Wednesday 26 August 2020

CIA

"The Sorrow of Odin the Goth," 1980.

"...we left the impression that my vaguely described new position was a cover for a post in the CIA." (p. 351)

It is, kind of. Behind the scenes, the CIA pulls stunts which either succeed or fail. Behind those scenes, the Time Patrol ensures, whenever an external input becomes necessary, that those stunts do
either succeed or fail. Within the Patrol, agents like Guion work to ensure a satisfactory long-term outcome. And, beyond the Patrol, are the Danellians. No one in Langley suspects that some of the events that concern them might have been ordered in Danellian HQ over a million years later - unless, of course, some of the Langley staff are Patrol agents. Everard has a list of contemporary agents, some in military intelligence. And their loyalty is to the future, not to the immediate strategic interests of whichever nation-state they nominally serve.

1 comment:

S.M. Stirling said...

Not a novel situation in intelligence agencies -- sometimes the double/triple/etc. agents aren't sure -themselves- who they're 'really' working for.