She wondered about the Plaid Koerno fighters who had arrived to attack the prison and free the prisoners. Apart from a few ray guns, their weapons looked antique. There was a lot of talk about being just as dead if you were hit by bullets or vaporised by a ray gun. That was just talk ... and very dangerous talk.
Too much booze had been drunk. The ordinary people were allowed booze. It was something new to Liala. Not surprisingly, Allain didn't booze. Nor did Bryn. They smoked something that made them feel good. But, like sex, that was forbidden on active duty.
Since Allain was always on active duty, he wouldn't be seeing much of either. Liala wondered about Bryn. He was new to active duty. Perhaps he smoked. But there wouldn't have been much opportunity for the other thing ... at least, not until she came along. Apart from his sister, Breada, there weren't any girls of Bryn's age in his village and he wasn't allowed to travel outside.
She returned her attention to the trolls waiting to board the pod. They looked green but their real colour was silvery blue. Blue was the guardians' colour and the trolls were meant to represent the guardians.
Her thoughts returned to Breada. She often thought about her. The guardians told terrible lies. You doubted most of what they said but were sucked in by some of it. One of their lies was about the sirens. They said the girls were wanton hussies who sold their bodies to the highest bidder.
That wasn't true. The sirens were innocent girls like Breada. The trolls killed her father and carried her off so her body could be used as a surrogate by an ancient nymphomaniac in a jar. Nothing could sum up the obscenity of the guardians more than that.
Obscene was the word Father used to describe them. One day, when they were talking, she called the guardians evil. Father said evil didn't tell you much. It was a word used against enemies. Obscene was different. It described people who took what was good and perverted it to serve their own selfish desires.
Her attention returned to the trolls. They had boarded the pod and were preparing to move off. She imagined the display on the control board that Crispin and Peter were viewing in the marine research laboratory. The patrol post, security pod, trolls and all other assets belonging to the guardians would be coloured blue.
At some stage, Crispin would use his baton of command and change the pod to pink. That would send a powerful message to the trolls guarding the chemical factory. The approaching pod would no longer appear blue to them. It would look pink and that would launch them into a violent frenzy of destruction.