This beautiful/heartless woman held a planet in slavery. How could a revolt prevail against her magic?
Excerpt
If you've ever been up to your ears in a rebellion you know that the toughest part of the job is to keep the secret. There's a right time for a plot to spring. Up to that split second you've got to be as dumb and innocent as a clam.
I was clammy for months before the day, on the planet of Venus, that I thought we'd surely touch off the fireworks. I'd lived the double life as a mild and obedient assistant to a mild and faithful young executive. I, Adam Alonzo Briff, drew my pay coupons each week, earth time, by tending strictly to business, and my immediate superior, Jay Lathrop, likewise received his steady income for obedient service. To whom? To the lady who was the boss of this one and only Venus outpost
Together Jay Lathrop and I, along with scores of other rebels, wore our well polished mask of allegiance whenever we paraded in front of the leader we hoped to push into a fiery furnace.
Take my word for it, Violet Speer, in spite of her name, was no shy little violet. She was a dyed-in-the-wool villainess.
Consider, for instance, what happened that momentous night, Friday the 13th, earth time. I was standing on a stone step of this somewhat ancient market building on this oppressive Friday afternoon, receiving instructions from Jay Lathrop. It was a normally hot day. If there's an easy way to escape the oppressive heat of Venus without wallowing in the swamps with the poisonous rajlouts, I don't know what it is.
I was listening to Lathrop's instructions for one of the wrecking crews, and he was pacing the old stone sidewalk with an energetic click of his polished black boots, when up the sidewalk came a uniformed guard bearing an order from Violet Speer.
"Lend a hand," he said. "We've lost Mr. Grailford. He's wanted for a special purpose."
"What purpose?" asked Jay Lathrop, squinting skeptically and passing his fingers through his bristling sandy hair.
Guards are known to be peculiarly expressionless. They take for granted that their red and silver uniforms carry an overpowering prestige, and woe unto anyone who gives them any defiance. This guard repeated, as cold as ice, "Lend a hand, men. Grailford is wanted."
We went obediently, and I think Lathrop was glad enough to postpone his day's work. This particular market building, in line for his wrecking crew, was much too beautiful to destroy. Lathrop was bitter over such duties. He had a soft heart for their fine works of architecture.
This building was dated 2004, which meant that it was one of the first of the American colony buildings of the twenty-first century Venus expedition. Now, four and a quarter centuries later, these fine structures were being crushed and rolled down into the dust and swamps of the Earth's sister planet.
We marched off with the guard, and our wrecking crew also came to lend a hand. Whether we liked it or not we found the lost Mr. Grailford presently, hiding in the building beyond the old market.
He was pitiful sight, ill and half starved and scared. The guards slapped him down, then commanded him to come to his feet and march. I happened to know that Grailford had grown too sick to work and consequently had hidden out. For Miss Violet Speer and her red and silver guards were slave drivers in the worst sense of the term.
"A change of climate for Mr. Grailford," was the order.
Genre: Science Fiction
Excerpt
If you've ever been up to your ears in a rebellion you know that the toughest part of the job is to keep the secret. There's a right time for a plot to spring. Up to that split second you've got to be as dumb and innocent as a clam.
I was clammy for months before the day, on the planet of Venus, that I thought we'd surely touch off the fireworks. I'd lived the double life as a mild and obedient assistant to a mild and faithful young executive. I, Adam Alonzo Briff, drew my pay coupons each week, earth time, by tending strictly to business, and my immediate superior, Jay Lathrop, likewise received his steady income for obedient service. To whom? To the lady who was the boss of this one and only Venus outpost
Together Jay Lathrop and I, along with scores of other rebels, wore our well polished mask of allegiance whenever we paraded in front of the leader we hoped to push into a fiery furnace.
Take my word for it, Violet Speer, in spite of her name, was no shy little violet. She was a dyed-in-the-wool villainess.
Consider, for instance, what happened that momentous night, Friday the 13th, earth time. I was standing on a stone step of this somewhat ancient market building on this oppressive Friday afternoon, receiving instructions from Jay Lathrop. It was a normally hot day. If there's an easy way to escape the oppressive heat of Venus without wallowing in the swamps with the poisonous rajlouts, I don't know what it is.
I was listening to Lathrop's instructions for one of the wrecking crews, and he was pacing the old stone sidewalk with an energetic click of his polished black boots, when up the sidewalk came a uniformed guard bearing an order from Violet Speer.
"Lend a hand," he said. "We've lost Mr. Grailford. He's wanted for a special purpose."
"What purpose?" asked Jay Lathrop, squinting skeptically and passing his fingers through his bristling sandy hair.
Guards are known to be peculiarly expressionless. They take for granted that their red and silver uniforms carry an overpowering prestige, and woe unto anyone who gives them any defiance. This guard repeated, as cold as ice, "Lend a hand, men. Grailford is wanted."
We went obediently, and I think Lathrop was glad enough to postpone his day's work. This particular market building, in line for his wrecking crew, was much too beautiful to destroy. Lathrop was bitter over such duties. He had a soft heart for their fine works of architecture.
This building was dated 2004, which meant that it was one of the first of the American colony buildings of the twenty-first century Venus expedition. Now, four and a quarter centuries later, these fine structures were being crushed and rolled down into the dust and swamps of the Earth's sister planet.
We marched off with the guard, and our wrecking crew also came to lend a hand. Whether we liked it or not we found the lost Mr. Grailford presently, hiding in the building beyond the old market.
He was pitiful sight, ill and half starved and scared. The guards slapped him down, then commanded him to come to his feet and march. I happened to know that Grailford had grown too sick to work and consequently had hidden out. For Miss Violet Speer and her red and silver guards were slave drivers in the worst sense of the term.
"A change of climate for Mr. Grailford," was the order.
Genre: Science Fiction
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