. And no conspiracy theorist worth her paranoia badge is going to buy it for a heartbeat.”

“The best we can do is the best we can do, Madam President,” Honor replied in something much closer to a normal tone. She smiled her thanks for the Havenite head of state’s tact, then glanced at her chrono. “And assuming the news got released on schedule, we’ll be finding out in the next couple of hours just how the Manticoran public, at least, is going to react.”

* * *

“—most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard, Patrick!” Kiefer Mallory snorted several hours later. The tall, handsome political columnist was one of the Star Empire’s more sought after talking heads, and he knew it. Now his dark eyes glittered as he waved both hands in a gesture of frustration. “Mind you, we’re all aware of the threat the Star Empire in general—and this star system in particular—faces. And I won’t pretend I wouldn’t be delighted to find someone prepared to support us. But really—!” He shook his head. “I know I’m not the only one who finds all of this suspiciously convenient for the people who got us into this mess in the first place!”

“Oh?” Jephthah Alverson, a longtime Liberal MP who’d thrown his allegiance to Catherine Montaigne following the High Ridge Government’s implosion, leaned forward to look down the HD set’s conference table and raise a sardonic eyebrow. “Let me see, now…That would be Baron High Ridge and Elaine Descroix, wouldn’t it?”

Mallory, who’d been associated with the Progressive Party for at least three decades (and who’d served as one of the now-vanished Descroix’s public spokesmen, before her spectacular downfall), flushed angrily.

* * *

“My, he didn’t take that one well, did he?” Emily Alexander-Harrington observed.

“No, he didn’t,” Honor agreed. Which, she thought, stretched out on the comfortable couch in Emily’s private suite, was remarkably foolish of him. Nimitz was comfortably ensconced on her chest, and she tasted his agreement. Even a complete novice should’ve seen that one coming!

“That’s because, despite any surface slickness, he comes from the shallow—very shallow, in his case—end of the gene pool…intellectually speaking, that is,” Emily replied from the life-support chair parked at the head of the couch. She’d followed Honor’s thought almost as easily as the ’cat, and the two of them glanced at each other with matching smiles.