wedding, his group might panic and scatter. We have to capture them all intact, the

whole damned organization, and the best way to do that is to let them think everything's

fine until we're all set to move. This way may be slower, but it's more certain.

"I'll phone the Head about this tomorrow before I go over to meet Howard at this

address. Right now I'm going to have to rest a bit. Losing a fight takes a lot out of you;

I'll have to try not to make a habit of it. Where are you going?"

"To take a shower," Vonnie replied. "Howard had his filthy paws all over me, and I'm

going to have to scrub off a whole layer or two of skin before I feel clean again."

CHAPTER 7

Pirate Attack

Yvette cradled Pias's head against her bosom as he told her of the edict the kriss had

decreed. She tried to imagine how it would be if her own family turned against her,

disowned her, refused even to acknowledge her existence any more. She shuddered.

Some things were just too horrible to contemplate. "Can they actually do that to you?"

"If they choose to ignore me, how can anyone stop them from doing it?"

"They'll have a hard time ignoring you after you become duke. You'll have troops at

your disposal, with the Emperor to back you up if. . ."

But Pias was shaking his head. "You don't understand. I've been totally disowned. They

no longer recognize me as my father's son. Tas will inherit the title now, not me."

"That's blatantly illegal," Yvette cried. "The Stanley Doctrine guarantees the right of

succession by the eldest child, whether he's popular with the local nobility or not."

"The Stanley Doctrine is fine in theory, but there are plenty of loopholes in practice.

Suppose I'd been convicted of murder, for instance. There's plenty of legal precedent to

deny me my claim to the title. The kriss is a local equivalent of a court, and thev've just

convicted me of what they consider a pretty heinous crime. Even at best, the issue

could be in arbitration for years -and what good would that serve?"

"The Emperor could intervene. I know him personally, and he's a good man. I know

he'd see the injustice of all this and decree that you were the lawful duke."

Pias stood up and walked around the room in a style that reminded Yvette very much of

her brother's own pacing while he was considering a problem. "Khorosho. Let's

suppose for a moment that the Emperor puts his arms around my shoulders and says,

`Pias will rule on Newforest.' Suppose even further that I manage to elude all the

assassins Tas then sends against me-that would be his next step, you know. Maybe I

can even have him arrested and killed, so that he's no longer a threat.

"What kind of rule would I have? As long as the Emperor kept sending me troops to

back up my decisions, I could keep order. But if he ever withdrew them, I'd have to hire

a private army from offworld, because no Newforester would follow me, not even the

ones who like me. We're a stubborn people, always have been. So I would rule strictly

by force of arms until the day of my death. The people would obey my commands to the

minimum degree they could get away with, and not one iota more. I'd have to become a

tyrant if I wanted to achieve anything."

He turned to face her, looking directly into her eyes. "Eve, I've always felt that a ruler

needs the respect and cooperation of his people, and that if he doesn't have that he

should step aside for someone who does. I suppose that makes me an

archconservative throwback to the days of the democracies on Earth; Bozhe knows

they didn't work. I've struggled to earn the respect and love of my future subjects. . . ."

"And you've got it," Yvette interrupted. "I saw what those people were like today. You're

the most popular man on the planet."

"Maybe up until today. But I know those people, Eve. As soon as word of the kriss

reaches them they'll fall into line. Thev've always lived their lives that way, and it would

take a supernova to budge them. I don't want to force them to be slaves under my rule;

I've never been so desperate for power that I'd do anything to keep it. Let my brother

have it, if it will make him happy. I have something better for my life-you."

Yvette blushed and looked down at her feet. "If it's any consolation," she said, "I'm

second in line to be Duchess of DesPlaines, right behind my brother Robert."

"Eve, I wouldn't care if you were a peasant starving in a hovel. You'll always be the

empress of my heart." He sat down again beside her and rested a hand on hers. They

embraced and kissed for a long, heart stopping moment, and Yvette felt her love for this

gallant and truly noble man renewed a dozenfold. But, once they broke from their

embrace again, the ever practical side of her nature asserted itself.

"What will you do now?" she asked.

Pias stood up and walked to the window. "Well, it's not as though my life is over," he

said. "Soon I'll be starting a new career with a new bride. I'm going into exile because of

them, so I'm hardly about to throw them away now. You and the Service will be my life;

between the two of you, I expect to be too busy to even think of anything else. I'll

probably have forgotten all about Newforest after a couple of years."

But as he gazed out the window at the darkness that covered this hemisphere of the

planet he once had been prepared to rule, Yvette could feel the deep sense of loss that

was threatening to overwhelm him. Standing, she walked over to him and slipped her

arms around his waist.

I'll have to spend the rest of my life making up for the loss I've caused him, she knew. I

only hope it'll be enough.

Originally, Pias and Yvette had planned to stay on Newforest for six days, and had

return reservations on a ship that would take them back to Earth just in time for the

Princess's wedding. But this new turn of events left them little reason for staying the

additional few days; indeed, an oppressive feeling was building up within them, and the

sooner they were off this world the sooner that feeling would go away.

Newforest was an out-of-the-way planet, and was not visited as frequently as most

others. Fortunately for Pias and Yvette, however, a chartered passenger ship carrying a

group of nobles to Earth for the festivities had developed a minor malfunction nearby,

and had stopped on Newforest to have the damage repaired. Yvette learned from

calling the spaceport that they would be able to cash in their previous tickets and

purchase space on this vessel.

The Bavol manor house seemed almost deserted as they left. Carrying their own bags

down the hallways they met not another living soul; the house's occupants were going

far out of their way to avoid any contact with them. Pias wanted very much to stop by

his father's room and say goodbye, even though he knew the old man would never

acknowledge it; but he knew that it would only deepen the pain for both the duke and

himself, and so he forbore doing it.

Outside, a copter was waiting for them, with Yuri to pilot it. The old servant said not a

word as he flew them to the spaceport but, as the young couple stepped out, Yuri said,

"Goodbye, Pias." The two men embraced tearfully and kissed one another; then Yuri

got back into the copter and flew away.

Word of the kriss had traveled quickly; everyone at the spaceport seemed aware of it.

Yvette could see that Pias had been right; whereas yesterday he had been greeted with

smiles and enthusiasm, today people turned their heads to avoid seeing him. Yvette

had to speak to the ticket clerk; no one would admit that Pias was even there. Pias

accepted their behavior stoically, but Yvette could guess just how deeply he was hurt.

Pias stayed in his cabin until the ship, the Querida, lifted off the surface of Newforest.

Then, with the easing of the heavy gravity, his own cares seemed to ease as well. He

emerged from his cabin full of his old gaiety and charm.

"I'm no longer weighted down by responsibilities as the marquis of Newforest," he

explained to a startled and delighted-Yvette. "From now on, I shall be the same

carefree, gallant gambler you first met, with a rose in my hatband and a cape around

my shoulders. I'll keep the name Pias Bavol, though-I'm damned if I'll let them take that

away from me, too."

They quickly introduced themselves to the rest of the passengers on the cruise.

Virtually all the others were nobles from the farthest reaches of Sector Twenty-Two,

traveling to Earth for the express purpose of seeing the Princess marry her consort.

None of them had ever been to Earth before, and the prospect so excited them that

they paid little heed to the social distance that ordinarily would have existed between

themselves and these two commoners, as they supposed Pias and Yvette to be. All

that mattered was that they were going to Earth to see the imperial wedding at

Bloodstar Hall.

Pias soon had charmed everyone on board-especially the ladies-with his gallant

behavior and entertaining tales. True to the persona he was portraying, he organized an

impromptu casino to help while away the time on the long flight back to Earth. In every

way, he made himself into the ideal shipboard companion.

The Querida made three more scheduled stops for passengers, which lengthened the

journey considerably. The ship was nine days out from Newforest when, quite abruptly,

alarms began sounding throughout the vessel. Pias was in the gravity-controlled

lounge, dealing a hand of five-in-the-hole, when the confusion began. Other people

jumped up from the table, sudden panic on their faces. "What is it?" shrieked one

countess. "Have we hit something?"

"Relax, comrades," Pias said, pushing his hat back slightly on his head. "We're in

subspace, which is as empty as a drunkard's bottle. There's nothing for us to hit, except

maybe another ship, and the odds against that are astronomical. Maybe the captain's

just scheduled some sort of drill for us. We have a saying on Newforest: `The wise man

worries not about the Devil's shadow.' At least wait until we know more about what's

happening before you start to panic."

It was only a few moments later, though, that everyone had real cause for worry.

Captain Bacardi's voice . suddenly blared over the loudspeaker system, announcing,

"All passengers must return to their quarters immediately and lock themselves in until

further notice. Our ship has been approached by a vessel that refuses to identify itself.

Until further determination has been made, we must assume that it is a pirate vessel

and take appropriate actions. We will be leaving subspace in five minutes. I repeat, all

passengers are to lock themselves in their quarters immediately until further notice.

Captain out."

Even Pias's glacial calm could not stop fear from spreading through the other

passengers now. With a mood of hysteria building, the people flocked to the narrow

corridors in a desperate attempt to get to their rooms. Nobles who were raised on

courtly manners and courtesy were pushing and shoving one another out of the way in

their efforts to attain refuge.

Pias managed to locate Yvette in the crush and pulled her aside out of the main

stampede. "What do you think we should do?" he asked.

"I'm damned if I'll sit in my cabin twiddling my thumbs during a pirate attack," Yvette

said with a tone of even determination. "This is a small passenger ship, without much of

a crew. The captain will need every fighter he can get."

"He ordered all passengers into their cabins, including us. He'll think we're disobeying

orders, and we can't very well go up to him and say, `We're SOTE agents, let us help.' "

"So we'll hide until the fighting starts," Yvette said. "He's not going to stop in the middle

of a battle to reprimand us; and once the battle's over, it won't really matter one way or

the other."

The two agents took advantage of the confusion to seek out a hiding place. They finally

decided on a storage bin where food had been kept, now virtually empty since most of

its contents had already been eaten during the flight. The crew was in the process of

securing the ship from outside attack and proceeding to their_ battle stations, and they

did not notice the pair hiding in the bin. Pias and Yvette settled in to wait for the drop

out of subspace, knowing that no action would occur before then.

"Why do you think the pirates would attack this ship?" Pias asked as they waited.

"I don't know. That's puzzling me, too," Yvette replied. Most pirates contented

themselves with preying on cargo ships; if the cargo was valuable enough, they could

sell it for a sizeable profit on the black market. The risk in such cases was minimal;

freighters traditionally carried small crews because there was little for them to do while

the ship was traveling through subspace. A few of the more daring pirates went after

bigger game, the larger luxury spaceliners. The theory was that anyone who could

afford to travel on those cruise ships was wealthy; either they would be carrying jewels

and other valuables with them, or else they could be held for ransom. For this reason,

the liners were usually well armed, and equipped with strong security forces, making an

attack upon them a much more dangerous undertaking.

But the Querida fit into neither category. It was a comparatively small chartered ship,

with no cargo at all and with only thirty-two passengers. While it was true that all the

people were important nobles on their own planets, the haul would hardly seem to be

worth the pirates' while from an economic point of view. Also, the Querida was not

running according to a formalized schedule, which should have made it much more

difficult for pirates to locate.

Yvette pushed these questions to the back of her mind; she and Pias should deal with

the pirates first, and only wonder why afterward.

Standard operating procedure for any vessel under pirate attack was to drop out of

subspace immediately and put through a call for help. The subetheric communicator, or

subcom, would not work while the ship itself was in subspace; the vessel had to drop

back into the regular universe to send out its message and hope that the Imperial Navy

would hear and respond in time. There was also the chance that the pirate ship, moving

at far greater than light speeds in subspace, would overshoot the now slower-moving

target and lose track of it before it could backtrack and pick up the quarry. Finding a

spaceship, even a large liner, in the total void of interstellar space made the old needles

and haystacks problem seem trivial by comparison.

Of course, the pirates also knew that dropping out of subspace was standard

procedure. When the Querida returned to normal space with a stomach-churning

blump, the other vessel was right beside it, all set to close and board.

Things began to happen ranidiv. The instant they left subspace, the engineer of the

Querida was on the subcom trying to get through to the nearest naval base. His

counterpart on the pirate ship, meanwhile, was activating a special subspace jammer

that broke up the normal harmony in the local region of subspace, preventing the

message from beaming through. Simultaneously, pirate gunners fired heavy-duty

blasters at the stern of their target. The gunners were well practiced at their task and

exceedingly accurate; it took but a single shot to blow out the Querida's engines,

leaving the small chartered ship drifting helplessly in space.

With its prey effectively powerless, the pirate ship moved in for the kill. Short bursts

from its stabilizing jets pushed it relentlessly toward the Querida and, when it was close

enough, its hatch opened and a small army of figures clad in battle armor propelled

themselves over to the hull of the captured ship. With them, they brought a large

boxlike contraption called a boarding hatch.

With the efficiency of experts they fitted this boarding hatch over the Querida's normal

airlock, then sealed it in place, airtight. That done, they all climbed inside and closed

the rear door behind them. They could now force open the airlock of the passenger ship

without worrying about damage to the inside; the air would not all rush out in one

tomadolike blast, killing people and destroying property.

The leader of the attack squad wielded his hulltorch with authority. In less than five

minutes he had cut an opening through the Querida's thick outer plating and was

scrambling through with his men at his heels. The crew of the smaller ship had been

gathered around the airlock, prepared to welcome the marauders as they deserved, but

their lighter-weight blasters were totally inadequate to penetrate the tough battle armor

the pirates wore.

The pirates themselves were content to use stunners on their enemies, rendering the

Querida's crew senseless for a long enough period to take control of the ship. Then,

thinking that most of their organized opposition was disposed of, they ventured deeper

into the ship.

When the motors had been destroyed, it also had killed the ultragrav that had been

intended for the passengers' comfort. Pias and Yvette, along with the rest of the people

aboard the Querida, suddenly felt as though the floor had been yanked out from under

them. They were in freefall now, but Yvette and Pias knew that sensation well enough

to be able to function without handicap.

They emerged from their hiding place and moved toward the airlock, knowing that was

where the action would be. As they swam toward it, they could hear the sounds of the

short battle and knew that the crew had been defeated. The Querida's defense would

have to be up to them.

Their first step would be to obtain some effective weapons. Both were carrying

ministunners, but those would be useless against the battle armor of the pirates. They

needed heavy-duty hand blasters-and the only place to get any at the moment- was

from the pirates themselves.

Hiding once again-this time in the galley-they waited until the procession of pirates

passed them en route to the ship's control room. When the invaders had gone, the two

SOTE agents slipped out of their hiding place and swam silently after them. The last

pirate in line was lagging a little behind the rest; Yvette pointed him out as their quarry,

and Pias nodded his agreement. As the pirates rounded one comer, Yvette gave the

signal to attack.

The two agents launched themselves simultaneously at their intended victim. Pias

grabbed the man around the waist, twisting him around and unexpectedly off balance.

Meanwhile, Yvette grabbed for the blaster in the pirate's belt holster. Pulling it out hilt

first,. she slammed the hard surface into the weakest point on the man's armor-his

faceplate. The clear plastic shattered, but did not fly to pieces. The man tried to raise

his arms to protect his eyes, but Pias had a grip on his arms now and would not let

them go. Yvette made another strike with her impromptu hammer, and this time the

plastic broke apart, cutting the man's face to ribbons. Yvette followed up by sending her

fist through the opening in the suit. Her punch connected solidly with the pirate's nose,

knocking his head back against the hard interior surface of his helmet. His body instant-

ly went limp as he lapsed into unconsciousness.

Unfortunately, all the suits of space armor had been com-linked by radio. At the first

sensation of Pias hitting his suit, the hapless pirate had yelled out a startled

exclamation. It was nothing coherent, but it served to notify his fellows that all was not

well behind them. Curious, they turned to see what was happening.

