“Not good,” High Ridge admitted more candidly than he probably would have to almost anyone else. “The base trend lines are pretty firmly against us, at the moment. We score fairly high on several issues, but the increasing concern over the Peeps’ belligerence is undercutting that badly. The fact that the Queen is scarcely even speaking to the Government at the moment is another serious problem for our public approval rating. And I suppose if we’re going to be completely honest about it, the backlash from our campaign against Harrington and White Haven is still another negative factor. Especially now, when so many of the poll respondents are expressing their confidence in her ability to handle the Silesian situation if anyone can.” He shrugged. “Assuming that we can hold the Cabinet together and weather the storm on the Peep front—without, of course, getting into a major shooting war in Silesia at the same time—we’ll probably survive. Whether or not we’ll be able to complete our domestic program, unfortunately, is another question entirely.”

Janacek felt an icicle run lightly down his spine. Despite the steadily rising anxiety level of every member of the High Ridge Government, this was the first time the Prime Minister had sounded so openly pessimistic. No, not pessimistic. There’d been moments of that before. This was simply the first time Janacek had heard him admitting his pessimism in an almost resigned tone. As if a part of him had finally come to expect disaster.

“Do you think the Cabinet won’t hold together?” the First Lord asked somberly.

“I can’t really say,” High Ridge admitted. He shrugged. “Without the proper… leverage, MacIntosh is likely to prove much less controllable, and New Kiev is already very uncomfortable. Worse, that madwoman Montaigne is steadily eroding Marisa’s authority within her own party, and she’s doing it mainly by attacking her for ‘prostituting’ herself by joining our Cabinet. Marisa may decide that she has no option but to withdraw from the Government over some carefully chosen ‘matter of principle’ if she’s going to fight effectively to retain control of her own Party Conference. If she does, she’ll almost have to ‘denounce’ us in the process… and if we lose the Liberals, we lose the Commons completely. Not to mention our clear majority in the Lords.” He shrugged again. “Unless the Liberals go completely over to the Centrists—which I think is unlikely, even if Marisa feels a need to clearly separate herself from us—then no one would have a clear majority in the Upper House, and I can’t begin to predict what sort of power-sharing agreement might have to be worked out in that case.”

The two of them looked at one another for several seconds in silence. There was one more question Janacek badly wanted to ask, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to. “Can we at least make sure that any ‘power-sharing agreement’ contains a guarantee that none of us will be prosecuted?” wasn’t exactly the sort of thing one asked the Prime Minister of the Star Kingdom of Manticore even in private. No matter how burningly it presented itself to one’s own mind.