Kielgaard nodded. "A sound and sensible plan. That is exactly what Galactic did. And after a slow start, things began to straighten out very nicely, too. The more Truth cleared up, the more Galactic invested in Triax. And then, one day, this photograph came in."
Kielgaard held out a photograph showing a busy street corner in a city at night. A brightly clothed crowd was walking along the sidewalk past store windows showing a variety of merchandise.
Kielgaard said, "Look down that street. You see a low building, part way down the block, with a wide chimney?"
"Yes," said Dan, "I see it."
"Look just above the top of the chimney."
"You mean this arrow-shaped constellation?"
Kielgaard nodded. "There is no such arrow-shaped constellation visible from Truth."
"Then this photo is a fake?"
"They're all fakes. What apparently happened is that someone managed to get a spy into Galactic's planning division, and through him found out when and where Galactic's agents were to be set down. They grabbed the agents one by one soon after each agent landed. Since then, they've sent back reports to build up a purely synthetic picture of the planet. The only reports Galactic can rely on are the original impressions of the information team they set down to begin with."
Dan whistled. "So someone is working Galactic into position to jerk the rug out from under it."