Givens looked back at him with those wounded eyes. She didn't speak, but at least she didn't disagree with him—not openly, at any rate. He held her gaze for a moment, then looked back at Caparelli.
"I said I think I agree with what you've said at least inasmuch as it bears on Patricia's performance at ONI," he said. "But it's clear you're suggesting Manpower might somehow be behind this." The prime minister shook his head. "I know we're in the process of radically reevaluating everything we thought we knew about Manpower and Mesa. But are you seriously suggesting they have this kind of capability? Look at our confrontation with the League. What makes you think Manpower is more likely to be behind this than that the SLN's just demonstrated it has previously unsuspected capabilities of its own?"
Caparelli started to reply, but White Haven laid a hand on his forearm, stopping him.
"If I may, Tom?" he said quietly. Caparelli glanced sideways at him, then nodded, and White Haven turned to his brother.
"On the face of it, Willie, it does seem more likely someone like the League should be able to develop and deploy something like this—whatever 'this ' is—than that an outlaw outfit like Manpower or even an entire single-system star nation like Mesa could. But I'm as certain as Tom that it wasn't the League, and not just because we've convinced outselves of our technological superiority to the SLN. If they'd had this sort of capability—and some way to get it to us this quickly—they wouldn't even have bothered to talk to us after what happened at New Tuscany. Think about the scale and the scope of what whoever it really was did here." He shook his head. "I suppose it's remotely possible Crandall could have been stupid enough to sail directly into a confrontation with us even knowing the League Navy had something like this in its locker. For that matter, if the development was kept 'black' enough, she might not even have known it existed. It could even have been developed by one of the system defense forces, not the SLN itself, although that seems unlikely. But none of those possibilities change the fact that someone like Kolokoltsov would for damned sure have told us to pound sand from the outset rather than playing diplomatic games if the League had had this capability and been busy moving it into position to hit us all along.
"I agree with Tom's assessment. Whoever developed this, developed it for exactly the sort of operation he just carried out, and, frankly, there was no reason for the League to develop it. When you're the biggest, baddest conventional navy in the history of humanity—which is exactly how the SLN's always thought of itself—you don't need something like this. For that matter, you don't want something like this, because it's going to fundamentally destabilize the equation that's made you the biggest, baddest navy in existence."
Grantville looked skeptical, and White Haven waved one hand in an impatient gesture, as if he were looking for the exact way to express what he was trying to say.
"This is like . . . like our development of the grav-pulse com and the multidrive missile, Willie, only more so. You may remember just how much trouble Sonja had convincing certain members of our naval establishment—myself included—to support her changes, despite the fact that even those of us who disagreed with her had an enormous incentive to figure out how somebody our size survived against someone the size of the People's Republic. It's human nature to stick with what you know works, and there's always something scary about cutting loose from known, quantifiable, predictable technologies and capabilities, especially when you know you're the best around, have a significant qualitative or quantitative advantage over your adversaries, under the existing rules. That's why we kicked and screamed at each other so much—and so loudly.
"But we did head out in those new directions. And we did it because we had to. Because of that enormous incentive. Someone back on Old Earth once said that when a man knows he's going to be hanged, it concentrates his thoughts, and that's exactly what happened to us. But the League's never worried about that. It's never had any reason to, and that's precisely why the SLN's always been the most conservative fleet in existence. I can't conceive of any reason for the Sollies to have changed that permanently ingrained a mindset so completely. Under the existing rules, they've always been the eight-hundred-kilo gorilla, and any fundamental change could only jeopardize their position, or at least require them to duplicate the new technology themselves, quite possibly at the expense of throwing away the huge numerical superiority they've spent literally centuries building up.
"But Manpower, on the other hand—" The earl shook his head again. "However uncomfortable the conclusion may be, I think just about all of us have decided Mike and Honor are right about Manpower's responsibility for everything that's happened in Talbott. Which means that whatever we may have thought Manpower was for the last few centuries, it isn't just 'an outlaw outfit.' I still don't have a clue in Hell what it is , but I know it's more than that. And, like Tom, I know it's managed to keep anyone from guessing it was. What I can't even begin to speculate meaningfully on is how long it's been more than that, but I'm sure as hell not prepared to assume the leopard just decided to change its spots the day before yesterday. So given that someone's already demonstrated that he's developed both the intent and the capability to maneuver us into open warfare with the Solarian League, I think that someone is a much more likely candidate to have orchestrated this attack. And I also think someone who's apparently spent a long time planning and building up capabilities he didn't want the rest of the galaxy to know about is a much more likely candidate to have very quietly embraced a brand-new, completely destabilizing military technology.
"If you know anyone that description fits better than Manpower, please tell me who it is."
Grantville gazed at his brother for several seconds, then sat back in his chair.
"I can't," he said quietly.
"Neither can I." Elizabeth's grim voice drew all eyes back to her. Her own attention was fixed on White Haven and Caparelli, however.
"Am I correct in assuming you and Sir Thomas believe Manpower—or whatever the hell we should start calling these people—wouldn't have hit us and left our allies alone?"
"I doubt very much that they would have," White Haven said heavily. "I suppose it's possible they left the Andermani out. They have to be aware the Emperor's more than a little unhappy about this confrontation of ours with the League, and the Andermani have always had that reputation for . . . pragmatism, let's say. And there's got to be a limit on their current capabilities—how far they could stretch their attack when they started planning it—as well. So they may well have figured Gustav would recognize a sinking ship when he saw one. For that matter, they may have figured he's smart enough and cautious enough to figure there's no reason they couldn't do the same thing to him later if he didn't decide to step aside.