By this time, Yvette had the blaster turned around in her hand and ready to fire. A

deadly bolt of energy leaped from the barrel of her gun toward the armored figures at

the end of the corridor. Her aim was true; the beam hit one man squarely in the chest,

burning through the heavy metal of his armor and searing the skin underneath. Through

the hole in his suit, she could hear his scream of agony echoing down the hallway.

Pias, meanwhile, was unarmed, but not helpless. Using as a missile the now-limp body

of the pirate they'd attacked, he hurled it the length of the corridor, scattering the pirates

at the other end. Then, fearlessly, both he and Yvette leaped forward to press their

attack. Had they been working under even some slight gravity conditions, they might

have had a chance. The battle armor was heavy, slowing down the pirates' reactions;

Pias and Yvette, both from heavy-grav worlds and unencumbered, could move like

lightning in comparison. But in order to make the most efficient use of their speed, they

needed some constant surface to work against, a continual direction to move toward.

That was lacking in freefall. The agents had only one gun between them, while all their

opponents were armed and armored:

The buzzing of stun-guns filled the air as the pirates tried to counter this unexpected

attack. Despite their quickness, Pias and Yvette could not dodge all the beams at once

and, within seconds, they were floating unconscious in the middle of the corridor.

It was several hours later when they finally regained consciousness. Things were fuzzy

for another ten minutes as the effects of the stun wore off slowly; sounds seemed to

increase and decrease like sirens, while objects would snap into visual focus for a

second and then frustratingly retreat into oblivion once more.

They were still in space; they could tell that instantly from the lack of gravity. Their

bodies were drifting in an open, lighted room. Looking around, they could see other

people floating about them; as things came more and more into focus, they could tell

that the room was the Querida's lounge and the other people were their fellow

passengers and the crew of the ship. A pair of pirates guarded the door, stun-guns at

the ready. Their quick, darting eyes indicated they were keeping vigilant; there would be

no way to get the drop on them with a surprise rush.

Pias's head hurt. He had never been stunned before, and, although it was preferable to

stopping a blaster beam, he could not favorably recommend the experience. It may be

a nonlethal way to stop people, he thought, but it's still far from kind.

When the others saw them stirring they carne over and asked if everything was all

smooth. Yvette assured them that, aside from the aftereffects of the stun, they were in

good shape, but a little confused about what was happening. One earl filled them in.

After the abortive battle, the pirates had herded everyone into this lounge area so they

could all be kept under surveillance in one place. Then the ship had been rigged up in

tandem with the pirate vessel so that the larger ship could tow the Querida to its base.

So far, the pirates had made no attempt to hurt anyone, for which the passengers were

most grateful. They knew, however, that such a state of affairs could not continue

forever.

They must be doing this for the ransom, then, Yvette thought-and yet, some part of her

mind was telling her that was not the case at all. But no other explanation for this

behavior occurred to her, so she dropped the speculation and did her best to maintain

order among the captives.

Pias found his hat floating in the air some distance away; the pirates had been

considerate enough to toss it in here after him. Retrieving it, he checked the holster

hidden behind the rose on the brim; the ministunner he kept for emergencies was still

there. Feeling a little better, he donned the hat once more and, like Yvette, bided his

time until the situation altered.

Four hours later their trip ended. Everyone was herded out of the lounge, down the

corridors, and out the airlock through a pressurized tube. There were faint sensations of

gravity, just slightly more than none at all; Yvette surmised that the pirates'

headquarters was on some asteroid, a piece of junk floating in the empty spaces

between the stars. Interstellar debris like that made ideal locations for secret bases,

because they were almost impossible to find unless one knew the coordinates in

advance.

The captives were marched down a ramp and into a small room where they were

crowded together. A man of oriental ancestry in a Nvell-tailored, heavily braided uniform

sat at a table before them, with three men standing at attention behind him. He would

ask each person for his identity, and check it against a printed list he had: then each

passenger would be taken out of the room through a side entrance.

The line moved quicklv, and after only three minutes it was the SOTS agents' turn.

They stepped forward together as the pirate chief motioned to them. "Your names?" he

asked abruptly.

"Pigs Bavol, and this is my fiancee, Yvette Dupres." The man searched his list through

twice for those names and couldn't find them. "You're lying," he said at last. "There are

no- such people listed on the original manifest."

"We weren't scheduled to be on board." Yvette said. "We got on at Newforest, when the

ship made an unscheduled stop for repairs."

The man stared at them for several seconds as he chewed on the end of his stylus.

"That would make sense," he mused, mostly to himself. "It would also explain why the

ship was so late getting here."

Yvette's mind was racing as she assimilated all the data coming in. These pirates had

had advance warning of everyone who was supposed to be on the ship and of its exact

flight plan. While pirates usually tried to learn some details of a flight before deciding

whether to attack it, knowledge of this depth presupposed an intelligence network far

broader than that possessed by the average space buccaneer. Yvette scanned her in-

quisitor a little more closely.

As she stared, her eyes picked up a detail they had missed in her first casual glance-a

detail almost unnoticeably tiny. Around this man's neck was a silver chain, from which

dangled a single integrated circuit chip. Yvette had seen necklaces like that before; they

were worn as identification symbols by the top minions of Lady A's conspiracy. If this

pirate was a part of that organization, it would indeed explain why his advance

information was so thorough. It also meant that this raid was likely to be of far more

significance to the Empire than merely holding some nobles hostage.

The pirate chief was looking at Pias with a quizzical expression on his face. "Bavol of

Newforest?" he asked. "Are you by chance any relation ... ?"

"No," Pias said. "None whatsoever."

The man shrugged and made a small notation on his list. Theft, turning to one of his

henchmen, he said, "These two are of no importance to us whatsoever. Take them

away and dispose of them at once."

CHAPTER 8

Trapped

The morning after the fight in the hotel room, Jules reported to the address he'd been

given by Howard. The building turned out to be a gymnasium in a less respectable part

of the city. Its fake bricks were weathered, its facade grimy, the lettering on its sign

barely readable. It was a hangout for punks on their way up,, athletes on their way

down, and a good many nonentities who were going nowhere at all and were in no rush

to get there.

As Jules walked in, the smell of stale sweat filled his nostrils. There were the repeated

thumping sounds of fists hitting punching bags and the moans of men in less than

perfect condition overtaxing their muscles in an effort to look in shape. Jules thought

briefly on how little change there had actually been in gymnasia since the days of the

ancient Greeks. The equipment the men used for their training grew ever more sophis-

ticated with the passing years, but the basic activities remained the same, because the

human body remained the same.

Jules looked the place over quickly, then walked over to the man at the equipment

window. "A man named Howard told me to report here this morning," he said, showing

the card he'd been given.

The equipment manager took the card and stared at it as though it were something

entirely new in his life. Jules could see his lips move as he read it, could almost see the

thought processes seeping slowly through the man's dim brain. "Yeah," the fellow said

at last. "Meeting's upstairs, room D-5." He handed the card back to Jules.

Jules found the stairs and went up to the indicated room. Inside he found about a

dozen other men seated in chairs that were arranged in rows, classroom style. There

was no sign of Howard, so Jules took a seat to wait. None of the other men paid him

much attention after their initial once-over.

More men arrived and took their seats, until the room was filled. Five minutes later, Abel

Howard entered. He was dressed casually, but there was a tough look about his face

that told Jules this man was anything but casual.

"Let's get one thing straight first off," Howard began. "If any of you think working for me

is going to be easy, you can leave now. You're all here because the people I had before

are dead. There's a chance you'll end up that way yourself. If that scares you, you don't

belong here."

No one made a move toward the door, but a few did shift around nervously in their

seats. "What the hell," one man at the back commented. "We're all going to die

sometime, right? Why not get paid for it?"

His joke drew a nervous laugh from the other men. Howard waited for the laughter to

subside, then continued. "The second thing I want to get across here is that I'm the

boss. You're getting paid to do what I tell you-not to think, not to ask the guy next to you

what he thinks, but to do what I say. I don't have to pay someone to argue with me or

question my judgment. If anyone thinks that'll be too much of a strain on him, get out."

Again, no one moved.

"I'm glad we understand each other. Our first job is going to be tomorrow afternoon. It'll

be rough. You all report here at ten in the morning, and I'll supply you with everything

you need."

"Just what will we be doing?" one man asked when it became obvious that Howard was

not about to elucidate.

"What did I just say about asking questions?" Howard barked. "What does it matter

what you'll be doing? You'll do what I tell you, that's all."

"I think he meant," Jules spoke up, "that it might -be easier for us to prepare ourselves

for the job if we had a rough idea of what we were supposed to do. There's a difference

in preparation for babysitting and for bank robbing."

Howard gave him a black look. "You'll know when I know," he growled. "Don't worry,

you'll get all the preparation you need."

Howard's reaction told Jules a great deal. It was clear that the boss didn't know either

what was going to be done, and his testiness was an indication that he himself was not

happy with that state of affairs. Abel Howard was a man who liked holding the upper

hand; being someone else's underling was an irksome experience for him. It would take

a powerful person to hold him in a subordinate position-and Jules had a good idea who

that person must be.

The fact that the operation would be tomorrow afternoon was critical; that was when

Crown Princess Edna would be married in a state ceremony of enormous proportions.

The coincidence was too great to expect Howard to have some other target in mind,

considering that he'd already been involved in attempts to kill members of the nobility.

Howard was an element in a treasonous plot, of that Jules now had no doubts at all.

And to his mind, that suggested Lady A.

He had seen Lady A in action only once, on the tape he and Yvette, had captured

during their adventure on Sanctuary. That little bit, though, had convinced him that the

lady was no one to take lightly. She would be perfectly capable of putting Howard in his

place, and Howard would particularly bridle at having to take orders from a woman.

Howard made a few more general comments and had everyone leave a number at

which he could be reached if Howard needed him. Then he dismissed them, reminding

them to meet back there at ten tomorrow morning.

Jules returned to his hotel room and spent half an hour taking the vidicom set apart.

With the unit's innards spread all over his bed, he took a small device from a drawer

and attached it to two other leads, then reassembled the set. Although it had been a

tiny change, it was a very important one; this vidicom now had a SOTE scrambler unit,

and was secure for classified calls.

With that accomplished, he put in a call to the Head back in Florida. He explained in

detail what he and Vonnie had learned so far, and he gave his own personal suspicions

about Lady A's involvement. As always, the Head listened with rapt attention as Jules

spoke; and as always, his agile mind was computing, planning, reevaluating everything

on the basis of what he heard.

When Jules finished his report, the Head leaned back in his chair. "The alternatives as I

see them are as follows," he said. "First, we could have this Howard picked up

immediately. That would be a very shortsighted action, since it would alert his superiors

that we're on to them and they could escape untouched. I discarded that plan instantly.

"Second, I could put out a full surveillance on him, cover him with so many agents and

bugs that he won't even be able to go to the 'fresher in privacy. We could check out

everyone he sees between now and the wedding, trace all his calls-if he hasn't gotten

his orders yet, he has to get them sometime in the next twenty-four hours. I'd like us to

know them just as soon as he does.

"But, if Lady A is involved in this-and my hunch, like yours, says there's a high

probability of that-I can't help but be haunted by what she said on that tape, that her

organization is aware of nearly everything we do. I've made no headway thus far in

plugging the leak; everyone on the staff checks out loyal to twelve decimal places, and

every square millimeter of every office has been examined thoroughly for bugs. There's

simply no way she can know what she obviously knows, and it's driving me crazy.

"At any rate, if her boast is true, putting a blanket around Howard would be as bad as

pulling him in directly. It would tip our hand that we know something is about to happen,

at which point Lady A would simply ditch him and switch to another tactic that we might

not discover in time. For obvious reasons, we prefer the devil we know to the devil we

don't."

SOTE's top officer tilted his head slightly to the side and looked at Jules. "That leaves

me with alternative number three. That is, to leave you and Vonnie right where you are

and let you continue your own surveillance until the last possible moment. Hopefully the

conspiracy will commit itself to a plan of action and won't be able to back- out in time to

prevent us from closing our net. We-and you-would be walking a tightrope, and one slip

could mean disaster."

"I've walked plenty of tightropes in my life, and I've managed them all so far," Jules

smiled.

His boss returned the expression. "Remind me never to use circus metaphors around

you; they can be interpreted too literally. But I hope I made my meaning clear. We

would have to wait long enough to make sure Lady A and her group have committed

their forces to their plan beyond recall, but if we wait too long, we might not be able to

take effective enough action against it. With the welfare of the Empire at stake, waiting

is an awfully dangerous game."

Jules's smile disappeared and he was as deadly serious as his superior. "I certainly

understand that, sir. But let's face it-until we can plug that leak, it's the only game we

can play."

The Head nodded. "I just wanted to make sure you understood the situation fully before

agreeing to it."

"I do. In fact, I already came to the same conclusions myself. That's where Vonnie is

right now, keeping an eye on Howard. She'll report in the instant anything happens."

The Head sighed. "You certainly know how to make an old man feel unnecessary. But

then, that's why you're my best agent. Keep me posted on everything and good luck,

Jules."

"Thank you, sir." But even as Jules spoke, his boss's image was fading from the

screen.

Yvonne Roumenier was highly skilled at the delicate art of trailing a suspect. She had

accompanied Jules to the gym for the meeting, waiting outside in his car. Jules took a

cab back to the hotel when he left, leaving Vonnie with the supervehicle for her own

use.

The female agent waited around outside the gym for another two hours before Howard

emerged from the building once again, got into his groundcar, and drove off. Vonnie

had surreptitiously slipped a beeper under the body of his vehicle, so she had no

difficulty following him across town without being conspicuous. Howard gave no

indication that he suspected he was being tailed. He went directly to a restaurant, the

Chez Gaston, and went inside. Vonnie followed him in.

When her eyes became accustomed to the darker interior, she looked around and saw

her quarry seated at a table with a very beautiful woman. The two talked for half an

hour-the woman calmly, the man with a variety of gestures and emphasis. At the end of

their meal, the woman handed Howard a thick brown envelope, got up from the table,

and left the restaurant. Vonnie hesitated; should she follow this contact, find out who

she was and what she was doing, or should she stay with Howard and check him out

further? She decided on the latter course. Howard was, after all, her assignment; she

was curious about the contents of that envelope. And besides, she had gotten enough

pictures of the woman on her minicamera; hopefully SOTE would be able to run an

ident check from those.

Had Vonnie known whom she was observing, she might have decided differently. But,

like all but five people in the Service of the Empire, she had never heard of Lady A, and

she did not realize the importance of that one person in the plot against the Empire.

She had no way of knowing that, no matter how many photos she took of the woman,

the Service would never be able to correlate them with Lady A's identity, because Lady

A did not officially exist in any of its files. The course of galactic history might have been

significantly altered had Vonnie chosen to follow the woman; but, through no fault of her

own, she did not do so. Given what she knew at the time, her decision was the correct

one.

Howard finished his meal alone, paid the bill, and left. Vonnie was right after him,

though she took great care to make sure he didn't spot her. Howard drove out of the

city proper, into the hills; Vonnie stayed a respectable distance away so that he wouldn't

realize anyone was following him. This was an expensive neighborhood, but Vonnie

doubted Howard had too many financial worries. Her quarry stopped his car in the

driveway of a large house, got out, unlocked the door, and went inside.

Vonnie parked a short distance farther up the hill and waited. This was probably

Howard's home, and there was no telling how long he might stay here. Vonnie chafed.

She wanted to break in there to get a look at whatever had been in the envelope the

woman in the restaurant had handed Howard, and she wanted to be able to put a tap

on his vidicom line. But she could do neither while he was there. All she could do was

wait until he had left before making her break-in.

In the meantime, she called Jules back at the hotel. Her fianc‚ had by this time

completed his own call to the Head and was waiting eagerly for her report. She gave

him the location of Howard's house and then a brief rundown on Howard's activities so

far.

Jules's interest picked up enormously when Vonnie mentioned the woman Howard had

met for lunch. "What did she look like?" he asked, trying his best to make his voice

sound casual.

