GETAWAY WORLD

 

Volume four of The classic Family d'Alembert series

 

By E.E. 'Doc' Smith

With Stephen Goldin

 

CHAPTER 1

A Chat with Lady A

 

The young woman looked vastly out of place standing in the line of people waiting to file

through the debarkation gate and receive billeting assignments. Tall and lithe, beautiful

and dignified, she looked like a tulip growing in a cactus garden. The rest of her queue

mates were the scum of a dozen worlds; virtually all of them, male and female alike,

were graduates of the roughest schools in the Galaxy-the imperial prison system. They

were tough and, for the most part, ill educated; one could tell their planets of origin by

the brand of slang they spoke and the choice of obscenities with which they peppered

their conversation.

 

In contrast, the young woman was striking in her cleanliness. Her clothing fitted her with

fidelity, and had been fashioned by one of Earth's finest designers. Her eyes had a deep

look of intelligence to them, and her long black hair was neatly trimmed. Her stance, the

way she tilted her head, the expression of cool self-assurance-all testified to the fact that

this woman was something special, born to wealth if not to the nobility itself.

 

She stood patiently in the corridor that had once been painted white, but was now

scratched and faded to a dismal shade of gray. Her eyes stared straight ahead at the

tables where the computer programmers were feeding the information on people's cards

into their quietly humming machines. She seemed totally unaware of the lecherous

glances from the men around her, or of the envious stares from the women. When the

person at the front of the line was finished, she moved forward with the rest; but as for

any other interaction with her queue mates, she might as well have been a statue.

 

Finally her turn came. She handed over her cards to the woman at the front table, who

took them routinely without looking up and began typing them into the computer. "Name?"

the clerk asked in a bored tone.

 

"Hazel Whiting," the young lady replied. "It's on the card, if you'd bother to look."

 

The cultured timbre of that voice made the clerk look up. She was obviously startled; she

wasn't used to seeing people of such obvious quality in this place. "What's someone like

you doing here?" she asked involuntarily.

 

"The same as everyone else-looking for sanctuary." The clerk was doubtful. This young

lady looked too clean, too innocent and too intelligent to be needing this planet's

specialized services. Her left foot reached out and pushed the hidden button that would

notify the boss that something was not quite right here; the trivision cameras in the

corners would beam the scene to his office, where he could make a decision without the

applicant's being aware of it. In the meantime, the clerk would carry on with her work.

"What did you ever do to need sanctuary?"

 

"Again., it's on the card," said the woman who called herself Hazel Whiting. "Jewel

robberies, mostly, with a few swindles along the way." She paused, then added as a

sarcastic afterthought, "It helps to look sophisticated; it gets you into the swanker circles

where the real loot is."

 

The clerk shrugged and continued typing silently for several seconds. Then she produced

a retinascope, and Hazel Whiting leaned forward to have her identity checked. When the

clerk was satisfied, she handed Gospozha Whiting a plastic key card, a pamphlet and a

bookreel. "You'll live solely on your past earnings as long as you're on Sanctuary," she

said routinely. It was clearly a speech she'd made many times before. "We don't steal

from each other here. Report to Room J-5 down the hall for temporary quarters until you

decide where in the city you want to live."

 

Hazel Whiting took the proffered materials from the clerk and started away. As she

moved past the line, one. of the men grabbed her arm. "Hey, Hazel Whiting," he said in a

raspy voice. "How'd you like to move in with me when you get the chance?"

 

The girl looked him up and down skeptically. The man was a burly sort with more muscle

than brains; he smelled as though he'd missed his bath three months in a row, and his

beard looked to have been trimmed with pinking shears. "I think," she replied coolly, "I'd

prefer to drink vacuum through a short straw."

 

The man gave a coarse laugh and pulled her closer to him. "I'll teach you not to be so

damned snooty."

 

Hazel Whiting let herself be pulled until she stood right next to the man. Then, in a series

of rapid movements, she acted. Her left foot came down hard on her assailant's right

instep, causing him to howl with pain and let go of her right arm. Her right hand lashed

out, fingers stiff and extended, and jabbed the man just under his ribs. It could have been

a killing blow if she had chosen, but that was not her intention. The man doubled over far

enough for her to lift her right knee and hit him on the chin with it. He went out like a

candle in a gale.

 

To an accompaniment of whistles and cheers from other men in the line, Hazel Whiting

walked off to Room J-5 to obtain her temporary billeting assignment.

 

Garst was understandably nervous. Seated across from him was the woman he knew

only as Lady A, the person most responsible for his being in this position right now. She

was easily the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen; the lines of her face had the classic

arrangement of eternal beauty. Her creamy complexion was flawless and her calm green

eyes took in everything worth seeing in the room. Her body was sensuality incarnate, and

her delicate perfume exuded femininity. There was an eternal quality about her. She

could have been any age between thirty and sixty; it was impossible to tell, and Garst did

not dare ask.

 

She was dressed in a wide-sleeved panne velvet jumpsuit with flared pant legs. The suit

was green, diagonally slashed with black-the left leg and sleeve were black, with thin

lines of emeralds along the edges. A tight green hood-attached to the jumpsuit by a gold

metal collar-covered most of her jet black hair. A pearl dangled over her forehead from

the center of the hood and around her neck she wore an integrated circuit chip on a

golden chain.

