“But I suspect that what probably concerns you most are the reports I don’t have any log recordings to back up. Especially the ones about the new Andy battlecruisers.”

“I will admit that that’s one of the areas which causes me concerns,” Truman agreed, clearly relieved that Bachfisch understood her worries and chose not to take them as aspersions upon his veracity.

“I’ve already given Commander Reynolds here as detailed a written description as I could put together,” Bachfisch told her. “You’ll probably do better to get the details from him, because it’s based on notes I jotted down immediately after I saw the ship, not on what I can recall from unaided memory right this moment. But the way I came to be in a position to observe it has a lot to do with the Q-ship operations we were just discussing. I had a fresh crop of pirates to turn over to the Silly authorities in Crawford, but an Andy battlecruiser squadron was passing through the system and shortstopped my delivery. Not,” he added wryly, “that the Confederate governor was at all happy about it. He seemed to feel the Andy admiral was being just a bit high-handed about the whole thing.”

“Why am I not surprised?” McKeon murmured with a grimace. “Lord knows the only people the Sillies think are more arrogant and high-handed than the Andies are Manticorans, after all!”

“With all due respect, Admiral,” Bachfisch told him, “and speaking as someone who’s seen it from both sides, the Sillies have a point. From their perspective, both the RMN and the IAN are high-handed as hell. The fact that they know perfectly well, whatever they may choose to pretend, that they don’t have the capability to police their own space lanes without outside interference only makes it worse, but how would you feel if foreign navies came sweeping into the Star Kingdom at will to police our commerce? Or if they took custody of criminals captured in our space because they distrusted the integrity of our legal system… or the honesty of our government officials?” He shook his head. “I know the situations are different, but the fact that our lack of confidence in them is justified so much of the time only makes them resent it even more. And too many Andy and Manty naval officers let their contempt for the locals show. For that matter, I probably did the same thing when I was on active duty!”

“At any rate, I don’t think the squadron CO realized I was a Manticoran myself when he ordered me to deliver my prisoners to him. He certainly didn’t realize I was a half-pay Navy officer, anyway! I was just as happy to hand them over to the Andies, because I could be fairly confident they weren’t going to simply be turned loose again that way, but I have to admit that I didn’t much care for his attitude, myself. Interesting how it changed when he realized he wasn’t talking to a Silesian after all.