"Dark hair, light complexion, medium height, extremely beautiful, but very cold. I think

she'd give an iceberg goose bumps. It would be hard to guess her age; I'd say maybe

forty, but very well kept up. She dressed stylishly. Sound like anyone you know?"

Jules was cursing the luck that had let Vonnie spot her rather than himself. "I'm not

sure," he lied. "It might be a good idea, though, to investigate her a bit if you happen to

run across her again. We have to check all leads."

"Khorosho, will do. In the meantime I'll just have to wait here for Howard to leave again

so I can investigate inside. .4 bientot."

It was more than an hour before Howard emerged once again from his house and

drove off down the hill. Vonnie waited another five minutes to be sure he hadn't

forgotten anything and come right back, and then she slipped out of her own car and

walked around to the back of Howard's house.

The windows were all closed, and Vonnie could tell from the special sensors she

carried in her utility belt that there was a burglar trapping system. If any unauthorized

person touched the window while the system was in operation, it would ring alarms and

give the intruder a severe electrical shock-not enough to kill, perhaps, but certainly

sufficient to knock an adult unconscious until help could arrive. It was a sophisticated

device, and it took Vonnie a full ten minutes to circumvent it with the tools she'd brought

with her. That task accomplished, she forced the window open and entered the house.

She found herself in a small pantry just off the kitchen. Walking quietly through the

house she came to the living room, but a quick look around told her there was nothing

of interest for her there. Continuing on, she came to the study. On the desk was the en-

velope she had seen Howard take at the restaurant, and in the ashtray beside it were

the remains of whatever message it had contained. Vonnie sighed slightly. She wished

she'd been able to get to it before Howard had burned it, but she was not a person to

dwell on might have-beens. Taking a small, empty cylinder from her belt, she emptied

the ashes of the note into it. The lab technicians at SOTE headquarters were experts at

reconstructing evidence from the most trivial-seeming of scraps; perhaps they could

make something out of these ashes. It would at least be worth a try.

Howard's home vidicom was a wall unit, one of the large, ostentatious models that took

up an entire side of the study with its screen. She grimaced again. Taking one of those

apart to plant a tap on the line would not be an easy task; she only hoped Howard

would stay away a bit longer while she worked on it.

She set to the job with grim determination, and soon had dismantled the appropriate

parts of the vidicom. Taking a handful of electronic components from the pouch at her

waist, she began connecting them to the circuit. She had a more difficult time of it than

Jules had had attaching the scrambler to his hotel set, because this tap was more

complicated. It was capable not only of intercepting the messages that went in and out

over this line and broadcasting them to a special receiver Vonnie had in her car, but

also of tracing back any incoming calls so that Vonnie and Jules would know where any

message was originating.

So intent was Vonnie about her business that she almost didn't hear the noise until it

was too late. There was the slight swishing sound of loose clothing, the soft padding of

bare feet along the carpet. Startled, Vonnie looked up and found herself staring into the

muzzle of a stun-gun.

The person holding the gun was a young woman, no more than twenty by Vonnie's

estimation, and ravishingly beautiful. She was wearing nothing but a loose-fitting silken

bathrobe that reached only halfway down her thighs. A live-in girlfriend, Vonnie thought.

Damn! I should have suspected there might be someone else around. But everything

was so quiet!

The girl must have been sleeping toward the back of the house and been awakened by

some slight noise Vonnie made. Thinking there was a burglar, she put on the robe and

took the gun Howard kept for protection, walking down the hallways barefoot in her

attempt to sneak up on the intruder. The poor girl was both very brave and very

frightened; she clutched the stungun tightly with both hands, and even so the weapon

was shaking as she pointed it at Vonnie.

Had the SOTS agent been an ordinary burglar, the stunner might have proved an

effective deterrent; but Vonnie, as both a DesPlainian and a highly trained espionage

agent, was not about to let so simple a thing stop her, particularly when it was being

wielded by such an obviously inexperienced woman.

Even as the stun-gun buzzed, Vonnie was in motion. Her movements were so quick

that they looked like a mere blur to the startled Earthwoman. One moment her target

had been kneeling on the floor, and the next moment the interloper was coming quickly

toward her. Her first shot landed harmlessly on the carpet where the woman had been;

she had no time for a second. Vonnie gave her a gentle tap on the side of the neck,

gentle, that is, for a DesPlainian-and Howard's girlfriend sank to the floor, unconscious.

Vonnie debated what to do now. If she left the girl behind, she'd call the police as soon

as she woke up and tell them she'd interrupted a burglar working on the vidicom set. It

would take only a minor inspection to discover the tap, and Howard would know his

plans were compromised. That could not be allowed to happen.

On the other hand, Vonnie respected innocent human life too much to kill the girl simply

because she'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time. To the best of Vonnie's

knowledge, Howard's girlfriend was guilty of no more than bad taste in men and did not

deserve to die simply for trying to stop a burglar breaking into her man's house.

In the end, Vonnie decided to take the girl with her. She could be dropped at the local

SOTE office and held incommunicado for two days, until this whole affair was over.

Howard would wonder where she had disappeared to; he might even be concerned

enough to call the police and report her disappearance, though Vonnie doubted it. But

in no case would he be able to make the connection between his girlfriend's vanishing

and possible surveillance and monitoring activities directed against him.

This unexpected interruption did make Vonnie feel nervous, though. She finished her

job with a rush, not wanting to come across any further surprises, then looked around to

see where the study window was. She didn't want to carry the girl's body all the way

back to the pantry window she'd originally used and, in her nervousness, carelessly

overlooked the obvious solution of going out the front door.

She realized her mistake the instant she touched the window. Each of the windows in

this house had been rigged with the burglar deterrent system independently of the

others; her shorting out one had not affected the rest of them. It was not at all a

common arrangement, but it was one she knew she should have checked for

nonetheless; she cursed herself for her sloppiness.

But her thoughts came far too late. Even as the idea formed in her mind, a strong

electrical shock surged through her body. With a loud, involuntary groan, she pulled

away from the window sill and fell to the floor, unconscious.

It did not take Howard very long to figure out the truth. When he returned home his

girlfriend Charla was just starting to recover consciousness, while Vonnie was still out

completely. When Charla told him what "Lyla Beaumonde" had been doing, Howard's

mind leaped to the inevitable conclusion.

She and Bledsoe must be working together on this, he thought. I'll have to do

something to make sure they're stopped.

He considered telling Lady A and asking her opinion, but decided against it. She would

be paying him good money for the job tomorrow, and if he told her he'd been shadowed

she might decide to cancel her plans, which would leave him in a bad financial situation.

He had already contracted with his own men, and he'd have to pay them or risk their

anger. Besides, she already thought of him as inferior; he didn't want to confirm that

opinion by seeming to have slipped so easily into this net. As long as he took care of

these two spies himself, everything should be smooth.

He made two calls: the first to one of his more trustworthy men, and the second to

Jules. "Bledsoe, I've got another quick little job for you."

"Oh?" Jules asked. "What is it?"

"What do you care? Just get over to my house right away." He gave the address,

adding, "If you're not here in an hour, you can forget about tomorrow."

Jules was suspicious of this sudden move; it didn't seem to fit into the pattern. In

addition, he hadn't heard from Vonnie in a couple of hours, and he was becoming

worried. But there was little he could do; he had to stay on Howard's good side until he

learned what the plans were for tomorrow. He took a cab up to Howard's home and

knocked on the front door.

"Come in," Howard said, and the instant Jules complied, he was shot down with a

stunner beam set on four-a two-hour stun. He fell to the ground without even having

time to wonder how his identity had been discovered.

"Take him and the girl out in your car," Howard told his henchman. "See to it that they

have an accident but somewhere far away from here, understand?"

The other man nodded. He was very good at arranging accidents.

CHAPTER 9

The Grate Escape

Yvette and Pias were both startled at the abruptness of the death sentence pronounced

over them by the pirate leader. Whatever the plot was in which he was involved, it

obviously was concerned only with those passengers who were of noble birth, and while

both SOTE agents actually were, they had denied it as part of their cover identities. For

that, they were to die.

One guard stepped forward from against the wall behind his leader. "The usual

method?" he asked.

The boss nodded. "Yeah. Space'em."

Both agents shuddered at the thought: Being tossed out an airlock without a spacesuit

and exposed to the deadly vacuum was not a pleasant way to die. Though neither had

ever witnessed such a death personally, they were well aware of the consequences of

exposure to such a hostile environment. Even if the victim tried to hold his breath for a

while, other effects entered the picture. Without external air pressure on the skin, the

body bloated and blew up like a balloon. The blood literally began boiling in the veins,

rupturing small capillaries and sending the fluid bubbling out of mouth, nose, ears, and

other orifices. The thin layer of protective liquid over the eyes evaporated, leaving them

dry and unprotected; unless the lids were kept tightly shut the eyes could even pop like

two grapes under pressure. Eardrums ruptured as a matter of course. At this point,

even the most stoic of heroes would have to cry out in pain, expending the last little bit

of air in his lungs and causing them to collapse.

Small wonder that spacing was one of the most feared punishments in human society.

Give me a nice., clean blaster bolt through the brain, any day; Yvette thought.

The guard stepped around behind the two SOTS agents and pushed them forward;

they practically flew across the room in the low gravity. "Get moving!" the pirate told

them. "You heard what Ling said-we ain't got all day."

Yvette and Pias allowed themselves to be herded out the front door into a narrow, dimly

lit corridor beyond. "Straight ahead," their guard insisted, motioning with his stunner to

emphasize the point. "Turn right at the end, through the door to the air recycling plant."

The agents did as they were told, making their march as long and drawn-out as they

could. A dozen plans occurred to them within those seconds, and were discarded as

impractical just as quickly. They both knew Pias had his ministunner 'hidden behind the

large red rose on the brim of his hat. They had to make sure he would get the chance to

use it-and that they would have a chance to escape afterward. This corridor was a little

too crowded, with too great a risk of their break being discovered immediately. They

waited, hoping that the next few minutes would provide them with a better opportunity.

When they reached the end of the hall, they turned through the designated doorway as

ordered. The air recycling plant for the pirate base was immense. A giant plastic dome

arched over their heads. If the asteroid on which the base was located had been circling

a star, the dome would have been transparent to let in the light and heat; but since this

asteroid was at least a light-year from any star, the dome was opaque and covered with

a series of bright spotlights shining down upon rows and rows of growing green plants

that stretched for more than a hundred meters into the distance. The photosynthesis of

these plants could not provide all the oxygen a base of this size required, of course;

further along, Pias and Yvette could see a large rock-crusher. Robots would be sent out

to mine the asteroid itself for oxygen-bearing minerals, which would then be brought

back to the base and broken down into their components. Such an operation was

standard for any base, legal or not, on an airless world; it had long since been

discovered that planetoids of any reasonable size contained enough trapped oxygen to

supply a human base with its needs indefinitely.

With the exception of themselves and their guard, the plant seemed entirely deserted.

This was what they had been hoping for. Tending a plant like this was hard, dirty work,

and so the pirates had made sure it was completely automated. After all, one reason

they were pirates was to avoid honest labor if at all possible.

Pias took off his hat and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. "Hot in here, isn't it?" he

said. "I guess all those lights in this enclosed space build up a greenhouse effect." He

put his hat back on his head, but during that maneuver, he had been able to take his

ministunner from its hidden holster and palm it.

"Yeah, something like that," the pirate said. He had not been chosen for either his

scientific knowledge or his loquacity. "You won't have to worry about it much longer."

"Ah yes, the very subject I was _going to bring up next. While Yvette and I are not

nobles, and therefore of no interest to your boss, we both are quite rich, and that might

be of possible value to you. If you were to help us get out of here, we could make it well

worth your while."

"I'll help you get out of here," the pirate grinned sadistically. "Right through that airlock

over there." "No, you misunderstand me," Pias said, injecting the proper note of

desperation into his voice. "If you were to steal a ship and take us to the nearest planet

where there's a bank, I think we could reward you well. How does fifty thousand rubles

sound?"

"It sounds crazy, tovarishch. If I set one foot on a planet with you, I'd be arrested

immediately. Why should I betray my comrades to save your drapping necks?"

They had reached one side of the dome, and were now standing beside an auxiliary

airlock. The guard gave them another evil grin. "Get inside, both of you."

There was no more time; they would have to act now. But the guard had his blaster

already drawn and pointed at them. His attention would have to be distracted for the

split second it would take Pias to aim and fire his own gun, or their only chance might

be gone for good. Realizing this, Yvette took a step away from Pias.

"Maybe there are some things I can offer you that your comrades can't," she said in a

sultry voice. She began unbuttoning the top buttons of her blouse. "It must get awfully

lonely here on this base. Wouldn't you like someone to help you keep away the cold on

the long, empty nights?"

Her voice was filled with a thousand promises, and the view being offered was a

glimpse of paradise itself. No healthy heterosexual male could have resisted the

opportunity to take an extra long glance in Yvette's direction, even if he had no serious

thoughts about taking her up on her offer. The pirate guard fell prey to the trap, and it

proved his undoing.

Pias took the chance when it was offered. As the Pirate diverted his gaze to Yvette, the

Newforester brought up his small weapon and fired. The pirate dropped to the ground,

the last thought in his mind being the sight of Yvette's plunging d‚colletage.

"What took you so long?" Yvette asked as she buttoned up her blouse again. "I nearly

had the whole thing off before you shot him."

"I'm a man too, mv love," Pias replied.. "Aren't I entitled to look? If I'm going to marry

you, I should have the right to inspect the merchandise once in a while." He walked

over and nudged the limp body with his foot. "What'll we do with him? He'll only be out

for two hours."

"We'll need a longer head start than that. If _he doesn't report back to his boss he might

not be missed for a long time; but if we just leave him bound and gagged somewhere,

someone might discover him prematurely." She paused. "Much as I hate to do it to

anyone, I think that may be our only answer." And she gestured with her head to

indicate the airlock.

Pias nodded grimly. "I'm still pretty new to killing, but I'm afraid I have to agree. He was,

after all, more than willing to do it to us. At least he'll have the benefit of being

unconscious when it happens. And maybe his ghost will get satisfaction from knowing

he'll haunt my conscience every once in a while."

He bent down to help Yvette drag the body across the floor and into the airlock, even

though he knew his fiancee was quite strong enough to do it herself. "At least the last

thing he saw in his life was a sight of incredible beauty," Pias said, but Yvette ignored

the flattery.

They closed and dogged the inner door, then Pias turned the knob that would open the

outer one. Neither of them looked through the small window at what was happening to

the body of the pirate who'd been about to kill them. Instead, they walked a few meters

away from the door before saying another word.

"I suppose our next move," Pias said, his voice barely more than a whisper, "is to steal

a ship and get out of here. Once we're back on an inhabited planet, we can report

what's happened."

"Can you fly a ship?" Yvette asked. "Never had the time to learn."

"Same here. Jules always handled that department. I specialized in other things."

"We could always ask Ling and his men if they'd be so kind as to fly us home."

"Cynicism ill becomes you, mon cher. Things aren't that hopeless yet. With luck, we'll

have between two and six hours before our escape is detected. That should be time to

do a great number of things. Let's scout out the territory before we make any hasty

plans."

They inspected the rest of the air recycling plant with a closer eye for detail. The dome

was big and empty except for the greenery and its maintenance equipment, plus the

mining and oxygen-separation machinery. "No one seems to come here very often,"

Pias observed. "It might be a good place to hide out."

"If they really get a search party organized, this is one of the first places they'd look,"

Yvette pointed out. "We couldn't hide from a systematic search, not in here."

Pias shook his head and looked at his feet. "Sometimes, darling, you make me feel very

stupid and incompetent at this business."

She ran a hand through his curly brown hair. "Cheer up. You've only been at this a

couple of months. I grew up on it, remember? Don't worry, you'll learn."

