The Trail To C

Captain Paul Fortier of Naval Intelligence hadn't allowed himself the luxury of a six-month

vacation after the attack against Earth on Coronation Day. He'd been offered a long

vacation and an important assignment at Luna Base, but he'd asked that they be

postponed. He'd been in the middle of a long-standing assignment, to destroy the pirate

network, when the emergency to the Empire occurred. Even though he'd dealt

spectacularly with the invasion, he considered his work incomplete. The pirates had been

dispersed and their major operations disbanded, but there were still loose ends to be

wrapped up. He was the person with the most intimate knowledge of the pirates' opera-

tions, having worked undercover in their organization for several years, and so he was

the logical choice to supervise the mopping up. The Imperial Navy, proud of his dedica-

tion, agreed to give him the opportunity.

Under the name "Rocheville," Fortier had worked his way up to being one of pirate leader

Shen Tzu's chief lieutenants. As such, he had detailed information about many of the

people the pirates dealt with on the local level, planet to planet; and much of what he

didn't know was supplied by the pirates' own records when their base was captured.

Now he was set on tracking down those intermediaries, making sure they'd be put away

where they couldn't hurt society again.

The pirate network had been widespread, and Fortier's job was vast. He could not do it

all himself. Instead, he was put in charge of a task force, with five other officers of Naval

Intelligence working under him. The group worked in cooperation with planetary police

forces, and Fortier coordinated the joint effort. He chafed at this; he had joined Naval

Intelligence because he enjoyed the adventure of work in the field, and he hated being

stuck behind a desk. He therefore took every opportunity to get out and do some of the

actual work himself.

When the pirates had been smashed, their contacts, realizing that they would now be

wanted by the law, tried to vanish into the regular criminal underground that existed on

nearly every civilized planet. Some were more successful at this than others. Many of

them had been legitimate businessmen except for their dealings with the pirates, and

weren't familiar with the criminal networks. They were picked up almost immediately. The

tougher ones were those with previous criminal records, with long experience at hiding

from the authorities. These required dogged determination to track down-a quality that

was fortunately not lacking in Fortier and his people.

It was in a dimly lit, foul-smelling bar on the planet Lateesta that a major breakthrough

occurred. Fortier and his police contact, Detective Nikopolous, had staked out the

underworld hangout on a tip that Fortier's fugitive, a man named Guitirrez, would be there

that evening. They waited a while and, as predicted, Guitirrez entered the bar and sat

down alone at one of the battered tables. He looked as though he might be waiting for

someone; he kept glancing at the door and checking the time. In view of this behavior,

Fortier and Nikopolous decided not to arrest Guitirrez immediately; he might inadvertently

lead them to bigger fish in his scummy pond.

Their hunch paid off. Forty-five minutes later, a woman joined Guitirrez at his table. She

was Junoesque, in her early fifties, with graying hair, and a hard expression on her face.

Neither Fortier nor Nikopolous had ever seen her before, but Fortier made sure to snap

several pictures of her with his tiny hidden camera.

The meeting broke up after a few minutes. Guitirrez sat nursing his drink while the

woman got up and left the bar. Fortier left his associate to tend to the routine task of

arresting Guitirrez; he was much more interested in tailing this mysterious woman to find

out more about her. She might be just a routine friend of Guitirrez, having no connection

to any illegal activities-but Fortier was not one to give up on a lead until it was proved to

be false.

The woman walked briskly to the nearest tubeway station; Fortier was hard pressed to

keep pace with her and not make himself conspicuous at the same time. He just

managed to catch the same turbotrain, staying as far away from her in the car as

possible and making sure to avoid eye contact. She sat calmly as the turbotrain rode

through several stations, and Fortier was able to rely on his peripheral vision to let him

know when she made any moves.

She got off the tubeway where it connected to the monoliner station and went

immediately into the ladies' restroom. Fortier cursed his luck and used his personal

minicom to call for a female assistant as backup. The monoliner station security had a

woman officer to him within three minutes, and he sent her in to check the restroom. The

woman he'd been tailing was not there.

