"I suppose I can follow your argument," Honor said a bit dubiously. "It all seems very thin to me, though."
"Oh, it's certainly that," White Haven agreed with feeling. "But there's a second string to our bow, as well. And, to be honest, you created the preconditions for it, as well."
"I did? And what sort of 'second string' are you talking about?"
"Sir Anthony has already been in touch with the Andermani," White Haven told her. "Given the Gregor terminus, we can communicate back and forth with New Berlin faster than the Havenite fleet could retreat from Trevor's Star to the Haven System, and Willie and Elizabeth didn't lose any time taking advantage of that.
"The Andermani are as shocked by what happened as we were. No one outside the Republic of Haven so much as guessed this was coming, or would have believed how completely their initial offensive would succeed even if they'd seen it coming. The Andermani certainly never anticipated anything like it. And, to be honest, I think it frightened them. Badly, in fact. You know how little Emperor Gustav trusts 'Republican' forms of government in the first place. I think that predisposed him to believe our side when we explained that Pritchart and Giancola manufactured the diplomatic correspondence they're busy publishing to the galaxy. In addition, he's admitted to us that Pritchart deliberately encouraged them to pursue an aggressive policy in Silesia at the same time she was turning up the heat on us at the truce negotiations. My impression from what Willie's said is that the Peeps' obvious willingness to use the Empire as one more cat's paw in what was obviously a very carefully planned policy of deception has had a profound effect on the Emperor's view of the galactic balance of power.
"At any rate, it looks very much as if the Andermani Navy is about to come in on our side."
Honor stared at him in disbelief.
"Hamish, we were shooting at each other less than two months ago!" she protested.
"And your point is?" he asked, and chortled at her expression. Then he sobered. "Honor, 'real politik' is the guiding deity of the Anderman Dynasty. What Gustav Anderman is seeing right this minute is that the Peeps are unpredictable, that they attempted to use him, and that they're lying to the entire galaxy. Oh, and that they once again have the biggest Navy this side of the Solarian League." He shrugged. "On that basis, they're obviously a much greater danger to him than we are. Remember, the Andermani never really thought of us as a threat to their own security. What they resented was our interference in their efforts to secure what they regarded as their 'natural frontiers' in Silesia. Everybody, on the other hand, regarded the old People's Republic as a threat. And now that the new Republic has demonstrated that it has the same leopard spots as the old one, the Andermani see it in very much the same light.
"So since they never had anything personally against us in the first place, they're suddenly much more receptive to the notion that their enemy's enemy is their friend. Especially when Willie and Elizabeth agreed to sweeten the pot just a bit."
"How?" Honor asked, regarding him suspiciously now, rather than disbelievingly.
"With a little real politik of our own," White Haven told her. "The Conservative Association and the Liberal Party are effectively nonexistent at the moment. You haven't been to the Lords recently, so you can't begin to appreciate just how completely the entire Parliament is supporting Willie's new government right now. To give you some idea, the Lords have already agreed to take up a bill to transfer the power of the purse to the Commons over a five-T-year transition period. Unless something very drastic happens, it will be passed on third reading next week."
Honor was too astonished even to speak, and he shrugged.
"I know. Stupid, isn't it? The very issue that High Ridge was able to ride into power. The huge political bogeyman the entire peerage was so terrified of that a majority of them actually signed off on High Ridge's manipulations and dirty little deals. And now, in less than a month from the time shooting resumes, something on the order of an eighty percent majority is prepared to give it all up. If the stupid bastards had just been willing to consider making the same concession three years ago, none of this would've happened. Or, at least, if it had, it would've happened in a way which would have deprived Pritchart of the fig leaf of justification she's manufactured.
"But as far as the Andermani are concerned, the Lords' support for domestic finance reform is beside the point. What's going to bring the Empire in on our side is the fact that all of that ideological resistance to anything smacking of 'imperialism' went down the toilet along with High Ridge and New Kiev. Something like it would probably have materialized again soon enough, except for the fact that it's not going to have the chance to. Because later this week, Willie is going to propose to a joint session of Parliament that the Star Kingdom and the Andermani Empire finally bring an end to the incessant bloodletting and atrocities in Silesia."
"Oh, my God. You can't be serious!"
"Of course I can. I don't say it would have been my first choice of how to proceed, but I certainly understand the logic. And the Peeps haven't left us very much choice, either. We need the Andies to survive, Honor, and their price is the extension of their frontier into Silesia." He shrugged. "Well, if we're going to be in for a penny, we may as well be in for a dollar."
"And if the Confederacy government objects to being partitioned between two foreign powers?" Honor demanded.
"You've been to Silesia more than most of our officers," White Haven said. "Do you really think the average Silly wouldn't actively prefer to be a Manticoran subject?"
Honor started to reply quickly, then stopped. He had a point. All the average Silesian really wanted was safety, order, and a government that actually considered her wishes and well-being rather than seeing her as one more potential source of graft and corruption.
"Whatever the average Silly wants, the Confed government may not see things quite the same way," she pointed out.
"The Confed government consists of a bunch of corrupt, self-seeking, moneygrubbing grifters, thieves, and conmen whose concerns begin and end with their own bank accounts," White Haven said flatly. "For God's sake, Honor! You know perfectly well that the government of the Silesian Confederacy is probably the only bunch of crooks who could actually make High Ridge and Descroix look good by comparison."
Despite her grave reservations, Honor's lips quivered in appreciation of White Haven's comparison.
"Willie and Sir Anthony are already in the process of coming up with what's going to amount to a massive bribe," he went on with an expression of distaste. "Together with Gustav, they're going to buy the existing government off. Most of its members will do very well out of the deal. But the hook they don't know about is that we're going to be serious about requiring them to obey the law afterward. We may pay them off now and effectively amnesty them for past crimes, but we'll come down on them like the Hammer of God the first time they try to go back to business as usual under new management." He shrugged. "I'm not too sure how I feel about the methodology, but the final outcome is going to be that we get an ally we desperately need, a problem which has been a source of tension between us and the Empire for the last sixty or seventy T-years gets resolved once and for all, and—maybe most important of all—we finally bring an end to a situation which has been costing literally hundreds of thousands of lives every single year in Silesia."