“I think it’s certainly possible. At the very least, he obviously hoped to use us as a cat’s paw, yet another way to distract the Star Kingdom while his own navy prepared its offensive. That much, of course, I’m sure the Foreign Ministry had already considered. But the fact that he never so much as hinted—as far as I can tell from the synopses, at least—that Haven was preparing to resume active operations strikes me as significant. Indeed, I would judge that he went out of his way to avoid even the least suggestion that such operations were being contemplated. Some, at least, of that could be no more than the maintenance of operational security. But the decision to send their own naval forces into the Confederacy without so much as mentioning it to us at the same time as they were encouraging us to embark upon an adventure here was at best… reckless.”

“What possible motive could they have?” Isenhoffer wondered aloud.

“I can think of at least one,” Rabenstrange said grimly. “Suppose their intention—or, their hope, at least—was that we and the Manties would, indeed go to war, and that one of us would defeat the other. I believe that their strategists could confidently assume that whichever of us won, we would be severely damaged, possibly crippled, in the process. And if it were to happen that the Republic just coincidentally had a fresh, unbloodied fleet of its own in the vicinity…”

His voice trailed off, and Isenhoffer’s frown deepened.

“Sir, do you actually believe that the Republic of Haven would seriously contemplate going to war with the Star Kingdom and the Empire simultaneously?”

“On the face of it, it would seem ridiculous,” Rabenstrange admitted. “But you’ve seen the same intelligence reports I have. For all of our inability to penetrate ‘Bolthole’s’ security, it’s perfectly obvious that Theisman and Pritchart have been able to build a substantially larger and more modern fleet even than the one they’ve admitted to possessing. Perhaps they’ve accomplished even more than we believe they have. Don’t forget that for decades the Legislaturalists’ foreign policy was based on a timetable of first the Star Kingdom, then Silesia, and then the Empire. If Pritchart and Theisman feel they have sufficient naval power, might they not to be tempted to revert to that policy now?”

“Nothing any of the analysts have reported would suggest that President Pritchart’s mind works that way, Sir,” Isenhoffer pointed out.

“Analysts can be wrong. Perhaps more importantly, Pritchart doesn’t operate in a vacuum. I’ve never felt comfortable with our grasp of the internal dynamics of her government. It’s impossible for us to know all of the factions and counter-factions she might find herself forced to cope with. And even if she was as reluctant to resort to active operations against Manticore as our analysts and her own public statements would seem to suggest, she certainly seems to have decided to do so anyway. And if she feels herself compelled to go back to war, then perhaps she also sees an opportunity to accomplish the traditional Havenite goal in this sector once and for all.”