"Well, Captain," He resumed in a tone syrupy with bland innocence, "What seems to be the problem?"
Beet-faced and shaking in frustrated fury, Jirik tried to regain control of himself before replying. Several deep breaths enabled him to reply intelligibly, instead of bellowing incoherently. "You bastard! You son of a shlith! You knew what we'd find out! You knew damned well that we'd find out about this terrorist treason crap, and that it'd scare the hell out of us! You bastard! I had to lie to my crew, dream up a phony story that may end up ruining all of us, and stick my and my crews necks out a kilometer to get information that you already had!"
Tomys sat imperturbable, his smile never wavering. "If you are quite through roaring and bellowing, Captain, can we get on with this? I really do have more important things than your delicate sensibilities to worry about. Yes, I knew what you'd find out. I had to do it this way because, if I had told you that the Alliance faced either prolonged subversion or a rebellion of nine prosperous star systems when I was here before, You'd have laughed me out of your office, Class I Agent or not. Isn't that true?"
Jirik's anger faded somewhat as the truth of Tomys' words penetrated the red fog of his fury. "Yeah," he admitted, "You're probably right." He sighed deeply, and his anger subsided further. "Okay, so you're one smart son of a shlith. I never doubted that. So, are you going to tell me what it is you really want from us, now? Or are we going to play some more 'show and tell'?"
Tomys' unflappable grin was back. "Well, Captain., what I really want from you at the moment is your own expertise. You spent ten years in the Alliance Navy. You studied strategy and tactics, and are quite capable of threat evaluation. I want your opinion of both the actuality and the practicality of the rim worlds threat. Based upon what you and your crew have discovered do you believe that there is a real possibility of armed insurrection?"
Jirik's guffaw was loud and coarse. "Hell! If you're looking for a strategist or a tactician, you're knocking on the wrong door. It's been five years since my Navy days, and nine since Strategy and Tactics School. If you want an analysis send for an up-to-date specialist!"
Tomys was unperturbed. "I could do that, Captain, as you know. But as you pointed out at our previous meeting, naval officers, other than intelligence officers, are rarely skilled in covert operations. I cannot risk putting my opponents on guard by an obvious military presence. So, Captain, you must serve as my resident strategist and tactician. I want your honest assessment Captain. I need it."
Jirik had calmed, and realized that Tomys was not going to permit him to withdraw gracefully. He sighed deeply. "All right. You asked if I believed if there was a real chance of armed insurrection. The answer is yes. Not from the rim world governments, and not even from the mainstream of the Actionists. But when people believe in something as fervently as these people believe in 'Atmosism' and 'Actionism' I would say that chances approach certainty that there must be a group of extremists who feel that even the Actionists are moving too slowly."
"I think that they are the immediate threat. If they use terrorism to provoke a military response from the Alliance, they will likely be able to drag the entire coalition of worlds into a confrontation, and eventually armed insurrection." Jirik paused and looked at the agent piercingly. "Does that agree with your estimation of the situation?"
Tomys sardonic smile had disappeared. He looked as grim as Jirik felt. "Yes, it does. Now, what happens if they are unable to provoke a military response? What if the Alliance simply ignores their provocations?"
Jirik snorted. "It doesn't take a strategist to figure that out. If you ignore them, it will boost their standing in the Actionist movement, and maybe even permit them to take it over. Either way, my Engineer and I estimate that the Actionists will control most of the nine governments involved within three to five years. I would then expect the resources of those worlds to be devoted to large-scale missionary work and subversion of neighboring systems until they gain either enough backing to be able to force the Alliance to release them, or else eventually have enough votes to control the Alliance Senate, and thus the Alliance itself. You can't win by ignoring them, Tomys; though I'm sure that you know that." Jirik shrugged. "I'm damned if I know how you can win. At the most, I can see how you might be able to slow them down; but I sure don't see how you can stop them. It's like trying to stop a religion. The more you persecute them, the more martyrs you provide them."
Tomys looked uncomfortable. "Suppose, Captain, that their first attempted terrorist act was thwarted; thwarted in such a manner as to discredit the entire Actionist movement in the eyes of both the Alliance and the Coalition of Rim worlds."
Jirik laughed hollowly. "That would have to be some act! You'd have to catch them in the act of doing something that threatens not only the Alliance, but also the rim worlds themselves. If you could do it, you could slow the whole process for as much as, oh, fifty years or so, assuming the Longtermers regained control of all of the governments. I suspect that one of you Class I's would have to be stationed permanently on the rim to continue a permanent program of covert action. And if one of you got caught, especially with evidence that you'd been tinkering with rim governments, it could provoke overnight rebellion, not only along the rim, but among the rest of the Alliance, as well.
If Tomys was dismayed, he hid it well. "All right, Captain. Now, how would you assess the military threat? How much damage could they do if they did rebel?"
Jirik snickered. "How the hell would I know? I don't know what forces and equipment they have available. I have been giving this some thought, though. I don't know how many of those rim tramps they have available, but if they have many, they could be a serious threat. Admiral Kedron proved that a hundred years ago. Strip them and arm them, and I wouldn't want to command a battle cruiser in a fight with very many of them." He produced a chart of the sector, and explained to Tomys how he had analyzed the possibility the first night. The grim set of Tomys' face was apparent despite the anachronistic eyeglasses that he affected. "You don't sound very hopeful, Captain," he commented.
"You're damned right I'm not!" Jirik replied heatedly. "In fact, I'm scared right down to my bloody boots. If I can manage it, I want to get the hell off this planet and out of this sector, for good! If I never see the bloody rim again, it'll be too damned soon. I like to read about interesting places and times, but I damned sure don't want to live through them! I'll be quite happy reading about the rim rebellion in Empire newsfaxes!"
Tomys made no reply. He appeared to be thinking. Finally after an uncomfortable silence lasting nearly a minute, he straightened in his chair.
"Captain, when I came in here, you mentioned that you had to dream up a story that may end up ruining you. Perhaps you'd better explain."
Jirik's face, which had cleared to normal during his intellectual discussion of strategy and tactics, reddened with anger again. "I did something stupid. I realized that two of my crew couldn't carry off a deception, and that I'd have to lie to them to get the information you wanted. When you here the other day, you mentioned that if I wanted to make a killing, I should bring back a load of books from the Empire. I used that as a cover story, telling the crewmen that I wanted to look into the possibility. Then I scheduled meetings every night to find out what they'd heard. My Engineer and I wore bugs when we were out, and I recorded the meetings, so that you could get any info the other crewmen got. Just to make the story look good for my crew, I even scheduled a meeting with a guy named Fanlin at the Library to discuss it. You know him?"