hands has been useful as hell from my perspective. At least I didn't have to worry about them while Javier, Lester, and I ran around pissing on forest fires!'
'There is that,' Pritchart agreed with a sober nod.
Not everyone had been prepared to accept Theisman's overthrow of the Committee of Public Safety gracefully. In fact, initially, he'd controlled only the capital system and its fleet. Capital Fleet was the Navy's largest, of course, and two-thirds of the other core systems of the People's Republic had declared for him—or, rather, for Pritchart's interim government—within the first three T-months. The majority of the rest of the People's Navy had also supported him, as well. But a large minority of the Navy had been under the control of other citizen admirals or, even worse, StateSec system commanders, who'd refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the new government.
It was, as Theisman had just suggested, extremely fortunate that the Manticorans had chosen to continue the negotiations Saint-Just had finessed them into beginning. If they'd decided to resume active military operations, instead, especially with the enormous technological superiority of their new hardware, the entire Republic would have disintegrated—within weeks, probably, but certainly within mere months. As it was, Theisman, with Giscard and Tourville as his primary field commanders, had found himself fighting a vicious, multi-cornered war against a shifting kaleidoscope of enemies. Pritchart had had more than one reason for being unhappy about that. As President, she'd hated the way it had distracted her from concentrating fully on the stalled negotiations with the Star Kingdom. On a more personal level, Giscard's responsibilities as Theisman's senior fleet commander had kept him away from Nouveau Paris—and one Eloise Pritchart's bed—for all but a few weeks out of the last three-plus years. Which, she admitted, she resented even more than the official headaches it created.
Fortunately, she'd never really been concerned (unlike some people) that Theisman might not succeed in his pacification efforts in the end . . . as long as the Manties stayed out of it. The fact that most of his adversaries distrusted one another even more than they distrusted him had given him a powerful advantage, but not even their merry-go-round of mutual betrayal would have been enough to permit the interim government to survive in the face of an active Manticoran resumption of the offensive.
'I know how important it was for you and Javier and Lester to keep the Manties talking while you tended to the shooting,' Pritchart went on after a moment. 'But the shooting is just about over now, isn't it?'
'Yes, thank God. I expect Javier's next report within another couple of days, and I'll be very surprised if it doesn't tell us that Mikasinovich is ready to call it quits.'
'Really?' Pritchart brightened visibly. Citizen General Silas Mikasinovich was the last major StateSec holdout. He'd managed to hammer himself together a six-star vest-pocket empire which had proved a surprisingly tough nut to crack.
'Really,' Theisman confirmed, then raised one hand in a brief throwing-away gesture. 'I'm afraid you're going to have to amnesty him like the others, and I wish you weren't. But unless I'm badly mistaken, he's enough of a realist to recognize that his only real chance now is to cut the best deal with you that he can.'
'I'll give him a lot better deal than he deserves,' Pritchart said grimly. 'But the bottom line is going to be that he surrenders every one of his capital ships, then gets the hell out of the Republic and stays out.'
'I can live with that,' Theisman agreed. Especially, he thought, the surrender of his ships. So far, as nearly as Theisman and his staff could tell, not a single Havenite ship above the size of a battlecruiser had managed to simply disappear. He knew damned well that at least some lighter units had elected to set up independent operations as pirates or small-scale warlords safely beyond his own reach, but at least he'd managed to prevent any ships of the wall from doing the same thing, and he intended to keep it that way.
'And now that Lester's moved in and kicked down Carson's little kingdom,' he went on aloud, 'all we have left are four or five isolated holdouts like Agnelli and Listerman. Give me another four months—six at the outside— and I'll have all of them out of your hair, as well, Madam President.'
'And I will be delighted to see it happen,' Pritchart said with a smile, then sobered. 'But in some ways, getting Mikasinovich and the others out of the equation is going to make things even worse,' she continued. 'At least as long as they're still there and their units are still shooting back at yours, I can use him to keep the fire- eaters at bay.'
