Diana's Skills

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

Diana, a Crowfeather, not a Flandry, is not yet an agent of the Terran Empire. Nevertheless, she develops appropriate skills. 

There are three accounts of why Targovi transported Axor and Diana from Imhotep to Daedalus:

he wanted them as stalking horses;

Axor thinks that he did it from benevolence;

for plausibility, Targori tells Pele Zachary that Axor paid him.

There are two accounts of why Targovi arrived at Lulach later than his two traveling companions:

in fact, he fled from the spaceport to avoid detention as a Gerhart loyalist and hid at Ju Shao's inn until he was able to follow in disguise;

he tells Pele that, with the others, he was arrested and interrogated but then released at the spaceport but that he stayed longer in Aurea, unsuccessfully trying to gain clearance for a return to Imhotep.

Axor must be prevented from innocently contradicting Targovi in conversation with Zacharians so Diana invents two cover stories:

she hints to Axor that she paid Targovi to transport them to Daedalus;

Targovi panicked at the spaceport because Tigeries cannot abide long imprisonment but was soon caught, interrogated and released and was too embarrassed to tell Pele about his unnecessary panic.

Two cover stories worthy of a Flandry: Targovi regards Diana with respect.