honest face, only partly undermined by the holocamera sitting on his shoulder like a squat, deformed owl. He set about dismantling the lights that had shown Toby to his best advantage and carried on speaking with a blithe disregard as to whether Toby was still listening. 'At least we've got nice warm quarters in the complex to hole up in. Those poor sods on guard duty are wearing thermal suits on top of their thermal underwear, and they're still freezing their butts off. I hear if you fart out here, it rolls down your trouser leg onto the ground and breaks.'
Toby sniffed. 'Those guards are highly paid mercenaries, highly trained in the art of rendering people down into their component parts in the shortest time possible, and therefore by definition not really human. And you can bet they're being paid a damn sight more than you and I are. And the factory complex gives me the creeps. Most of the factory's automated, and the clone workers who do everything the machinery can't are even less human than the guards.'
Flynn shrugged, and his camera grabbed his shoulder with clawed feet to steady itself. 'Clones aren't employed for their social skills. They've been designed and conditioned to within an inch of their humanity to be the perfect work force, and nothing else. They're here only because there has to be a human decision-making presence at all times. Can't just leave it to the computers. Not after the Shub rebellion.'
'We can cut the last few seconds from the tape,' Toby said heavily, turning away from the monitor. 'Did I leave out anything important?'
'Not really. Technically, you should have mentioned that it was the Campbells who started the ball rolling here, before the Wolfes took it over. And you could have mentioned there are a few local problems with rebel terrorists, which will undoubtably be sorted out soon.'
'No I couldn't,' said Toby firmly. 'The Wolfes would only censor it. We don't need any depth for an introductory piece. Leave it till the interviews, and I'll try and bring it up then. Though you can be sure nothing even remotely good about the Campbells will make it into the final cut. Doesn't make any difference. The Wolfes won the hostile takeover, and no one likes a loser. These days, the few surviving Campbells are about as popular as a fart in an air lock. Let's get inside, Flynn. I can't feel my fingers, and my feet aren't talking to me. And the weather can turn extremely nasty in the blink of an eye when it feels like it. God, I wish I was back on Golgotha. Even attending Court was safer than this.'
'Why are you here?' said Flynn. 'You never did get around to explaining just what you did to get Gregor Shreck his own bad self so mad at you.'
'I don't have to tell you anything,' said Toby. 'You haven't even told me what your other name is.'
'One name is all a cameraman needs. Now, spill all the grisly details, or I'll make you look really podgy on camera.'
'Blackmailer. All right, basically, the Church was growing increasingly dubious about the moral probity of its ostensibly faithful son Gregor. I'd been keeping his extremely dubious private habits under wraps through some inventive PR and heavy backhanders where they would do the most good, but stories kept getting out anyway. There was talk of a full Church investigation, and then even all Gregor's money and social standing might not be enough to buy him a clean bill of health. Nasty, disgusting little toad that he is. I told him he'd have to keep a lower profile once he got in bed with the Church, but did he listen? Did he, hell. So, I did the only thing left to me. I figured out who would most likely end up running the investigating team, set him up with a young lady of the evening of my professional acquaintance, let nature take its merry course, recorded it all on film from every angle, and blackmailed him. How was I to know I'd picked one of the few really honest men left in the Church these days? He told all, made a public confession, and I resigned from Gregor's employ before he could fire me. Bearing in mind that Gregor's displeasure tends to be expressed through sudden violence and assassins, I walked into Imperial News and asked for the first assignment they had on the far side of the Empire. And I ended up here. Sometimes I wonder if Gregor got to them first.'
'Maybe he did,' said Flynn.
'No. He's not that subtle. Being subtle was what he employed me for.'
'Well, maybe the winter won't be as bad as everyone says. It couldn't be that bad.'
Toby glared at him. 'Didn't you watch the briefing tapes? The winters they have here could be officially classified as cruel and unnatural punishment. Snowstorms start with a blizzard and then escalate. The Eskimos have one hundred and twenty-seven different words for snow, and even they have never seen snow like they have here. In fact, if you brought an Eskimo here and showed him the snow, he would stop dead in his tracks and say,
'You brought it out here,' said Flynn, 'you take it back. I do not fetch and carry. It's in my contract. I am a cameraman, and the only thing I carry is my camera. I told you that when we started out.'
'Oh, come on,' said Toby. 'You can't expect me to carry the lights and the monitor. All you ever carry is that bloody camera, and if it weighs more than ten ounces, I'll eat the bloody thing.'
'I don't move things,' said Flynn. 'It's not in my nature. If you wanted a pack mule, you should have brought one.'
Toby glowered at him and then started gathering up the lights. 'God, you people have got a good Union.'
Daniel and Stephanie Wolfe, in charge of stardrive production and therefore Lords of all they surveyed on Technos III, helped themselves to another large drink from the automated bar. As aristocrats, they were normally used to the luxury of human servants, but such frills and fancies had no place on a factory world, even for such distinguished visitors as the Wolfes. The drinks weren't very good, either. Stephanie threw herself sulkily into a large supportive chair that tried to give her a soothing massage before she turned it off. She didn't feel like being soothed. Cardinal Kassar was on his way, and she needed to feel in full control for the encounter. Daniel was stalking back and forth across the deep pile carpet like a caged animal, and she wished he wouldn't. It was getting on her nerves.
The room was comfortably large by Technos standards, which meant you might have squeezed ten people into it at most, and only then if you happened to have a crowbar handy. The furnishings were understated to the point of anonymity, and the overbright lighting was giving Stephanie a headache. Daniel finally stopped his pacing and accessed the factory's external sensors. One wall disappeared behind a representation of what the weather looked like outside. Mostly, it looked like snow being blown sideways by very strong winds that had the disconcerting habit of shooting from left to right and then back again just a little faster than the human eye could comfortably cope with. Stephanie turned in her chair so she wouldn't have to look at it and concentrated on her game plan.
Ostensibly, Valentine had sent them here to see that everything went smoothly until mass production of the new stardrive officially began. He'd arranged a ceremony for the big day to be transmitted live across the Empire in prime time, to remind everyone—especially those at Court—where Wolfe money and power came from. Actually, Stephanie had arranged everything. She'd planted the idea for a ceremony in his mind, and then intrigued quietly but continually behind the scenes to ensure that she and Daniel would attend the ceremony rather than Valentine himself. A live broadcast would be the perfect opportunity to throw some heavy but undetectable spanners into the works, slow down if not halt stardrive production, and generally make Valentine look incompetent. Such a high- profile failure might be just the lever she and Daniel needed to pry control of the factory away from Valentine and over to them. And then they'd see who really ran Clan Wolfe.
The local rebels were still a nuisance and would have to be put sharply in their place well before the ceremony. But that shouldn't be too much of a problem. Kassar had brought a fair-size army of the Faithful with him to back up the numerous Wolfe mercenaries. The natives wouldn't know what hit them. On the other hand, the presence of so many security troops could mean that her carefully planned and considered pieces of sabotage would have to be carried out with great subtlety. If she, or more likely Daniel, were to be caught in the act, all the fast talking in the world wouldn't be enough to save them. Valentine would seize the opportunity to discredit them and quite possibly expel them from the Family. It was what Stephanie would do in his position. She looked up, and there was Daniel, still staring at the faux window, and she knew he wasn't seeing the storm outside.
'Let it go, Daniel,' she said softly. 'Our father is dead and gone, and there's nothing you or I can do about it.'
'No. He's not dead,' said Daniel and would not turn away from the storm. 'You saw him in the Court. His
