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"My God," a visibly shaken Eloise Pritchart said several hours later. "My dear sweet God, Tom. Do you think this could possibly be true ?"
Thomas Theisman hadn't seen the president's face that pale since Genevieve Chin and her battered survivors crawled home from the Battle of Manticore. In fact, he hadn't seen her this close to being literally stu
"I . . . don't know," he admitted slowly, leaning back in his chair and shaking his head. "I don't know. But—"
He paused and closed his eyes for a moment, his mind ru
"As a matter of fact," he said, opening his eyes and bringing his chair back fully upright again, "I think it could be. True, I mean."
"It's got to be some kind of organized disinformation operation, Madam President," Linda Trenis argued. Yet even as she spoke, her tone said that, like Theisman, she thought it might just possibly be true. That it was her job to be skeptical, and so she would, even though, deep down inside, where instinct took over from trained intellect . . . .
"I think Admiral Theisman may be right, Linda," Victor Lewis disagreed. "In fact, I think I actually believe it."
The CO of Operational Research sounded as if he were surprised to hear himself saying it, but his expression was probably closer to normal than that of anyone else in the president's office. Where the others' faces still looked rather like Pritchart had always assumed a poleaxed steer must look, his was intensely thoughtful.
"But—" Pritchart began.
"Think about it, Eloise," Theisman interrupted. She looked at him, and he shrugged. "Think about what Simхes said—and what Cachat and Zilwicki both agree this McBryde had to say, as well. Crazy as it all sounds, it all hangs together, too."
Pritchart started to protest again, then made herself stop. Insane as it all seemed, Theisman was right. It did hang together. Of course, if Trenis was right about its being some sort of disinformation effort, it would hang together. On the other hand, she thought, there probably wouldn't be quite so many gaps in their information, either. If someone had wanted to sell the Republic a bill of goods, they would have come up with plausible excuses and lies to plug more of those holes.
And they would have known Zilwicki was alive, since they needed him to get the disinformation home. So they'd hardly have a
Oh, lord! Did I really just think all that? She shook her head. My brain hurts already, and it's not even dawn yet.
"I agree with Admiral Theisman," Lewis said quietly but firmly. "And, no offense, Linda, but if it's a case of disinformation, I don't see what the hell—pardon me, Madam President—it's supposed to be disinforming us about ! Try as I might, I can't think of any conceivable reason for anyone on Mesa to try to convince the Republic of Haven we're on some centuries-long interstellar hit list right along with the Manties. Can anyone else in this office come up with a reason any Mesan would be doing anything that could so radically shake up our relations with the Star Empire? Something which might convince us we actually have an enemy in common and point both of us directly at them? "
"Admiral Lewis has a point there, Madam President," Denis LePic agreed, his own eyes narrowing in thought. "And there's another point, too. Cachat and Zilwicki independently confirmed the explosion that took out this 'Gamma Center' of Simхes'. While I'm willing to concede that a good disinformation operation requires enough capital investment to make it convincing, somehow I find it a bit difficult to believe that even someone like Manpower would set off a high-kiloton-range nuke right on top of one of their own top management's bedroom communities just to sell us on it."
"And assuming McBryde knew what he was talking about, it makes at least a little sense out of the fact that Manpower—or this 'Mesan Alignment,' at least—has been acting so much like a belligerent star nation," Theisman pointed out. "It is a belligerent star nation; it's just that no one else realized it."
"Oh, how I wish they'd been able to get McBryde out, too," Pritchard said with soft, terrible passion, then waved both hands contritely when Theisman gave her a speaking glance.
"I know—I know!" she said. "If this is true, we're incredibly lucky to have even a clue of it, much less Simхes. I'm sure he's going to turn out to be incredibly valuable—if this is true—in the long run, but he's a tech geek." Theisman's lips twitched at the president's choice of noun, and she shook a finger at him. "Don't you dare smile at that, Tom Theisman! Instead, think of him as Sha
"And assuming there's any way to verify that what he's telling us is the truth," Trenis observed. They all looked at her, and she shrugged. "All our critical naval perso
"Or, for that matter, if McBryde was telling the truth about this new nanotech of theirs, God only knows what he might be programmed to do under, um, rigorous interrogation," LePic said.
"Well, so far, at least, they don't appear to have installed anything to keep him from voluntarily spilling the beans when he's not under duress," Lewis pointed out. "If we sit him down with our own hyper physicists and let them start going over what he can tell them about this 'streak drive' of theirs, we should at least be able to tell whether or not the math holds together. Which would tend to verify—or disprove—one large chunk of what he's already told us."
"Maybe—eventually," Pritchart replied. "On the other hand, I'm no hyper physicist, obviously, but I'd be surprised if they could confirm or disprove what he's got to say very quickly." She grimaced. "To be honest, the Manties could probably do that faster than we could, given how far ahead of us they are in compensators and grav-pulse bandwidth."
"For that matter," Theisman said with a crooked smile, "it's a pity Duchess Harrington's not around anymore. I'll bet Nimitz could tell us whether or not he's lying. Or whether he's lying to us knowingly, at least."