Against one wall of the dome they found the pumps that forced the rejuvenated air

down into the labyrinth of underground tunnels that made up the base. "Oh, what I

wouldn't do for a few liters of tirascaline right now," Yvette said. "Pouring that into the

system would put everybody to sleep in minutes and we could go around tying them up

at our leisure."

Pias was spending more of his time eyeing the ducts themselves. "These are

enormous," he commented. "I guess they have to be, for workmen to get inside and

repair them if anything goes wrong."

He and Yvette looked at one another simultaneously, smiles lighting up both their faces.

"And they go all around the base," Yvette continued his thought. "They could take us

anywhere we want to go. You see, mon amour, I have no monopoly on brilliant ideas."

Pias grimaced. "But the same problem applies. Once they know we're on the loose,

they'll start looking, and the idea may occur to them, too. It wouldn't be too difficult to

flush us out of the ventilating system if they really wanted to."

Yvette pondered that for a long moment, wondering what her brother would do under

the circumstances. While she knew that she was, by a very slight margin, the more

insightful of the pair, Jules was usually the one who came up with the better plans. I've

gotten too used to letting him do certain things, she thought. I should develop my own

talents independently.

"There's got to be a way around that," she said at last. "Let's give it a little chance to

formulate in our minds. In the meantime, we're very exposed right now if any pirate

should happen by here. Let's get into the ventilating ducts now and worry about escape

while we're out of sight. How do we get this grating off?"

Pias studied the way the grate was fastened in place. "There look to be some hooks

holding it from the inside." He reached his hand through the slot and extended his arm

through as far as he could. After a couple of tries, the latch unhooked and Pias was

able to pull one side of the grill away from the opening. After unhooking the latch on the

other side, the entire grating came away and they were able to get inside the duct itself.

Because of their comparatively short height as natives of high-grav planets, they

discovered that they were able to stand up straight within the duct. The interior of the

tunnel was dark and the floor was quite smooth, making walking hazardous, but there

were handholds placed at intervals in the walls for the convenience of workmen who

might someday need to make interior repairs.

"This is a great system," Pias said as he pulled the grate back into place behind them.

"We can travel anywhere we want throughout the base, open the grill from the inside

and leave, then come back in when we want without anyone knowing it, if we're careful

not to be seen. Let's go exploring, shall we?"

They began walking carefully and quietly through the large metal tunnel. The floor

sloped downward toward the planetoid's interior, indicating that most of the base was

located beneath ground level. Yvette had been expecting that; it was much easier to dig

tunnels into the rock to make an underground village than to build a dome over a

surface one. The native rock would insulate against the worst extremes of temperature,

and all it would require was a little airproofing to make sure the atmosphere didn't leak

slowly away.

"I hope we find their kitchen fairly soon," Pias whispered as they walked.

Yvette's stomach was insistently reminding her that it had been a long time since she,

too, had eaten her last meal. But there were priorities to be established. "First things

first. We have to plan for our eventual rescue. Since we can't leave this asteroid to get

help, we'll have to ask the help to come to us. For that, I'll need to find their computer

and the communications center."

Pias nodded, even though he knew Yvette wouldn't be able to see the gesture in the

darkness. She was right-they'd have to send out a call for help before they could think

of any more worldly requirements. But he was hungry.

Light seeped into the duct from various gratings ahead of them. Looking out, Pias and

Yvette found a number of common rooms where the pirates could spend their leisure

time. Smaller ducts branched out from the one in which the SOTE agents were walking,

probably to individual sleeping quarters, they decided. They continued on their way.

They came to the large room where the crew and passengers of the Querida were

being held captive. There were only two guards armed with blasters stationed at the

door to oversee better than forty people; with just the blaster they had taken from the

pirate they'd killed, Yvette would have been able to eliminate those two guards without

even leaving the duct, thereby freeing all their fellow captives. But at the moment that

would be a foolish act; she would have to develop a definite plan before tipping her

hand so conclusively-otherwise she would have to herd forty people around in enemy

territory, with no one knowing what they were doing. She and Pias made a mental note

of where this place was, then continued on their travels.

They came to one end of the duct; the corridor branched at right angles to either side of

them. Making a decision at random, they took the right-hand tunnel. It was darker than

before, with no side gratings to indicate separate rooms. They continued for a long

while before they noticed the light at the far end growing brighter. By the time they

reached it and gazed out, they were amazed at what they saw.

Just outside the grating was a domed enclosure like the air recycling plant, only smaller.

Tools, construction equipment, and racks of spacesuits were stacked around the

interior, and there was an airlock on the farther side. Outside the transparent dome was

a fleet of better than fifty ships. They varied greatly in size and model-small luxury

yachts, independent carriers, good-sized cargo vessels-but all looked ready to fly

should the order be given.

The two agents backed a little way into the duct to ponder this development. They both

knew that ordinary pirates -did not need a fleet that big to do their job. They were, for

the most part, independent operators who did not work in fleets. One ship, or two at the

most, was usually enough for them to accomplish their purpose. After they'd looted a

ship, they usually left it floating in space. But these pirates apparently took their catches

back to their base and rebuilt them. For what purpose?

"They must be building an army," Yvette concluded. She explained to Pias about the

medallion she had seen around the neck of Ling, the pirate leader, and that she and

Jules had learned it was the recognition symbol of important members within an

Empire-wide conspiracy. She made no mention of Lady A, saying only that the

conspiracy was masterminded by some pretty shrewd operators.

Pias nodded slowly. "There's no better way to get ships than to steal them, I suppose,"

he agreed. "But where are they going to attack, and when?"

"I don't know, but it's our job to prevent it if at all possible. That's just one more reason

why we have to find some way of getting out of this mess-and fast. Let's see what we

can find back along the other corridor."

As they walked back in the other direction, the glimmering of a plan' began to form in

Yvette's mind. It made beautiful use of everything they'd found so far-these air ducts,

the other prisoners, the rebuilt ships. But it was all contingent upon her being able to

put in a call for help. They had to find the communications center.

They reached the point where the duct had branched off, and this time explored

the-,left-hand tunnel. This led to a more populated portion of the pirate base, and they

did indeed locate the kitchen and dining areas. Further on they found what they'd been

looking for: a room filled with electronic gadgetry and banks of flashing lights, together

with a powerful subcom transmitter/receiver. Unfortunately there were two pirates

stationed on duty here at the moment-and the grating separating Pias and Yvette from

the outside room was only wide enough for one of them at a time to crawl through.

They conferred for a moment and decided on a plan. Pias waited at the grill with his

ministunner all set. The instant one of the men came within range, he fired. The general

hum of machines inside the room drowned out the faint buzzing of the stunner; to the

other man, it would appear as though his friend had suddenly fainted in the middle of

the floor. As he came over to help the fallen pirate, the second man also became a

victim of Pias's small but effective weapon. With those two out of commission, Pias

quickly slipped off the grate that covered the duct's outlet, and he and Yvette invaded

the room.

"Stand guard for me," Yvette said. "I'll need about half an hour in here. First I have to

take some astrogational measurements and figure out exactly where we are, and then I

have to call the Circus for help."

"Why not SOTE or the navy? They might be closer than your family."

"No, the navy is fine when you need muscle, but we've got a situation here that requires

a little finesse. Remember, there are forty-some innocent people down here that we'll

want to get out alive-including ourselves. The navy's style would be to bomb this place

into insensibility; it would work, but the cost would be high. My family is a little more

flexible."

After stacking the two unconscious pirates in one corner and taking their weapons from

them, Pias had nothing to do except watch Yvette go through. her complex calculations

at the computer. Her exact procedure was a mystery to him. In the four months he had

spent at the Service Academy, he had only had time to take the basic indoctrinational

courses; he still had no knowledge of the more esoteric fields such as astrogation or

spaceship piloting. He made a silent vow, though, as he watched his fianc‚e work, that

he would learn everything he might possibly need to help him perform his job better; he

did not enjoy feeling this helpless in a desperate situation.

At last Yvette received the answers she wanted and turned to the subcom unit. "Let's

see," she said under her breath, "as I recall the schedule, the Circus should be on

Carafla about now. That's not too far away." And she began the complicated dialing

procedure that would allow her to send an instant message to her father's personal

subcom receiver.

It took another five minutes before the screen lit up and a three-dimensional image of

her father's head appeared. He looked tired and grumpy, as though he'd been

awakened late at night-and the odds were good that he had been. "Who is . . . Yvette!"

His face lit up as he saw her image on his own screen. "How are you?"

Yvette had to choose her words carefully. There was no scrambler on the subcom she

was using, which meant there was always a risk of this call being intercepted. Whatever

she said would have to sound innocuous. "Perfect, Papa. Just perfect."

Etienne d'Alembert's eyes narrowed just the tiniest crack. The d'Alemberts had a verbal

code for communicating when there was a possibility of eavesdropping, and the word

"perfect" meant that things were far from it. His daughter was in trouble and she was

calling him for help. Any suggestion of fatigue left his face instantly.

They talked for another five minutes. Although their conversation sounded rambling and

sometimes silly to Pias-as it was intended to sound to any outsider an enormous

amount of information was exchanged. Yvette managed to tell her father that she was

stranded on a pirate's asteroid, and that she was currently free to move about, but

couldn't leave. She was able to encode the exact position of the asteroid, and she in-

formed him that there was a fleet of ships on the surface that could conceivably be

launched against him. And she told him that there were more than forty people besides

herself in need of rescuing.

For his part, Etienne acknowledged her information and replied that he could have a full

d'Alembert attack force at the asteroid within four days, and that he would make sure

the navy backed them up, though it would take no part in the actual assault. Yvette

assured him she could hold out that long, and told him she loved him. That last part did

not need to be encoded. Her father echoed the sentiment and they signed off.

Though Yvette had said she'd be all smooth, she was far from confident. She and Pias

and the other prisoners would have to hold out against the pirates for four days on the

latter's home territory. She hoped it could be done.

CHAPTER 10

The Accident

The man Howard had hired to arrange Jules's and Vonnie's accident was a professional

Howard had used on similar occasions before. He knew that their deaths should occur

far enough away from Howard's house that suspicion could not possibly fall on the

criminal leader. He also knew it should take him long enough to drive to the proper

location for Howard to establish a solid alibi. The car in which the accident would occur

was a stolen one, so it would not be traceable to anyone connected with Howard's gang

when it was found smashed at the bottom of a hillside. All the details had been worked

out precisely.

This killer had a favorite spot for his work-an isolated mountain road twenty kilometers

from Howard's house. Like many of the mountain roads in Southern California, it had its

share of hairpin curves, each of which had a history of sending motorists to their

deaths. The hillside below the road was thick with underbrush, so the car might remain

unnoticed for hours or days, if all went well. And there was a nearby hiking trail that the

killer could take to walk down the mountainside and be back within the limits of

civilization in an hour and a half, from which point he could call a cab to get him home.

The man was concentrating so much on the details of this accident that he failed to

notice Vonnie's slight stirring in the back seat. The shock she bad received from

Howard's burglar deterrent system had been a strong one, and had kept her

unconscious for a long time; but she was young and in perfect health, and her

DesPlainian constitution allowed her to overcome the effects of the shock slightly faster

than might be expected of anyone else. She began to regain consciousness just as

Howard's henchman was nearing the spot he had selected for the double murder.

At first her mind was clouded as it struggled back toward reality. She remembered the

shock from the windowsill, and the consternation she had felt over committing such an

amateurish mistake. Now she could tell that she was lying down in a moving vehicle.

Someone else's unconscious body was lying beside hers, but at first she had trouble

focusing her eyes to see who it was. She continued to lie very still, however. She

realized that, whatever the situation, those around her expected her to still be

unconscious; she would be able to learn more if they continued to believe that.

When her eyes began to work properly once more, she could see that the body beside

her was Jules, and that he was either unconscious or pretending to be. This alarmed

her considerably. She and Jules were working alone on this case; for them both to be

captured at once meant they had no one to back them up or pull them out of trouble.

The fact that they were bundled in the back seat of a car and were being driven some-

where was an ominous sign.

At about the time she reached this conclusion, the car pulled to a stop. Vonnie quickly

closed her eyes once more to feign unconsciousness. She could hear the front door

opening as the driver got out and opened the back door. The man grabbed her under

the arms and dragged her out, positioning her in the front seat on the passenger side.

Vonnie "cooperated" by pretending to be a limp body, slumping forward obligingly when

he let go of her until her forehead rested lightly against the dashboard.

As the man returned to the back seat for Jules, Vonnie was computing the odds for and

against various plans. The driver's intentions were obvious by now placing her and

Jules in the front seat unconscious could only be the setup for a groundcar accident in

which their deaths would be untraceable to Howard. She obviously did not want it to

succeed-but the exact method for foiling it was debatable.

There was only the one man to deal with, and he still thought she was out cold. She

would have little trouble overpowering him and freeing herself and Jules if she chose to

do so. But the man might be expected to report back to Howard; if he failed to check in,

the criminal leader would know something had gone wrong. Being thus alerted might

panic him into doing something rash.

It would be very convenient to have him think that she and Jules were dead. It would

put him off his guard to the point where he might grow careless. In order to do that, she

would have to let the killer carry out his attempt and think it had succeeded. This course

of action would be much more difficult, and would require split-second timing and a little

bit of luck on top of it-but the rewards would be well worth the gamble.

Vonnie continued her pretense of unconsciousness as the killer dumped Jules's body

into the driver's seat beside her. Then, giving them a quick look to make sure they were

both unconscious, the man closed the door and went to the back of the car. He gave it

a strong push, and Vonnie could feel the car moving forward. Her right hand crept to

the door handle while her left went over to grab Jules's clothing. If he really was still out,

she wanted to take him with her when she jumped.

She could feel the car bump as it went over an embankment, and suddenly it was

plunging downward through dense clumps of bushes. To someone born of Earth, the

fall would have been at a dizzying speed, but to a person with DesPlainian reflexes it

was almost slow motion. Vonnie waited two seconds, until she hoped she was far

enough out of sight that the killer would not be able to see exactly what was happening

to the car. Then she sprang into action.

Her right arm pushed against the car door. There was a moment when the heavy brush

around the car resisted her attempt to open the door, but Vonnie was pressing with the

strength of a DesPlainian-and a desperate DesPlainian, at that. The door opened. With

her left hand she grabbed her fianc‚'s jacket collar and pulled him over to her. Then,

before the underbrush that was sliding past at an ever increasing rate could push the

door shut again, she leaped out of the moving vehicle, taking Jules with her.

The two bodies rolled free in the overgrown vegetation. Vonnie felt herself banging into

rocks and catching on branches and brambles, leaving her skin with a rich assortment

of bruises and scratches. Jules's body tumbled beside her until the underbrush had

provided enough resistance to stop their fall. Vonnie lay still for more than a minute,

panting to regain her breath.

Below them, the car continued to charge down the hillside like a stampeding bull

elephant, gathering momentum as it flew. A hundred meters beyond the point at which

Vonnie and Jules had left it, the car encountered a tree stump that caused it to flip over

without otherwise stopping the downhill charge. The car began bouncing crazily through

the air; it landed upside-down on a large, outcropping boulder, causing the metal of the

roof to buckle inward. Any bodies that had been seated in there would have been

crushed to death at that point. And still the car bounced three more times before

coming to rest, a battered hulk, near the bottom of the ravine.

Vonnie gave a small sigh of relief that she had managed to pull herself and Jules out in

time. Even after she had completely regained her breath, however, she moved very

carefully. Reorienting her body, she looked upward to the top of the hill, hoping for

some sight of the man who'd tried to kill her. It was difficult to both see and remain

hidden at the same time, and the angle of her view was working against her; she

thought she could make out a face peering down from the road for a few seconds, but

then it vanished. As the echoing sound of the car's crash died away, a bucolic stillness

settled once more over the mountainside.