This particular lavatory had two entrances, one from the station and one from the street.

The woman had obviously gone out the second door and given him the slip. She could be

anywhere by now.

Dejected at his failure, Fortier returned to police headquarters, where Guitirrez was

being held for interrogation. Although it didn't take much effort to get Guitirrez to admit

his part in the piracy, he insisted he knew nothing about the woman he'd met in the bar.

He'd been told to call a certain number whenever he was in trouble. He'd done so on

several previous occasions and had been given instructions on how to hide out safely. On

this last occasion, the person at the other end had told him to wait in this bar for a

woman who'd give him further orders. The woman had come as promised and told him a

ticket offplanet in the name of Martinez was waiting for him at the spaceport. He'd been

arrested before he could leave the bar and pick up the ticket. That was all he claimed to

know about the matter.

The police did what they could to verify the man's story. There was indeed a starship

ticket at the spaceport reserved in the name of Martinez; it would have taken the fugitive

halfway across the Empire and might have helped him elude capture for a considerable

time. The vidiphone number had been assigned to a name that turned out to be fictitious,

and there was no way to trace it to anyone. The police even gave Guitirrez a shot of

detrazine, the strongest legal truth serum known, but his story remained the same.

Fortier decided to concentrate on the woman who'd met Guitirrez in the bar. She was

obviously a connection to higher, more important channels. He passed the photos around

within the detective division, but no one could ever recall having seen her before. Copies

of the pictures were made and circulated to all police personnel on Lateesta.

Descriptions were sent to all spaceport security people to prevent the woman from

leaving the planet, although Fortier was convinced he was locking the barn door after the

rustling. In the meantime, he locked himself away in an office, spread the photos across

the top of the empty desk, and studied them himself to pry loose any pertinent infor-

mation he could.

After staring hopelessly at the pictures for a while, his eye noticed a detail it had missed

before. It was very tiny, and he ordered the photos enlarged to see it more clearly. The

enlargements showed the mysterious woman wearing around her neck a thin gold chain

that held a small integrated circuit chip dangling from its center.

In the past few months since the near disaster on Coronation Day, NI and SOTE had

buried most of their interservice rivalry. A great deal of information was now flowing

between the two organizations, and one of the items SOTE strongly stressed to Naval

Intelligence was that there was a well-organized conspiracy trying to topple the Stanley

dynasty. One of its recognition symbols was a necklace just like the one this mysterious

lady was wearing. Ever since the attack on Earth it was known that the pirates had been

somehow involved with this conspiracy but this development led to new, and perhaps

unexpected, connections. It was certainly worth checking further.

Even as he was congratulating himself on spotting that tiny detail, Fortier received his

second big break on the case. A call arrived for him from none other than the

Superintendent of Police for Lateesta. "I just had a chance to look at the photos you

circulated, and I must say I was shocked to see her here in a cheap bar associating with

known criminals this way."

"You can identify the woman, then?" Fortier asked eagerly.

"Certainly," the Superintendent said. "I spoke with her just three months ago at a law

enforcement symposium on Corian. That's Elsa Helmund, Commissioner of Police for the

planet Durward."

Fortier did not have a ship of his own available, and had to settle for commercial

transportation. He booked passage on the next connecting flights to Durward, inwardly

fuming that it would take a full nine days to reach his destination. He could have made a

subetheric call ahead and had the investigation started by local officials, but Elsa

Helmund was so highly placed and the case against her was so tentative he didn't dare

risk spooking her. The Commissioner of Police for an entire planet would be a major cog

in the conspiracy's machinery, and she might lead to other important members. The more

people who knew what he was after, the more chance there'd be a leak.

For obvious reasons he did not contact the Durward police to let them know he'd be

coming. He did let the local SOTE office know, and they promised him the utmost

cooperation when he arrived. For now, he trusted no one but himself with the possibility

that Elsa Helmund was a traitor.

