 Why does Malloy send James Nordon to the peace talks?
Every man in the Diplomatic Corps who developed a twitch or a quirk was shipped to Saarkkad IV to work under Bertrand Malloy, Permanent Terran Ambassador to His Utter Munificence, the Occeq of Saarkkad. Number two suffered from some sort of emotional block that left him continually on the horns of one dilemma or another. And, Malloy knew, his own position was not unimportant in that war. He was not in the battle line, nor even in the major production line, but it was necessary to keep the drug supply lines flowing from Saarkkad, and that meant keeping on good terms with the Saarkkadic government. For nine years, Bertrand Malloy had been Ambassador to Saarkkad, and for nine years, no Saarkkada had ever seen him. To have shown himself to one of them would have meant instant loss of prestige. The Occeq of Saarkkad himself was never seen except by a handful of picked nobles, who, themselves, were never seen except by their underlings. To violate the rigid social setup of Saarkkad would mean the instant closing off of the supply of biochemical products that the Saarkkadic laboratories produced from native plants and animals—products that were vitally necessary to Earth's war, and which could be duplicated nowhere else in the known universe. It was Bertrand Malloy's job to keep the production output high and to keep the materiel flowing towards Earth and her allies and outposts. Not the worst ones, of course; there were places in the galaxy that were less important than Saarkkad to the war effort.
 Nordon has trouble making decisions but will commit once the Karna present him with a choice that is not rigged in the Karna's favor.
 Nordon has trouble making decisions but will commit once the Karna present him with a choice that is not rigged in the Karna's favor.  Nordon is going to the peace talks to assist Braynek in case of a trap.  Nordon is the best negotiator Earth has to offer.  Nordon is a trained assassin. He will be ready to take out the ambassador from Karn if there is any funny business.