Extract from an interview of Agent 1st Class Maico Tange, IWSS, on "George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight"
...
Maico: The top brass knew it was going to be a tricky survey as soon as Survey discovered their local date was the same as ours and Centrum's. That's why I was the only person sent in, and the conveyor didn't stay - the top brass didn't want any chance of the locals reverse-engineering any technology that would shed light on The Secret. What we didn't expect, and what I discovered seventeen minutes after I was dropped off, was that The Secret wasn't a secret on Convention. They had been traveling the infinite worlds for years.
George: Was it just dumb luck that they've never encountered a Homeline team? Or a Centrum team, for that matter?
Maico: No, not at all. There are so many worlds out there that there's no way we can visit even a small fraction of a percent of them all, even in Quantum 5. And Convention isn't on Quantum 5; it's on Q6. As I said, it only took me seventeen minutes to discover they already knew about parachronics, and it was in the most mundane way possible.
George: Oh?
Maico: I happened to notice a advertising flyer promoting the new release of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" from three recently-discovered alternate worlds. Suddenly my mission had gone from "covert investigation of a potential threat" to "covert investigation of a potential ally or enemy." And an hour later, even that changed.
George: Because they made contact with you.
Maico: Exactly. At first, I thought it was because their parachronic sensors were as good as ours. It turned out that I had dropped into a Convention training ground, and some Explorer recruits were in the middle of survival training. It was so much like the training I had gone through north of Winnipeg - our Winnipeg - that I almost fell into the old habits of a recruit.
George: Did they think you were another recruit?
Maico: At first, but it was just my luck that one of the cadets was the daughter of the Convention's primary financial backer, and already knew all the recruits. Helen Anderson, the person who forced me into a temporary career change from "scout" to "diplomat" - we still keep in touch, but not as often as either of us would like.
As this point, Maico smiles.
George: How close are the two of you, if you don't mind me asking?
Maico: We were guests at each other's weddings, but neither of us were in the other's wedding party. She saved my life on Azoth-6, and I saved hers on Caliph. We're fairly close.
...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
...
Maico: The top brass knew it was going to be a tricky survey as soon as Survey discovered their local date was the same as ours and Centrum's. That's why I was the only person sent in, and the conveyor didn't stay - the top brass didn't want any chance of the locals reverse-engineering any technology that would shed light on The Secret. What we didn't expect, and what I discovered seventeen minutes after I was dropped off, was that The Secret wasn't a secret on Convention. They had been traveling the infinite worlds for years.
George: Was it just dumb luck that they've never encountered a Homeline team? Or a Centrum team, for that matter?
Maico: No, not at all. There are so many worlds out there that there's no way we can visit even a small fraction of a percent of them all, even in Quantum 5. And Convention isn't on Quantum 5; it's on Q6. As I said, it only took me seventeen minutes to discover they already knew about parachronics, and it was in the most mundane way possible.
George: Oh?
Maico: I happened to notice a advertising flyer promoting the new release of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" from three recently-discovered alternate worlds. Suddenly my mission had gone from "covert investigation of a potential threat" to "covert investigation of a potential ally or enemy." And an hour later, even that changed.
George: Because they made contact with you.
Maico: Exactly. At first, I thought it was because their parachronic sensors were as good as ours. It turned out that I had dropped into a Convention training ground, and some Explorer recruits were in the middle of survival training. It was so much like the training I had gone through north of Winnipeg - our Winnipeg - that I almost fell into the old habits of a recruit.
George: Did they think you were another recruit?
Maico: At first, but it was just my luck that one of the cadets was the daughter of the Convention's primary financial backer, and already knew all the recruits. Helen Anderson, the person who forced me into a temporary career change from "scout" to "diplomat" - we still keep in touch, but not as often as either of us would like.
As this point, Maico smiles.
George: How close are the two of you, if you don't mind me asking?
Maico: We were guests at each other's weddings, but neither of us were in the other's wedding party. She saved my life on Azoth-6, and I saved hers on Caliph. We're fairly close.
...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012