In this paper we explore the way that the cognitive and behavioural resources of heedfully interrelating agents are distributed across the competing claims for attention from, respectively reliability and performance, both under collaborative and adversarial conditions, and in circumstances in which the scope for sense making varies with the complexity and uncertainty of the environment. Such resources are deployed with varying degrees of embodiment. At one extreme, agent knowledge is embodied to the point that, while it may be expressed, it cannot be articulated. At the other, such knowledge can be readily externalized in an abstract symbolic form. In between we have knowledge that can be verbalized although with limited possibilities for being expressed in an abstract-symbolic way. We illustrate the nature of the trade off between reliability and performance by comparing the behaviours of two French fighter pilot squadrons, one concerned with air display and one with air combat.