The "unspoken resource" is a tool to shut the mouths of the irrepressible… But you can't shut the thoughts. They will remain. And will continue to spread like a plague from one to another at a rate faster than the real plague. And unlike the real plague, completely untreatable.

Just look at Samoh and what he's gotten himself into. To openly provoke in front of witnesses an official of not just the Empire, but the SCK itself. Weaving intrigues on the fly, in the

office of the head of the entire sector… And it's amazing that such things sometimes worked out… Although it's not so surprising when you find out that the deputy commander of the Korsa sector was in fact a full-fledged member of the Church, not the SCK. With such nefarious methods, one can really believe in one's own infallibility… Though what it leads to… Self-confidence… Careless self-confidence that has one tiny end.

They were now passing the section of road that the Maquis had recently blown up and the miners had hastily repaired. They had been shot at, and the Kiwis had had some kind of strange conflict. In general, of course, these Kiwis have become completely detached from reality, the reality that was even some 30 years ago, when they performed only security functions, and their numbers were so small that there was no thought of forming large units of them. Not like now, when they are doing the most dangerous and bloody work for the imperial army and the S.S.C. combat units.

Guzoch learned all this from a confession five years ago, when one of the veterans of the JFK needed help in easing his fate before he passed away. It happened at one of the defense plant security conferences. Guzoh was there, of course, on business for his favorite worker-chums. And one of the speakers had a heart problem, like a heart attack. He wanted repose for his soul and immediate confession, which Guzokh, as a clergyman of the highest rank nearby, provided.

The SSchekist told him of the complexities of his apparatus and how he had done nothing on his own to save the true foundations of the Empire, which was rotting from within and decaying like a human corpse. As he said, the Hiwi now made up the main fighting force of the JFC, and in some cases even the Imperial Army itself, rapidly approaching it in numbers. It was an experiment at first, but the effect was so striking that it was quickly adopted as a practice, and after only a few years of use, the balance had shifted dramatically. The commanders of the imperial ministries were constantly reporting to the top about successful operations to suppress the Maquis and establish links between the disparate parts of the empire with minimal casualties. Human casualties, of course, were of no interest to anyone, but no one thought that such practices would only multiply the influence and role of the Hiwi in the vital processes of the Empire. In some instances, the Hivi leaders themselves set the price for completing tasks, and given the balance of power, the price had to be paid – imperial officials were addicted to this means of solving problems like a drug. The dying SSchekist didn't give the exact numbers, but it was hundreds of thousands of fighters. All he asked was to be forgiven for the criminal inaction of this cancerous tumor against which he dared do nothing.

And so Guzokh looked at the surrounding space and saw that people were starting to do what they wanted. Blowing things up themselves, fixing things themselves, deciding for themselves when someone would or would not pass by. After all, he had gotten to the Deese sector so quickly because the prefect had let him through from the Korsa sector via his underground route. So that's it, the Metropolitan is let through by the man who runs the entire faction. Running it, mining it, developing it. All by himself and his own resources. Only paying the proper fee to the Empire.