"No," Ri said. "Even if we tried to tell them, they wouldn't listen. Everybody would know we were lying. Everything they've come to believe would tell them we were lying. Everything they've read, every picture they've seen. They wouldn't believe us. He knows that."
"Listen," Mia repeated intently. "This is important. Right now he couldn't afford to let us talk. Not right now. Because the Army is not against him. Some officers were here, just before we came back. A bearer overheard them talking. They don't want to overthrow him!"
Ri's teeth, suddenly, were chattering.
"That's another lie," Mia continued. "That he protects the people from the Army. That's a lie. I don't believe they were ever plotting against him. Not even at first. I think they helped him, don't you see?"
Ri whined nervously.
"It's like this," Mia said. "I see it like this. The Army put him in power when the people were in rebellion against military rule."
Ri swallowed. "We couldn't make the people believe that."
"No?" Mia challenged. "Couldn't we? Not today, but what about tomorrow? You'll see. Because I think the Army is getting ready to invade the alien system!"
"The people won't support them," Ri answered woodenly.