Vonnie crept slowly through the bushes and weeds to the spot where Jules lay, some

three meters away. "Julie?" she whispered, but got no answer. Bending over him, she

could tell that his breathing was light but irregular. She felt for his pulse; it was

reassuringly strong and steady. When she lifted his eyelids, she could see that his

pupils were mere pinpoints and that the whites of his eyes were slightly bloodshot. All

these were effects of a stun-gun hit; but how severely he had been jolted, she couldn't

tell.

She debated what to do. The fact that the killer hadn't come down here after her proved

that he was satisfied he'd done his job successfully; he wouldn't want to hang around

the scene of this accident too long, or someone might come by and associate him with

it. The immediate threat from him was over. But the unknown damage to Jules worried

her considerably. The stun he'd gotten must have been at least a four, which would put

him out for two hours. But if it were any higher he could be out for days, or even

permanently paralyzed-and in that case, she couldn't just let him lie here. She'd have to

get some help. But she didn't want to leave him alone here, either, if she could avoid it.

She decided to wait with him for another hour or so. If it had only been a number four

stun, he would start to snap out of it by that time; if it had been anything higher, he

would be out for at least another four hours beyond that, which would give her time to

bring back help before he awoke and needed her.

She stood up and stretched her stiff, sore body, walking around for a while to get the

kinks out and trying to discover some way of getting back to the city. She noticed a

hiking trail a short distance away, but she could also tell that it was late in the afternoon;

she might not have the time to walk along the trail to civilization and still return for Jules

before the sun went down-and she'd hate to have to try finding his body in the dark.

Returning to him, she sat down beside him, cradling his head in her lap and smiling

down at his handsome face. She waited for something to happen.

After forty-five minutes Jules began rolling his head slightly from side to side, and within

another five he was coughing and trying to open his eyes. "Take it easy," Vonnie said,

stroking his forehead with a light touch -of her fingertips. "You're just coming' out of

stun. There's no immediate danger, so take your time."

"Howard . . . ambushed me," Jules explained a few moments later as he got his tongue

back into operation. "He must be on to us."

"Not any more. He thinks we're dead now." She explained what had happened since

she herself had regained consciousness.

By the time she finished, Jules was able to pull himself up weakly into a sitting position.

He gave Vonnie a wobbly smile and said, "Thanks for saving my life."

She reached over and ruffed his already mussed brown hair. "Don't worry; I have some

plans for you that don't include letting Howard kill you."

As soon as Jules was steady enough to stand, the two DesPlainians climbed up the hill

to the road; Vonnie decided that there was more chance of their being able to hitch a

ride there than there was of walking down the hiking trail before it got dark. As they

climbed, they were already turning their minds back to the case on which they were

working.

"The wedding is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon," Jules said, "and Howard is

assembling his gang in the morning. We don't have to be as smart as the Head to

figure out that the two events are connected. There isn't a hell of a lot of time left

between now and then. We'd be cutting it very fine, and I don't like taking chances like

that with the lives of the imperial family. I'm almost tempted to arrest Howard now and

to hell with the consequences. It could very well be that his absence will be enough to

wreck the conspiracy's plans."

"Except that you don't really believe that, do you?" Vonnie's eyes gleamed back at him

in the late afternoon sunlight.

"No, I don't. They've shown themselves to be pretty resourceful so far. Either they have

a contingency plan already in mind or else they'd know we were on to them and

disappear into the woodwork for a while and Bozhe only knows what nasty little

surprises they'd dream up for us next time. We have to try to stop them here and now."

They made it back up to the highway and, after a quarter of an hour, managed to hitch

a ride with a young man driving into the city. Their benefactor took them to a vidicom

booth where they were able to summon a cab. The taxi drove them first back to the

area near Howard's house where Vonnie had left their car parked; it was still at the

same spot, undiscovered by Howard. While she stayed there to continue her

surveillance of Howard's house, Jules continued on in the cab back to their hotel, where

he would prepare for his own action of the evening.

Howard's gang would be reassembling tomorrow morning to receive their instructions.

Now that Howard thought his opposition was eliminated, he would be unlikely to alter

those plans. If Jules was no longer going to be an invited guest at the gathering, he

intended to be an uninvited one.

Gathering his gear together-including a small personal corn unit linked to the one in the

car, so he could maintain constant communications with Vonnie-Jules grabbed a quick

snack from the food machines in the hotel lobby and took a cab to the vicinity of

Howard's gym. It was full night by the time he reached it, but the interior of the gym was

brightly lit; if it kept standard hours, there would be customers inside there until close to

midnight. Jules roamed the streets around the neighborhood until the gym was finally

closed, then went to work.

The building next to the gym was an apartment house. Jules entered it and took the

elevator tube to the top floor, then located the emergency stairway to the roof. From

there it was a simple matter to jump the two-meter gap that separated the apartment

building from the gym. On the roof of his objective, Jules fastened a sturdy canon line

and lowered himself over the edge until he was standing on the ledge beside the' top

row of windows. A quick check with his sophisticated sensors revealed that the alarms

used here were of the simplest variety, and it was the work of less than a minute to

bypass them altogether. One window wasn't even locked; Jules pried it open and

slipped into the darkened building.

The room he'd entered was an auxiliary office, rarely used, to judge by the dust that lay

thickly on the surfaces of the furniture. The rest of the building sounded quite still, and

Jules slipped quietly out the office door and padded down the darkened hallway. The

gym. itself contained little of value and Howard had seen no need to put a guard on it,

so Jules was able to prowl unhindered throughout the large building until he came to

the room that was marked as Howard's private office.

Inside, he went straight to the vidicom set and installed the same sort of bug that

Vonnie had attempted to place on Howard's home phone earlier. He also stuck a tiny

transmitter on the underside of Howard's desk, so that any conversations taking place

within this office could be monitored. Then he went down the hall to the other meeting

rooms, such as the one in which he'd had his briefing, and made sure that they were all

bugged as well. He was going to take no chances on missing the plan that Howard

described to his men. He even planted transmitters in the 'freshers, just to be on the

safe side.

When he was absolutely certain that not even a sneeze would escape without

detection, he set about to find himself a suitable hiding place. He found a janitor's closet

on the upper floor that fitted his specifications admirably, and, tucking himself in among

the mops and pails, he sat down to await results. On his private corn unit, he called

Vonnie and learned that all was quiet at Howard's house. She would let him know the

instant anything happened.

Thus assured, Jules settled himself down to rest before the big showdown. His sleep

was far from peaceful, though, as he realized exactly how slender was the margin

within which he and Vonnie were operating.

Vonnie woke him early to let him know that Howard had left the house and was on his

way into town, presumably to the gym. She would follow him at a discreet distance and

when he came to the gym, she would wait outside to give Jules any help he might re-

quire. Jules checked his microphones one final time to make sure they were all working

and prepared himself for the ordeal he knew today ,would prove to be.

Vonnie informed him, finally, that Howard had just entered the. gym, and that she was

parked across the street. A few minutes later, Jules could pick out the sounds of

Howard entering the office and sitting at the desk, going through papers. At precisely

9:30, the vidicom buzzed and Howard quickly picked it up. Jules switched on his

recording device and listened in at the same time.

"Phase One is now accomplished," said the feminine voice at the other end without

preamble. With a chill down his spine, Jules recognized that voice as belonging to Lady

A. "Bloodstar Hall is now ours. We control all access to it, and no communication can

get through our interference pattern, not even SOTE's. Once we start moving we can

seal the entire place off until we're ready to announce the outcome ourselves."

Howard gave a low whistle of appreciation. "How did you manage that?"

Jules could not intercept the video transmission on his device, but he could imagine

Lady A giving Howard one of her coldly superior smiles. "We have a . . . shall we say, a

cooperative double of Lady Bloodstar-a perfect lookalike who has moved in and

assumed the role ... at the expense of the real one, of course. Have you memorized the

guard positions and the different strike points I gave you?"

"Yes, Your Ladyship."

"Good. At precisely one minute past noon, our double will make her move. It will cause

confusion within the hall sufficient for our purposes. At the same time, ten small

canisters of TCN-14 will be exploding outside the hall, eliminating the guards there.

Your men, in gas masks, will move in effortlessly and take up the positions of the fallen

SOTS guards; they will therefore be in a perfect position to control the immediate area.

SOTS picked those spots very carefully for their maximum effectiveness, and we'll

make them work to our advantage. If all goes well, we'll have effected a complete coup

in just under ten minutes. And I assure you, my dear Gospodin Howard, that your part

in it will not go unrewarded." Without waiting for further acknowledgment, Lady A cut off

the call.

Jules was horror-struck as he listened to the plans. Although Lady A had been most

circumspect in telling Howard about the double she had for Lady Bloodstar, Jules could

guess instantly the double's true nature-a robot. He and Vonnie had already faced a

sample of this particular kind of menace once before, on the planet Ansegria. There, a

robot that looked and acted exactly like a specific person had been set as a trap to

ensnare the Crown Princess Edna. SOTE had learned that there were at least three

more such robots loose somewhere in the Empire, though their appearances and their

missions had remained a mystery. Now, in at least one case, that mystery was solved.

One robot was a duplicate of Lady Bloodstar:

The fact that Lady A's organization would be using canisters of TCN-14 outside the hall

was an ominous sign, too. Trichloronoluene was a deadly nerve gas developed in

pre-Empire times, when individual planets could-and did, with astonishing

frequency-make war upon each other. The TCN spread out from its source in a noxious

green cloud, and a single whiff was lethal; whole cities had been known to succumb to it

as it rained down in explosive canisters from spaceships orbiting a hostile world. One

historian had even gone so far as to say that it was TCN-14, rather than economic or

political causes, that had made the Empire necessary; there had to be peace between

the planets, because the alternative was simply too unthinkable.

If Lady A were using TCN-14 merely to eliminate some guards and keep the populace

from getting out of hand during her takeover, then her regime obviously would be

conducting its business in the most cold-blooded way possible.

Vonnie's voice came over his com unit, breaking him out of his horrified reverie. "We're

getting company. Looks like some of our blasterbats are arriving."

"We'll wait until they're all in, then make our haul," Jules said between very tight lips.

Then, as succinctly as he could, he outlined the conspiracy's plan to topple the Empire.

Vonnie listened very quietly. Jules knew that quiet mood of hers-it was a rage beyond

words, being directed at Lady A and her minions, and he pitied them a little. He himself

would rather have a dozen people ranting at him than have Vonnie go suddenly quiet

like that.

"We'll get them," was all she said-but her tone spoke volumes.

The hour of ten o'clock came and the men were all assembled in the designated

meeting room. Monitoring via his microphones, Jules could hear their restless stirring

becoming suddenly quiet as Howard entered the room. "Now that we're all here," the

criminal leader said, "we can begin."

That was Jules's cue. "We move in now," he said tersely to Vonnie. "Give me two

minutes to start some confusion, then come in and help me mop up."

He left his closet and ran down the hall to the fire detector. Aiming his blaster at the

spot on the wall just below the thermocouple, he shot out a narrow beam of high

intensity. The sensor in the wall, detecting the sudden increase in temperature near it,

immediately sent in the alarm to the local fire station. At the same time, it began a

series of high-pitched wails echoing down the corridors of the old gymnasium building.

The alarm did indeed cause confusion in the ranks of the men who'd come to hear

Howard's orders. Some sat openmouthed in their chairs, not knowing what to do.

Others looked to Howard for his reaction. A handful more panicked, getting up from

their seats and running out of the room.

In doing so, they moved straight from the frying pan into the fire-Jules's fire. The SOTE

agent cut them down like targets in a shooting gallery with a rapid-fire series of

stun-gun bolts. Within a mere ten seconds, six of his adversaries were lying

unconscious on the floor, and the fight hadn't even begun.

By now the automatic sprinkling system had turned on, and water mixed with

fire-extinguishing foam was spraying forcefully from all the ceilings in the building.

Everyone-Jules as well as the gangsters-was soaked as the building tried to defend

itself from the supposed menace. The footing was treacherous from the slippery fluids,

but Jules did not much care-this was one fight he intended to win effortlessly.

Sliding into the meeting room, his first shot went straight at Howard. Then, with a deft

spin like a ballet dancer, he turned and directed his stun-gun fire around the room. Most

of the men were too surprised to even reach for their guns before Jules's bolts hit

home. Those who made at least an attempt to reach for their own weapons still were no

match for Jules's DesPlainian reflexes.

By the time Vonnie raced into the building, gun drawn, there was nothing left for her to

do. She slogged her way through the water and foam, which was ankle deep in some

places, until she reached her fianc‚'s side. "I guess you really meant it when you said

you needed me to mop up."

But Jules had no time for even the most basic of humor. "These thugs won't be going

anywhere for a while," he said, taking Vonnie by the arm and leading her back toward

the front door. "The fire department can take care of them until the crisis is over. We

have more important things to do."

There were less than two hours before Lady A's plans were to go into effect. Jules only

hoped that would be enough time.

CHAPTER 11

The Battle for the Pirate Asteroid

As Yvette began explaining her plan to Pias, she repeatedly emphasized the crucial

ingredient of timing. "Everything has to be coordinated. We have to take each step in

order, and we have to make sure the others know what they're supposed to do, or the

whole thing goes up in smoke."

Pias nodded. Being responsible for the safety of the more than forty people from their

ship under circumstances like these was not an enviable task. Yvette's plan was

deceptively simple-and in its simplicity lay the one hope they had that it would work. "I'm

ready to try it if you are."

Yvette turned, pulled her blaster and sprayed its , fiery beam over the communications

and computer room. The pirates would learn soon enough that they had been here; if

the equipment were left intact, they might be able to guess some of what really

happened. It would be-better to give them the impression that the escapees were only

interested in doing random damage to a vital area of the base. And besides, it would

lead to some confusion and diminution of the pirates' abilities to act.

As they'd thought, the use of the blaster within this nerve center of the base touched off

a series of alarm bells that they could hear ringing far in the distance. "Now we've got to

move," Pias said.

"And you know where," his fiancee agreed.

They slipped back into the air vent and closed the grating behind them. Retracing their

path quickly down the darkened tunnel, they returned to the outlet that fed the room

where their fellow passengers from the Querida were kept prisoner. The alarm bells

were ringing here, too, and everyone-captive and pirate alike -was uncertain what would

happen. The two guards had their blasters drawn and ready to fire at the least

suspicious movement from the prisoners.

From her vantage point behind the grill, Yvette opened fire on the guards. Both men

dropped instantly as the searing beam from her blaster raked through them.

Passengers screamed as this new and unexpected development occurred. They were

sure it would be their turn next, and they looked around wildly to see what direction the

shots had come from and how they might be able to defend themselves.

Pias quickly undid the grating and slithered into the room with Yvette right behind him. It

took their friends a frenzied second before they recognized their saviors, but a loud

cheer rang out from two-score throats.

Pias held up his hands for silence. "Quiet! We're not safe yet-and if you ever want to

be, you'll have to follow my instructions exactly. There isn't time for questions." Although

it was Yvette's plan, they had both agreed that he would be the one to appear the

leader; it might instill a trifle more confidence in the unenlightened.

"Someone take the blasters from those two guards," Pias said. "They won't need them

any more, and we certainly will. Who here knows how to use them?"

Several hands went up, and there was a quick division of their weaponry. There were

now five captured blasters plus Pias's ministunner; Yvette kept the blaster she'd been

using and gave a, second to the Querida's Captain Bacardi, whom she then took aside

and spoke to in private. As Pias gave out two more blasters to members of the ship's

crew, keeping the last one for himself, he watched the captain nod silent agreement

and slip off into the ventilating duct with Yvette.

Pias took a deep breath. For the next half hour or so he'd be on his own. This would be

a test of exactly how much leadership ability he had.

"Our next stop," Pias bellowed, making sure everyone could hear him, "is the kitchen."

"Why the kitchen?" one man asked.

"We'll need supplies if we're going to last for the next four days," Pias said impatiently.,

"And the longer I have to stand here explaining, the less time we'll have to act. The

pirates won't be expecting us to hit the supplies; they probably think we're so seared

we'll head straight for a ship. Let's go, on the double. And if you see anyone who isn't

one of us, attack first and ask questions later."

