Morah seemed deeply impressed. Still, he said, “You realize that I could prevent you from making that report.”

“Possibly,” he agreed. “But it would do no good. The raw data has already been shifted, and they have a Merton impression of me. They could, with some trouble, go through this entire thing again in a very safe area, and come up with the same report. Besides, I doubt if they would believe I died accidentally—so killing me would tip more of your hand.”

“The problems of killing you safely and convincingly are hardly insurmountable, but what you say is true. Doing so would buy very little time. But I’m not certain you do have the total picture. It would be a pity to sacrifice the Warden Diamond, but only a local tragedy. You have failed to consider all the implications of what you have learned. And, it is true, things are iffy should that happen. But there is at least a forty-percent chance that such an outcome would not adversely affect my bosses’ plans and hopes at all. There is more than a ninety-percent chance that it will not completely be a washout from their point of view.”

That disturbed him a bit. “How long would they need for a hundred-percent success rate? In other words, how much time are we talking about?”

“To do things right—decades. A century, perhaps. I know what you’re thinking. Too long. But the alternative will not be the disaster to my people you counted on, only a major inconvenience.”

He nodded glumly. “And if they are—inconvenienced? What sort of price will they exact on the Confederacy?”

“A terrible one. We had hoped from the beginning to avoid any sort of major bloodshed, although, I admit, the prospect of fouling up the Confederacy has great appeal for us. Foul them up, perhaps try and overthrow them from within, yes—but not all-out war. That prospect appeals not at all to the thinking ones among us, and is exciting only to the naive and the totally psychotic.” The frown came back a bit. “I wonder, though, just how much of the truth you really do know.”