“First, is his analysis of what the fighting against the StateSec holdouts and the regular Navy officers has meant for Theisman’s officer corps.”

“I think I know where you’re going with this one,” Honor interrupted, “and if I’m right, I agree with you completely. You’re about to say that Jurgensen’s view is that the fighting has constituted a steady drain on their experienced personnel. That it’s left them weaker.”

“That’s exactly what I was going to say,” he agreed.

“Well, only an idiot—or a political admiral, if there’s a difference—could think anything of the sort,” Honor said roundly. “Of course they’ve lost some people and some ships along the way. But a lot more of their officers and crews have survived, and they’ve spent the last few T-years picking up experience. During the war, we managed to keep their officer corps trimmed back, for the most part, although Giscard and Tourville were turning that around before Operation Buttercup. Now, though…” She shrugged. “I don’t know any way to quantify what it’s done for them, but I’m absolutely convinced that it’s improved their combat worthiness by an uncomfortably large factor, not reduced it the way Jurgensen argues that it has.”

“So are we.” Benjamin nodded. “Which is one reason we’re concerned about the second point I was going to raise. You know that Pierre’s financial reforms actually brought about a significant improvement in the Havenite economy.”

He made the statement almost a question, and Honor nodded back.

“Well, we’ve been doing our best to evaluate just how much their economy has improved. Obviously, it’s a matter of guess piled on top of conjecture, particularly given the fact that any officially published figures on the Peep economy were completely fabricated to hide the rot for at least four or five decades before the war. But we’ve run our models backward and forward, and they all agree that there ought to be more cash in the Republic’s budgets than is being publicly reported.”

Honor looked a question at him, and he shrugged.

“We know what their tax structure is, and we’ve managed to come up with a ballpark figure for their total economy which we feel is probably within ten or fifteen percent of accurate. And even taking the lower limit we’ve been able to postulate, the revenues they say they’re collecting and spending are low to the tune of several hundred billion Manticoran dollars per year. And if our higher limit is closer to correct, the discrepancy gets much, much worse.”

“Several hundred billion?” Honor repeated very carefully. She tried to remember if any of the High Ridge Government’s intelligence types had ever expressed any qualms about the announced budgetary figures of the new Republic to any member of Parliament. Right off the top of her head, she couldn’t think of a single time they had. For that matter, she admitted, it had never occurred to her to ask them about it or to suggest that anyone run the sort of analysis Benjamin was suggesting Grayson had made.