They burst out into the hallway, where the alarms were sounding even louder. No one

else was in sight at the moment, so Pias led his party down the narrow corridors to the

supply pantry. Although the route was strange to him, his knowledge of the way the

ventilating shafts went allowed him to find his destination.

At one point a trio of pirates crossed their path at an intersection. They were surprised

to see the prisoners traveling freely down the halls, but the surprise was short-lived-as

were, in fact, the pirates themselves. The Newforester blasted them down without

mercy in a single sweep of his gun, and his group continued on.

The larder, not being considered a crucial spot, had been left unguarded during this

emergency. Pias left two men at the door to serve as his own guards, then went into the

storage area with the rest of his escapees. He spent the next fifteen minutes frantically

directing his people which things would be best to take along and which would be best

to leave.

"We'll need supplies for four days," he kept repeating. "Empty those containers over

there and fill them with water. Lots of fluids, that's what we'll need primarily. Liquid is

bulky and hard to carry, so we have to devote most of our energies to that. Get some of

the smaller, more compact foodstuffs-no,'not those cans, we might not be able to open

them. Hurry, every second is precious!"

When at last everyone was properly encumbered, Pias ordered another move-out.

They were a little behind his estimated time schedule and he knew Yvette would be

waiting desperately for him. He had to herd his group to the room that led to the

spaceship docks, and he had to hope that Yvette had been able to carry out her end of

the plan.

While Pias had been preparing the prisoners for the march on the pantry, Yvette had

taken Captain Bacardi aside. "While they're off getting supplies," she said, "you and I

have another job. We've got to steal a ship big enough to hold all of us. I know where

their dockyards are. Come with me."

The captain nodded and slipped into the ventilating shaft at Yvette's heels. The

DesPlainian led him to the outlet into the ship room. Several pirates were now stationed

here at their emergency posts. "We'll have to get rid of them before we can do anything

else," she said. Patting her own blaster, she added, "I hope you're not squeamish about

using one of these."

Captain Bacardi nodded and tightened his grip on the blaster she'd given him.

"Nothing's too much to use on these vermin," he said. "I saw pirates space half my crew

once. They won't get any mercy from me."

"This isn't a vendetta, either," Yvette warned. "We just want them out of the way_ as

efficiently as possible. As soon as they're eliminated we put on spacesuits from the rack

over there and go out to steal ourselves a ship. Understood?"

"Smooth," the captain nodded.

Yvette unfastened the grating and, with a sudden violent kick, sent it flying across the

room. The startled pirates within the dome looked up, their attention held for several

seconds by the anomalous flight of the ventilator grill over their heads. By the time they

could think of anything else, it was too late.

Yvette and the captain emerged from their tunnel, prepared for a fight but also braced

with caution. The room they were in was a transparent dome, with the deadly vacuum

of space on the other side. Though the dome's material was tough enough to withstand

even micrometeoroid impacts, a stray blaster beam could prove disastrous. It did not fit

in with Yvette's plans to puncture the dome and destroy the entire pirate base by

explosive decompression.

Therefore, the two attackers did not fire at random as they might otherwise have done.

They took their time to aim carefully at the surprised pirates, and each shot they placed

was true. By the time the defenders could draw their weapons, the fight was essentially

over; they themselves hesitated to risk a wild shot that might damage the dome over

their heads, and the fraction of a second their indecision cost them was sufficient.

Yvette and the captain were left alone in the dome.

With the fighting over for the moment, the captain looked outside at the crowded

spaceport field. "Bozhe moi!" he exclaimed. "They've got a whole navy of their own out

there."

Yvette had already gone to the racks that held scores of spacesuits and took one that

was approximately her size. As she quickly clambered into it, she said, "Yes. Pick one

that will hold all our people and let's get moving. Whatever ship you pick will have to be

lifting off in half an hour."

The long but necessary delay at the food lockers gave the pirates time to zero in on the

location of Pias's group. As they made their way out toward the spaceship dock, the

people from the Querida encountered much more resistance. Twice they were pinned

down by enemy fire before they were able to kill their antagonists and move on. Three

of the ship's company were cut down by blaster fire in the densely packed hallways. But

Pias did manage to shepherd almost the entire contingent safely into the spacedock

dome, and barricade the door behind them by moving some heavy equipment into

place against it. It would take the pirates at least twenty minutes to get through.

There was no sign of Yvette and the captain, but Pias refused to wait. "Everyone take a

spacesuit," he called, pointing at the racks to one side of the dome. "It doesn't matter

whether it's your size or not, you won't be wearing it anyway."

A woman beside him gave him a startled glance. "Then how are we supposed to get

out to the ships?" As Pias followed her gesture with his eyes, he could make out two

spacesuited figures loping across the spaceport field back toward the dome. That would

be Yvette and the captain-or, at least, he hoped it was. "We don't go out to the ships,"

was Pias's soft reply. "We stay_ nice and cozy in there"-he pointed at the hole in the

wall that led to the system of ventilator ducts-"while we wait to be rescued four days

from now."

There was rumblings of mutiny in the ranks, and many of the passengers were

uncertain of the wisdom of Pias's plan. The arrival of the two spacesuited people at the

airlock forestalled any questioning; they indeed turned out to be Yvette and Captain

Bacardi. and they added their influence to that of Pias. Slowly, and with not a little

grumbling, the passengers from the Querida complied with their orders. Each took a

spacesuit from the racks and carried it with him into the air shafts.

"I still don't see why we don't just take a ship and escape," one passenger muttered.

Yvette overheard him and merely smiled. "You will," she said.

When everyone was back inside the shaft, Yvette and Pias fastened the grating back

into place over the hole in the wall. Instead of herding them all away, however, they

decided to stick around this area and let people see what happened next. Pias selected

three of the top grumblers and made sure they had a good vantage point beside the

grill to observe firsthand the events of the next few minutes.

With a trembling that shook the walls around them, even this far away from the scene,

the ship that Captain Bacardi had picked lifted off the ground toward the sky. Once the

vessel had left the ground the trembling stopped, but the ship continued to rise silently.

The departure was slow at first, but as the ship moved further from the planet's surface,

its determination to escape seemed to increase exponentially. It had been programmed

on automatic pilot to blast as far and as fast as possible, and it was trying its best to

obey the instructions.

It had gone less than a kilometer from its launching site when suddenly it exploded in a

flash of brilliance. There was, of course, no sound in the emptiness of space; one

second the ship was a dull form disappearing into the blackness, the next it was a new

star blinding the viewers with its intensity. Those who had been watching at the grill

pulled back quickly, knuckling their eyes. "What happened?" someone asked.

"The pirates weren't about to let us get away,"

Yvette said quietly. "They'd rather see us dead than allow us to get back to civilization

and tell the authorities the location of this base. The defensive armament around this

asteroid could easily knock any of those ships out of the sky-and that's what they did.

We would never have had a chance to escape. Our only hope is to wait here for four

days; help is already on the way."

"But they'll find us and kill us!" one woman cried. Pias tried to give her a comforting

smile, but the gesture was lost in the darkness of the tunnel. He had to settle, instead,

for a calm tone that he hoped would allay her fears. "No, that's the beauty of this plan.

Look at all these events from the pirates' point of view. They know Yvette and I

overpowered the guard who'd been taking us to our death. We got away from him and

found the rest of you. We all broke out and went to the food locker, where we picked up

some supplies to take with us during our escape. Then we came to the spacedock

dome, took spacesuits, and apparently boarded that ship. It took off and was shot

down. As far as they're concerned, we're all dead now, and that's the end of the matter.

If we stay quiet and inconspicuous, they'll never think to look for us in here. We just

have to be careful not to attract their attention."

They started to settle into a boring, quiet routine. They had sufficient air, food, and

water, and there was plenty of room for them to move around in to ward off the feeling

of claustrophobia. The worst problem figured to be toilet facilities, and even that was

taken care of satisfactorily. Yvette had been planning to use one end of the shaft,

where there was a slight dip near the air recycling plant, as a drainage

trough-uncomfortable, perhaps, but preferable to discovery. But as Pias was going past

some of the private quarters, he overheard two pirates talking on the other side of the

grill. That particular room had belonged to a pirate who'd died during the fighting with

the passengers; his personal effects were being removed and divided up among the

rest of his fellows, after which the room would be vacant until a new pirate was

recruited. When they left, Pias removed the grating and slid into the room through the

small opening in the wall. Bolting the door from the inside made it perfectly safe for their

use. One 'fresher for forty people was less than ideal, but it was certainly better than

nothing.

Time dragged by with immeasurable slowness, and they dared not even engage in any

long conversations to ease the boredom. For the most part, people just sat on the

smooth metal floor of the air duct, occasionally standing and walking around to keep

their muscles from tightening. Most of the passengers seemed resigned to their fate

and spent their time just sleeping.

Pias and Yvette were nervous at the unaccustomed inactivity. Like tigers in a cage they

prowled restlessly up and down the tunnel, spying on the daily activities of the pirates.

They paid particular attention to the doings of the pirate leader, Ling. He seemed

almost as edgy as they were, snarling irritably at his men, performing his administrative

duties in a foul temper, pacing around the partially destroyed communications room like

a man expecting an important message any minute. The two SOTE agents decided he

must be awaiting some orders from his superiors in this conspiracy.

On the morning of the third day after their escape, Yvette and Pias heard one oœ the

corn officers deliver a verbal message to his commander. "Message relayed from C,

sir," the man said. "The imposters have all arrived as planned, and will be in the hall to

take up their positions at the necessary time. If the coup goes well, you'll be given your

orders to move in about twenty-four hours, but you are not to make any move at all until

you receive the word."

"More standing and waiting, damn it!" Ling spat angrily. "It's driving me crazy. Smooth,

tell C that I acknowledge his instructions . . . but I don't have to enjoy them. Don't, of

course, tell him that."

The two SOTE agents, listening in secret, had gotten an earful. The word "coup" had

put them instantly on their toes, but they were powerless to do anything more than

speculate at present. The reference to the impostor puzzled them until, after talking

over in quiet whispers with the passengers, they learned that each of them had had

personal identification taken away-rings, ID cards, et cetera.

"That's why they had a copy of the passenger list," Pias said. "They're going to

impersonate all the nobility that was aboard the Querida. But how can they hope to get

away with an impersonation like that? The computers should be able to spot the frauds

in a second."

"It's possible to make exact robot doubles of people," Yvette told him. "Jules and I

already ran across one that was frighteningly perfect."

"There were thirty nobles on the passenger list. Could they make that many robots?"

"I don't know. Jules and I have only learned about three more on the loose-and two of

those were made to look like people from high-gray worlds, which wouldn't match any of

these passengers at all. They apparently are very difficult machines to construct, but

even so this conspiracy is well financed. I'd have to think about it some more."

"That mention of twenty-four hours-it must refer to the Princess's wedding. That's

scheduled for tomorrow."

"I know." Yvette slumped down to a sitting position against the wall. "It all makes me

feel so impotent, knowing something's going to happen and being unable to do

anything."

Pias gave her a smile. "We have an old saying on Newforest- `You can't steal a chicken

while wearing boxing, gloves."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that the first thing you have to do is take off the gloves. We've got moves on

right now, and we can't do anything else until we get them off-which won't be until your

family rescues us tomorrow. Besides, your brother's on Earth; he's probably already got

everything well in hand."

Yvette did not tell Pias about one other thing that was worrying her-this new factor of a

boss known only as "C." Ho%v did he relate to Lady A in the conspiracy's hierarchy?

Was he her boss, her equal or her subordinate? And did the existence of an A and a C

also indicate the possibility of a "B" running around somewhere behind the scenes?

There were no answers to her questions, and she dared not risk breaking the cover of

all the people here just to find a little more information. She could only hope her father

would get here soon and rescue them so that they could send the news about the

attempted coup back to Earth as fast as possible.

The attack, when it did come, was so skillfully done that it was halfway over before the

pirates even realized it was occurring. The big circus ship emerged from subspace

more Than a full light-second away from the pirates' asteroid-well out of its detection

range. It launched a projectile at its target that looked like merely another rock, a piece

of space debris no more than a dozen meters in diameter. Because the rock was so

small, and because it had no means of self-propulsion for the pirates' sensors to detect,

it failed to activate the automatic alarm system. The course it was traveling would take it

no closer than a hundred meters from the base, so there was seemingly no reason for

concern. However, shortly before the rock reached its nearest point to the asteroid, it

burst apart and elected a score of figures clad in space battle armor. Like the tiny car

that pulls into the center of the circus ring and disgorges limitless numbers of clowns.

the rock had been packed full of d'Alemberts waiting for just the proper moment to

emerge. Activating small airjets on their suits, they rocketed silently down to the surface

of the asteroid without giving the inhabitants the slightest notice of their existence.

Another rock flew past shortly behind the first. This one also sprang apart to release its

contents-a few more members of the d'Alembert clan as well as all the equipment the

invading force would need. These, too. were jetted down to the surface without

detection.

Now the invaders were ready to get to work. Three of them separated from the group

and went to the outside gum emplacements. Once the fighting started on other fronts,

the pirates would not be paying attention to more alarms ringing; it would then be the

job of these three to dismantle the automatic blasters that guarded the asteroid, so that

the circus ship and its naval companion could come in closer and use their own

weaponry to aid in the battle.

The rest of the d'Alemberts clustered around the four main airlocks of the pirate base.

With them they had small boarding hatches, identical in concept with the ones the

pirates themselves had used to break into the Querida. These people were used to

working as a team, as they regularly put up the Circus's tents wherever they played.

Within a matter of only a few seconds, the attack was ready to begin in earnest.

Alarm bells started ringing within the base as the d'Alemberts applied their cutting

torches to the outside of the airlocks. They wasted little time with formality; they were

through the outer walls before most of the pirates even realized precisely what was

going on.

The defenders had little time to get into their own battle armor before the fighting was

underway.

Soon the major corridors were sizzling with energy as blaster bolts beamed up and

down their length. As the d'Alembert forces poured in from four different entrances at

once, pockets of defenders found themselves cut off and isolated from their comrades.

The d'Alemberts, for their part, were merciless in exterminating anyone who showed

even the least bit of resistance.

- Alarms were also ringing in the central control room, indicating that the big exterior

blasters were being tampered with. In the general confusion, however, none of the

pirates noticed this development until it was far too late to do anything about it.

Some pirates blockaded their sections, hoping to stall for time and get into their battle

armor to fight back against these unknown invaders-but they found themselves

unexpectedly attacked from a new direction. Blaster bolts coming out of the air shafts

struck them down from behind as Pias's and Yvette's forces took advantage of the

confusion to assist in their own rescue. The pirates now did not know which way to turn;

even the safest directions were suddenly fraught with unknown peril.

A few of the pirates decided that flight might be the safest alternative-but even that

avenue was blocked. As they ran in their spacesuits across the landing field where their

ships were docked, they were frozen in their tracks by the sight of an imperial battle

cruiser looming overhead- just a bit of extra backup Duke Etienne had called for at the

last moment. The navy gunners had a fine day of target practice, destroying all the

pirate ships on the ground before a single one of them could take to the ether. Within

an hour from the moment the battle had started, the pirates were beaming out an

urgent message of surrender.

With the cessation of hostilities, Yvette led the passengers of the Querida out into the

open once more and remanded them to the custody of the naval officers who had

landed and were establishing martial order. She herself took Pias by the hand and went

with the rest of her relatives back to the circus ship, which had landed near the battle

cruiser.

As soon as they'd peeled off their spacesuits, the two were ushered into the presence

of Duke Etienne. The manager of the Circus embraced his daughter lovingly, then

looked over at the man with her. Pias, who had made a point of bringing his hat along,

took it off and swept it across his chest as he made a deep bow to his future

father-in-law. "I am honored, Your Grace, to make the acquaintance of a person so

distinguished as yourself. The progenitor of such a wonderful daughter is a man worth

envying."

