Replication looking for errant sysserver links

We have replication successfully running but when I tried to set up a new test instance on completely different servers (Server A to Server B, say) the push agent to create the susbcription on Server B complains

'Could not find server 'Server C' in sysservers. Execute sp_addlinkedserver. . . .'

Server C was never configured as a subscriber for the publication in the first place. What's more, Server C is actually a working linked server and definitely is in sysservers for Server A.

I originally tried this on yet another server pair and got a similar message referencing a server name that no longer exists. I stopped messing with that one, figuring it was some historical naming issue I didn't want to mess with. But now I'm stumped and intrigued. Can anyone help

The supposedly unlinked server is definitely linked, and shows up correctly in the sysserver collection, which also looks fine.

It's wierd, but it's only a test instance I was trying to set up, Our live replication is working fine and we didn't really need the test this time.

I think these servers went through name changes. It probably had the server linked under its old name. Just a guess, but we had a lot of problems changing server names when our corporation was absorbed into a larger IT force and we had to follow a new naming convention. Replication broke, of course, and I recall we needed to clean out various tables before we could reimplement. So I'm guessing it's something along those lines.