Deathstalker Rebellion (71 page)

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
What the bloody hell
… and then he disappeared into static, which in turn was replaced by a new face that filled the screen. He looked to be in his early forties, darkly handsome, hard-used but still charismatic. His eyes were steady and his smile was compassionate. When he spoke, people listened.

“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 the rebels were transmitting from, but you have just shot out our only link with the outside universe. All our other aerials were slaved to this one. Without it, we are completely out of contact with the Empire. Which means that the ceremony that was to be transmitted live in two days’ time, as ordered by the Empress herself, will no longer be possible. Unless your people can put the bloody aerial back together again!”

“Ah,” said Kassar. “Yes …”

“May I also point out,” said Toby, perhaps enjoying the moment just a little too much, “that if you hadn’t shot the aerial down, I would have been able to put a rebuttal piece on the air in a few hours, thus undoing whatever damage the broadcast might have done. An awful lot of people are going to be really unhappy with you, Cardinal, if your people can’t get the aerial up and working again soon.”

Kassar looked at the shattered pieces of aerial lying across the metal slope. “Oh,
shit.
”

“Couldn’t have put it better myself,” said Stephanie. “I shall expect hourly reports from your people until the aerial is functional again. And if it isn’t ready in time for the ceremony, I will personally have your balls. Assuming the Empress doesn’t get to them first.”

She nodded briskly to Daniel, and the two of them turned and strode back down the slope and into the factory complex. Kassar glared at their backs and hurried after them. Toby and Flynn looked at the wrecked aerial. They seemed fairly cheerful, all things considered.

“Was that really Jack Random, do you think?” said Flynn.

“Oh, yes. I cross-checked our earlier sighting against Imperial News’ files. It’s him, all right. Looking a bit battered
by life, but in damn good shape considering his age and history. And if I did have any doubts, that broadcast just put them to rest. That was classic Jack Random. Exactly the kind of thing he was famous for.”

“Then, those shots of the clones building the drive were the real thing?”

Toby looked at Flynn firmly. “I don’t know. If, just for the sake of argument, they were true, then you can be bloody sure the Wolfes would have us killed out of hand if we were found sneaking around there in search of an exclusive. There are limits to how you can treat people, even if they are only clones. Lionstone must want those drives really badly.”

“So we just ignore the story?”

“Since when were you so idealistic? People are dying all across the Empire every day. There’s nothing we can do about it. Every now and again we get a chance to put some small thing right, like Beatrice’s hospital, but don’t let it go to your head. Even if we did manage to get footage of the clones working on the drives, the odds are we couldn’t get it on the air. Not now. And you can bet Imperial News would disown us on the spot. Learn to content yourself with little victories, Flynn. If you like having your head attached to your shoulders.”

They stood in silence for a while, thinking their separate thoughts. Flynn stirred finally. “If Jack Random could win a victory here, it could be the start of the great rebellion itself.”

“God, I hope so,” said Toby. “Lots of good material to be found in a war. Reporters’ reputations can be made on the battlefield.”

“You speak for yourself,” said Flynn. “The moment the shooting starts, I shall be diving for cover and keeping my head well down, and you can do your own camera work.”

“The trouble with you, Flynn,” said Toby as they started back down the slope toward the complex, “is you have no ambition.”

“My ambition is to live to a hundred and three,” said Flynn firmly. “At which point I hope to be shot by an outraged wife.”

“Sometimes I wonder about you, Flynn,” said Toby. “And sometimes I’m sure.”

* * *

In the early hours of the morning, when things were traditionally the quietest, Jack Random, the professional rebel, and Ruby Journey, the foremost bounty hunter of her day, according to her, emerged from the farthest trench the rebels controlled and sat on the edge of the jagged metal field, looking across at the huge factory complex, silhouetted against the rising sun. The Wolfe forces had recently been driven back and were too busy establishing their new front to be any threat. They also hadn’t got around to setting up snipers yet. Random and Ruby would have known they were there, even if they couldn’t see them. So they sat casually together, enjoying the strange and vivid hues of the sunrise.

It was the first day of summer and already uncomfortably hot with the sun barely above the horizon. Random and Ruby had come out onto the surface ostensibly to study the ground for the day’s attack, but actually they were just looking for a little time in each other’s company. Conditions underground were crowded at best and often claustrophobic, and after a while even the best intentioned of people could really get on your nerves. The Rejects had taken to treating them both like heroes of legend, promised saviors who would lead the rebels to inevitable victory over the forces of darkness. Neither Random nor Ruby were particularly happy about this.

“I was never meant to be a hero,” said Ruby firmly. “The pay’s lousy and the working conditions suck. I’m a rebel because I was promised first crack at the loot when the Empire finally falls apart. And because that cow Lionstone put a bounty on my head. The way some of these Rejects have been looking at me, you’d think I could do the three-card trick with one hand while walking on water. I have a horrible suspicion they’re going to start asking for my autograph soon.”

“It’s in people’s nature to want heroes,” said Random. “Someone to follow, who’ll make the hard decisions for them. They build us up larger than life, pin all their hopes and dreams on us, and then turn nasty when we let them down by being only human after all. I’ve seen this all before, Ruby. It’s one of the reasons I gave up being the professional rebel and ran away to hide on Mistworld. I got tired of carrying everyone else’s hopes and expectations on my shoulders. They were never that broad in the first place. I’ve spent most of my life trying to get people to think for
themselves and take responsibility for their own destinies, but it’s an uphill task. All too often they’d rather cheer and follow a leader, some smiling charismatic bastard who can inspire them into being more than they thought they were. I sometimes think they’d be happy to drag Lionstone off the Iron Throne and replace her with the first smooth-talking hero to come along. Even me.”

“Emperor Jack,” said Ruby. “I like it. You’d shake things up.”

“I’d hate it,” said Random. “No one can be trusted with that much power, not even me. It’s too much of a temptation. I’ve seen the way power corrupts, even when people take it on with the best of intentions. Perhaps particularly people like that. There’s no one more dangerous than a man who knows he’s right In the end he’ll sacrifice any number of people in the name of his belief, friend or enemy. In my experience people can’t be trusted in the singular when it comes to power. Democracy works because it’s a mass consensus. On the whole people are always better off when they can throw out any leader who starts believing his own press releases.”