never even visited before.”
“That’s understood.” Bardasano nodded again. “Unfortunately, we don’t have anybody who that wouldn’t be true of, and our estimate is that you’d be better at coping with the potential difficulties than most.”
“So I assume I’d be provided with the information I’d need. Or, at least, the information you think I’d need.” He showed his teeth briefly. “That’s not always the same thing.”
“In that case, what information would you require?”
“Oh, I’d want to see your analysts’ take, of course. But I’d also like access to the raw data itself. The ability to draw my own conclusions based on the original source material.”
“There’s likely to be quite a lot of that,” she pointed out, and he chuckled.
“I’m a fast study, Ms. Bardasano. I’ve had to be. And even if I can’t review all the raw data, any of it I can get through would help my feel for the situation. It certainly couldn’t hurt, anyway. And to be totally honest, sometimes the simple confidence that I’ve gotten my head wrapped as thoroughly as possible around the data helps me carry through something like this. I may not always be right in my analyses, but I am more often than not. And the fact that I think I’m right lets me move a lot more confidently. The amount of assurance I can project has a direct bearing on how readily I can get someone like Nordbrandt or Westman to accept that I’m who I say I am and trust me. As far as they trust anyone, at least.”
“I see.” She considered him thoughtfully, then nodded. “Fine. I don’t see any problem, as long as the data’s properly secured while it’s in your possession.”
“I don’t think there’d be any worries there,” Harahap said confidently.
“So you’re prepared to take the assignment?”
He considered that question very carefully. The one thing of which he was totally confident was that she wasn’t telling him everything. In fact, it was unlikely she was telling him more than a third or a quarter of the truth. In her place, he certainly wouldn’t have trusted a newly recruited field agent with the full knowledge of for whom or to precisely what end he was working. By the same token, she clearly understood that for an operation to succeed, the operators in question had to have the tools they needed. And as all those luxuriously appointed offices and suites here on Mesa indicated, it looked like there’d be some nice perks to the job, at least.
I wonder who she’s really working for? he mused. It may be Jessyk, and I’m sure it’s Manpower, but who else is involved? I doubt it’s Kalokainos at this point—not if he’s really the one who tried to have Ulrike and me murdered. But it could be. God only knows the alliances between transstellars are about as durable as an ice cube in sunlight!
“So you want me to evaluate your analyses, run down any local resistance leaders I can, evaluate how likely they are to succeed with suitable outside help, and promise them your ‘employers’ will provide that help?”
“Almost, Mister Harahap. Almost. Except for that last bit.”
“About providing help?” Harahap frowned. “Forgive me, but I thought that was an integral part of what you had in mind.”
“Oh, it is!” This time Bardasano’s smile could have shamed a shark. “It’s just that we don’t want you to promise we’ll be the ones helping them.”
Chapter Seven
Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and
“That’s understood.” Bardasano nodded again. “Unfortunately, we don’t have anybody who that wouldn’t be true of, and our estimate is that you’d be better at coping with the potential difficulties than most.”
“So I assume I’d be provided with the information I’d need. Or, at least, the information you think I’d need.” He showed his teeth briefly. “That’s not always the same thing.”
“In that case, what information would you require?”
“Oh, I’d want to see your analysts’ take, of course. But I’d also like access to the raw data itself. The ability to draw my own conclusions based on the original source material.”
“There’s likely to be quite a lot of that,” she pointed out, and he chuckled.
“I’m a fast study, Ms. Bardasano. I’ve had to be. And even if I can’t review all the raw data, any of it I can get through would help my feel for the situation. It certainly couldn’t hurt, anyway. And to be totally honest, sometimes the simple confidence that I’ve gotten my head wrapped as thoroughly as possible around the data helps me carry through something like this. I may not always be right in my analyses, but I am more often than not. And the fact that I think I’m right lets me move a lot more confidently. The amount of assurance I can project has a direct bearing on how readily I can get someone like Nordbrandt or Westman to accept that I’m who I say I am and trust me. As far as they trust anyone, at least.”
“I see.” She considered him thoughtfully, then nodded. “Fine. I don’t see any problem, as long as the data’s properly secured while it’s in your possession.”
“I don’t think there’d be any worries there,” Harahap said confidently.
“So you’re prepared to take the assignment?”
He considered that question very carefully. The one thing of which he was totally confident was that she wasn’t telling him everything. In fact, it was unlikely she was telling him more than a third or a quarter of the truth. In her place, he certainly wouldn’t have trusted a newly recruited field agent with the full knowledge of for whom or to precisely what end he was working. By the same token, she clearly understood that for an operation to succeed, the operators in question had to have the tools they needed. And as all those luxuriously appointed offices and suites here on Mesa indicated, it looked like there’d be some nice perks to the job, at least.
I wonder who she’s really working for? he mused. It may be Jessyk, and I’m sure it’s Manpower, but who else is involved? I doubt it’s Kalokainos at this point—not if he’s really the one who tried to have Ulrike and me murdered. But it could be. God only knows the alliances between transstellars are about as durable as an ice cube in sunlight!
“So you want me to evaluate your analyses, run down any local resistance leaders I can, evaluate how likely they are to succeed with suitable outside help, and promise them your ‘employers’ will provide that help?”
“Almost, Mister Harahap. Almost. Except for that last bit.”
“About providing help?” Harahap frowned. “Forgive me, but I thought that was an integral part of what you had in mind.”
“Oh, it is!” This time Bardasano’s smile could have shamed a shark. “It’s just that we don’t want you to promise we’ll be the ones helping them.”
Chapter Seven
Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and
Similar Books
