“You know,” MacArtney said after several moments of silence, “that could actually be what happened. Or something close to it, anyway. I’m not saying Filareta didn’t fire first, whatever we’re going to tell everyone, but that really could be how Haven wound up in the Manties’ corner.”

“Maybe,” Abruzzi agreed. “But we don’t want to muddy the water. It’s going to be a simpler, more easily presented message to stick with the Manties as the undisputed heavies of the piece. We let Haven be the ‘unwitting dupe’—maybe with a little imperialist ambition thrown in—and we take the position consistently in our own public statements that it’s a tragedy Haven has allowed itself to be deceived and manipulated in this fashion. More of an in sorrow than in anger approach. Who knows? If things take a turn for the worse for the Manties, Haven might see our attitude as providing an opportunity to jump ship to the other side.”

“I don’t think I’d bet very much money on that possibility if I were you,” MacArtney said dryly, “but I agree there’s at least a chance we could sell this in the short term. In fact, I’ll make it my business to suggest to Rajani that it would be a good thing if his in-house experts could analyze the Manties’ recordings and find evidence of possible editing. I think a good, judicious report—one that obviously tries to be as fair-minded and restrained as possible—which concludes the records may have been doctored but that it’s impossible to demonstrate the truth conclusively one way or the other would be more useful than an outright condemnation.”

“I agree.”

Abruzzi nodded with unusual approval, and Kolokoltsov looked around at the faces of his fellows.

“All right. I think we’re in agreement that we’ll proceed the way Malachai’s recommending. And I also think it would be a good idea for you and Omosupe, Agatá, to put together a report solemnly warning about the huge economic disruptions the Manties are about to inflict upon the League as part of their imperial ambitions. Let’s get that out in front of the newsies, too, and use it to aim some extra public disapproval in Manticore’s direction.” He smiled thinly. “I don’t see how it could make any of our citizens any less willing to decide the Manties are the real villains.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The Havenite dispatch boat made rendezvous with Haven One as the official interstellar transport of the Republic’s president swept peacefully about the planet Manticore in its assigned orbit. The fact that the tiny vessel was allowed to make its approach without having to take aboard a Manticoran helmsman to enfore the “two-man” rule which had become the norm for near-planet traffic in the Star Empire said volumes about how the relationship between Haven and Manticore had changed in a single T-month.