"I hadn't actually heard either saying before."

"I said it, so now it's a saying," as a saying also goes.  Somebody has to invent proverbs, and few people in dath ilan think themselves unqualified to do so.

"Were we going to make a bet, at some point?"

"I don't really feel like betting... anything... possibly ever again.  Until the Supervisors of Economic Conduct tell me that it's allowed."

"See, this?  This right here?  This is why planets shouldn't have any civic institutions."

Soon enough, people's names are being called out by SEC personnel, and escorted one-by-one out of their sealed room for... presumably individual questioning, but possibly they're just being immediately launched into space.  It does, in fact, need to get pretty bad before the SEC shows up in power armor.

"Keltham," one of them calls after not too much time has passed.

Keltham promptly comes over.  "Hey.  Whatcha want from me and how much am I getting paid for it?"

Keltham does not fundamentally have a concept that any worse thing could happen to him than Civilization needing to be a place where he needs to act scared even though he's done nothing wrong.  It would, by his lights, in fact be a pretty bad thing; and if this is how begins the end of his story within Civilization, fine and so be it and he'll go down in flames and if possible take the Supervisors of Economic Conduct down with him.  People should not be scared of their paid employees, which is what any part of Governance is.

The voice of the person in power armor is modulated such that you would have a hard time telling who, if anyone, is really speaking from within there.

"We wish to have your reactions observed in close detail by a Keeper while you are informed of what has happened."

"We do not predict that you will ask payment of us once you are informed of the reason.  Is there a bond you'd wish posted?"

"Well, see, I mostly expect that I just got inconvenienced and had bystander-risk run upon me by a supercriminal, and that I'd help you catch them for free if there was otherwise no money in it for anyone; say by my reactions being observed, and used to help form a statistical distribution within which you could pay more attention to outliers, if that supercriminal was likely to be on board the aircraft.  If there was going to be a huge bounty on them, I'd want to be registered for any patentgratuities due that way, but I assume you're already tracking that sort of thing."

"But it's possible that some sort of very weird act was committed by protestors of Civilization, that I'd actually agree with, working as blind as I am--improbable, but it's a reason you'd try to blind me--and in that case, it wouldn't be in my interest to cooperate, would it?"

Keltham doesn't even think it's that probable, to be clear, he just has a severe personal distaste for being asked to do things by people in power armor who've turned off nearby cellular towers.  They probably have some sort of terribly good reason and Keltham will probably go along with it, but they need to be inconvenienced; the world needs to be a place where making people nervous is inconvenient rather than convenient for Governance.

"To inform you of reasons now would be prejudicial to data-gathering."

"You may, of course, bind the Keeper not to use the information she observes until you grant approval to her after the explanation.  Be it explicit however that refusing to permit the information, after explanation, will itself be a fact that we may use as a statistic.  And it would be disingenuous to deny that we are also considering the statistics of this very conversation, though not exposing it to Keeper scrutiny absent your consent."

"I'd like the Keeper informed of that stipulation, and for me to be informed of her agreement, before I come into visual range of her."

"Acknowledged.  I expect this will be done successfully.  Will those conditions serve?"

"Yes; lead on."

They've demonstrated that they consider themselves still bound to follow rules, and have been put slightly out of their way; Keltham isn't going to make more trouble than that without knowing what's going on.

...and then, duly told that his demands were met, Keltham is seated before an expressionless and very serious-looking Keeper.

Not his first time meeting one.

Definitely his first time meeting one over Rank 2.

"I was told that you had been informed, and agreed to permit, that I would read of your reactions on a level deep enough that it would ordinarily constitute an invasion of your privacy.  If this is not so, speak forth."

"I have been told of, and agreed to, what I was told were your conditions for that; namely nonrelease of information so derived until you've had matters explained, heard the justification, and agreed to it.  If this was not your intent, speak forth."

"Matches my understanding."

"We ask that you speak your thoughts out loud, to the extent you can, during this process."

"Understood," he says, which is not quite the same reply as acknowledged.  And then, because he was asked to speak aloud, "That sounds like you're trying to present some counterfactual versions of me with a harder problem."

"Low probability that you are our real target.  In most probability, we are gathering data for a baseline that will be used to make life harder for other possible people."

"Your record shows you as neuroatypical, aren't we all.  I want to gather some data for a baseline on you personally and will start with other questions.  Answer quickly if you can; you can speak more thoughts later to modify your first reply if you want."

"Understood."

"What is your name?"

"Keltham is what my friends call me and the name my parents gave me.  I go online by Mad Investor Chaos.  I've used no other aliases to a significant degree within the last year."

"What is your quest?"

"To become rich enough to afford 144 children."

"Please avoid trolling and reply seriously."