NORTHWORLD

engineering report and cleared her to remain indefinitely in Medusa orbit. And
no one seemed to have the least doubt what the outcome of Haven's plans would
have been had Lord Pavel Young remained the senior officer on Basilisk Sthation.
He and Warlock had been banished to escort duty, poking along through hyper to
guard tramp freighters playing back and forth to the Silesian Confederacy. Not even
First Lord Janacek or his father had been able to save him from that. He was lucky
they'd been able to keep him on active duty at all. As for the People's Republic of
Haven, Queen Elizabeth's Government and Navy weren''t yet strong enough to
embrace open war, especially not waken the battered Opposition could still point
out—accurately—that all evidence linking Haven to the mekoha and rifles on
Medusa was circumstantial. It was highly suspicious to find a member of the
Havenite Consulate's staff (and a full colonel in the Republic's army, no less),
supplying the shaman's army, but he was dead, and the Republic had insisted—
and produced the splendidly official documentation to "prove"— that Colonel
Westerfeldt had been discharged from his consular position for peculation weeks
before the unfortunate incident. No doubt he had been involved even then with
the Manticoran criminals who had really supplied the natives. The criminals in
question, captured by Papadapolous's Marines, hadn't been able to prove Haven
had been their paymaster, nor would they ever be able to prove anything again.
The last of them had faced the firing squad over a month ago. Not that anyone
who mattered doubted Haven's involvement. The Opposition parties might claim
that they did in their determination to avoid the war they dreaded, but they
knew the as well as Honor did. Nor would anyone wok had been on
Medusa— who had seen what the Medusans had done to Lieutenant Malcolm's
patrol, wok remembered the drug lab explosion or the slaughter to which Haven
had delivered the Medusa nomads—forget or forgive, and in the meantime, the
Queen had taken steps to express her displeasure. By Crown Proclamation, any