The duke smiled and turned to Yvette. "I like him already-he has almost as high an

opinion of me as I do."

Yvette smiled, too, but she did not forget her duty. "I'm glad, Papa, but right now there's

still some more business for us. We've got to send a subcom call to the Head at once.

Pias and I overheard some of Ling's plans-there's going to be a coup attempt during the

Princess's wedding."

The duke looked grimly down at his watch and made a quick mental calculation. "It may

already be too late," he said. "According to everything I know about it, the ceremony

was supposed to start half an hour ago."

CHAPTER 12

The Affair at Bloodstar Hall

Bloodstar Hall was steeped in centuries of tradition. Construction had begun on the

mammoth structure, located in Angeles-Diego, in 2004. It was called, at the time, the

Angels' Palace, and it was being built as a rival to the Houston Astrodome, the New

Orleans Superdome, and other megalithic sports structures of the day. The political

turmoil of the period, however, delayed its completion for years, and it was not until

2028, well into the reign of King Boris I of Earth, that the Angels' Palace was opened to

the public.

Although it defied many of the architectural conventions of its day, the Angels' Palace

was subsequently called one of the most marvelous planet-based structures built by

man. The exterior was a deliberate return to the massive stonework of the medieval

craftsmen, though on a scale those worthies would scarcely have considered. Fluted

columns stood by enormous gateways of bronze; massive bas-reliefs depicting key

scenes from the history of western civilization surrounded the upper levels; and almost

everywhere one looked were carved stone figures lovingly etched into the naked stone.

Inside, the Angels' Palace was equally impressive, completely covered over by a dome

of restful blue in which golden "clouds" drifted at random. With all the seats in, it had a

capacity of more than two hundred thousand: remove the seats and nearly half again

as many could be packed inside without discomfort. It was the largest stricture of its

kind ever attempted by man, and easily one of the wonders of the modern world.

Little wonder that King Stanlev VI of Earth chose the Angels' Palace on February 28.

?22_5 as the spot from which he proclaimed himself Emperor Stanley I of the Empire of

Earth. As the message was beamed out to all the planets, the majesty of the new

Emperor's surroundings lent even more respectability and authority to the unheard-of

grab for power he was making.

And in only five years' time, the Angels' Palace saw an entirely different usage. The

so-called Dukes' Revolt was raging against the Emperor's authority and, in a last-ditch

attempt to consolidate the imperial forces, Admiral Kiril Bloodstar commandeered the

Angels' Palace as his central command headquarters. Thanks to the Admiral's brilliant

strategies, the Emperor and his family-and the entire Empire-were saved. In gratitude,.

Stanley I renamed the Angels' Palace and gave it in perpetuity to the Admiral's family,

in addition to the unique hereditary title, Lord (or Lady) Bloodstar of Bloodstar Hall.

The Bloodstar family had served the Empire with distinction ever since. They had

produced any number of fine statesmen and military officers, and there was seldom a

time when a Bloodstar was not a member of the Imperial Council. There had even been

Bloodstar marriages into the Stanley line itself, so that the current Lady Bloodstar was

number ten in line of succession to the Throne.

Bloodstar Hall, meanwhile, had become the traditional site for all imperial ceremonies of

note. Here was where all Stanley emperors and empresses were crowned; here was

where weddings of state occurred, and here was where the Stanleys were mourned

when they died. Bloodstar Hall was high on the list of places for any tourist coming to

Earth to visit.

The north wing of the hall had been renovated centuries ago into the official residence

of the Bloodstar family itself. Thus, though the crowds that had flocked to Earth for

Princess Edna's wedding celebration had begun gathering around Bloodstar Hall the

day before the ceremony, the north wing was kept free of crowds. The robot duplicate

of the current Lady Bloodstar had no problem passing through the cordon of guards the

night before the wedding; if anyone had even questioned her being out at that hour, she

would have said she'd gone out for a brief walk because she was nervous about the

next day's activities.

Once inside the hall, she proceeded straight to "her" room, where she confronted the

real Lady Bloodstar and that poor woman didn't stand a chance against a robot double

who could think and act many times faster than she could and had incredible

mechanical strength besides.

With no one now left to challenge her identity, the robot impostor traveled around the

hall inspecting the security arrangements. No one would question so important a

personage; after all, she had every right to inquire whether the Princess would be safe

in this hall tomorrow while theoretically under her protection. Everywhere the robot went

outside the hall she left a small, timed canister of TCN-14. Inside the hall, she cached a

series of handweapons in predetermined locations. When she finished her inspection,

she made a surreptitious trip down to the communications room and sabotaged the

incoming lines. No matter how desperately anyone outside the hall tried to call in tomor-

row, these lines would look perfectly clear and open. The conspiracy was taking no

chances that anyone might accidentally learn of their plans and call in a warning.

The robot's next move was to place a call to a certain vidicom number. She let the

receiver at the other end buzz twice, then hung up and called again. This time she only

let it buzz once. This was the code signal by which Lady A would know the hall had

been secured, and that all was in readiness for tomorrow's operation.

With that accomplished, the fake aristocrat returned once more to her room. Being a

robot, she had no need of sleep, but she lay on the bed with her eyes closed anyway, in

case some servant should look in. And as she lay still, she contemplated her orders for

the coup tomorrow.

Jules was fuming as he drove through the crowded surface streets in a desperate

attempt to reach Bloodstar Hall before the designated hour. He would have loved to let

his car open up and fly to the hall, but he was unable to contact the SOTE contingent

there. As Lady A had said, the conspiracy had managed to put a blanket on the

communications network leading into the hall. Jules knew that any flying craft

approaching that hall today without giving warning would be fired on instantly by the

Service personnel on duty-and he was in no mood to be shot down by his own side at

this stage of the game.

So he drove through crowded streets that had banners flying in celebration of the

Princess's wedding; and as he drove he kept hoping beyond hope that he'd be able to

prevent it from becoming the occasion of a funeral as well.

The nearer they got to Bloodstar Hall the worse the traffic became, until finally it

reached such a point that Jules disgustedly turned off the motor and got out of the car.

"Come on," he said to Vonnie, "we can walk faster from here."

Urgently they pushed their way through the milling throngs, and they were not in the

least hit hesitant about using their full DesPlainian strength to shove people aside.

When the lives of the imperial family were at stake, rudeness was an acceptable price

to pay.

By the time they had reached the outer gates of the hall they knew their behavior had

been noted. The guards posted around the perimeter of the building had been specially

alert for anything out of the ordinary, and they'd been picked well. Guns were currently

being trained on the DesPlainian pair, and Jules knew full well they'd be used if he and

Vonnie could not explain themselves satisfactorily.

"Keep that enthusiasm under control down there," one of the guards advised him

sternly.

Jules was deeply out of breath, but he managed to holler up, "Wombat: Situation 39!"

All the Service guards froze at their posts for a second. The code name Wombat

(Jules)-along with Periwinkle (Yvette)-was almost legendary within the Service. Though

the identities of those. two superagents were kept well secret, everyone in the Service

knew it would cost him his job to disobey an order given by either of those two. In

addition, the code phrase "Situation 39" indicated a crisis on the imperial level. Either of

those code phrases would have been enough to make the leader of the security team

spring into instant action; both together made his cooperation imperative.

Beckoning Jules and Vonnie forward, he helped them up into his elevated lookout post.

"Major Mbente at your service, sir. What's wrong?"

"Everything. Is there any way you can communicate into the building?"

Major Mbente punched a button on the console before him and waited. After a moment

he gave the board a perplexed look and tried again. There was still no reaction.

"Something seems to be out, sir," he reported.

Jules grimaced. "Khorosho, then here's what you'd better do. Get all your people into

gas masks at once. Then clear the streets completely-there are ten canisters of TCN-14

scattered around the building, and they're due to go off in," he checked his watch,

"about twenty minutes, at a minute past noon. Don't _let the people panic; there's an

assassin inside the building, and we don't want to scare her into premature action. Is

there anyway I can get into the hall?"

"You might try that door over there."

 "Merci. And get these people away!"

"Yes sir." Major Mbente gulped at the enormity of the task. There were upwards of a

million people jammed around the perimeter of Bloodstar Hall, with barely a hundred

SOTE personnel and three thousand police to control them. Pushing that many people

back without giving them the true reason-which would set off a panic-would be an

almost impossible job. SOTE agents took pride in accomplishing the impossible,

though; so instead of contemplating just how hard the job was, Major Mbente set about

grimly relaying instructions to the other lookout posts.

Jules and Vonnie, meanwhile, slipped into the hall through the indicated door. The

conditions they found inside would have made Bedlam look like a place of peace and

contentment. People were running around behind the scenes, pushing and shoving at

one another in mad confusion. At first, Jules feared they were too late and the

assassination had already happened;. then he realized that all this confusion was just

routine for such high state events, with people going crazy in the wings to make

everything seem normal out front. He looked about him, but could see no sign of any

official SOTE station.

Vonnie was moving ahead of him, elbows swinging viciously as she pushed people out

of her way. Even so, the floor area of Bloodstar Hall comprised several square city

blocks, all of _them jammed with nobility. Squeezing through that mass of humanity to

reach the Princess in the short amount of time left would be a nearly impossible task.

When a d'Alembert could not see a way through a problem, he found a way around it.

Looking about the immense hall, which could be compared to a larger version of the

circus tent under which he'd worked for so many years, Jules had an idea. "You try to

get through on the ground," he told Vonnie, having to yell to make himself heard above

the backstage tumult. "I'll try another route."

He elbowed his way to a door marked "Maintenance" and, to his relief, found it

unlocked. Inside was a narrow service corridor that led to, among other things, an

elevator tube that could carry workmen to the upper reaches of the hall. He punched a

setting for the topmost level and stepped inside. A cushion of air solidified beneath his

feet, whisking him upward at a speed that normally would have seemed quite fast.

Today, however, nothing moved fast enough to suit him.

He stepped out of the tube to find himself in a world of girders, cables, ropes, and

pulleys-the superstructure for the roof of Bloodstar Hall. There were catwalks around

the perimeter of the roof for the safety of the workmen, but Jules, of necessity, scorned

them. He hadn't come up here to be safe, he'd come because there were no crowds up

here, nothing to prevent him from reaching the center of the hall in the fastest time

possible.

Leaping over the guide rail, he ran along the naked girders that supported the roof,

trusting to his aerialist's sense of balance to keep him from falling. He tried not to think

of the drop that awaited him if he slipped. Like all natives of high-gray worlds,

DesPlainians had an inbred fear of falling. Performers in the Circus of the Galaxy had

had that fear trained out of them since childhood, to the point where Jules would think

nothing of working even forty meters above the circus ring. Bloodstar Hall, however,

was built on a bigger scale than that; the floor was a full one hundred meters below

him, a drop of approximately thirty stories.

On the floor of the hall, the ceremony had proceeded so far without a hitch. There had

been interminable processions all morning as the thousands of visiting nobles, clad in

formal court robes, had marched into the hall according to their rank, preceded by

banners, fanfares and all the other hoopla of their station. The Imperial Choir had

treated the audience to a truly inspirational set of a cappella renditions. The Imperial

Color Guard had given a show of precision drill work, and the official bands of many

individual Sectors and planets had also paraded around the floor, entertaining the

waiting audience. Finally, only ten minutes ago, the Emperor and Empress had arrived

at their special box, accompanied by their retinue; both were in their full state court

robes, his of scarlet, hers of peacock blue. They bore their massive platinum state

crowns with imposing majesty. All festivities had ground to a halt while the royal couple

were given a standing ovation lasting seven minutes.

Jules reached the center of the roof structure and looked down. All attention was on the

floor as Choyen Liu, the bridegroom from Anares, had just entered from a side aisle

with his honor guards. Liu was wearing an under tunic of green, peacock blue, and

silver brocade; his peacock blue velvet tunic and trousers were cut in Chinese style,

lined with silver sable and trimmed with emeralds. On his head, a peacock blue Tibetan

crown covered an underact of emerald green velvet; at his neck, a double set of

emerald frogs clasped the tunic together. His peacock blue gloves were heavily

jeweled, and a pair of silver leather boots completed his outfit. He looked every

centimeter a fit consort for the Galaxy's next ruler.

Jules checked his watch. Eight minutes to go. Soon Princess Edna would be entering

from the far end, with the ersatz Lady Bloodstar as her matron of honor. He had come

this far just by his hunch that it would be the fastest way to go. Now that he was here,

he would have to devise some plan for getting down to the action and quickly.

Although Bloodstar Hall was no longer used as a site for sporting events, the large

scoreboard that used to hang from the center of the ceiling was still in existence, pulled

up near the top and dangling just fifteen meters below him. The hall was still

occasionally used to stage plays and operas, and farther down were ropes from which

scenery flats could be raised and lowered. There should be some way, he thought, for

an enterprising young man to use those facts to his advantage. All it takes is a system

to get front here to there to there.

The column that held up the scoreboard was massive, though small in relation to the

scoreboard itself. Wrapping his arms as far around it as he could, Jules slid downward

until he was standing atop the giant scoreboard structure. It was big enough to support

his weight easily-it had been built to hold several workmen at a time, if need be, for

repairs.

As Jules began searching for his next step there was a fanfare below him and the

organ music swelled. All heads, including Jules's, turned to the far end of the hall,

where Princess Edna had made her entrance.

Edna Stanley was not an excessively beautiful woman, but there was a presence about

her that carried her beyond the normal meaning of the word beauty. Though several

years younger than Jules, she had spent all her life training to be the next ruler of the

Empire of Earth. All the majesty, all the power that went with her future position radiated

from her in waves as she stood in the doorway, acknowledging the cheers and

applause of this immense crowd.

The Crown Princess was clad in a tightly fitted strapless gown of white satin, heavily

embroidered in pearls and diamonds. The overgown of silver spiderweb lace had its

cuffs and hemlines heavily trimmed with bands of emeralds and sapphires. She wore a

collar of emeralds, with one large square-cut emerald dangling from it as a short

pendant. Her headdress was a pagodalike crown of platinum and diamonds, from which

hung emeralds cut into the shape of bells. Her veil was of silver gauze and reached

halfway down her back.

As she walked into the hall, her retinue of attendants followed her. These ladies,

noblewomen all, were wearing pastel silk mandarin court robes, all heavily em-

broidered. Lady Bloodstar was among them, looking perfectly innocent of any taint of

treason.

The time for niceties had passed. Jules could not afford to waste so much as a single

second more looking for the safest or most efficient way down. Much as he hated to do

it, he would have to come swashbuckling into the middle of the Princess's wedding,

making a spectacle of the occasion. He consoled himself with the thought that the

alternative was far worse.

The Princess stopped halfway down the aisle, in front of the imperial box. At this point

her father-a tall, distinguished man with graying hair and regal posture -stepped out

beside her and led her the rest of the way down the aisle.

At the same time, Jules leaped from his safe platform downward toward the ropes that

were tied back out of the way. It was perhaps the mightiest leap of his life, born entirely

of desperation. No man native to Earth would have believed it possible; even Jules him-

self in a saner moment might not have attempted it, for the alternative if he missed

would be a long fall and a horrible crash to the floor below.

Jules used every trick he-knew as the premier aerialist of the Galaxy to gain the few

extra centimeters he needed. He flattened his body against the almost unnoticeable air

currents circulating in the upper reaches of the hall, stretching his muscles to their

utmost in his attempt to reach those ropes. It was the finest single acrobatic

performance of his entire life-and it went completely unwitnessed, as everyone within

the hall was still watching the Princess and the Emperor making their stately way to the

dais.

Jules's fingers tightened on the rope and he pulled himself against it. A surge of relief

swept through his body. The impossible had been accomplished. From now on, the rest

of what he had to do was almost child's play by comparison. Almost....

The rope had been tied loosely out of the way, but it had not been intended to hold

against the drag of his hundred-kilo body. The rope pulled free of its moorings and

began a slow pendulum swing out over the audience. This was exactly what Jules had

hoped for. At the same time as the rope began its swing, Jules began sliding down its

length as rapidly as he could, trying to time his maneuver so that he'd be as low on the

rope as possible by the time it reached the nadir of its arc.

