“As you suspected,” Krasna said conversationally, “the Service is infallible. How it got that way is a story that started several centuries back.
Dana Ljeher father had been a Hollander, her mother born in the Celebessat down in the chair which Captain Robin Weinbaum had indicated, crossed her legs, and waited, her blue-black hair shining under the lights.
Weinbaum eyed her quizzically. The conqueror Resident who had given the girl her entirely European name had been paid in kind, for his daughter’s beauty had nothing fair and Dutch about it. To the eye of the beholder, Dana Lje seemed a particularly delicate virgin of Bali, despite her Western name, clothing and assurance. The combination had already proven piquant for the millions who watched her television column, and Weinbaum found it no less charming at first hand.
“As one of your most recent victims,” he said, “I’m not sure that I’m honored, Miss Lje. A few of my wounds are still bleeding. But I am a good deal puzzled as to why you’re visiting me now. Aren’t you afraid that I’ll bite back?”
“I had no intention of attacking you personally, and I don’t think I did,” the video columnist said seriously. “It was just pretty plain that our intelligence had slipped badly in the Erskine affair. It was my job to say so. Obviously you were going to get hurt, since you’re head of the bureau but there was no malice in it.”
“Cold comfort,” Weinbaum said dryly. “But thank you, nevertheless.”
The Eurasian girl shrugged. “That isn’t what I came here about, anyway. Tell me, Captain Weinbaumhave you ever heard of an outfit calling itself Interstellar Information?”