"If I'm right, then they'll probably want to give anybody who might decide to become neutraland let's face it, Hamish; quite a few members of the Alliance would have to find that tempting after the way High Ridge has treated us allthe chance to do just that. Besides, however much Theisman may have accomplished in building up the Navy, he doesn't have an infinite supply of hulls. If Honor is correct and he's already diverted a sizable force to Silesia, that's going to restrict the numbers available to him here even more. We've just agreed that Trevor's Star has to be their primary objective. I don't think Thomas Theisman is likely to risk an attack on Grayson until and unless he believes he can launch it in overwhelming force."
"And if he doesn't know we've diverted forces to reinforce Trevor's Star, then he won't believe he can," Matthews said slowly.
"That's what I'm thinking," Benjamin agreed.
"But if High Ridge won't ask for help in the first place, what makes you think he'll accept it if you offer it?" White Haven asked.
"Who says I'm going to 'offer' anything?" Benjamin countered, and snorted when White Haven looked at him. "First of all, there's no time to waste pussyfooting around while High Ridge and Janacek figure out which is their ass and which is their elbow. Secondly, if I made any sort of formal offer to send even more of our Navy off to pull Manticore's chestnuts out of the fire at this point, even the Conclave of Steaders would pitch a fit. You don't even want to think about how the Keys would respond!
"No. If I commit forces to Trevor's Star at all, I'm not going to ask anyone if I can send them. I'm just going to send them."
White Haven blinked as Benjamin's statement drove home to him once again the difference between the personal authority the Protector wielded and that which the Constitution allowed to Elizabeth.
"But how could we get them there?" Matthews sat back in his chair and rubbed his chin. "It's going to take us at least a few daysprobably a week, minimumto organize and plan the kind of movement it sounds like we're talking about. And it's over a hundred and fifty light-years from Grayson to Trevor's Star. That's over three weeks' voyage time. Do we have an entire month to get into position?"
"I don't know," White Haven replied, "but I don't think we can assume we do. Not if they've already deployed forces to Silesia."
"In that case, we won't assume it," Benjamin said. "And we won't spend three weeks getting there, either. We'll use the Junction."
"The Junction?" White Haven looked at the Protector. "How are you going to do that, Your Grace? If Janacek and High Ridge won't request your assistance, what makes you think they'll let you go sailing through the Junction in front of God and everybody? At the very least they'd be deeply humiliated, and if they've convinced themselves that strengthening Trevor's Star with Manticoran units would be 'provocative,' they certainly won't want you reinforcing it with Graysons!"
"Actually," Benjamin said grimly, "I don't much care what the two of them would like, Hamish. And as for their trying to prevent us from using the Junction, I don't think that would be very wise of them. Under Article XII of the Manticoran Alliance Charter, any treaty partner has free and unlimited access to the Junction for its warships. If I decide I want to send the entire damned Navy through the Manticoran Wormhole Junction, I have the legal right to do so and be damned to anyone who tries to stop me."
He smiled at his guest, and it was not a pleasant expression.
"Under the circumstances," he said softly, "I rather hope they do try."
"I cannot believe this!" Eloise Pritchart spat, glaring at the hardcopy in front of her. "Of all the unmitigated, lying gall! How dare they hand us something like this?!"
"Well, I certainly didn't expect it either," Giancola began, "but"
" 'But' nothing!" Pritchart snarled. "They've flat out lied to their own people and to ours!"
Thomas Theisman sat in his own chair at the conference table, as shocked and almost as furious as Pritchart herself as he looked back down at the critical passage of the latest note from Manticore.
"I don't understand it," LePic muttered. "Why would they do this? We told them our territorial demands didn't include Trevor's Star. We told them that in so many words."
Theisman nodded almost unconsciously, for he shared his friend's confusion fully. Why, when the Republic had outright announced its willingness to renounce all claim of sovereignty over Trevor's Star had the Manties effectively threatened to unilaterally withdraw from the peace negotiations on the grounds that the Republic had demanded that sovereignty be returned to it?
"Could they possibly have misunderstood somehow?" Walter Sanderson asked slowly.
"How?" Pritchart demanded furiously. "How could even an idiot like High Ridge have misunderstood something this simple!" She pawed angrily through the folder in front of her until she found her copy of the Republic's most recent note to the Star Kingdom.
" 'In response to the Star Kingdom's request for clarification as to the Republic's view of the status of the Trevor's Star system,' " she read aloud in a hard, tight voice, " 'the Republic specifically does not claim sovereignty over that star system.' " She slammed the note back down on the tabletop. "Not claim sovereignty, Walter! I fail to see how we could possibly have been any clearer than that!"
Sanderson shook his head slowly, clearly bemused.
"I'm afraid there's one very simple possible explanation," Tony Nesbitt said. All eyes swung to him, and he shrugged. "This is about as bald faced a misrepresentation of the truth as anyone could possibly have presented. It's not a misunderstanding; it's a lie. It's an effort to shift the full responsibility for the failure of the negotiations onto us. The only reason I can see for them to do that is because they intend to break off those negotiations, and they want their people and the rest of the galaxy to believe it was our fault."
"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.