“And what do they hope to accomplish?” Hanriot asked, but she no longer sounded as skeptical as she once had where Nesbitt’s long-standing suspicions about the Star Kingdom’s motives were concerned.

“I think that’s clear enough, Rachel,” the Secretary of Commerce said in a flat voice. “They don’t want just Trevor’s Star. They plan to keep all of the occupied systems. They’re just using Trevor’s Star as the wedge.”

“I think it’s possible we’re all overreacting just a bit,” Giancola said. The eyes which had focused on Nesbitt traversed back to him, and he waved one hand. “I’m not trying to minimize the huge conflict between what we told them and what they seem to be trying to say that we told them. And obviously I’ve always been suspicious about their ultimate intentions myself. But let’s all back off for a moment and try to catch our breaths.”

“It’s a little late to be playing Mr. Reasonable, Arnold,” Pritchart told him a bit spitefully. “Especially after this.” She thumped the text of the most recent Manticoran note yet again.

“There’s always time to let reason have its say, Madame President,” Giancola replied. “That’s the most important single fundamental principle of diplomacy. And it’s not as if we have to respond to this immediately. No one outside the Cabinet, with the exception of Ambassador Grosclaude, knows anything about the specific content of this note. If we keep a lid on this, at least to the extent of not waxing publicly furious over it, then we’ve got a chance to cool tempers down and work our way through it.”

“No, we don’t,” Pritchart said flatly, and Giancola felt his smile congeal ever so slightly as something about the President’s iron tone sounded warning bells.

“Madame President—”

“I know all about the gentleman’s agreement about respecting the confidentiality of official diplomatic communications,” Pritchart grated. “But as far as I’m concerned, it no longer applies.”

“Madame President—!”

“I said it no longer applies, Arnold!” She shook her head. “The only reason they could possibly have drafted this piece of crap,” she said, “was to justify exactly the scenario Tony’s just described. Which means that at some point, probably after they attack us, they’re going to publish their version of our diplomatic correspondence. And judging from this,” she thumped the Manticoran note again, “their version of it isn’t going to bear very much resemblance to reality. Well, if that’s what they have in mind, I’ll damned well see the truth released to the newsies and the galaxy at large first!”

Giancola swallowed hard. Things were moving much more quickly than he’d anticipated. Pritchart’s decision to go public with the text of Descroix’s most recent note was hardly unexpected, but he hadn’t planned on her reaching it this quickly. He was a little nervous about what might happen when the Republic and the Star Kingdom published their versions of their official diplomatic correspondence and the discrepancies between them came to light, but he wasn’t too concerned about it. Or, he hadn’t been, at any rate. He’d calculated that by the time the two star nations reached that point, each of them would be completely prepared to believe the other was editing the actual notes in order to support its own territorial ambitions. Certainly he and Grosclaude had been very careful to insure that all of the official archived copies of the Republic’s correspondence agreed with the versions approved by Eloise Pritchart.