“And he’s not going to want to listen to me, either,” Honor observed.

“I wouldn’t imagine so,” Benjamin agreed with mordant humor.

“Of course,” she went on, thinking aloud, “the most likely explanation for why we haven’t seen any new hardware in the Peep fleet is that they haven’t managed to produce it in useful quantities yet. One thing I do feel certain about where Thomas Theisman is concerned is that he’s not likely to make the mistake of introducing it in dribs and drabs.”

“Which only means that when he does get around to introducing it, he’s going to do it in style,” Benjamin pointed out.

“You do have a way of coming up with pleasant prospects, don’t you, Benjamin?”

“I try. And while I hesitate to mention it, there’s another one I suppose I ought to bring up.” To Honor’s surprise, he sounded almost hesitant, and Nimitz pricked his ears as both of them tasted a certain unhappiness—almost a sense of betraying a confidence—in his mind-glow.

“Which is?” she prompted gently when he continued to hesitate, and he sighed.

“None of this is official,” he warned her, and waited for her to nod in understanding. “With that understood, I probably ought to tell you that we’ve been picking up a few worrisome diplomatic indicators. More like hints, really.”

“Hints about what?” she said when he paused once more.

“About Erewhon,” he said finally. “You know they were almost as angry as we were about High Ridge’s unilateral acceptance of Saint-Just’s truce offer, of course.”

Honor nodded again. In fact, Benjamin was probably understating the Erewhonese reaction—not least because Erewhon had been forced to live under the shadow of Peep conquest for far longer than Grayson had. The fact that the Erewhonese government had elected to cut its treaty relationship with the Solarian League in order to sign on with the Manticoran Alliance had only exacerbated that anger, too. The perception had been that it had sacrificed a longstanding security arrangement with the most powerful political and economic entity in the history of the human race in order to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Manticore only to be stabbed in the back by its own treaty partners.

“Well, neither Greg nor I have any proof of it, but in the last few weeks, we’ve started picking up hints that Erewhon is… rethinking its relationship with Haven.”

“Rethinking?” Despite herself, Honor’s voice sharpened, and her eyes narrowed. “Rethinking it how?”

“Remember that this is at least ninety percent conjecture from very limited evidence,” Benjamin cautioned her, and she nodded again, with just a hint of impatience.

“Bearing that in mind,” the Protector went on then, “what seems to me and Greg to be happening is that the current Erewhonese president and his cabinet believe Pritchart and Theisman are genuine about their intention to resurrect the Old Republic. And that they’ve genuinely renounced the Legislaturalists’ and the Committee’s expansionist foreign policy. Erewhon’s a lot closer to the Republic than it is to Manticore, as well. And unlike us, it controls a wormhole junction of its own which connects it—and anyone it allies itself with—directly to the Solarian League.”