On reaching Durward he checked in with SOTE immediately. The local Service chief tried

to be helpful. She called for the files on Elsa Helmund, but was bluntly informed that

those files were classified, and only people with an F-17 security clearance or higher

would be allowed to see it. That excluded her.

Fortier, however, had a G-8 security rating. He inserted his identity card and comparison

disc, then put his eyes to the retina scope so the machine could verify him. His identity

was acknowledged but the machine still refused to yield the desired information. When

Fortier demanded an explanation, the computer indicated that such information had been

erased from the memory.

Furious, Fortier turned to the SOTE chief and asked if she had any personal knowledge

of Helmund's background. "She's been Police Commissioner here for about ten years,

and she seems to have done a good job," the woman said. "I've met her briefly at a

couple of official functions. I do know she's not native to Durward. She came specifically

for the post of Police Commissioner. The competition was open to outsiders-the Duke

wanted the best person he could find, and Elsa Helmund filled the bill. Her references

said she'd had a long, distinguished career with the police on her native world, Preis: she

also had letters of reference-I know I've got copies of those-from both the Grand Duke

of Sector Four and his Sector Marshal that were glowing with praise. She was far and

away the best qualified candidate, so she got the job. As far as I know, there've been no

complaints about her performance."

"Can you get hold of her file from Preis for me?" Fortier asked.

"Why the sudden interest in Gospozha Helmund?"

In answer, Fortier showed her photos of Helmund with the necklace clearly visible. The

SOTE officer asked no further questions. "It may take a few hours to get what we need,"

she apologized.

"That's smooth," Fortier said grimly. "I'll wait."

The information from Preis, when it finally did arrive, was equally frustrating. There

simply was no information about anyone named Elsa Helmund-no record of her birth, no

record of her having worked for the police department there, no record of anyone

matching that description ever even existing on the planet.

"I think it's time I had a talk with Gospozha Helmund," Fortier mused, and the officer from

SOTE agreed.

Fortier called Helmund's office, only to be told that the Commissioner had been away on

vacation for the past three weeks and was expected back tomorrow. Fortier decided to

make a surreptitious visit to Helmund's home before the woman returned.

The apartment was quite normal. Elsa Helmund lived alone and had simple tastes. The

only thing at all out of the ordinary was a telecom unit and teletype connected to a

computer terminal in the wall-a link-up that had the potential to connect her with anyone

in the Galaxy. In a wastebasket beside the teleprinter was a burned scrap of paper that

Fortier took back to SOTE headquarters. "Can you do anything with this?" he asked

them.

The SOTE technicians were miracle workers. Though the scrap, to the naked eye, was

little more than a flimsy piece of charcoal, they were able to differentiate between the

plain paper and the chemicals that had gone into the ink printed on it. Some of the words

were completely burned away, but enough was there to make out the name Guitirrez, the

planet Lateesta, and something about a ticket. The note was signed with the single initial,

C.

The Police Commissioner did not show up in her office the next day as her aides

expected. Fortier guessed that someone or something must have tipped her off. Elsa

Helmund would not be returning to her office, ever. There was no point waiting around

here.

Fortier's next port of call was Preis, the capital planet of Sector Four. It seemed odd to

him that someone could come to a strange place with such blatantly false credentials. It

also disturbed him greatly that the Grand Duke and the Sector Marshal for all of Sector

Four would have written such extravagant praise for someone who, according to official

records, did not exist. Fortier was determined to find out why, and whether those people,

too, were part of the conspiracy.

The Grand Duke for this sector, like many other Grand Dukes, spent much of his time

back on Earth at the center of Imperial administration. He was thus unavailable to be

interviewed. The Sector Marshal, a man named Herman Stanck, was scarcely less

difficult to get hold of. As the chief administrative officer of one of the most populous

sectors of the Empire, he was responsible for overseeing the harmonious government of

scores of planets as well as the relationship between Sector Four and all the other

sectors. Fortier had to use every bit of influence he had just to be granted a five-minute

interview with the Sector Marshal.

