[quote=pillbox]
"While I concede your point on the transcription of secrets, the last three example you give seem more like theft than the conscious act of writing. I do not contend that all knowledge should be given with impunity, or that one’s rightful thoughts are property of any who may take them, only that the destruction of a document does not equate to the destruction of an idea and that the destruction of an idea is a terrible thing to attempt in the first place. Sabotage lowers the tone of an argument, if nothing else.
"To the first: How many medicines might be bettered by those poisons, or never discovered for their absence? How many miraculous machines overlooked because their function is distantly derived from a weapon? There is certainly danger to knowledge, it would be naive to argue otherwise, but they are risks that must be taken if one wishes for other rewards. I myself am a scholar of the correspondence, but for all the harm it does me I do not regret what I have learned because I feel it is worth learning. By that token, I will teach others what I know so that others need suffer less for it. If there is anarchy, it is because there are anarchists, and if knowledge will further their cause then it will further other ones. Better ones."[/quote]
"One might venture that some ideas are too dangerous to let live," Captain Gremlin says, "Though as an agent of the Press, I’m honor-bound to admit that has seldom stopped me. Still, there are some ideas that seem to be self-concealing. Take the Cave of…I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten what I was going to say. But there do seem to be secrets that work to keep themselves secret, as it were."
"Of course, killing someone isn’t a guarantee that they’ll keep your secret, especially not down here. But there are worse things than being dead. I experienced one of them…I robbed it once. The Bazaar, I mean. And got caught." He pauses, shuddering at the memory. "Thank the ceiling stars of the Neath that you’ll never know what that’s like. I can’t tell you: the secret keeps itself. I can only remember."
"It’s strange, but after that, they started to let me into some of their secrets. I’ve been working with the Masters, you know. Not in everything, certainly, but they trust me. After a fashion, in the case of some of them, but they do find me reliable. Enough to entrust me with some little jobs here and there. And a shop at the Bazaar. And some consideration at Christmas. A paperweight, once. But if they knew…" He takes a sip of wine. His scarf curls comfortably around his shoulders.
"They trust me now. Think they’ve reformed me. And perhaps they’re right, in a sense. Certainly, I’ve aided them in their schemes. Propped them up. Saved them from revolution. And started robbing them again, right from under their noses. They don’t even realize that they’ve been stolen from, that their own thefts have been turned against them."
"Someday, they’ll take me into their innermost circles. And I’ll betray them. Steal their most precious thing at their very moment of triumph."