Over the weekend, David Trimble and Gerry Adams continued their high-wire efforts to achieve a surer form of peace and politics in Northern Ireland. Gerry Moriarty reports.
That remains possible but not absolutely certain. What seems impossible after Saturday's Ulster Unionist conference is a surer peace within the UUP.
When Mr Trimble was delivering his keynote speech in the Armagh City Hotel on Saturday, David Burnside was standing at the back muttering "rubbish" as his leader castigated him and his dissident colleagues.
Are you in or outside the party? Decide - that was the stern line from Mr Trimble.
Party president the Rev Martin Smyth on the platform table remained stapled to his seat as Mr Trimble received the customary standing ovation on finishing his delivery.
Mr Jeffrey Donaldson couldn't even bear to sit in the same conference room as his leader to hear the address. "I am not going to sit in a hall and be insulted by the party leader in what I must say is deceitful language and I think it is time David Trimble started telling the truth instead of trying to misrepresent our position. I am not going to give credibility to a speech which misrepresents my position by sitting and listening to it," he said.
It is difficult to see, in the face of such rebellion, how Mr Donaldson and Mr Burnside could campaign under the Ulster Unionist banner in an Assembly election. And with such divisions how can the UUP compete with the DUP - even with a deal?
At least there is absolute clarity on one point: the Ulster Unionist civil war is not over.
But is the IRA war over? The flippant answer is that it will be over before the UUP internal war is over. As to the correct answer: the work was continuing late last night to strike a deal that will involve the IRA convincing unionists in particular that it is going out of business.
Mr Hugh Orde, the PSNI chief constable, told the conference that the IRA had "no intention of going back to armed struggle" but added it was involved in ancillary activities. That's the business mentioned in paragraph 13 of the joint declaration - "punishment" attacks, arms procurement, intelligence gathering etc. - which the two governments and the Ulster Unionists want them to cease.
Close by in Armagh on Saturday, Sinn Féin was cheekily holding a conference on how and when a united Ireland would be achieved. Sinn Féin chairman Mr Mitchel McLaughlin told reporters: "We have ended the war on our streets. Let us now deal with the legacy of the conflict and do it in a measured way, and do it as quickly as possible."
Positive words but it does not necessarily presage a deal. Such quotes, and better quotes, must come from P. O'Neill.
Nearly there, but not there yet, and it could still all unravel, was the general word on the negotiations at the weekend. There was talk around the conference centre of Mr Trimble and Mr Adams having a lively spat on Friday but, regardless, they returned to the negotiating fray yesterday.
Certainly, at his annual conference, Mr Trimble did not say anything that would threaten the talks and jeopardise any chance of the Taoiseach and British Prime Minister returning to Hillsborough today or tomorrow to sign off on a deal that would lead to elections and a working Executive.
He acknowledged that what unionists wanted from republicans entailed a huge step for the IRA but stressed that, while the acts of completion must happen, they could hardly happen all at once. He allowed for important "wriggle room".
Another senior source said what was crucial from these negotiations was clear evidence of the IRA's "intention" to end activity. The same source, who is close to Mr Trimble, warned that, while these negotiations are critical, Ulster Unionists could also countenance elections being further postponed until March if the IRA did not deliver sufficiently now.
But, should the negotiations succeed, how does the UUP go into an election at the end of November - or even in the spring - with such a high-profile, angry rump of rebels?
In this week of political hope, doubt, nervousness and uncertainty, the only unionists who would have totally enjoyed the UUP conference were DUP Assembly candidates.
Ulster Unionists badly need revitalising. There were a lot of empty chairs in the Armagh City Hotel on Saturday. It is very obvious that, if the pro-Belfast Agreement wing of Ulster Unionism is to have any chance in elections, the prospective deal must be marketable to unionism. Ulster Unionists need a strong shot of political Benzedrine and they need the IRA to provide it.