"So why do you think she could be involved?"
"Because she's the only direct link between our terrorist proxies and Monica." Bardasano shrugged. "Izrok needed emergency transportation for additional shipyard technicians. Marianne was already headed for the Cluster. He asked me if we could transport them for him, and I agreed. Apparently, I shouldn't have."
She made the admission without flinching, and a flicker of what might have been approval showed in Detweiler's eyes.
"If she is the clue the Manties picked up on," she continued, "they must have taken at least some of her personnel and sweated them. They don't actually know anything about the Monican side of the operation, but they do know they delivered technicians to Monica. That could have been enough. Unfortunately, we probably won't know whether or not that's what actually happened for some time. Marianne's movement schedule means we don't expect contact with her for another couple of weeks."
"This is all speculation," Detweiler remarked, and Bardasano and Anisimovna both nodded.
"We barely managed to get out of Monica, and take the only Frontier Security personnel directly involved in the operation with us," Anisimovna said. "We couldn't afford to wait around for any more details. If they'd captured Isabel or myself-"
She broke off, and it was Detweiler's turn to nod.
"Point taken," he acknowledged. He considered them silently for several more seconds, then seemed to reach a decision.
"Sit," he said, pointing at two of the chairs facing his desk, and Anisimovna hoped her enormous relief didn't show as she obeyed the command.
"None of us are happy about what's happened in the Cluster," Detweiler said. "I trust you're both prepared for the fact that you're going to face a lot of recrimination and accusations of incompetence?"
Anisimovna bobbed her head, and this time she didn't try to disguise her glum expression. Whatever else came of the Talbott fiasco, she'd be a long time rebuilding her prestige and repairing her damaged powerbase.
"Having said that, and assuming no new revelations suggest it really was your fault, I'm inclined to agree that the failure almost certainly stemmed from factors outside your control." He shrugged. "As I said at the beginning, it was always a crap shoot, and apparently we crapped out. So, starting from that, what's your feeling as to whether or not OFS is going to let this stand?"
"I think they are," Anisimovna said. Managing the Solly bureaucracies was her own area of expertise. "Verrochio is livid, and he's going to be even angrier if the Manties are able to prove his involvement. But he doesn't have the forces under his own command to take unilateral action, and the other Frontier Security commissioners won't support him. Not after something as spectacular as what the Manties did to Monica, and especially not if Tyler or any of his cronies roll over on us and cooperate with a Manty investigation."
"We don't need him to win," Detweiler pointed out. "You say he's 'livid' over this. Is there any probability of playing on that anger to maneuver him into a direct military confrontation? Whether the other commissioners approve or not, that would be something our friends in the League could probably spin into the pretext for intervention we need. Especially if he gets the crap shot out of him.."
"I don't see any way to do it," Anisimovna replied. "Angry as he is, he's not going to risk his own position. Neither is his vice-commissioner, Hongbo, who-unfortunately, perhaps in this instance-has a great deal of influence with him and is far less likely to let anger shape his decisions."
"I was afraid of that."
Detweiler tipped his chair back, folding his hands, fingers interlaced, across his midsection, and Anisimovna felt a sudden fresh pang of anxiety. That relaxed posture normally indicated that Albert Detweiler was quietly, icily, dangerously furious about something.
"Three weeks ago," he said, "Eloise Pritchart sent an invitation to Elizabeth Winton. She suggested the two of them meet in a face-to-face summit, in a neutral location of Winton's choosing."
Anisimovna felt her eyes widen and fought a sudden urge to turn and look at Bardasano in shock. Pritchart was proposing a peace conference?
"We found out about it from our mole in the Manties' Foreign Office," Detweiler continued. "The proposal itself arrived on Manticore nine days ago, and our mole's control did very well to get it to us this quickly, although he had to use the Beowulf conduit to do it. I'm not exactly delighted at that. That conduit is too valuable to lose. In this case, though, I think our man's decision was justified."
"Excuse me, Albrecht," Anisimovna said, "but do we have any idea what prompted Pritchart to do something like this?"
"Not specifically, no." Detweiler frowned. "At the moment, my best guess is that she found out about what was happening in Talbott. She's demonstrated she's a very shrewd politician, and she may well have calculated that the pressure of a potential conflict with the Solarian League would force Winton to accept terms."
Anisimovna nodded, but very carefully said nothing. From Detweiler's tone, it was unlikely he would have appreciated the observation that it might have been their own efforts which had offered the Republic the wedge which might bring their carefully nurtured war to a premature conclusion.
"According to our mole," Detweiler went on, "it took four days to convince Winton to accept the offer. In the end, however, she did. And guess what 'neutral site' she proposed for their little get together?"
Anisimovna frowned, but Bardasano snorted harshly.
"Verdant Vista," she said flatly, and Detweiler's chuckle was even harsher than her snort.
"On the money," he agreed.
"Do we have a date for this summit?" Bardasano asked.
"Not yet. I'm sure the Manties will be proposing one in their reply to Pritchart, but our mole doesn't have that level of access. Even after they propose one, messages are going to have to go back and forth between Manticore and Haven, and transit time is almost eleven days each way. So it's not going to happen next week, but it looks like it is going to happen."
"Elizabeth Winton hates Haven's guts," Anisimovna said. "Even if the summit meets, how likely is it to result in an actual peace treaty? Especially after Haven initiated the attack, and given that everyone's convinced Haven was behind the Harrington assassination attempt?"
"Under normal circumstances, I might think along the same lines," Detweiler said. "But Winton's been adopted by one of those frigging treecats, and you can bet she won't attend a conference without the little monster."
"Oh." Anisimovna grimaced.
"Yes, we can't afford to overlook the little bastards any longer, can we?" Detweiler growled.
It was unusual, to say the least, for him to allow his ire to show that clearly, but Sphinx's treecats had been a sore point with Manpower and Mesa literally for centuries. The possibility of unlocking the secret of telepathy had been impossible for the bio-engineers of Mesa to resist, but they'd been remarkably unsuccessful in obtaining specimens. In fact, they'd managed to obtain only one living treecat in over three hundred T-years, and they'd discovered quickly that a treecat in captivity simply died. They still had some of the creature's genetic material, and some work continued with it in a desultory fashion, but without much prospect of successfully building the ability into humans.
The fact that the wretched little animals were even more intelligent than Manpower's own worst-case assumptions had come as an unpleasant revelation. And the ability of a fully functional telempathic to communicate its observations about the mental state of someone on the other side of high-level diplomatic negotiations was something political analysts were going to take some getting used to.