War Of Honor

"I thought you were in favor of finding ways to turn the screws on them," she said, eyes narrowed, and he shrugged. That was before it became your policy, he thought. And truth to tell, he was still perfectly willing to do just that, as long as it could be done on his own terms.

"In many ways, I still am in favor of being as firm as possible," he said aloud, choosing his words carefully while he wondered if Eloise Pritchart had ever heard of an ancient, obscure Old Earth folktale which had always been one of his own favorites as a child.

"However," he continued, "I believe our most recent offer was just about as explicit as it could possibly have been. Both in terms of what we were willing to concede, and in terms of what we clearly were not willing to concede. And in the clear implication that our patience isn't unlimited." He shrugged. "Speaking as the Republic's Secretary of State, I would be most hesitant to become even more openly confrontational."

Please, he thought, managing somehow not to smile. Oh, please, don't throw me in that briar patch!

"Firmness," Pritchart said, "isn't necessarily the same thing as being 'confrontational.' "

"I didn't mean to imply that it is," he lied. "I'm simply saying that I don't see any way to make our position clearer without explicitly telling the Manties we're prepared to resort to military action if our demands aren't met."

"I don't think we're so far along that our only options are to accept something like Descroix's meaningless response or go to war, Arnold," Pritchart said frostily, her eyes hard. It was interesting, she thought mordantly, the way that Giancola the firebrand had suddenly cooled off when the polls showed she was the one garnering public support for "standing up" to the Star Kingdom.

"I'm sorry if you think that was what I was saying," he replied, his expression a carefully crafted blend of frustration and mild disappointment even as a voice deep down inside was exulting Gotcha! "All I'm saying is that we've already made our feelings and our position amply clear. Obviously, the Manties haven't been impressed by that, however. So it seems to me that if we intend to continue to press them for concessions in the negotiations, we have to find some way other than still more diplomatic exchanges to increase the pressure on them. I probably overstated my position by mentioning military action, but let's be honest. What means do we have for exerting more pressure besides the potential threat of a resumption of hostilities?"

"I think we've already made them fully aware of that threat's potential," Pritchart said. "I see no reason to escalate tensions by waving the Navy in their direction even more explicitly. But I do intend to continue to press them on the diplomatic front. Do you have a problem with that?"

"Of course not," he said in a voice which implied exactly the opposite. "Even if I did, you're the President. However, if you—I mean, we—intend to maintain the diplomatic pressure, I believe we have to pursue all other avenues, as well. Which is why I would like to very strongly urge once again that we a

"Absolutely not," Pritchart said, then grimaced mentally. Her refusal had come out rather more forcefully than she'd intended. Partly, she suspected, that was because she was trapped between Thomas Theisman's position and Giancola's and resented it. The fact that Theisman was a friend while Giancola was something else entirely only made her resentment worse.

And, she reminded herself yet again, another part of it stemmed from her growing tendency to see anything Giancola suggested as a bad idea simply because it had come from him.

"No," she said in a calmer tone, and shook her head. "I'm not prepared to override Tom Theisman on that—not yet. But I do intend to reply to Descroix in no uncertain terms."

"It's your decision to make," Giancola conceded unhappily. Really, he reflected behind the cover of his frown, this was turning out to be even easier than he'd expected. It was like the old fables about "leading" a pig by tying a string to its hind leg and pulling in the opposite direction from the way you wanted it to go. The last thing he wanted at this point was for someone in the Star Kingdom to wake up too soon to the reality of the military threat it faced, and telling it about the CLACs was likely to accomplish just that.

"Yes," Pritchart told him, looking him straight in the eye, "it is my decision, isn't it?"

"The President is on the com, Sir."

Thomas Theisman looked up from the holo map floating above the conference table at Captain Borderwijk's a

"Thank you, Alenka," he said, instead, then glanced at the pla

"Yes, Sir," Marquette replied, and Theisman nodded to his subordinates, then turned and headed down the hall to his own office. Borderwijk followed him as far as the outer office, then peeled off to her own desk. His personal yeoman started to stand, but he waved the woman back into her chair and sailed on into his sanctum sanctorum. The attention light was blinking on his com terminal, and he drew a deep breath, then sat down in front of it and pressed the acceptance key.

"Hello, Eloise," he said when Pritchart appeared on the display. "Sorry it took me so long to take your call. I was down the hall with Marquette and the joint pla

"Don't apologize," she told him. "After the conversation I've just endured waiting a few extra minutes is a small price to pay for the pleasure of talking to someone I want to talk to."

"That bad, was it?" he asked sympathetically.

"Worse," she assured him. "Much worse." Then she sighed. "But if I'm going to be honest, Tom, I suppose I have to admit part of it was how much I hate hearing Arnold say anything I might find myself forced to agree with."

"I don't see why that should bother you," Theisman said with a snort. "I haven't agreed with anything the son-of-a-bitch has said in the last two T-years!"

"I know you haven't. But you're the Secretary of War; I'm the President. I can't afford to indulge myself by rejecting the position of any Cabinet secretary out of hand just because I don't like—or trust—the person advocating it."

"No, I don't suppose you can," he said just a bit contritely, acknowledging the implicit rebuke.

"Sorry." She grimaced. "I didn't mean to take it out on you. But now Arnold is telling me that he thinks it would be . . . inadvisable to be any more 'adversarial' then we already have in our negotiations with the Manties."

"Giancola said that?" Theisman blinked.

"More or less. I don't know whether he's serious, or whether he's trying to talk me out of it because of the shift in my favor in the opinion polls. The problem is, that much as I'd like to, I don't think I can just dismiss his official concerns out of hand."

"Because you think he wants to make them part of the record in case you do dismiss them and it blows up in your face?"

"I'm sure that's part of it. But let's face it, Tom. Neither one of us may like him very much, but that doesn't make him an idiot. Basically, he's arguing that if we want to keep the pressure on the Manties, we have to be a bit more explicit about the steel fist inside our silk glove."