David Weber - At All Costs

"As a matter of fact, it is," White Haven admitted, now without a trace of humor, and the treecat in his lap sat up to regard Langtry with grass-green eyes.

"Hamish, it's not going to do any good," the Foreign Secretary said.

"Tony, she's got to at least get them talking again."

"Then I suggest you convince her of that. Or at least your brother." Langtry regarded White Haven very levelly. "He is the Prime Minister, you know."

"I certainly do. But on this particular point, he's almost as... focused, let's say, as Elizabeth herself. He knows how I feel. He disagrees with me. And, as you say, he is the Prime Minister."

"As it happens," Langtry said slowly, "I find myself substantially in agreement with him and the Queen on this one, Hamish."

"But-"

"Hamish, there's not really anything substantively new in any of Pritchart's so-called proposals. She's still flatly denying her government falsified our diplomatic exchanges. She's still asserting that she attacked us because of High Ridge's refusal to negotiate in good faith, and that our publication of our 'forged' diplomatic traffic indicates that the leopard-that's us, Hamish, in case you hadn't noticed-hasn't changed its spots just because of his fall from power. And she's insisting the plebiscites to be held on the previously occupied Havenite planets be conducted under her exclusive supervision. Where's anything new in any of that?"

"What's 'new' is that she's proposed a cessation of hostilities while we negotiate on the basis of her most recent round of proposals," White Haven said sharply. "Trust me. We need that cessation a lot worse than they do right now!"

"Why?" Langtry demanded bluntly. "Unless you've forgotten, we had a cease-fire in place-as far as we knew, anyway-the last time the Peeps launched a sneak attack on us. You are familiar with the old proverb that goes 'Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me,' aren't you?"

"Of course I am. But do you really think she's going to make that sort of proposal just so she can violate the cease-fire a second time? The whole point of the squabbling over who forged whose diplomatic correspondence is that she's trying to convince her own public, the rest of the galaxy, and possibly even a significant portion of our public opinion, that we were the ones who violated the accepted standards of diplomacy. That she attacked us only because we'd demonstrated we couldn't be trusted. If she offers to sit down and talk with us, then attacks us a second time while the talks are still in progress, she gives us the perfect opportunity to demonstrate that she's the one whose interstellar word can't be trusted."

"You could be right," Langtry acknowledged. "At the same time, she can always officially announce she's breaking off talks before she hits us again. And if she's careful to observe all the diplomatic niceties this time around, wouldn't that tend to strengthen her claim that she tried to observe them the last time?"

"That's so Machiavellian it makes my head hurt just thinking about it," White Haven complained. "Given the military situation, why should she try anything that complex?"

"How the hell should I know?" Langtry demanded testily. "All I can tell you is that she's already acted in ways that are at least that 'Machiavellian.' And as far as the military situation is concerned, I can actually see some logic from her side in calling a temporary halt to the war."

"I know," White Haven said wearily. He shook his head, sitting back and cradling Samantha against his chest. "I've had exactly the same conversation with Willie."

"Well, he has a point. At the moment, according to your own analysts, we've still got something close to effective military parity. But that balance is going to shift steadily in their favor over the next year or so. Wouldn't it make sense for them to use diplomacy to neutralize our military forces without firing another shot until they've built their own up to a point which gives them a decisive superiority?"

"Of course it would. And I'm not trying to suggest the Peeps are the most trustworthy people in the explored galaxy. Or, for that matter, even that Pritchart is remotely interested in negotiating in ultimate good faith. It may be significant that she's at least offering the possibility of third-party monitoring of the plebiscites on the disputed planets, but I'll freely acknowledge that even that could be nothing more than windowdressing. But the point is that if they hit us again as hard as they did the last time, if they go for a single vulnerable point and they're willing to take the losses, they can punch right through us tomorrow. Give me eight months-six; hell, give me four months!-and I'll make the price they'd pay for an attack like that so high even Oscar Saint-Just would've hesitated to pay it! That's what negotiating with them can buy us. The time to get our feet back under us."

"Hamish, it's not going to happen," Langtry said, shaking his head. "It's not going to happen for a lot of reasons. Because we can't trust them after they've already lied so comprehensively. Because even the reports from Admiral Givens admit that at this moment we can't be certain a cease-fire would help us militarily more than it would help them. Because the fact that they're offering it in the first place suggests it would help them militarily, at least in their opinion, more than it would help us. Because we're not going to allow them to rehabilitate themselves diplomatically and take back any of the moral high ground in interstellar public opinion. And, frankly, because the Queen hates their guts with a pure, burning passion. If you want her to sit down and talk with these people, after everything that's happened, then you've got to be able to demonstrate that it will provide us with a significant advantage without improving the Peeps' position simultaneously. And the truth is, Hamish, that you can't demonstrate that."

"No," White Haven admitted after a moment, his voice and expression both weary. "No, I can't. To be perfectly honest, there's a part of me which genuinely believes they mean it. That the demands they're still making are really pretty damned minimal, given the fact that they currently occupy all the planets in question. But I can't prove they are. And I can't prove that my awareness of our own weaknesses isn't causing me to overestimate how valuable a few months of relative operational inactivity would be for us."

"I know." Langtry regarded him with something almost like compassion. "And I also know," he added in an oddly gentle tone, "that Duchess Harrington continues to believe the Peeps' current leadership-or at least some elements of it-can be trusted to keep its word."

Samantha's ears twitched, and White Haven looked up quickly, eyes narrowed, at the reference to Honor, but Langtry only looked back levelly.

"As it happens," the Foreign Secretary continued, "I, also, have a very lively respect for Duchess Harrington's judgment. And I realize the two of you-and Emily, of course-have become close allies, politically, as well as militarily. But in this particular instance, I think I have to agree with the Queen and Willie that she's wrong. The Peeps' actions aren't those of the honorable people she thinks they are. There could be a lot of extenuating circumstances which account for that, but it's true. And we have to make our decisions based on their demonstrated behavior, not on what we think their internal character is really like."

White Haven started to reply, then clamped his jaw tightly. Whether he liked it or not, everything Langtry had just said made sense. It all hung together, and the Foreign Secretary was certainly right about the Havenites' demonstrated behavior.

And Langtry's tactful suggestion that he might be allowing Honor's view of Thomas Theisman-who, after all, was only one man-to influence his own analysis of the situation could well have merit. He didn't think he was, but it wasn't impossible.