"ONI, on the other hand, is less certain about that. They agree that Ransom was a loose warhead and that deep down inside, at least, Pierre has to be mightily relieved that shes gone. But they dont think it was a personal power struggle or that Ransom had anything to do with the Leveler coup attempt. They think it was part of the same process which brought McQueen in as Secretary of War. Everyone knows how bitterly Ransom distrusted the Peep military, and McQueens reputation for personal ambition would practically make her a poster girl for Ransoms paranoia. So the theory is that Pierre and Saint-Just had decided they absolutely needed a professional to run the militaryas you suggested earlier, Hamishand that McQueens suppression of the Levelers made her seem an attractive choice... to them. But not to Ransom. So either she tried something from the inside to stop the appointment, or else her friends on the Committee figured she might decide to try something and chose to play safe by removing her."
William paused and shrugged.
"Either way, the Committee wouldnt have wanted to let the word leak until what they considered the optimum time, hence the delay in announcing her death. As for its supposed circumstances, thats clearly an attempt to paper over whatever intramural conflict led to her removal in the first place and simultaneously gain a little propaganda support for the war. ONI and SIS agree on that, as well, especially given Ransoms continuing popularity with the Mob."
"I see." White Haven rubbed his chin for a moment, then sighed. "I cant say I was sorry to hear about her death," he admitted. In fact, I was goddamned delighted after what she did to Honor! "But I rather regret the potential consequences." William cocked his head questioningly, and the earl shrugged. "Remember what I said earlier about divided command structures, Willie. Saint-Just and StateSec were only part of the grit in their military machinery, and, frankly, Ransom was a lot bigger problem for them. Whether they recognized that and killed her to remove an obstruction or whether it was purely fortuitous, the fact remains that its going to make it a hell of a lot easier for McQueen to do whatever she was brought in to do. And that isnt good from our viewpoint."
He brooded pensively down at his blotter for another long moment, then shook himself and climbed out of his chair with a wry smile.
"Well, I suppose that answers my questions, one way or another. But now, gentlemen, my staff and flag captain are waiting to brief you on Eighth Fleets status. I dont suppose we should keep them waiting any longer than we have to, so if youll just accompany me?"
He stepped around his desk and led the way from his day cabin.
Chapter Twenty-One
"And thats the lead ship of our new SD class," High Admiral Wesley Matthews told his guests, waving with pardonable pride at the immense, virtually completed hull drifting beyond the armorplast view port. "Weve got nine more just like her building as follow-ons," he added, and William Alexander and Sir Thomas Caparelli nodded with deeply impressed expressions.
And well they should be impressed, White Haven thought, standing behind his brother and listening to Matthews description of the enormous activity going on here in Yeltsins Stars Blackbird Yard.
Of course, they havent seen the specs for the class yet, so they dont really know how impressed they ought to be, he reminded himself wryly. I wonder how Caparelli will react when he does find out?
The thought came and went, flickering through his brain almost like an automatic reflex without ever diverting his attention from the scene beyond the view port. Hed been here often over the last several months, yet the sights and energy of the place never failed to fascinate him, for Blackbird Yard was totally unlike the Star Kingdoms huge space stations.
For all the relative primitivism of its technology, Grayson had maintained a large-scale space presence for more than half a millennium. Not that it had been anything to boast about in the beginning. Theyd had the capabilitybarelyto exile the losing side of their Civil War to the neighboring system of Endicott, but that was a hop of less than four light-years. Even to accomplish that much had required them to reinvent a cruder form of the Pineau cryogenic process and virtually beggar the war torn planet just to get less than ten thousand "colonists" across the interstellar divide. The strain of it had been almost intolerable for the Civil Wars survivors, and it had probably set Graysons efforts to exploit its own star system back by at least fifty years. Yet it had also been the only way to get the defeated Faithful (and their "doomsday bomb") off the planet, and so Benjamin IV and his government had somehow made it all work.
But that had been six hundred years ago. Since then, and despite ups and downsand one eighty-year period when the Conclave of Steadholders had been forced to fight bitterly against three Protectors in a row who, with a dogmatism truly worthy of their Neo-Luddite ancestors, had preferred to concentrate on "practical" planet-side solutions to problems and turn their backs on the limitless possibilities of spacethe Graysons off-planet presence had grown prodigiously. By the time their world joined the Manticoran Alliance, the Grayson deep-space infrastructure, while almost all sublight and vastly more primitive than the Star Kingdoms, had actually been almost the size of Manticore-As, with a far larger work force (almost inevitably, given their manpower-intensive technology base), and they had their own notions about how things should be done.
"Excuse me, High Admiral," Caparelli asked in a suddenly very intense tone, "but is that?" He was leaning forward, his nose almost pressed against the armorplast, as he pointed at the all but finished hull, and Matthews nodded.
"Shes our equivalent of your Medusa class," he confirmed with the broad smile of a proud father.
"But how the devil did you get the design into production this quickly? " Caparelli demanded.
"Well, some of our Office of Shipbuilding people were in the Star Kingdom working on the new compensator and LAC projects when the Medusa was first contemplated," Matthews said. "Your BuShips involved a couple of themincluding Protector Benjamins brother, Lord Mayhewin the planning process when they started roughing out the power-to-mass numbers for her impellers and compensator, and they just sort of stayed involved. So we had the plans by the same time your people did, and, well" He shrugged.
"But we only finalized the design thirteen T-months ago!" Caparelli protested.
"Yes, Sir. And we laid this ship down a year ago. She should commission in another two months, and the other nine should all be completed within two or three months of her."
Caparelli started to say something more, then closed his mouth with a click and gave White Haven a fulminating glance. The Earl only smiled back blandly. Hed passed on the information when it came to his attention the better part of nine T-months ago, but it had been evident from several things Caparelli had said that no one had routed a copy of White Havens report to him. Well, that was hardly the Earls fault. Besides, the shock of discovering just how far advanced the Grayson Navy really was ought to be good for the First Space Lord, he thought, and returned to his consideration of the differences between Grayson and Manticoran approaches to shipbuilding