Jules knew from experience that a stun-gun would have absolutely no effect on the

treacherous robot masquerading as Lady Bloodstar. It would take a blaster bolt, and it

would have to be done with a single clean shot. The robots, he knew, had reflexes that

put even a DesPlainian to shame, and if he missed on his first try he would not get a

second; the robot would have enough time to kill both the Emperor and the Princess.

Even if that were not so, he still dared not miss on his first shot-with so many

high-ranking nobles in the audience, random blaster fire would certainly wound or kill

someone of great importance.

As his rope swung lower, the audience suddenly became aware of him. Heads turned in

his direction to stare, and a muffled gasp arose as everyone wondered what brash and

unexpected action was occurring. Could this be an assassination attempt? Where were

the guards? Where had this stranger come from and how had he managed to do what

he did? These and a dozen other questions shot through people's minds, all entirely too

late; the action would be completed before anyone could begin to react.

Among the upturned faces that stared at him in wonder, Jules suddenly noticed one

that startled him completely-that of Lady A. She had dared to come to the ceremony

right under SOTE's very nose! But then, only five people in the entire government knew

of her existence, and they had taken great pains that she would remain unaware of the

fact. It was only natural that she felt perfectly safe here.

Had Jules known all the Brief that lav in store because of that one person, he might

have directed his blaster beam at her instead, thereby saving countless lives. But there

were only two lives on his mind at the moment-those of the Emperor and the Princess.

Both were in imminent peril from the robot, and it was his sworn duty to protect them.

With intense concentration, Jules brought all his attention to focus on the figure of Lady

Bloodstar, who was standing behind and slightly to the right of the Emperor and

Princess. Already the robot had seen Jules coming; her computerfast brain had

analyzed the situation and her right hand was lifting ominously.. . .

Jules could wait no longer. Even though he was not quite at the bottom of his swing, his

hand was a blur of motion as he brought up his blaster and fired. The searing beam

streaked out of the nozzle of his gun and raked across the body of the mechanical

assassin. Sparks flew, and there was a slight hissing of molten metal and plastic.

Events followed in rapid succession. The Emperor, belatedly recognizing Jules, moved

sideways to get out of the line of fire and to knock his beloved daughter to the ground.

He covered her with his own body so that if there were any more gunplay at least the

succession would be assured. There was a small explosion from the robot, causing a

few minor injuries to nearby spectators but no major catastrophe. The crowd began to

shriek in earnest now, convinced that an all-out war was about to erupt.

As Jules's rope reached bottom and started to rise again, he let go and allowed his

momentum to carry him soaring out over the crowd. Twisting in midair, he again sought

Lady A. He caught a quick glance of her, but the beautiful conspirator had managed to

duck down within a group of bystanders who had risen to their feet in panic. Jules could

not get a clear shot at her, and he refused to shoot wildly with his blaster into this

crowd.

Jules had enough control over his flight to be able to land in a relatively empty spot. He

knocked over a handful of people as he bowled into them and rolled awkwardly to his

feet again. If he couldn't shoot Lady A from the air, he would pursue her on foot; he was

determined to capture her this time. Fate, however, conspired against him.

Suddenly there was gunplay from several points around the hall, and Jules looked

about in confusion. He hadn't known there were any accomplices scattered around, but

they were certainly a menace to be dealt with. Even as he got to his feet, he found

himself staring down the barrel of a stun-gun. Before he could raise his own weapon in

defense, the person threatening him sank to the floor, unconscious, and looking

beyond, Jules could see Duchess Helena von Wilmenhorst, decked out in her finest

formal gown and holding a ministunner in her hand. She smiled at Jules, then turned to

look for more targets around the hall.

Vonnie, too, was making her presence felt throughout the chamber. She had relaxed

slightly when she saw Jules take care of the menace from the robot, but when the

shooting erupted elsewhere she rose instantly to the challenge. Two would-be terrorists

fell before they could even get their guns clear of their holsters, and three more did but

minimal damage before succumbing to Vonnie's attack.

Panic was now endemic throughout the audience, and spectators were rushing

headlong for the exits. Jules and Vonnie noted that flight with dismay. They had warned

Major Mbente outside to clear the crowds away from the hall so that the TCN-14 would

not harm anyone, and now more people were going outside to be threatened by the

deadly gas.

They were not taking into account, however, the resourcefulness of Major Mbente.

Realizing that completely clearing the streets would have been an impossible task, he

opted for the other alternative: finding and containing the canisters of TCN-14 that had

been planted. Working against time and without the proper equipment, the major and

his people still managed to conduct an inspection of the area so thoroughly that all ten

canisters were found and removed to a place of safety before they could explode and

send their lethal contents throughout the crowd that surrounded Bloodstar Hall. The

emergence a few minutes later of the panicked people from inside the hall was a

serious complication, but not a fatal one.

Inside, the forces of SOTE were once again asserting their authority. The Head had

handpicked the security teams to work within the hall, and his faith in them was proving

justified. Despite the crush of people in the immense building, the threat from the

terrorists was over five minutes after it had begun.

As the Head came over to him to both congratulate him and lead him into a quiet area

for further questioning, Jules looked around the hall, discouraged. The threat from the

robot had been ended, and even the unexpected uprising of the terrorists had been

quelled. But Lady A, whom he had hoped to capture, had vanished without a trace into

the milling mob.

CHAPTER 13

The Wedding of the Galaxy

By the time the subcom call from Yvette at the pirate base came through to the Head

on Earth, the attempted coup and assassination were all over but the final shouting. Her

story of the people impersonating the nobles who'd been aboard the Querida came too

late to serve as a warning, but it did function nicely as an explanation for the sudden

burst of terrorist activities from a supposedly safe and friendly audience. Yvette closed

by saying that she, Pias, and Duke Etienne would be speeding back to Earth at once to

give a personal report. Traveling at top speed, they expected to arrive in a couple of

days.

The decision was made to postpone the actual wedding for a few more days, as well.

Princess Edna, while trying to project an impression of imperial calm, was inwardly

shaken by her close call and the startling events of what she'd expected to be the

happiest day of her life. Choyen Liu was comforting her by holding her tightly and

quoting soothing passages from Anares's mystical books; he seemed as totally

unflappable as ever, and his inward peace was a blessing to everyone. It was

reassuring to know that the man who would be sharing the throne with the Galaxy's

future ruler could remain so serene even under such trying circumstances.

The days following the fighting at Bloodstar Hall were almost as busy for Jules and

Vonnie as the ones that preceded it. The pirate doubles knew no organizational details

of the conspiracy for which they were working. The gangsters, at Jules's orders, were

picked up by SOTE from the hospital where they'd been taken after the fire fighters

found them unconscious in Howard's gym. Most of them were just hired blasterbats,

and knew nothing about higher operations within the conspiracy. Howard, however, was

a fount of knowledge on Earthly crime, and it took surprisingly little coercion to make

him reveal everything he knew on a variety of subjects.

The vidicom number and address he had for Lady A turned out to be a suite of offices

in one of AngelesDiego's classier office buildings. The suite had been rented to a

woman obviously fitting the description of Lady A; she had operated under the name

Sarah Schmidt, and had paid cash in advance for everything. The office had only been

rented up until the day of the wedding. "Obviously she figured she wouldn't need it after

that," Jules surmised. "If her plan failed, she'd want to be gone in a hurry-and if it

succeeded, she could be living in the Imperial Palace after that date."

"Sarah Schmidt" had, of course, vanished without a trace, leaving Jules and the Head

as frustrated as ever in their attempts to track down her conspiracy.

When Yvette's party arrived, the Head called a council of war. In attendance were he

and his daughter Helena, Jules, Yvette, and Duke Etienne. The elder d'Alembert had

not seen the Grand Duke in person for over five years, and their reunion was a friendly

one, with much hugging and backslapping.

When everyone was settled, the Head took some time to acquaint Duke etienne with

what was known about Lady A and her conspiracy. "Some of the pressure of secrecy is

off us now," he said. "After the attempted coup and our capturing and questioning

Howard, the enemy knows we know about them; for us to pretend not to would look

suspicious. SOTE is now officially aware that Lady A exists, and that she is a powerful

and- high-ranking officer in an organization dedicated to the overthrow of the Stanley

dynasty. Period. They still don't know we're aware of their boast that they know most of

what's going on within the Service-and our keeping them from knowing that may lead

them into the trap of overconfidence. I'm still convinced they know nothing about the

Circus's role, nor about the true identities of agents Wombat and Periwinkle; if they did,

they'd be conducting their campaign in an entirely different manner from the way they

are."

The Head sighed. "Secrets within secrets within secrets. It makes it hard for all of us,

but we have to play within those rules when the stakes are as high as the safety of the

Empire. There are days I'd like to chuck the whole thing and go back to tending my gar-

den at home......

He let the thought drift off. Everyone in the room knew the burden of duty, and each of

them had at one time or another harbored similar dreams of freedom. But they all knew

how impossible those dreams would be, their own inward sense of responsibility made

them the people they were.

The Head derailed that train of thought quickly. "Be that as it may," he said, "I believe

Yvette has another piece of the puzzle for us."

Yvette briefed everyone on the conversation she and Pias had overheard at -the pirate

base, and about the new figure in the picture: C. "They seem to have an inordinate

fondness for letters of the alphabet," she finished cynically.

"One piece of nonsense is as good as another for covering true identities," the Head

commented. "It makes just as much sense to use the alphabet as it does for us to call

you two by the names of rather esoteric terrestrial organisms. The question is, how

much do we `officially' know about C?"

"Nothing," Yvette said. "Both Line and the man who brought him that message died in

the battle with our people. None of the other pirates seems to know anything about

him."

"Which gives us one more secret to work with," the Head said. "Let me remind you all

again: officially, we know that Lady A exists, and we have pictures of her taken by

Vonnie during her surveillance of Howard. We'll be actively looking for her now, too,

believe me."

"What I don't understand," Duke Etienne said, "is how the impostor managed to sneak

guns into the hall. Were you falling down on the job, Zan?"

"Our arrangements were adequate for what we thought was the situation," Helena

snapped, a little upset at having her father accused so familiarly. "Every guest was

screened discreetly as he went in. Nobody but our people carried a weapon past the

front door."

"We should at least have the decency to blush," the Head reminded his daughter. "We

should have anticipated a little better. We've learned from questioning some of the

terrorists that a confederate-probably the robot Lady Bloodstar-left their weapons in

prearranged spots so that, while they came in clean, they could arm themselves inside

the hail. I ant proud, however, of the way our people handled the problem once it broke

out. Operating under those conditions, I think we did a superb job, and everyone on the

security team, inside and out, has received a special commendation.

"The thing that worries me more than the guns, though, is the question of their

identities. Even given the fact that they had perfectly forged IDs, they still should not

have been able to wander around on Earth for two days without a discrepancy showing

up in our files somewhere. I'm most unhappy about that, and I intend to see that there's

a shakeup in the Computer Correlation Department because of it."

From that point, the conversation devolved into a discussion of more general

topics-including weddings. It had been decided that there was no need to repeat the

lavish ceremony of Princess Edna's wedding; the festivities had been rescheduled for

tomorrow afternoon and would be conducted in relative privacy, though the ceremony

would be vidicast all over the Empire. Edna had been disappointed before that her

friends Jules and Yvette would be working and unable to attend the festivities; now that

they were both here, she insisted that they both be present, and they were happy

enough to agree.

And while the subject of weddings was in the air, they decided that two more should

take place at the same time-the marriage of Jules and Vonnie and the marriage of Pias

and Yvette. The Emperor himself insisted on officiating at those two ceremonies, which

set the young people to blushing furiously. Yvette and Helena excused themselves at

that point, saying that they had to round up Vonnie and get a lot of prewedding

shopping done in just one day.

Everyone was nervous the next day as they gathered in the grand ballroom of the

Imperial Palace. Princess Edna and Choyen Liu were wearing the wedding outfits

they'd worn at the official ceremony, cleaned and repaired after the harsh abuse they'd

received a few days earlier.

Yvette and Pias were both in outfits of red and gold. Under normal Newforest tradition,

Pias would have worn a wedding shirt embroidered by his mother, but that shirt had

been burned when his family disowned him. Instead, he wore a cloth of gold shirt

embroidered in red with red velvet pants and an open red velvet vest. A large ruby hung

in the center of his chest, suspended by a gold chain. He wore red leather boots and a

full length red velvet cape with a high flared collar; the entire cape was lined with cloth

of gold. In his right hand he carried a single red rose.

Yvette wore a cloth of gold gauze peasant shirt, a red velvet vest laced up the front, and

a tiered skirt of red and gold silk brocade. She had a red silk scarf on her hair, red

velvet slippers on her feet, and a string of rubies around her neck. In the crook of her

left arm was nestled a full bouquet of red roses.

Her brother Jules was clad in a gold acrobat's jumpsuit heavily embroidered in pearls

and diamonds. His gold belt was trimmed with rubies, his gold chaplet was set with a

ruby in the center, while still another large ruby dangled as a pendant from his gold

collar. He wore a white satin cape, white pearl-embroidered gloves and white

embroidered boots.

Vonnie, meanwhile, looked ravishing in an ivory satin gown cut like an acrobat's robe;

the shawl collar, hemline, and sleeves were all thickly embroidered with pearls, and her

belt was a chain of pearls with pearl cluster tassels. She wore a pearl necklace and

ivory satin slippers. On her head was a crown of pearls set on thin wire springs that

moved when her head moved. Like Yvette, she carried a bouquet of roses, but Vonnie's

were yellow rather than red.

This was the first time Jules had seen Edna since the fiasco on Saturday, and he

approached her rather sheepishly. "I have to apologize for messing things up the way I

did," he said. "If I'd been a little more on the ball, I could probably have saved you a lot

of embarrassment."

Edna kissed him lightly on the cheek. "I'd rather be embarrassed than dead. And the

way I see it, you saved me from more than just an assassin-you also saved me from

having to spend at least six boring hours on a receiving line. For that alone you deserve

a medal."

The royal wedding, though lacking some of the grandeur of the previous attempt, was a

beautiful production nonetheless. Barr, the imperial bard, sang a wedding march of his

own composition that was a work of pure inspiration. The ceremony went off without so

much as a single mistake this time, and the scene vidicast to homes all across the

Empire was one of unrestrained happiness. The SOTE agents, of course, stayed well

out of camera range; it would never do to have their faces broadcast all over the

Galaxy.

After the major ceremony, the celebrants retired to a more private room for the two

weddings that were less public in nature. Though the guest list was small, it was

impressive: Duke Etienne, in a scarlet velvet jumpsuit, a short, Spanish-style coat of

black velvet embroidered in gold, and a boutonniere of a red and a yellow rose, gave

both brides away in his capacity as Yvette's father and as a close friend of Vonnie's

father, Baron Ebert Roumenier; Crown Princess Edna served as matron of honor for

Yvette, while the Empress Irene served in that capacity for Vonnie; and, true to his

word, His Imperial Majesty William Stanley, the supreme temporal authority in the

Galaxy, pronounced the words that united the two couples in the bonds of matrimony.

In the general revelries that followed the ceremonies, Vonnie noticed a certain

preoccupation on the part of her new husband. When she questioned him about it, he

said, "I just can't help but feel a little guilty that I let Lady A escape when I had the

chance to catch her."

The Emperor overheard his remark, and leaned over to give him some advice. "Young

man, Lady A and her nefarious deeds will wait a little while. I order you to forget her and

enjoy yourself."

"Besides," Vonnie said, "if I catch you thinking about another woman on our wedding

night, you won't survive the honeymoon. That's a promise!"

Since it is a recorded fact that Jules d'Alembert survived his honeymoon, we may

therefore safely assume that Vonnie did keep his mind off Lady A-at least for a while.