"Guess I won't invite you to any of the better restaurants I know," she jokes. "Just as well. People would gossip."

"Ah, by stuff they meant family members, usually. Wives, children, parents: shipped to different counties or continents or planets, sent away for training or war...The problem was, after a few centuries of the Living People killing off anyone who raises their head above the mob, what you get are very uninspired rebels. There were - a few that showed potential. I helped where I could, but the math always hung me up. Aid these rebels, they'll destroy this spaceport...and this many natives will be worked to death rebuilding it. Every life spent repaid with five deaths or more. I usually gave them information. Ways of hiding and distributing what they knew. And I hoped that someday a leader would rise." And hoped as well that the leader would not be her.

"It might have been worse for them, you know. Maybe it's twice as tempting when you're sixteen, three times that when you're seventeen, and so on." She eyes him. "Or maybe you are stronger than all of them."