Stanck's office was spacious and comfortable. The back wall was one large picture

window looking out over the capital city of Aachen; the other walls held series of shelves

filled with enough bookreels to put any library to shame. Stanck's enormous solentawood

desk was crowded but orderly. There were several chairs and a couch grouped about

the desk.

Stanck seemed out of place in such a comfortable office, a brusque man with thinning

brown hair and a hawk nose. He greeted Fortier with a brisk handshake and guided him

to a chair. "Well, Captain, what can I do for you?" he asked as he sat down behind his

desk.

Fortier had to be discreet. He had no direct evidence against this man, and if he moved

too far too fast he could be in serious trouble. "I know your time is valuable, sir, so I'll be

brief. What do you know of Elsa Helmund?"

"I don't recall the name offhand."

"In a letter of reference you gave her, you called her a close personal friend and the

most efficient police official you'd ever known."

Stanck shook his head. "I have no memory of ever doing so."

"You deny writing the letter, then?" "How long ago was this, Captain?"

"Ten years."

Stanck leaned forward in his seat. "Do you have any idea, Captain, how many people I

meet and deal with every day, let alone over a ten-year period? I have to keep my mind

free of clutter; if I don't deal with a name on a frequent basis I forget about it or store it

in my files. I may very well have written the letter you claim I did. I simply have no

recollection of it."

Fortier handed him a copy of the letter. "Is that your signature?"

Stanck glanced at it, then handed the document back. "It looks like it. Either that or a

very good forgery."

"If you had written this letter, would you have a copy in your files?"

"Most likely. I keep permanent records of everything I do.

"May I see those records, please?"

"No, you may not." Stanck's tone became even more brusque. "I am not in the habit of

letting strangers roam at will through my private files. Those records are kept for my

benefit alone. Some of them are highly confidential. They are not public records, and no

one but me has the right to examine them."

"Gospodin Stanck, this is a matter of the highest Imperial security.  .    .    . "

"Then may I suggest you proceed through the proper channels? Unless, of course,"

Stanck's eyebrows narrowed, "you're accusing me of some impropriety, in which case

you'll find I make a very formidable enemy."

Fortier refused to be intimidated. "So do I, sir."

"The time for your audience is up, Captain." Stanck buzzed for one of his aides to come

and escort Fortier from the room. "If we meet another time," was his parting shot, "you

had better come armed with more than sly innuendos. "

will, Stanck, I will, Fortier thought with determination. For the next few days, Herman

Stanck became an obsession with Fortier. He pored over the man's lengthy file in the

SOTE computers until he'd virtually memorized it. In fifteen years of service as Sector

Marshal, Stanek's record was unblemished. A dedicated public servant, he had never

married, preferring to devote his entire life to the administration of Sector Four's affairs.

There were many newsroll accounts of his public actions, and a long list of awards and

honors he'd received. His private life was kept strictly private, but there'd never been the

breath of a scandaland that in itself was some kind of a record for a man who'd served in

public life as long as Stanck.

To all appearances, the Sector Marshal was as loyal as anyone could wish. Accusing

him of treason would be like strangling orphans or drowning kittens; Fortier dared not

move against him until he had strong proof on his side. And yet, an undercover agent

lived by his instincts-and all of Fortier's well-trained intuition told him Stanck's hostility

masked some guilty secret. It was inconceivable to Fortier that a man could write such a

glowing report about someone and not remember it later, even after ten busy

years-particularly when that person had never existed in the first place.

There were no clues in Stanck's professional record, so Fortier dug even more deeply

into the man's personal file. Stanck was a solitary sort, and no one knew him really well.

There was nothing in these files, either, that would mark him as a traitor.

In desperation, Fortier turned to the financial report. Stanck lived modestly, well within his

means. He didn't gamble or squander his salary, and had made some shrewd

investments that left him a reasonably wealthy man-but there was no indication of any

impropriety there, just sound business dealings. Fortier was about to abandon this

avenue of inquiry too when his eye noticed one small, obscure detail that almost escaped

notice because it was so hidden. Stanek's assets revealed that he was, upon retirement,

owed a fortune in sick leave pay because it had accumulated without being used.

