Green, Neville

Candle Dancers

The backdrop to this story is set many years in the past, before our world and universe were created. Planets in a galaxy far away are dying and disintegrating. Powerful, despotic rulers govern and control the inhabitants of these planets with extreme, repressive, brutal measures. Everything, even down to what can be performed and who can work in theatres, is controlled. Candle Dancers is the name of a variety troupe that travels between the planets in their spaceship, the Auriga Lick, to entertain the inhabitants. They perform often in very gritty, squalid venues, with shows, prescribed by the rulers, of thinly veiled pornography. The troupe's life becomes complicated when their director is attacked, mortally wounded, and eventually pronounced dead. A group of his friends disbelieve the verdict and steal him away to restore him to life, which they successfully achieve. He decides to take revenge on his murderer, but unfortunately and accidentally, this revenge explodes, causing the despotic rulers to believe that they are under an attack from a terrorist organization.