She took a deep breath. "I think they look like a pack of misdirections and lies from beginning to end." "Any ideas as towhose lies?" Kharls asked. She said nothing.
He sat back in his chair. "You know," Kharls said slowly, "there was a time, a culture — a human culture, mind you — in which, if someone accused you of lying, they had the right to try to kill you. Right there. Isn't that fascinating?"
She paled, and her eyes slid to the tri-staff that leaned casually against the wall within Kharls's reach. "They called it 'giving someone the lie,' " Kharls said, "or 'the lie direct'. What a busy time it must have been, human nature being what it was and is."
"Administrator Kharls," Delonghi said, sounding much more cautious now, "maybe I should rephrase that."
"Maybe you should."
"Your behavior as regards this. . asset, if that's the word I'm fumbling for — for he looks more like a liability every time I consider him — your behavior regarding him is undermining a genuine Intelligence priority. How is Concord Intel — or Star Force Intel for that matter, since that's my cover at the moment — supposed to find out anything useful when you allow other assets to contaminate him?" " 'Allow?' " He looked at her with surprise. "That suggests that I know in advance what they're going to do."
"Of course you—" She stopped.
Kharls looked at her hard from under those bushy eyebrows. "Miss Delonghi," he said. "Forgive me if I do not take you entirely into my confidence at the moment. I have a very large remit, as you may know—"
"You are a Concord Administrator," she said, with the air of someone trying to cut straight to the heart of the matter, "and probably the most powerful being in these spaces."
He leaned back again, though not with any look of being flattered or mollified. "Would it shock you," Kharls began, "if you knew that my main purpose, as so powerful a being — let me for the moment adopt your language — was to create the conditions in which my job description, and my job, became unnecessary?"
Her eyes widened. Kharls did not smile at her, though the temptation briefly crossed his mind. "You won't believe me when I say as much," Kharls said. "What sane being would? Who would want to put himself out of a job in which planetary governments take his lightest word as the equivalent of enacted primary legislation, in which he can exercise what used to be called 'high, low, and middle justice'— the powers ofjudge, jury, and executioner? Would you believe something like that? Of course not. So I can make such outrageous statements and get away with it. Not being believed is a tool of considerable utility when one exercises it with care." He waited to see if she would at least react to the irony. Not a flicker, he thought. It will be a while yet before this one has come along to where I want her. "At any rate, I have not sent this particular asset out into the night to remain uncontaminated."
"There are those who say he's contaminated enough as it is," said Delonghi, trying unsuccessfully to restrain an expression of scorn.
"So they have and will," Kharls replied. "That's all to the good, for the moment. If the situation changes, I will judge it accordingly… but not before."
"You're telling me that you've purposely sent this operative out to make contact with enemy intelligence organizations—"
" 'Enemy' is such a narrowing term," said Kharls. "Who knows in what relationship the Concord will stand within, say, twenty or thirty years to any of the stellar nations that presently are not part of it? Or how matters will stand in the Verge? And even inside the Concord, as you well know, there's considerable difference of opinion about what nations and issues are most important. Nearlyinfinite difference of opinion." He smiled grimly. "Fortunately, my job is not about reconciling opinion, which is just as well, since that would be impossible. My job is to make things out here in the Verge work as well as they can for the moment, and to figure out how to make them work better still for the people who'll come out here to live, and those who are here already. In particular, my remit charges me to look out toward the edges of things, the unpoliced and untravelled spaces all around the Verge where situations are not as clear-cut as they are in toward the First Worlds — much less structured and more chaotic. The textbooks don't do much good out here for even the best-intentioned agent, ambassador, or ship's commander. One learns to strike out into the dark and try techniques that might seem foolish elsewhere." Kharls sat back again, looking at his folded hands. "I have no scruples about using agents who may seem tainted or chaotic to the textbook types. If that conceals such agents' true value, so much the better, for valuable assets, unfortunately, tend to be killed the most quickly. As regards the object of our discussion, however, you need to be clear thatI have not sent him anywhere. He is one of the very few genuinely free operatives I manage — if manage is even the word, since he completely rejects any idea that I have any such power over him." "Then he's a fool," Delonghi said. "Possibly, but he's also right."
Delonghi kept her face still. Kharls watched this exercise with interest. "See that," he said, "youstill don't believe me. I wonder if the ancients had an offense called'disbeliefdirect'?"
He got up, stretched, and stepped around to the big viewport that was the room's only other indulgence. "If he draws the attention of other intelligence assets," Kharls said, looking out into the starry blackness, "that is all to the good. He is a lightning rod, Delonghi. He is being held out into the dark specifically to see what forces he attracts. But he is not to be seen as having no value simply because he is being used as a lightning rod. In the old days, the very best ones used to be made at least partially of precious metal."
Kharls turned away from the viewport. "Now, obviously you want to go out and have a personal look into this situation… and meddle." Her face did not move at the word. "Well, you were a talented meddler for some years, which is why you're here with me and my people at all. I suppose we can hardly blame you for wanting to revert to type."
He sat down again. "In short, I've decided to allow you to do so. I am instructing you to go and examine this situation personally." Her eyes narrowed. Badly concealed triumph, which for the moment he declined to notice. "With the following conditions. You are not to interfere in any way with the subject's free pursuit of his own objectives. You may try to determine what they are or what hethinks they are. I require you to report to me regularly on the details. You are to pay particular attention to the attempts of other intelligence organizations to interfere with him. You are not yourself to interfere with those attempts."
"Even if they kill him?"
"They may look like they want to," said Kharls softly, "but I assure you, they do not. Theywill not either, unless someone fumbles badly. They are eager to find out whywe are so interested in him. As eager as you are, I dare say."
Atthat, she did have the grace to blush. Kharls did not react to this either. "You are to keep your own head down. Do not be noticed by them. For our own part, I want to know the sources oftheir interest — the motivations of whoever you find watching him or trying to affect him. No one spends so much time watching someone merely to discover what he knows that they don't. More often they watch to see what he knows thatthey know too… and what they fear for anyone else to find out." She nodded.