Kurt Bowers was a minor member of the Lyren freedom movement and had been for some time; he was aged fifty, although at times of great stress, such as when he was doing the movement`s work, he looked a lot older. He was a widower now, for his wife had died two years back, but being a member of the church on Lyren had helped him through this bad time. It was through the Church that he had learned about the movement. He had decided to join the freedom movement because he firmly believed that the Lyren enslavement of so many people went against the teachings of the Church. His task today was to arrange for the ‘purchase’ of the travel documents for two earthmen posing as members of the state police force. They would be taking a consignment of slaves to the Wallachia Mountains to help in the work of clearing the local woodland, it was so that the land could be used for growing more cereal crops. Why they wanted to go to this remote region on Lyre he didn`t know, but Jonas had requested that he make out the necessary paperwork and so he did.
His son Karl was serving with the Lyre military forces based on the enslaved planet of Rigel, and he had recently been on leave for a week. What he had told his father appalled him, the slaves were treated little better than animals and he for one was happy to work to overthrow the present regime and to replace it with one based on good Christian values. Unfortunately, his son had now been sent back to Rigel, to complete another tour of duty on that god-forsaken planet.