Third floor common room, Sunday evening

[future_sandworm]

While he had enjoyed the cruise more than he had expected, and eventually got used to being on a ship, Leto was happy to be back. He had considered writing one of those letters he could never send to his sister at home, but decided against it - they always made him melancholy and that wasn't what he wanted.

Instead, he brought the baliset to the common room, and after tuning the instrument he began to play a slow Caladan song, one that Gurney Hallek had once taught his father.

[Open, of course!]

Comments

[future_sandworm]

"It depends on which question we are talking about," Leto replied.

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"You do this on purpose," Triela muttered.

Then, very slowly, as if talking to someone a bit slow, she repeated her question. "How do you deal with people who screw things up?"

[future_sandworm]

Of course.

"It depends on how and what they screw up," Leto replied. "The question needs to be more specific."

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"Let's say that they're supposed to back you up on a dangerous mission and they screw up which leads to you becoming injured." Triela didn't have all that many different examples she could draw on easily, after all.

[future_sandworm]

"Do they screw up due to negligence of because they lacked the necessary skills?" Leto asked. "The former is betrayal; the latter is my mistake for trusting them to do something they were not capable of."

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"The latter." No one gave less than their best effort at the Agency, after all.

[future_sandworm]

"Then, as I said, the mistake is mine. They should have told me they were not capable, of course, but in the end that is the judgement of the one in charge." He smiled at Triela. "They should be reassigned to tasks better suited to their skills."

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"And if you don't make assignment decisions?" Triela pressed.

[future_sandworm]

"Then I might consider talking to my superiors. It is their responsibility, after all."

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

Triela nodded slowly. It was a good answer.

"But if they're under-staffed and can't afford to lose an operative?"

[future_sandworm]

"Then perhaps your sacrifice is necessary," Leto replied. "Do you believe in their cause?"

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

There wasn't an easy answer to that. "Perhaps not quite in the way you mean, but I can't not do what I do..."

[future_sandworm]

"Then you have no other option than to accept," Leto replied, not questioning this. "Will you explain why you can't?"

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

Triela considered it. Something in her wanted to say no just because he'd been difficult earlier.

"Any particular reason you want to know?" she asked with a slightly challenging grin.

[future_sandworm]

"To offer better..." He paused, not wanting to use the word 'advice' "responses."

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

She noted the pause, but didn't make anything of it. His choice of words was an excellent one though. She shrugged, it was a decent response.

"I can't because I'm conditioned not to."

[future_sandworm]

"Conditioned in what way?" he asked.

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"Chemically." Triela tapped her left biceps. "There's a timed-release subcutaneous implant in here."

[future_sandworm]

"So what happens if you disobey?"

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

Triela blinked. "I don't. Orders get followed." Sometimes, if she were careful, she could bend a flexible enough directive, but that wasn't the same thing...

[future_sandworm]

Technology of mind-control? Practical, no doubt, but also... crude. "And why do your superiors feel the need to rely on such things?" Leto asked.

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"Because I'm a carefully engineered killing machine?" Triela offered, a slight edge of sarcasm making it into her voice. "I'm faster and stronger and harder to kill than almost anyone. And I'm trained to kill people. The Agency doesn't really want someone like me running around without some safeties."

Why build a weapon you can't control?

[future_sandworm]

"There are other ways," Leto replied. "Based on things of the mind rather than on technology. One might argue that they are unpredictable, but that can sometimes be an advantage. Where I come from, people long ago learnt not to place their hope in machines and let them replace humanity."

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"I'm not a machine," Triela's eyes (and tone) cooled dangerously.

"Or," she relented a bit, "not... most of me."

[future_sandworm]

"I didn't say you were," Leto replied calmly. "You are human controlled by technology. Why do they use that method instead of any of the number of human ways this can be done?"