Wednesday 23 August 2017

Undercover On Diomedes

Four groups operate undercover on Diomedes.

(i) Human agents of Merseia, posing as agents of Ythri, foment revolution among dissatisfied and disaffected natives.

(ii) Merseian agents who have infiltrated Imperial Intelligence arrive on Diomedes, where they occupy a wing of the Residency, ostensibly to investigate the Ythrian agitation. These Merseian agents include Aycharaych.

(iii) Other human agents of Merseia, posing as agents of Esperance investigating the alleged Ythrian agitation, claim to discover that the human agitators come not from the Domain of Ythri but from Dennitza.

(iv) The Gospodar of Dennitza sends his niece, Kossara Vymezal, accompanied by one zmay, Trohdwyr, ostensibly on a xenological study but covertly to investigate the accusation against Dennitza.

Thus, the only Dennitzans operating undercover on Diomedes are Kossara and Trohdwyr and they are there to investigate the allegation that Dennitzans are operating undercover on Diomedes! However:

a Diomedean leads the two Dennitzans to group (iii);
group (ii) attacks, killing Trohdwyr;
Aycharaych manipulates Kossara's memories, making her believe that -

she hates the Terran Empire;
she did go to Diomedes with other human Dennitzans to incite rebellion;
the Imperials killed not only Trohdwyr but also several human Dennitzans.

By going to Diomedes, Kossara compounded the lie that Dennitzans had gone to Diomedes for subversive purposes. In fact, she herself was made to believe the lie. Only Aycharaych could have perpetrated such a level of deception. Dennitzans did have problems with the Empire but not on the scale that Kossara was made to imagine.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Oh boy, I knew Aycharaych's scheming against the Empire in A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS was complex, but your summarizing truly shows how INTRICATE his plotting was. And I recall how Kossara wondered to Flandry how such a complex plot could WORK. Flandry responded, in part, that the enemy would expect some nuts and bolts to fall off, but was otherwise counting on it to work.

Sean