Fortier called up the pay records, and they told an amazing story. In the fifteen years

that Stanck had been Sector Marshal, he had not missed a day of work because of

illness. There were no records of any sort before Stanck took the job, merely the cryptic

entry that the man had been appointed especially by the Grand Duke.

These were anomalies that Fortier could sink his teeth into. For the second time in this

case, he'd run into someone with no past. He was even more intrigued by Stanek's

phenomenal health. It would be incredible enough for a man in his early twenties-but for

someone in his middle years, it was downright unbelievable.

Fortier asked for the medical records on his subject, only to find that there weren't any.

Stanck had never visited a doctor in all the years he'd been Sector Marshal. Under

normal circumstances, every public employee had to undergo a physical examination

before being hired, but a cryptic note on Stanek's file said that this requirement had been

waived in his case by direct order of the Grand Duke.

An idea was forming in Fortier's mind, one he didn't like a bit. He knew all too well that

the conspiracy was capable of creating robot duplicates of people and substituting them

for the real ones; he himself had been impersonated by a robot during the few months

preceding the attack against Earth, and the experience had nearly been fatal. What if

Stanck were such a robot, infiltrated into the management of Sector Four? It would

explain why he'd never been ill and why he'd never gone to see a doctor. It would explain

the man's solitary lifestyle, his precise and punctual work habits-and his hostility to

anyone like Fortier who tried to peer too closely into his background. If Stanck was

indeed a robot he would have to be handled very cautiously. The robots had superhuman

strength and were immune to stun weapons. Only a blaster would bring a robot down,

and it could cause untold destruction if not controlled quickly once its identity was

uncovered. The first step was to prove conclusively that Stanck was a robot. The local

SOTE office was most cooperative about providing Fortier with the long range sensor

equipment he asked for, and the naval officer set about the difficult task of getting

readings on Stanek's body. The trouble was that Stanek rarely went out in public. He

was either in his office, in his car, or in his apartment-places where it was difficult for

Fortier's equipment to get a clear reading uncluttered by surroundings.

After a week, Fortier's patience paid off. Stanck was scheduled to give a speech at the

local sports stadium before a series of charity games. Fortier attended, and was able to

get close enough to train his instruments on the Sector Marshal. The readings confirmed

Fortier's worst suspicions: Stanck was not a living human being, but a complex artificial

mechanism covered with plastiderm. All of Sector Four was being administered by a

robot agent of the deadly conspiracy.

Fortier weighed his next moves very carefully. He was out of his depth in this matter, and

he knew it. Tracking down treason was really SOTE's business; Naval Intelligence was

responsible for rooting out pirates, smugglers, and other miscreants who used the

spaceways for illegal purposes. In all honesty, he should have turned the case over to

SOTE when he had discovered the Helmund connection, but his teeth were too solidly

into it to let go; he wanted to keep with this matter now to its conclusion. Consequently

he did not inform SOTE of his newly- found information. Instead, he went to the local

naval station and recruited some colleagues to capture the robot. They approached

Stanck one morning in his underground garage just as he was getting into his groundcar

to go to the office. As an important official, Stanck had a cluster of bodyguards around

him; Fortier had taken the precaution of bringing with him a squad of twenty Planetary

Patrolmen. As the two groups approached one another amid the concrete pillars of the

underground garage, tension developed instantly.

"Hold it, Stanck," Fortier called. "You're not going anywhere. "

"You have no jurisdiction here, Captain," the other said icily. "If your people don't back

away instantly, I'll have you court-martialed so fast your circuits will fuse."

"I know you're a robot," Fortier continued despite the threat. "You're part of a conspiracy

to overthrow the Stanley dynasty."

"I've been accused of many things in my time, but that's the most ridiculous charge I've

ever heard." Stanck turned his back on the officer and started to enter his car.

