and have our own life, together. I've got a guard eating out of my hand. He can get us explosives from the armory. Afterward, we can kill him in a way that will point at rebel infiltrators. Then all we have to do is plant the bomb in just the right place, to go off at just the right time, and that will be the end of dear Daniel and dear Stephanie. May they rot and burn in hell.
'No one will suspect us; there are far too many other more obvious enemies, from the rebels to the dear Cardinal himself. We'll be ever so regretful, of course, but we'll be the only ones in a position to take over here. Valentine won't want to come all the way out here, away from those noxious substances he thrives on, just to run a factory, and we're the only Family he can trust. Once we've shown him we can handle things, he'll leave us alone and turn his attentions elsewhere. We'll be able to marry at last. He won't object, not once we point out it's the only way of keeping the factory wholly in the Family.'
'Don't you feel any guilt?' said Michel. He suddenly pushed her away from him, and she stumbled back a step, caught off balance. She looked very slight and vulnerable on her own, with her huge dark eyes, dark as the night. Michel made himself concentrate on what he was saying. 'We are married to them, after all. They made us Wolfes. Aristocrats. I was an accountant, and you were a librarian and minor authority on tarot readings. If I hadn't met you, I would have been more than happy to be a Wolfe's husband and live an aristocrat's luxurious life.'
'But we did meet,' said Lily, moving in close again so that her breath was sweet in his mouth. 'And you loved me as I loved you, more than being an aristo, more than life itself. If we can't be together, I don't care about anything else. Guilt? What has that got to do with us? Daniel never tried to be a husband to me. Never loved me, never liked me, never spent a moment in my company that he didn't have to. Was Stephanie ever any different? Did she ever give a damn about you, except as a fashionable accessory, something big and muscular to be flashed at Court? Jacob Wolfe only arranged our marriages because we brought necessary small businesses into the Family that he didn't want going to anyone else. Our families sold him the businesses along with us because of the dowries he offered. No one asked us. No one ever asks us.'
Michel nodded slowly and took her in his arms again. She nestled contentedly against him, and they stood together for a while.
'Well?' said Lily finally. 'Will you do it? Will you help me set the bomb?'
'Of course I will. I never could say no to you. But Lily… let's not have any false illusions between us. Even if we do kill Daniel and Stephanie and get away with it, our love isn't going anywhere. People like us don't have happy endings. Valentine and Constance will wage open war to see which of them will take control of the factory, and we'll just be in the way. They won't let us marry. Rather than let us emerge as a joined power base, they'll most likely separate us and send us to different ends of the Empire. They'll destroy our love casually, offhandedly, just because they can.'
'It doesn't have to be that way,' said Lily without raising her head. 'We're small fry, Michel. Constance and Valentine will be so busy fighting each other they won't even notice us until it's too late. Even the smallest of snakes that crawls unnoticed through the grass can have a deadly poison in its fangs. We'll bring them down, my love. Destroy them all for not loving us.'
'Dream on, dream child,' said Michel. 'Maybe it'll work out that way, maybe it won't. It doesn't matter. I'd rather be damned with you than live without you.'
At about the same time as various Wolfes were plotting various treasons, a regular propaganda broadcast from Technos III being reluctantly hosted by Toby the Troubador was suddenly interrupted by a burst of static. Viewers caught a brief glimpse of Toby looking off camera and saying
'Good evening, my friends. My name is Jack Random. Some of you may have heard of me. It's all true. I am presently assisting rebel forces on the Wolfe-owned world of Technos III to win their freedom and their dignity. It was their world once, but long ago it was taken from them by those with more power and influence at Court. An old story, nothing to write home about. But Technos III is the present home of the factory producing Lionstone's new stardrive. You've heard a lot about this new drive and the many benefits it will bring you. What they haven't told you is that the new drive is being produced by slave labor in life-destroying conditions.'
