When one of his subordinates brought the news to Walter Imbesi that everything had cleared for the Hali Sowle in the Mesa System, he simply nodded and went back to his business. The only reason he'd asked to be notified at all was because of the political sensitivity of the project. In purely financial terms, measured against the fortune of his family, it all amounted to chicken feed.

Still, even chicken feed was not to be sneered at. The Imbesis would very likely turn a small profit. The jewels were perfectly legitimate and there was a market for them, after all. Even the sutler trade on the reverse leg shouldn't do worse than break even.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

"All right, Luiz, what do you and your minions have for me?"

Oravil Barregos sat in a chair at the head of the conference table in the high security briefing room attached to Luiz Rozsak's personal office. Vegar Spangen was parked in another chair, against the briefing room's back wall, and Rozsak, Watanapongse, and Commander Habib sat facing the governor from the far end of the table.

"A lot," Rozsak said. He grimaced and nodded to Habib. "Edie?"

The admiral's chief of staff brushed a hand over her short-cropped, dark, reddish-brown hair, then straightened in her seat as she turned slightly to face Barregos fully.

"The general strategic situation's experienced what you might describe as a . . . 'significant shift,' Governor," she said. "Most immediately pressing from our perspective is what happened at Manticore last week." She shook her head, and even her normally unflappable expression showed more than a little lingering shock. "As near as we can tell, both sides got royally reamed. Manticore's Home Fleet is just plain gone, and it sounds like their Third Fleet got hit equally hard. We don't have any official confirmation of those numbers, of course, and all the information we've got on Haven's losses is secondhand, at best, via the Manties. Bottom line, though, is that it looks like the majority of Theisman's numerical superiority just got blown out from under him."

"That was my own impression," Barregos said quietly. He shook his head. "What in God's name did Theisman think he was doing?"

"He rolled the dice, Sir," Habib replied flatly. Barregos raised one eyebrow, and the chief of staff shrugged. "After what happened at Lovat, it was pretty obvious the Havenite fleet was going to be toast going up against whatever it was Harrington's Eighth Fleet used on Giscard. Our best guess"—she twitched her head sideways at Watanapongse—"is that Theisman already had the strike force he used at Manticore assembled under Tourville when he found out about Lovat. We're guessing he'd started putting it together as part of a contingency plan either before the summit talk was ever proposed, or when Elizabeth deep-sixed the idea, at the very latest. At any rate, he had the operation already planned before Lovat—he had to have had it ready, or he couldn't have gotten it off the ground so quickly. When Harrington hammered Giscard, Theisman and Pritchart must have figured their only real chance was to score a knockout before the Manties got the new targeting systems into general deployment. Even with everything ready to go, it took someone with one hell of a lot of nerve—not to mention pure gall—to go for all the marbles that way. I doubt very much that anyone in Manticore ever even dreamed they'd pull the trigger on something like this, but one thing Theisman's already demonstrated pretty damned conclusively is that he's got enough guts for any three or four normal people."

"And he came damned close to pulling it off, too, as far as we can tell," Rozsak put in. "We still don't have the details, of course, but it sounds like he had a pretty good ops plan. Unfortunately—from his perspective, at least—it also sounds like the Manties were further along in deploying the new hardware than he'd hoped. And, unless I miss my guess, Murphy put in his centicredit's worth, as well."

"Not to mention Duchess Harrington's minor contribution," Habib added.

"Not to mention that," Rozsak agreed with a nod.

"So both sides are basically neutralized, you're saying?"

"Not exactly, Governor," Habib replied. "For the moment, yes, both sides are pretty much at a standstill. Theisman's lost his major striking force, but at least he's got a lot of new construction currently working up to give him coverage in his rear areas, for whatever good it's going to do against the Manties' new fire control. Manticore and the Alliance, on the other hand, still have Eighth Fleet, but they don't have anything else left to cover Manticore if they cut Harrington loose for additional offensive operations. They don't have as many new-build wallers already working up as Haven does, but they've got quite a few, and they've got a bunch of new construction getting ready to come out of the yards. After the Battle of Manticore, they may be a little short of experienced personnel for crews, but they're going to have a lot of hulls available shortly. Not as many as Haven has, even now, but a lot . . . and I think we have to assume all of their new wallers are going to have their new fire control. So while neither side has anything it can use to go after the other one right now, in another few months, Manticore is going to be in a position to reach right down Haven's throat and rip its lungs out."

Barregos grimaced at the chief of staff's choice of phrases, but he also nodded in understanding.

"What kind of implications does all this have for us, Luiz?" he asked.

"Edie and Jiri have a complete brief for you," Rozsak replied. "They'll be taking us step-by-step through our best current estimates of force levels and probable intentions. You want the short version first?"

Barregos nodded, and Rozsak shrugged.

"Basically, we're currently in a strategic vacuum. Nobody's got a lot of firepower to spare or to throw around, but as Edie says, once Manticore's new construction starts really coming forward, that's going to change. All of those 'minor distractions' the Manties are facing in Talbott are going to have a braking effect on their deployment postures, of course, but even so, I give Haven another six T-months—nine at the outside—before Harrington is sent off to turn the entire Haven System into one huge scrapyard. And unless Pritchart and Theisman are prepared to surrender, I think that's exactly what's going to happen. I sure as hell don't see them coming up with some kind of silver bullet in time to save them, anyway.

"In our immediate area, I've got a feeling Erewhon is going to be very carefully staying very close to home until the situation between Manticore and Haven finally works itself out. I'm certain the Erewhonese were as taken by surprise by the direct attack on Manticore—and, for that matter, by whatever new toy Admiral Hemphill's come up with—as we were. I think they probably view the fact that Elizabeth was prepared to ask them to provide security for Torch when it looked like the summit was going to meet as a provisionally good sign. At the same time, though, they have to know Manticore generally is still pretty pissed off with them. I think they're going to want to make it as evident as they can that, despite any mutual defense treaties with the Republic, they're about as neutral as anyone can get and still be breathing where the current unpleasantness is concerned. Preliminary indications are that they're basically forting up at home, aside from routine commerce protection missions, and I'll be surprised if that changes.

"Which brings us to our other little problem area."

"Luiz, I always hate it when you use that particular phrase," Barregos said almost whimsically. "What knuckleduster is waiting for me this time?"