Fortier gave a signal, and his group suddenly drew their weapons. This brought an

immediate reaction from the Sector Marshal's bodyguards, and within seconds the air

was filled with the sounds of a stun-gun battle. The robot, however, did not wait to

observe the outcome. It slipped into the car and sped hastily away from the scene of the

battle before anyone could stop it.

Captain Fortier, too, hurried away, leaving the fighting to his comrades. He had not

intended to capture Stanck just yet; he was hoping to panic it into making some hasty

mistake. In a direct confrontation, the robot would have allowed him to destroy it rather

than tell him anything and, with its strength and immunity to stun-guns, there was almost

no way to capture it "alive." His only hope was that the robot would lead him to yet a

bigger connection before he was forced to destroy it.

Fortier had a copier waiting hidden on the street a block away. The pilot saw him coming

and revved up the motor, so they were able to take off the instant Fortier jumped into the

passenger seat. Within seconds they were airborne and ready to follow the robot's car

wherever it might lead them. Fortier cautioned the pilot not to get too close; they didn't

want the robot to realize it was being tailed.

The Sector Marshal's groundcar had an automatic priority device, damping the motors of

surrounding cars to let it pass by them unhindered. It sped out of Aachen in record time,

the robot trusting to its computer-fast reflexes to drive more recklessly than any human

would dare. Even in a copier Fortier had trouble keeping up, and he no longer had to

caution his pilot to hang back. They had to fly at top speed if they didn't want to lose their

quarry.

Out in the open countryside, the robot drove even faster. The car was practically a blur

on the highway. But it soon became obvious that its destination was the estate of the

Grand Duke himself. Fortier found himself licking his lips. He'd been hoping this was

where the trail would lead. The Grand Duke's name had also been on Helmund's

references, and it had been at his specific direction that Stanck was hired as Sector

Marshal.

Stanck's car was scanned and identified, so it drove through the grounds of the estate

unimpeded, screeching to a halt before the large doors of the main house. The robot

jumped out of the car and disappeared into the mansion just as Fortier's copier was

coming in for a quick landing.

The Grand Duke's guards came running out to inspect this unknown intruder. Fortier had

his identity card out and flashed it at the security officers. "Naval Intelligence," he shouted

urgently. "The Sector Marshal is a fugitive and an impostor. We can't let him get away!"

The conflicts in their loyalties, both to the Grand Duke and to the Empire, caused the

guards to hesitate as they tried to decide whether to stop this intruder or help him. That

slight pause was all Fortier needed to dodge past them and slip through the doors. He

had his blaster drawn, prepared for any surprises the robot might throw at him.

He caught a fleeting glimpse of the robot turning left at the far end of the long marble

corridor ahead, and he raced in pursuit. When he reached the crossing hallway where

the sector marshal had turned, his quarry had vanished from sight. There were, however,

some startled servants standing mystified at Stanek's hurried flight. Fortier ran to the

nearest one and flashed his ID card again. "I'm Captain Fortier, Naval Intelligence.

Stanck is a traitor to the Empire and a fugitive. Which way did he go?"

The woman was a bit flustered at the odd events of the last few seconds. "He . . . he

went into the security council chamber over there.

Fortier ran to the indicated door, but found it locked. The door itself was carved wood

reinforced with magnisteel. The woman who'd pointed the way explained, "No one is

permitted in there except the Grand Duke and the Sector Marshal. The door opens only

to their touch."

Fortier gave no thought to the consequences of what he was doing. He knew he was

already committed to the largest gamble of his career. If he was wrong about any of his

assumptions, court-martial would be the least serious thing that would happen to him.

Grand Dukes were the highest rank of nobility below the Empress herself. $y invading

this estate without legal authority, he'd put his neck on the block and sharpened the blade

for the headsman; the only excuse he could offer for his various improprieties was that

he'd been in "hot pursuit." It would be a feeble excuse if his guesses were wrong.

With so much already at stake, there was no point in letting a door stand in his way.

Aiming his blaster point blank at the lock, he burned through it in just a second and

pushed the door inward with a loud crash.