'Giancola and his crowd?' Theisman asked, then snorted harshly at the President's confirming nod. 'The man's an idiot!'
'Idiot or not—and much as I dislike him, I don't think he is one, actually—Arnold Giancola is also the Secretary of State,' Pritchart pointed out. 'I'll admit that the only reason I nominated him for the position was political expediency, despite a less than overwhelming admiration for his stellar intellect, but he does have the job. And the reasons I gave it to him are still in force.'
'Which I hope you won't mind my admitting doesn't make me a lot happier,' Theisman replied.
'I should think not. It damned well better not, anyway!' Pritchart glowered at the framed copy of the Constitution hanging on the wall opposite her desk.
Arnold Giancola's signature was on it, one of the block of convention delegates who'd solemnly pledged to recreate the ancient glories of the Republic of Haven. Eloise Pritchart's signature was on it, as well, although Thomas Theisman's wasn't . . . which she considered one of the worst miscarriages of historical justice on record.
But the fact that they'd both been at the Constitutional Convention was one of the very few things she and Giancola had in common. Which, unfortunately, hadn't been quite enough, in light of the Republic's current political realities, to keep him out of her cabinet.
Arnold Giancola had been a low mid-level Treasury bureaucrat under Hereditary President Harris. Like hundreds of thousands of other bureaucrats, he'd continued in his precoup position—in his case, administering disbursement of the Basic Living Stipend right here in Nouveau Paris—under the Committee. None of them had been given much choice about that, aside from the very senior Legislaturalist administrators, who'd all been purged by the new management, because someone had to continue to run the day-to-day machinery of the state, and Rob Pierre and Oscar Saint-Just had innumerable ways to make sure they did. But to be completely fair (which Pritchart found difficult in her Secretary of State's case), Giancola had done his job better than most, and with what certainly appeared to have been a genuine concern for the Dolists under his jurisdiction.
His competence had drawn favorable attention from his new superiors, and after four or five T-years, he'd been transferred to the Department of State, which was always in search of capable administrators. He'd done equally well there, rising steadily in seniority, only to be shifted back to Treasury when Rob Pierre nominated Avram Turner to drive through his enormous economic reform package. Giancola's new position had brought him back to his old Nouveau Paris neighborhood, where he'd prospered despite the pain and economic dislocation involved in the Turner Reforms. He was, after all, an effective administrator who possessed an undeniable talent for attracting the loyalty of his subordinates, and he'd done his level best to minimize the reforms' traumas for the citizens for whom he was responsible. As a result, he'd emerged from the Committee's downfall with a base of genuine popular support—quite a large one, actually—on the Republic's capital (and most populous) planet.
He'd capitalized on that support shrewdly. His brother Jason was a senator; his cousin Gerard Younger was a representative; and Arnold himself had played a prominent role in reorganizing the capital following Theisman's overthrow of Saint-Just. He'd obviously had ambitions of his own at the time, but he'd been smart enough, whatever his other failings, to realize Theisman would have squashed him like a bug if he'd acted on them. So instead, he'd settled for building a powerful political machine in Nouveau Paris—still the most important single city in the Republic, although the Mob's heady days of power were a thing of the past. That had not only assured him his slot at the Convention but also allowed him to directly influence the election of a surprising number of representatives and no less than eight senators (including himself), which was not an inconsequential Congressional power base.
It had also made him Pritchart's most significant opposition when she ran for the presidency in the first election under the restored Constitution. Had it come down to a straight contest between the two of them, his candidacy would have been not only significant but a serious challenge, and she knew it. Fortunately, she'd enjoyed two enormous advantages he simply could not overcome: her status as the provisional head of government who'd actually kept her promise and held general elections when she'd said she would, and the endorsement of Thomas Theisman. There had been seven candidates on the ballot, and Pritchart had taken seventy-three percent of the popular vote. Arnold Giancola had taken nineteen percent, and the other five candidates between them had split the remaining eight percent.
