Medart rose to greet his visitor, then gestured him to a chair and sat back down as Nevan took the seat. "Your note said you'd like to see me about a personal matter, to be discussed under warrior privacy. What's the problem?"
"It's not exactly a problem, sir, and I'm not quite sure how to approach it, even with a battle-companion. You're familiar with our custom of personal fealty."
That was a statement, not a question, but Medart nodded. "Very familiar; I'm also battle-companion to Lord Klaes' 'na, Gaelan-Frederick DarShona. Who are you planning on offering fealty to?" As if he couldn't guess, he thought.
Nevan was relieved at the Ranger's calm response. "I would like to serve Ranger Losinj, but she doesn't need an inexperienced young officer, even a warrior. Since I've been given my choice of assignments, I was hoping you'd help me pick one that will give me the kind of experience she's likely to need. I'll just have to hope she doesn't accept another 'na before I'm able to give her the kind of service she needs."
Medart studied the young Sandeman for several moments. "I can do that," he said at last. "But it's a type of work I think you'd find distasteful, given your honesty, and given some of your cultural conditioning, you could find the training for it intolerable. Your psych profile, though, says you're adaptable enough that you could accept both, given adequate motivation."
Nevan frowned. "I'm afraid I don't understand, sir. I don't know of any Imperial job I would find distasteful, much less intolerable."
Medart chuckled. "Sure you do—it's covered at the Academy, though not in great depth; the fact that you don't even like to think about it proves my point. But if you can manage the training, I think you'd make an outstanding field agent."
"Field agent!" Nevan couldn't help it; he grimaced in revulsion. "Those are—" he hesitated, then decided even one of High War Speech's worst insults wasn't too strong—"nekulturniy."
Medart grew serious. "Not at all, though I was sure you'd react that way. Nevan, field agents have as much integrity as anyone else in Imperial service, and they're necessary. Some investigations are impossible to carry out openly—trying to find the Melgarie pirates' base is a case in point. The only way it'll be found and destroyed, other than by sheer accident, is by infiltration. If it could be done openly, it's big enough it'd be a Ranger's job; since it can't, field agents go in. To succeed, an agent will have to convince the pirates @'s a criminal—probably have to take part in some crimes for that purpose—to be allowed onto the base at all. Then @'ll have to convince them @'s trustworthy enough to be allowed access to the base's defenses to determine their strength, and to communication facilities to call in a strong enough Navy force to take the base out… preferably coming out alive @self."
Medart paused. He wished he could read the Sandeman's mind, but Nevan's shield was definitely up. Still, revulsion seemed to have subsided to dislike, so he continued. "That's lying, probably theft, maybe murder. But it's the only way we know to eliminate what's become a major threat to inter-sector commerce, and is rapidly becoming worse. Let me see if I can put it another way. Field agents are people we can trust to act against the Empire's short-term interests when, and only when, that's necessary to protect its long-term ones. It's always a dangerous job, usually a nasty one, and the agents know very well that most people share your opinion of them. The only reason they put up with all that is because they know how necessary it is."