Some spy fiction - and presumably also spy life - features endless betrayals. There is some of this in The People Of The Wind. Philippe Rochefort does not kiss the sleeping Tabitha Falkayn before he creeps away. I misremembered him as thinking that it would make him feel like Judas but all that he does think is that it might wake her up. But he does invoke Joan of Arc and all saints. (He is a Jerusalem Catholic.)
Arinnian reflects on multiple betrayals:
"Terra-Ythri. Ythri-Avalon. Tabitha-Rochefort. Eyath-Draun, no, Draun-Eyath...Vodan-whatsername, that horrible creature in Centauri, yes, Quenna...Eyath-anybody, because right now she was anybody's..." (XVI, p. 613)
Then, when Arinnian and Tabitha/Hrill hear his stolen flitter take off:
"'Phil!' she shouted. Ah, thought Arinnian. Indeed. The next betrayal." (p. 618)
Tabitha gave Phil disinformation which he takes to his Admiral. Do they betray each other?
7 comments:
There's a reason spies were generally looked down on before the 20th century -- until after WW2, in fact. It's because they necessarily lie and betray.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: Considering how Tabitha was "leading on" Rochefort to making what he should have realized was a suspiciously easy escape I don't think she had a right to feel betrayed.
Mr. Stirling: I'm seeing a lot of that lying and betraying from Luz O'Malley in your BLACK CHAMBER books. Yes, to help ensure the safety of the US that kind of behavior was necessary if Luz was going to do her job as a spy. But it can't be denied such acts would be very bad indeed if committed by her as a private citizen.
I have also read Sun T'zu's THE ART OF WAR, written possibly around 500 BC as China was entering the Warring States era during the decline of the Eastern Chou Dynasty. Chapter XIII is esp. interesting, dealing as it does with the question of how best to use spies. I think Sun T'zu was the earliest known military thinker to develop a theoretical framework for making effective use of spies in Intelligence work.
Too bad our bungling, incompetent political leaders (I include you, "Josip"!) seem to be too stupid to have read Sun T'zu!* They should because Maoist China is using his teachings to help guide its rise to becoming a hostile superpower.
Ad astra! Sean
*Never mind studying other useful military classics such as Flavius Vegetius' DE RE MILITARI or Clausewitz's ON WAR.
Ah, well, the country has survived bad leaders before.
As for China, I wouldn't overrate Xi.
China's economy has stopped growing, its population is shrinking -- by around 3 million last year -- and it's rapidly aging. In fact, the -working age- population of China has dropped by 80 million at least in the last decade. Ten million just last year, and the decline in both totals and working-age is increasing.
It's military hasn't fought anyone since they took a slap at Vietnam in 1979, and is riddled with corruption -- promotions are quasi-openly bought and sold.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Adam Smith famously said nations can tolerate a good deal of ruination. But, how much ruination can the US (or the UK, for that matter) endure before something crucial breaks?
Understood, what you said about the need to avoid thinking Xi is ten feet tall and a mastermind of guile. But the problems China is suffering that you listed could make Xi desperate, that he has to strike before things get really bad inside China. Such as making a grab for Taiwan. And if a weak, senile, incompetent President like "Josip" is reelected, that would Xi more time for truly dangerous trouble making.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: my take is that powers with nuclear weapons -can't- fight each other straight-up. Neither will accept a real defeat without blowing everything up.
Nuclear war is like the proverbial knife-fight: the -winner- goes to Emergency Care.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I hope you are right, but I do expect wars and conflicts at lower levels of intensity, esp. with rival powers striking at enemies thru proxies and clients, as Iran has been doing. And I don't think it's totally impossible for nations with nukes to use them--if they think they can get away with that.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
This discussion, involving as it did my repeated mentions of Sun Tzu's THE ART OF WAR, made me decide to reread Samuel Griffiths' translation of that work.
Ad astra! Sean
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