The Sector Marshal was bent over a computer terminal by a desk at the far side of the

room. It looked up as Fortier came charging in, and reached to its side, as though for a

weapon. The naval officer did not hesitate, firing his blaster with deadly accuracy at the

robot's chest. The blazing beam sizzled through the air and struck the treacherous

creation on target. The robot lurched backward against the wall, then slumped quietly to

the ground.

Fortier walked over to the desk and examined the terminal where the robot had been

working. It looked as though Stanek had been trying to erase certain information and

documents from the memory tiles, but had not yet had time to complete the job. Fortier

called up those files; it took only a casual glance at their contents to realize he'd been

correct in his assumptions. The Grand Duke was personally involved in this conspiracy.

The Captain looked up to find himself staring into the muzzle of a blaster being wielded

by the Grand Duke's chief of security. "You killed the Sector Marshal," the man said.

"Check that more closely," Fortier replied. "The being you thought was Herman Stanck

was a robot, a tool of a galaxy-wide conspiracy to overthrow the Stanley dynasty.

Furthermore, if you'll look at this display, there's evidence against the Grand Duke

himself."

The security chief had one of his guards verify the information about Stanck, then he read

the display on the computer terminal over Fortier's shoulder. His eyes slowly widened in

astonishment, and he lowered his gun. Fortier relaxed with relief, but did not let it show.

"Go back to business as normal," he told the security chief. "Under no circumstances

should you inform the Grand Duke of what's happened here until I consult my superiors

and decide what to do."

The security chief nodded and ordered his people back to their duties. He himself backed

slowly out of the room, leaving Fortier alone.

The captain spent the next half hour checking the files, becoming more and more awed

by how high an official he had reached within the criminal organization. The computer

memory banks contained names, dates, places-all sorts of records that would totally

demolish the conspiracy's forces. There were cryptic entries about a woman known only

as Lady A, and the indication that the Grand Duke signed himself with the codename of

C.

The time had come for Fortier to bring his superiors into the case. He had gone as far as

he could on his own authority-and actually quite a bit beyond. He dared not move against

anyone as highly placed as a Grand Duke, even on evidence as tight as this, without

backup from Luna Base.

He was not surprised to find a subcom unit built into this office. This was obviously one of

the nerve centers for the conspiracy, and the Grand Duke would want to stay in touch

with developments all over the Galaxy. Fortier used that same subcom set to beam a

message back to Admiral Trejas, Director of Naval Intelligence, at Luna Base.

Fortier had to bull his way past innumerable secretaries and aides by insisting his

information was important enough for Admiral Trejas to deal with it personally.

Fortunately, he had enough of a reputation from his heroic actions during the Coronation

Day Incursion that he was listened to, and eventually he got Admiral Trejas personally on

the line.

Captain Fortier gave his superior a carefully edited version of his story. One reason for

the editing was that the call was not being scrambled, and he didn't want the

information spread about too quickly; another was that he wanted to gloss over some of

his own more unorthodox behavior. Nevertheless, he was able to give his superior an

accurate rundown of his activities and a summary of the evidence he'd uncovered.

The admiral's eyes widened at the mention of C and the linkage with the Grand Duke of

Sector Four. "Are you positive of your facts?" he asked the captain again.

Fortier could only repeat the information he had discovered within the Grand Duke's very

household.

Admiral Trejas rubbed his forehead and sighed. "Khorosho, I believe you. But we can't

act too hastily in this matter. Moving against a Grand Duke is a serious undertaking. I'll

have to get authorization from higher up."

"If you get the authorization," Fortier said, "I'd like to be in on the arrest, if possible."

"I'll get back to you as quickly as I can," the admiral promised as he broke the

connection. Then he leaned back in his chair and contemplated the terrible burden that

had fallen on his shoulders.

Arresting a Grand Duke for treason would be a difficult proposition in any case. But this

was infinitely worse, because Admiral Trejas was one of a small number of people who

knew that the Grand Duke of Sector Four, Zander von Wilmenhorst, was actually the

Head of the Service of the Empire. Arresting him would be no slight matter indeed.