"I'm not one of the Sollies' greater admirers myself," he said, "but deliberately courting that kind of death toll purely as a political maneuver seems a bit too cynically calculating to me, even for a Solly."

"That's because deep down inside you're a straightforward, decent sort of person, Ham," his brother said grimly. White Haven's gaze moved to him, and Grantville shrugged. "You might want to remember Cordelia Ransom and Rob Pierre. The number of casualties Honor's talking about here are actually a lot lower than the casualties Pierre was willing to inflict just by launching his pogroms against the Legislaturalists, much less fighting us . Ransom wouldn't have turned a hair at sacrificing three or four times that many people if it suited her purposes, and let's not even get started on that sociopath Saint-Just!"

"But—" White Haven began, then stopped, and Grantville nodded.

"That's right, Ham." His voice was almost gentle now. "We're used to thinking of Peeps as political sociopaths. From what I've seen so far out of Kolokoltsov and his crew—and especially out of Rajampet, so far—they're at least as bad. Maybe even worse, because I don't think any of them have the personal involvement or the legitimate basis for outrage that Pierre, at least, definitely did have. To them, it's just a matter of gaming the system the way they've always gamed it."

"Which leaves us in one hell of a mess, doesn't it?" Queen Elizabeth summed up, and no one in that conference room disagreed with her.

* * *

"Are you serious, Admiral Trenis?"

Eloise Pritchart tried to keep the disbelief out of her voice as she gazed at the director of the Republican Navy's Bureau of Planning. That position made Linda Trenis the Republic of Haven's equivalent of Patricia Givens, and, over the years, especially since the fall of the People's Republic, she'd become accustomed to presenting reports some of her superiors initially found . . . somewhat difficult to credit. Now she simply looked back at the president and nodded.

"Yes, Madam President, I'm quite serious."

"But, let me get this straight—you don't have any idea who sent you this particular information?"

"That's not precisely what I said, Madam President. I know exactly who handed it over to us. No, I don't know the identity of the person who actually provided it at the source, but I do know where it came from—in general terms, at least."

"But, excuse me, Linda," Thomas Theisman said, turning to face her and the president, with his back towards the panoramic window of Pritchart's Pйricard Tower office, "why in the world would somebody in Beowulf suddenly drop this kind of information on us of all people?"

"That's something I'm less prepared to theorize about," Trenis said. "I have some thoughts on the subject, but that's all they are at this point."

"Well, if you have any thoughts on this subject, you're well ahead of me," Pritchart said candidly, leaning back in her chair and crossing her legs. "So let's hear them, Admiral."

"Of course, Madam President."

Linda Trenis was a highly organized woman. One of her greatest strengths when it came to building tightly reasoned analyses was the way she carefully considered every snippet of information before fitting it in place. It was painfully evident that the thought of presenting what could be no more than her preliminary, off-the-cuff impressions to the Republic's head of state wasn't very high on her list of favorite things to do. But she'd known it would be coming, so she drew a deep breath and began.

"There could be a lot of reasons for someone in Beowulf to want us to know about this. Frankly, it's unlikely any of them would be because they like us so much, though. Mind you, I don't think they've ever disliked us as much as Manticore did, and I think that's been even more true since the restoration of the old Republic, but 'not as much as Manticore' doesn't mean they actually care for us all that much. Once upon a time, we were actually on pretty good terms with them, but that relationship started going down the tubes when the Legisaturalists came in. The Technical Conservation Act was the kiss of death as far as the Beowulfans were concerned, and they cut off military and intelligence cooperations with us a hundred and forty years ago . . . which, obviously, wasn't the case where Manticore's cpncerned. So there's never been much doubt that if they had to choose between the two of us, they'd choose Manticore in a heartbeat. And, to be honest, if I lived right on the other side of the Junction from Manticore, I'd probably make the same choice."

Pritchart and Theisman both nodded, and Trenis shrugged.

"I think, then, that we have to begin from the assumption that they told us about this because they thought it would help Manticore, not because they thought it would hurt them. At first, I couldn't see any reason they might think that. Then, as I considered it, it occurred to me that they might have a better appreciation of how we're thinking here in Nouveau Paris than we'd realized."

"I beg your pardon?" Pritchart blinked, and Theisman frowned.

"What I'm trying to say, Madam President, is that we've had a natural and understandable tendency to concentrate our counterintelligence activities against Manticore. Now, though, I've started wondering just how thoroughly Beowulf might have penetrated the Republic."

"Beowulf, Linda?" Theisman sounded dubious, and Trenis looked at him. "We're an awful long way from Beowulf," the secretary of war pointed out. "Why should they worry about penetrating us ? And if they have, why haven't they been feeding any information they've gathered to the Manties?"

"To take your second question first, Sir, we don't know they haven't been feeding information to the Manties, do we?" Despite herself, Trenis smiled slightly at Theisman's expression. "As to why they should worry about penetrating us, we are the people who've happened to be at war with their next door neighbor—and friend—for the last twenty T-years. People don't talk about it a lot, but Beowulf's intelligence agencies are pretty good, and I think it would make sense for them to keep an eye on the people fighting a star system barely six hours away from their own home system."

Theisman's expression segued into a thoughtful frown, and Pritchart nodded.

"At the same time," Trenis continued, "I'm inclined to think they either haven't gotten very much from us, or else that they've chosen for reasons of their own not to share what they have gotten with Manticore. It may be that Manticore's been sharing information with Beowulf, and that, as a result, Beowulf's known Manticore already had almost everything Beowulf could have provided. Let's not underestimate what the Manties are capable of in this area all on their own. On the other hand, I'm inclined to wonder if the Beowulfers might not have stepped up their efforts after that assassination attempt on Alexander-Harrington and what happened to Webster and on Torch."

"Oh?" Pritchart tilted her head to one side, eyes narrowing. Trenis wasn't on the list of people who knew about Albert Giancola or Kevin Usher's suspicions about Yves Grosclaude's highly convenient—or in convenient, depending upon one's perspective—demise.

"Madam President, we didn't do it. And, frankly, something like this indicates a completely new capability on somebody's part. Given the way Beowulf feels about Mesa, and given the fact that Manpower wouldn't hesitate for a moment to rent out a new assassination tool, and that any analyst has to look very closely at the possibility that we're looking at some new bioscience technique, I think it's likely Beowulf's suspicion focused on Mesa well before anyone else's did. If that's the case, it would be logical for them to assume Manpower had rented it to us , especially in light of the attempt on Duchess Harrington. And if they did think that, one way to find the Mesa connection would have been to come at it from our end."