Ashes Of Victory

casting curses upon another child of God's immortal soul. But it won't be easy, Mr. Baird. Not this time.'

'I know, My Lord,' Baird said almost gently. 'And my initial reaction was much the same as yours. But we must not allow anger, however justified, to cloud our thinking. It's far more important to prevent such things than to rail at them after they've come to pass, and preventing them will require us to approach them rationally, without passion.'

'You're right,' Mueller repeated, this time with true sincerity. And Baird was right. In fact, Mueller was deeply impressed by his ability to step back from the anger he must also feel and remember where his true duty lay. The steadholder was discovering yet more depths to the man, and he felt a sudden surge of gratitude that Baird's organization had approached him.

'Since we've known about this longer than you have, My Lord, we were able to give it a great deal of thought before I asked to see you. It seems to us that the first and most important thing to do is to confirm the accuracy of our reports. Once we know for certain that the Chancellor and his allies are, in fact, suggesting that we join the Star Kingdom, we can publicly denounce the idea and begin to warn and arouse the people. But it's also remotely possible the Protector and his advisors have deliberately fed us a false rumor. That they want us to denounce their plans when, in fact, they have no intention of suggesting anything of the sort. Not openly or immediately, at any rate.'

'In order to discredit us by making us look like hysterics who see plots where there are none,' Mueller murmured. 'Yes. Yes, I can see the possibilities. On the other hand, I doubt Mayhew or Prestwick would make the attempt. Their efforts so far have been aimed at manipulating the common steaders into believing in and supporting their reforms, not at manipulating us into taking false public positions.' The steadholder snorted harshly. 'And it's been working,' he admitted bitterly. 'They haven't needed to manipulate us into false steps as long as they can lie to our steaders effectively and deceive them into believing the Sword truly cares what happens to them. Or their souls.'

'It would be a new strategic departure for them,' Baird agreed. 'And, over all, we share your analysis. But we need to be positive before we speak openly, and if we can secure any proof of how cynically they're maneuvering to bring this about, so much the better. The more specific and pointed we can make our warnings, the more difficult the Sword will find it to deflect the people's justifiable anger. What we need, My Lord, is what they used to call `a smoking gun,' proof that the Sword truly intends to betray the faith the people have placed in this so-called `Mayhew Restoration'!'

'You're right,' Mueller agreed again, and it never crossed his mind to consider how completely Baird, the man who had been supposed to be no more than a source of funds and a tool to dance to his piping, had dominated the entire conference. 'But how can we confirm it?' the steadholder wondered aloud. 'As I already said, Mayhew and his ministers have gotten altogether too good at keeping secrets.'

'We're working on it, My Lord. One reason my associates asked me to speak to you was in the hope you might think of some way to acquire that proof. It never hurts to put as many brains as possible to work upon any puzzle the Tester lays before us.'

'No, it doesn't.' Mueller sat fully back in his chair and rubbed his lower lip. 'I'll certainly put my mind to it. And I have sources of my own who might be in a position to hear anything Prestwick or his crew drop in the wrong places. In the meantime, however, I think we ought to give some thought to the best way to proceed once we find that proof. Or, for that matter, how best to deal with the situation if we can confirm Prestwick's plans but can't provide the common folk with the sort of `smoking gun' you mentioned.'

'Agreed. Agreed.' Baird rose. 'As always, My Lord, you raise a valid point. And with your permission, I'd like to suggest that we stay in somewhat closer contact for the immediate future. Obviously, it remains important that we be... discreet in our contacts, but this latest possible move requires all who would oppose it to pool our information and coordinate our planning more fully than before, I think. Especially with the Keys scheduled to convene in little more than five months. If they do mean to introduce such a scheme, the new session would be the time for them to do it.'

'You're right,' Mueller said positively, rising and walking Baird to the study door almost as if they were social equals. 'Our usual means of arranging meetings is a bit clumsy for the sort of coordination we need to achieve,' he went on. 'Screen my steward, Buckeridge, tomorrow afternoon. By that time I'll have been able to have Sergeant Hughes here set up a secure channel no one with Planetary Security can trace.'

'I'm not certain there is such a thing,' Baird said with a thin smile, glancing sideways at Hughes as he spoke.

'I'm not either, really,' Mueller replied. 'But I intend it only as a way for us to reach one another to set up face-to-face meetings. I would neither ask nor want you to say anything on a com line, however secure I thought it was, which might compromise our plans, your organization, or myself.'

'In that case, My Lord, please do set it up. I'll screen your steward sometime late tomorrow afternoon to see what arrangements have been made. And in the meantime, I'll see if our sources have been able to learn any more about the Chancellor's plans.'

'An excellent idea,' Mueller said, and paused in the hall outside the study. 'Thank you very much, Mr. Baird,' he said, and extended his hand. The other man clasped it firmly, and the steadholder gave him a grim smile. 'Our Test may be a difficult one,' he told Baird, 'but I believe the Tester has seen fit to bring us together for a purpose, and we must not fail Him.'

'No,' Baird said softly, squeezing his hand even more firmly. 'No, we mustn't. And we won't fail Him, My Lord. Not this time.'

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Vice Admiral of the Green Patricia Givens checked her chrono, then looked up with a small smile as the First Space Lord stepped into the Pit.

The Pit was known to the rest of the universe as the Central War Room of the Royal Manticoran Navy, but no one who had spent time in it ever called it by its official name. The Pit was kept permanently on the cool and dim side, the better to encourage alertness among watch standers and to enhance the visibility of their displays. Most of the time, as now, the vast chamber actually was as calm and orderly as the dim lights and chill air might suggest to the casual observer. And, truth to tell, the Pit had never been able to match the frenzy which must, for example, have gripped the Western Alliance's war room under what had once been a huge chunk of granite called Cheyenne Mountain back on Old Earth during the Final War. Then again, no enemy had ever successfully invaded the Manticore Binary System, even on a high-speed, hit-and-run basis, so no one in the Pit had ever had the doubtful pleasure of seeing a deep penetrator, two-hundred-and-fifty-megaton warhead headed directly at them.

And, Givens thought dryly, it's to be hoped we never will, I suppose. Of course, it was also to be hoped that no one would ever hit Basilisk.

Unless that unthinkable (but carefully considered, here in the Pit, as part of its endless contingency planning) event occurred, the Pit never would be the site of split-second decisions. The sheer scale of interstellar combat precluded that sort of thing, for the speed at which messages and fleets moved through hyper, while starkly unimaginable in absolute terms, was scarcely a crawl beside the distances they must cross. There was always time to consider decisions here in the Pit, because no matter how quickly one made a decision, days or even weeks would go by before one's orders could reach their recipients and be acted upon.

Yet that very leisure created a different and perhaps even more corrosive tension for the Denizens of the Pit, as the watch crews termed themselves with a certain morbid pride. It was very difficult for most human beings to avoid a sense of helplessness when they reflected on their responsibilities and considered the delay built into the information loop. It was their job to collate all available data, to make the best possible analyses and, on that basis, project the enemy's options and probable intentions for the handful of men and women charged with devising the Royal Manticoran Navy's responses and strategy. Yet the information which reached them was always out of date, and they knew it. Knew that the Allied fleets and task forces whose