The two of them stepped into the lift, followed by Tümmel and Honor’s armsmen, and the door closed behind them.

“I doubt you have any idea, even now, how much goodwill you’ve built up for yourself,” Theisman said very seriously. “Trust me, though: there’s a lot of it. And, frankly, Eloise’s notion of proposing an actual military alliance, not just a peace treaty, was a stroke of genius.” He shook his head. “Talk about resolving the ‘reparations issue’! And it gets her—and all of us—out from under the stigma of caving in. Even under the most magnanimous terms you could’ve offered before the Yawata Strike, we’d still have been surrendering. On far better terms than we could ever have demanded, given the balance of power, maybe, but still surrendering. Now we’re not. I doubt anyone like Younger or McGwire’s going to be able to get much traction against that!”

Honor nodded slowly. Theisman’s analysis matched her own, although she was inclined to think he was probably overestimating her stature among his fellow Havenites.

“I don’t much like politics,” he continued as the lift car moved upward, “but I’ve seen enough of it to figure out how it works. I’m not saying there won’t be some people screaming not just ‘No,’ but ‘Hell, no!’ I’m just saying there won’t be nearly enough of them to slow ratification up appreciably. Especially not if Filareta’s smart enough to back down. Manticore and Haven, standing shoulder-to-shoulder to face down the Solarian League? Talk about your public relations bonanzas!”

He shook his head, and Honor nodded again.

“Well,” she said, “assuming this masterly summation of yours bears some nodding acquaintance to reality, I imagine the first technical mission to Bolthole—and I do hope you intend to tell us just where that is—” she gave him a speaking look “is going to be heading your way sometime very soon now. And I don’t think Mesa’s going to be a bit happy about that!”

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

“What did you say?”

Albrecht Detweiler stared at his oldest son, and the consternation in his expression would have shocked any of the relatively small number of people who’d ever met him.

“I said our analysis of what happened at Green Pines seems to have been a little in error,” Benjamin Detweiler said flatly. “That bastard McBryde wasn’t the only one trying to defect.” Benjamin had had at least a little time to digest the information during his flight from the planetary capital of Mendel, and if there was less consternation in his expression, it was also grimmer and far more frightening than his father’s. “And the way the Manties are telling it, the son-of-a-bitch sure as hell wasn’t trying to stop Cachat and Zilwicki. They haven’t said so, but he must’ve deliberately suicided to cover up what he’d done!”