The scene changed to show long lines of people working in a vast low-ceilinged chamber. The illumination was painfully bright, and strange colors tinted the air from no obvious source. The air rippled sometimes, and things that had seemed near were suddenly far away, and vice versa. The scene was unsteady, suggesting it had been recorded on a hidden, smuggled-in camera. Men, women, and children worked together, crawling in and around great metal and crystal structures. They were slowly, laboriously building something piece by piece with handheld tools and instruments. Many of those working had warped bones and bodies. Some were missing fingers. Some had no jaws or eyes, as though something had eaten them away. The scene continued in silence for a while, to let it sink in, and then Jack Random's voice began again.
'Whole Families work here, building the stardrives, doing work too delicate and too important to be trusted to machines. Automated machinery can't handle the necessary working conditions. They go crazy and malfunction. Same with computers. Only people are adaptable enough. The poorly understood forces that move inside even partially completed drives are horribly destructive to human tissues. The Families you see work in these conditions fourteen hours a day, seven days a week. When they're too weak or too disfigured to work, they're taken away and disposed of. There are always replacements. Because the people you're looking at are clones. And no one gives a damn what happens to clones. But I give a damn. And so do the rebels of Technos III.'
The scene changed again, to a long panning shot of rebels lining a trench in the rain. There were men, women, and children, all of them armed and ready to fight. Their faces looked tired but determined. Random's voice-over continued. 'There are no noncombatants in the rebellion, because the Empire would kill them all anyway for daring to have opinions of their own. For daring to protest over the theft and devastation of their world. They're fighting for their lives and their future, and their work shifts never end. I'm fighting beside them now. Just as someday I may fight beside you, for your life and your future. Because the Empire doesn't care who it destroys in its endless search for wealth and power and self-gratification.'
Jack Random's face filled the holoscreen again. Ill used, but still compassionate. Strong, dependable, determined. The man with scars in his eyes. 'Tonight, my friends, we bring you the truth for once in your lives. What is happening here on Technos III could happen to any one of you. If some aristo wants your planet he can take it, and no one will stop him. If he then decides to work you all to death, no one will raise a voice in protest, as long as the profits remain steady. The Empress is gathering more and more power to herself, demanding more and more from her subjects, all in the name of an alien invasion that may never come. Parliament can't stop her. It's grown lazy and corrupt, like the aristocracy. Whatever you own, they can take from you. Whatever you believe in, they can destroy. And they will if they're not stopped.
'I'm not asking you to run out and join the rebellion. Not yet. Just remember what you've seen and heard here today, and think about it. Disregard the lies the Empire tells you about the kind of people who join the rebellion. We're just like you, except that we've dedicated ourselves to a simple truth. That all men, human or clone or esper, are created equal and should have an equal say in their destiny. You can help us. If you wish to…'
And that was when holoscreens all across the Empire suddenly went blank. Static buzzed importantly to itself for a while, and then local channels rushed to take over, hurriedly filling the air with comforting Muzak and game shows. Later, the broadcast interruption would be explained away as just another cyberat prank. None of it was real. There was nothing for anyone to be concerned about. Viewers would be able to see the real conditions on Technos III when the Wolfe Family graciously allowed cameras to observe the first completed stardrives coming off the production line, at a special ceremony in two days' time.
Back on the surface of Technos III, outside the factory complex, Cardinal Kassar lowered his gun with a satisfied smile. One shot from his disrupter had blown the complex's main transmission aerial into pieces, cutting off all broadcasts from the planet. He looked around as Daniel and Stephanie came hurrying up the slope to join him, with Toby and Flynn in close pursuit. Kassar smiled at them and waved imperiously at the wrecked aerial.
'I fancy that will stop the rebels pumping out their poisonous lies through your equipment. Frankly, I'm surprised you didn't have safeguards against this kind of thing happening.'
'As it happens, we do,' said Stephanie in tones so cold a snowman would have shivered to hear them. 'If the rebels had just stayed on-line a little longer, my security people would have been able to track down the source of their signal, and we could have sent men in to destroy their equipment. As it is, not only do we have no idea where
