"I might quibble with some of your terminology, Ma'am," Terekhov said thoughtfully. "I never really thought of them as stupid, but I guess I'd have to admit that the quality I associated with them was more . . . cunning, let's say, than intelligence."

"And their operations in the past—or the ones we've known about, at least—have all been related to the bottom-line somehow," Michelle pointed out. "Sometimes the connection's seemed a little strained, but it's always been there if we looked close enough. And they've never used major military forces—their own, or anyone else's. Even when they tried for Montaigne, they used mercenaries. And that business of yours in Nuncio, Aivars—that was using orphaned StateSec units, which was effectively just another batch of mercenaries. But this time, neither of those things is true."

She shook her head, her eyes unwontedly worried.

"Arguably, I suppose, you could say both the Monicans and the New Tuscans were more 'mercenaries,' whether they realized it or not, but what about Byng? What about the connections it took to get him assigned to a Frontier Fleet command and then sent out here? And what about this Battle Fleet task force Anisimovna claimed was stationed at McIntosh? That's a huge escalation in force levels from anything we've ever seen out of them in the past. I suppose Battle Fleet's corrupt enough that they could conceivably have managed it with only a few people in key spots in their pockets, but even so, it shows a degree of hubris that strikes me as almost insane. And look at the timing on it. They had to have the McIntosh deployment and Byng's appointment already in the pipeline before you hit Monica, Aivars. They literally couldn't have gotten the ships out here so quickly, if they hadn't already arranged for it. So either they really were already looking at New Tuscany—or something like it—or else they'd decided to arrange it all as a second string to their bow if Monica failed. Either way, that's a sort of multilayered strategy I don't think any of us would have expected out of them. And if we're going to talk about escalations, think of everything else they've risked here. They're headquartered on an independent planet which isn't even part of the League, but they're deeply involved in the League's economy. They depend on that involvement, and they've always relied on their connections in the League's bureaucracy and Assembly to deter any Solarian action against them. But now they start throwing Battle Fleet admirals and task forces around? Even the League is going to react—and react hard—if it figures out a single outlaw corporation—a foreign outlaw corporation—is sending entire fleets of its wallers around the galaxy!

"And even leaving that risk aside, look at the financial side of it. They have to have lost a fortune on that fiasco in Monica, but they didn't even slow down. Instead, they switched right over to this New Tuscany operation, and I'll guarantee you it didn't come cheap, either. I'll concede that they've got every reason in the world to keep us as far away from the Mesa System as they can, but after taking the hit to the bank account Monica must've represented, shouldn't simple financial pain have made them at least a little slower out of the launch tube for New Tuscany? And after such an obvious failure, and all the bad PR it's gotten them from the League newsies, I'd have expected them to keep a low profile, at least for a little while. Which, obviously, they didn't do, if they're actually manipulating major SLN command appointments and fleet movements. And to top it all off, the person they sent out to coordinate it is also the person who coordinated the Monica operation, and before Monica, we'd never even heard of her. Which wouldn't worry me as much as it does if she didn't seem to be so damned capable. If they've had her tucked away in their forward magazine all this time, why haven't we seen her—or her handiwork, at least—before? Where did this rogue corporation suddenly come up with an operative of her caliber? And why is it acting like it thinks it's a star nation, not just a criminal business enterprise?"

The other two looked back at her, and no one said another word for quite a long time.

Chapter Forty-Seven

"Thank you for finding room in your schedule so promptly, Minister," Sir Lyman Carmichael said as Foreign Minister Marcelito Lorenzo Roelas y Valiente's private secretary ushered him into the stupendous office.

That office offered enough square meters for a basketball game, Carmichael thought more than a tad sourly . . . and with very little exaggeration. Which, given that property values in the city of Old Chicago, the capital of the Solarian League, were almost certainly the highest in the explored galaxy, made the office's size an even more ostentatious statement of its inhabitant's status.

Of course, he reflected, status and power aren't always exactly the same thing, are they? Especially here in the League.

"Well," Roelas y Valiente replied, standing behind his desk—which was no larger than a standard air car—and extending his hand, "your message sounded fairly urgent, Mr. Ambassador."

"Yes, I'm afraid it is. Rather urgent, I mean," Carmichael said, shaking the foreign minister's hand.

Roelas y Valiente allowed his well-trained expression to show at least a trace of concern, and indicated one of the two armchairs on Carmichael's side of his desk.

"In that case, please make yourself comfortable and tell me about it," the Foreign Minister invited.

"Thank you, Minister."

Carmichael's voice was a bit warmer than it might have been in the presence of another senior member of the Gyulay Government.

Roelas y Valiente was the youngest member of Prime Minister Shona Gyulay's cabinet—not even out of his sixties yet, which made him the next best thing to thirty T-years younger than Carmichael himself—and unlike most of his fellows, he obviously felt a sense of responsibility for the proper discharge of his office. That was a pleasant and unexpected surprise here in the Solarian League. He also appeared to be at least reasonably competent, which (in Sir Lyman Carmichael's considered opinion) was an even greater surprise in such a senior League politician.

It was unfortunate that someone who possessed both of those virtues was as much a prisoner of his office's limitations as the stupidest and most corrupt demagogue could have been. There were times when Carmichael, as a bureaucrat (or call it a "career civil servant," if it sounded better) himself, felt a certain envy for his Solarian counterparts. At least they didn't have to worry about the possibility of some unqualified buffoon (like, for example, one Baron High Ridge and his cronies) managing to delude enough voters into sharing his own fantasies of competence so that they gave him actual decision-making power. Some things were more likely than others, but the possibility of any mere elected official exercising genuine power in the Solarian League at the federal level were about as likely as water suddenly deciding to flow uphill without benefit of counter-gravity.

And that, despite any occasional whimsical fantasies Carmichael might entertain, was the true reason someone like a Josef Byng could rise to flag rank, or someone like a Lorcan Verrochio could become a commissioner in something like the Office of Frontier Security. When no "unqualified buffoon" could be given effective power by the electorate, neither could anyone else. And when those who exercised true power were unaccountable to voters, they could not be removed from power, either. The consequences of that were unbridled empire building, corruption, and lack of accountability, all of them as inevitable as sunrise, and bureaucrat himself or not, Sir Lyman Carmichael knew which type of system he preferred.