Villains ?
Labienus and Nennius are old, old cyborgs who seem to wield much power behind the scenes. Labienus runs Company facilities at various times and is one of the inquisitors (small i) into Mendoza's debacle in California. In The Children of the Company we learn more of his origins, attitudes to mortals, and his relationship with Budu, who recruited him, and whom, like Joseph, he calls "Father". Nennius coordinates some of Joseph's missions, and eventually leads Joseph and Lewis into a trap, apparently with Labienus's encouragement. The two are also behind various pandemics among mortals, possibly starting with the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918.
Aegeus is another old cyborg, who runs the facility known as Eurobase One in the Cevennes mountains. He plots separately from Labienus for the day when the cyborgs will have enough power to take over from mortals. His ace in the hole is that he created a race of hybrids of humans and Homo Umbratilis, to provide him with technology he can use in his rebellion.
Kiu is an ancient female of Asian heritage. She has gone farther than most of her age in abandoning any concern with humanity. Apart from carrying out her missions, she is interested in power, luxury, and recreational sex. To her humans are a disease on the face of the Earth. In The Children of the Company she uses her charisma to start a religious cult bent on mass suicide, which is in fact a large-scale test of one of the plagues created by Labienus and his cronies.
Suleyman is a former pirate, based in North Africa, who has built up a power base there and among a Muslim sect worldwide in the 22nd century. He believes that some cyborgs - possibly including Budu - are plotting to kill off mortals with new diseases, in order to take over in 2355. As an ally he can help Joseph when he goes on the run, but he may also wind up on the other side if Joseph joins with Budu.
Victor is a mystery. Sophisticated and gracious, he runs New World One when Mendoza first arrives there. In later stories he admits to being a 'problem solver', someone who does the really dirty work. He never takes off his gloves in company. He is friendly with Suleyman, but may have other motives. He admits to Joseph that he brought about Budu's final downfall, and knows where to find the body. Disabling Budu, who recruited him, is the least of the shameful things the Company has tricked him into doing. He worked for Aegeus when the Homo Umbratilis hybrids were being bred, but later became a member of Labienus' team. He does not know the full extent of Labienus' plots. In later times he seems to operate under the protection of Suleyman.
Read more about this topic: Characters In The Novels Of The Company
Famous quotes related to villains ?:
“Why do villains have so much influence? Because the honest people are terribly dense.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“... in ordinary fiction, movies, etc. everything is smoothed out to seem plausible—villains made bad, heroes splendid, heroines glamorous, and so on, so that no one believes a word of it.”
—Brenda Ueland (1891–1985)
“I don’t believe in villains or heroes, only in right or wrong ways that individuals are taken, not by choice, but by necessity or by certain still uncomprehended influences in themselves, their circumstances and their antecedents.”
—Tennessee Williams (1914–1983)
“What lies behind facts like these: that so recently one could not have said Scott was not perfect without earning at least sorrowful disapproval; that a year after the Gang of Four were perfect, they were villains; that in the fifties in the United States a nothing-man called McCarthy was able to intimidate and terrorise sane and sensible people, but that in the sixties young people summoned before similar committees simply laughed.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)