It was safe to say that Peter liked the concept of a life of leisure, although he was far from convinced that it would be as easy as Bernard said. He found it more likely, hearing the story, that Bernard was just extremely lucky (or at least had been in Odellia); surely nobody could just change the attitude of an entire town and get them to love him just by force of will? Then again, Peter supposed, that was more or less what politics was. Somehow it helped if he thought of Bernard as a politician...although he wasn't sure why.

Peter had also lost more than just Millie in the riots; he was shaken to his core. He was traumatized by what had happened to him, and by what he had done in response. The two men spoke a little longer about Odellia, and Bernard convinced him that murders and riots were not a part of his plan - they were a tragic accident, that wouldn't be repeated.

"So what's our story, Bernard?" Peter finally asked. "If we're going to just show up out of nowhere and start doing...stuff, why should people trust us? We need some kind of credibility."

Bernard laughed and replied, "When you met me, I didn't have any credibility, did I? I was just a wanderer looking for some day labor. I'm not too concerned about making the history complicated. But sure, let's think it through a bit."

He continued, "How about this? We're arriving from another country, so obviously we want to be foreigners - easy in your case. I guess there's no harm in coming from Lezseka; it's a big enough place to be anonymous, so we should be fine there, and besides, it's close enough to the truth that it won't fall apart with a little inspection into how we got to Kyris."

Bernard rubbed his chin a little bit. "Actually, I think I've got a good idea for us. Maybe we're missionaries; even better, ex-missionaries. Men of the cloth have a large variety of skills and preparation, and they virtually always get decent respect from strangers. That way people won't be suspicious when we want to help them, and it would also explain why we are together, since missionaries often travel in pairs."

"Hmm, I guess that works." Peter replied. "But why ex-missionaries?"

At Peter's confusion, Bernard nodded slightly. "Well, first off, I don't know anything about the church, and I wouldn't make a very convincing missionary. Maybe you would? But even if we could pull off the missionary backstory, it would be too time-consuming to maintain. I don't want to spend a bunch of time trying to convert people to the church; that doesn't do me any good at all. No, it's got to be ex-missionaries."

Bernard continued, the idea flowing nicely now. "We'll say that in our travels we left the church, coming to believe that the only real good in the world is helping others; some kind of agnostic humanist, I suppose. Since we left the church - that'll need a name for consistency..." Bernard paused.

Peter picked up the slack, chiming in with a suggestion. "Saint Stevens?"

"Sure, that works," Bernard agreed. "Since we left the church, we can't return to the monastery at Saint Stevens back in Lezseka, so we travel from place to place helping others, maybe looking for a place to settle (if they can talk us into it)" Bernard added with a wink. "Just remember, your main job is getting people to like us and trust us, so that I can do whatever it is I decide is the most important thing for gaining control."

"This will be a long game, Peter - longer than Odellia by a long shot. We'll have to be dedicated to this and give it the time it needs. But if we stick together, we will succeed. We'll be rich and powerful - everything that we want. And if it helps make a few people's lives better in the meantime, fine - it's easier than making their lives worse, and having to deal with a bunch of angry dissidents."

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

At that moment, Bernard made up his mind. If Peter didn't agree to go along with the plan, he'd definitely have to die. Bernard really couldn't afford to have this much of his plan out in the open, and although he was pretty sure he had pulled all of the right strings with Peter, he simply couldn't risk someone causing problems for him again. He sighed a little at this thought, already resigned to the notion that he'd probably have to eliminate the man once they got off the boat and an opportunity presented itself.

Taking Peter with him was probably a mistake, and Bernard was simply tired of making mistakes. Why was it so hard to get unlimited power, anyway? It was almost offensive to him, that the world wouldn't just line itself up to what he wanted. All of his patience and his planning had proven to be for naught, so far.

Bernard narrowed his eyes slightly, and saw Peter looking at him intently. That man had an irritatingly high amount of emotional intelligence, Bernard thought - was he able to piece together what Bernard was thinking? He wasn't sure, but Peter spoke quickly enough, and if he was inferring anything from Bernard's body language, he didn't give it away.

"Sounds like a plan, man. At least, the best plan I can imagine, considering the events of the last twenty-four hours or so. I trust you. Besides, Bernard, you saved me from what surely would have been an execution for murder, so I owe you a lot. I'm your man, whatever happens."

With this, Bernard allowed himself to relax just a little. Peter didn't have a lot of guile in him, which was one of the things that made him so endearing to people. Bernard was willing to take him at his word, at least for the time being. Hopefully, Peter had no clue that his words had amounted to a stay of execution.

"Good, good. Now let's talk tactical planning." Bernard stood up and looked out the small porthole of the room, out over the ocean. "When we arrive at Kyris, we're going to get ourselves out of there as quickly as we can. I don't know much about it, but if it is big enough to have a port, it's too big for us to start in. We need another town like Odellia - poor, rural, and ignored. We'll figure out what they need and give it to them, improve their quality of life, all the same things; enough that they wouldn't want to go back to a life without us. That's enough for the initial step, and it'll take a long time. No point in thinking about what comes later until we've made some good progress on that."

He turned around again and looked at Peter. "This will be easier for me than you. I can use some of the same techniques and ideas, but you can't quite sell them on our previous results. We don't want to tell the tale of Odellia, or even give people the idea we've ever spent time there."

Peter frowned slightly in disagreement. "Leave that one to me. I'll tell the story without it being about Odellia; something that can back up our story. Let's see. We worked with Saint Stevens, and got a lot of exposure to helping people. We were successful enough in one or two small cities in Lezseka that we got sent out on a missions trip, but we lost faith..."

He mulled over this last statement. "Actually, I'll want to be coy about that part, like it is embarrassing or some kind of personal failure. We'll keep our 'loss of faith' private, and let them wonder...so we just help where we can, and move on. I'll be able to tell some of the real stories from Odellia, but make it as being from a variety of other small towns in different places. That adds to the credibility, because it won't just be one place, too."

Berrnard cautiously agreed - he wasn't sure that there wasn't a circumstance in which they could get inadvertently linked to Odellia this way, but Peter's ingenuity had surprised him several times. The two men wrapped up their conversation and left the room. That in itself didn't accomplish much, because the only other real place they could relax was in their shared cabin; one way or another, they were going to have to get used to each other's company.

For the next few days, their time was largely their own, each enjoying the peace and quiet. For Bernard, it felt like a calm that comes before a storm, whereas it was a healing respite for Peter. They intersected mostly at meal time, both with each other and other passengers, and used the time to let their new roles sink in a little. Bernard especially had to become comfortable with the idea of playing a "man of the cloth" - but couldn't help himself from doing a little alternative planning as well, just in case things with Peter went awry.

Before long, it seemed, Kyris had come into view, and the men joined the others in preparing to debark the Scalded Sun.