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Yes, it's an inconsistency; because humans are inconsistent.
But it's only an inconsistency subject to Lyta's
rationalizations...which are quite reasonable.

She didn't know the Centauri; she knew Garibaldi...they knew
beyond a shadow of a doubt that Brother Edward's *life* was in
jeapordy, and that this person may hold the key to saving his life and
every instant they waited meant he could be dying, whereas there is no
such crisis in the Garibaldi situation...they were able to hide her
identity from the Centauri whereas they would not be able to do so with
her and Garibaldi....

The decision to scan or not to scan is essentially a moral or
ethical decision. When someone's life is on the line, that raises one
ethical concern, as opposed to Zack just having a vague suspicion about
Garibaldi's character and asking her to engage in a fishing expedition.
There is a quantum difference between the two of them.

Would a physician give someone the tools necessary to end his
life? No. Would he do so if the person were chronically ill and in
constant, terrible pain? Very possibly. It's the *context*. You
can't expect people to act the same in every situation regardless of
context, context is everything.

People are not robots, they rationalize, they are inconsistent,
but they generally have *reasons* for it that they can justify. As
somebody once said, rationalizations are more important than sex,
because you can *go* a day without sex....

jms