‘Of course – don’t risk interrogation at all, tell them you want to sell me out, as well as the secret. That will make sense to them, and I think they must have rules against interrogating a member who offers to sell; most Traitors’ Guilds do.’
‘True, but they’ll observe them only so long as they believe me; that’s standard too.’
Simon shrugged, ‘Be convincing then,’ he said. ‘I have already said that this project will be dangerous; presumably you didn’t become a traitor for sweet safety’s sole sake.’
‘No, but not for suicide’s either. But I’ll abide the course. Where are the documents?’
‘Give me access to your Prince’s toposcope-scriber and I’ll produce them. But first – twenty riyals, please.’
‘Minus two riyals for the use of the Prince’s property. Bribes, you know.’
‘Your sister was wrong, you do have style, in a myopic sort of way. All right, eighteen riyals – and then let’s get on to real business. My time is not my own – not by a century.’
‘But how do I reach you thereafter?’
‘That information,’ Simon said blandly, ‘will cost you those other two riyals, and cheap at the price.’
III
The Rood-Prince’s brain-dictation laboratory was very far from being up to Guild standards, let alone High Earth’s, but Simon was satisfied that the documents he generated there would pass muster. They were utterly authentic, and every experienced traitor had a feeling for that quality, regardless of such technical deficiencies as blurry image registration and irrelevant emotional overtones.
That done, Simon began to consider how he would meet Da-Ud when the game had that much furthered itself. The arrangement he had made with the play woman’s half-brother was of course a blind, indeed a double blind, but it had to have the virtues of its imperfections or nothing would be accomplished. Yet Simon was now beginning to find it hard to think; the transduction serum was increasingly taking hold, and there were treasons taking place inside his skull which had nothing to do with Boadicea, the Green Exarch or High Earth. Worse: they seemed to have nothing to do with Simon de Kuyl, either, but instead muttered away about silly little provincial intrigues nothing could have brought him to care about – yet which made him feel irritated, angry, even ill, like a man in the throes of jealousy toward some predecessor and unable to reason them away. Knowing their source, he fought them studiously, but he knew they would get steadily worse, however resolute he was; they were coming out of his genes and his bloodstream, not his once finely honed, now dimming conciousness.