 

Yet despite her physical perfection, there was a coldness emanating from her that made

her seem terribly inhuman. Her manner was brisk, her speech sarcastic and stem. Garst

could not recall ever having seen her laugh in the several months of their acquaintance. It

was as though, being possessed of an ideal body, she had relinquished the option on her

soul.

 

Lady A sat in the comfortable chair across from his desk, her right leg crossed over her

left and her hands folded neatly into her lap. She stared with piercing intensity at Garst

as she spoke.

 

"I'm very happy with the operation as you've redefined it," she said. "In only slightly over

three months you've taken a marginally working system and turned it into a full-fledged

organization. Our `colony' is growing by leaps and bounds; we should soon have enough

talent here to launch our recruiting drive effectively."

 

Garst nodded his head in acknowledgment of the praise. Though Lady A's words were

laudatory, her tone of voice had not altered perceptibly; she was still as passionless as

an asteroid. "Thank you. As I told you at our first meeting, organization is my forte. The

system I had built on Vesa worked perfectly for two decades before bad luck destroyed

it last year-and that was working almost entirely on my own. With your backing, there

should be no limit to the things I can accomplish."

 

He leaned back in his chair, daring to relax a little. "In fact," he continued, half joking,

"with my talents and your connections, I wouldn't be surprised if the two of us were ruling

the Empire within a couple of years."

 

The woman snorted. "I doubt it. That particular plum has been within my reach before,

but it's a harder fruit to pick than it appears. We'll need a little more time and a lot more

background work completed before that goal is attained."

 

Garst did his best not to overreact to Lady A's statement. His own remark had been

intended in jest; her answer was dead serious. She did have her eyes set on the Throne;

but what did she mean that it had been within her reach before?

 

A light began flashing on his desk, startling him out of this reverie. Lady A noticed it, too.

"What's that about?" she asked.

 

Garst reached across the desktop and punched some computer key buttons. "It's a

signal from Admissions," he announced after a moment.

 

"Trouble?"

 

"Probably nothing. We're just having a new shipload coming in today, and I usually get at

least one checkup per ship. I've left standing orders that anything in the least bit

suspicious is to be referred to me, so that I can make a decision personally. I like to

keep on top of my entire organization-it's what makes me so successful." He neglected

to add that, since the breakup of his robbery and murder ring on Vesa, he was extremely

paranoid about detection. He wanted to stop problems before they had a chance to

start.

 

Flipping a couple more switches, Garst turned on the monitors so that he could view the

scene at the admitting gate. Out of courtesy to his visitor, he swivelled the set around so

that she could see, too.

 

Both of them watched and listened in silence as Hazel Whiting had her interview with the

clerk. They noted the brief but vicious fight in the line with the overzealous male, and

Garst gave a low whistle of appreciation at the woman's talent for self-defense. "That

Hazel Whiting can certainly handle herself well," he said as the subject moved down the

corridor and out of the camera's view.

 

"That she can," acknowledged Lady A icily. "Except her name is not Hazel Whiting-it's

Helena von Wilmenhorst."

 

There was a pause as she let Garst digest that morsel. "Any relation to the Grand

Duke?" he asked at last. "Only his daughter," replied Lady A from the heights of cold

sarcasm. "And his heir."

 

Garst was both impressed and puzzled. The von Wilmenhorst family owned Sector Four,

one of the richest areas of human-occupied space. One day, Helena von Wilmenhorst

would control the destinies of over a hundred planets, subject only to the orders of the

Throne. "But how did she get here and what does she want?" he mused aloud.

 

"As to the first," Lady A drawled, "I imagine it must be some flaw in this vaunted

organization you've been telling me about. She is hardly the sort of character we should

be catering to, and I suspect someone along the way was bribed to let her come. As to

the second . . ." She paused to consider something, and finally decided to trust Garst

enough to say it.

 

"As to the second, you will have to know one additional fact about her father: Zander von

Wilmenhorst is the Head of the Service of the Empire."

 

Garst stared at her in disbelief. The Service of the Empire, or SOTE, was virtually the

right arm of the Emperor himself. It was the most elite intelligence gathering network

ever assembled by mankind, dedicated to enforcing Imperial policies and staffed only by

the most loyal, most talented agents in the Galaxy.

 

Lady A saw his confusion and, for the first time since he'd known her, she smiled. It was

a smile that offered no warmth or comfort. "That fact is not generally known," she added,

"and it would not be wise to spread it beyond these walls."

 

"SOTE." Garst's mind raced as he considered the possibilities. "That means she's here

to investigate us." "The lightning swiftness of your mind never fails to astonish me."

 

He ignored Lady A's irony as he hurriedly punched out an order on his desk computer.

Within seconds, a printout of the Hazel Whiting file issued from the tiny slot at the side of

his desk. He gave it a careful perusal while his companion eyed him with patient curiosity.

 

"According to our records, `Hazel Whiting' first applied to us on the planet Kiesel in

Sector Five. She approached one of our agents, claiming to be a jewel thief and

swindler. Her reason for asking to come to Sanctuary was that her partner was killed

during their last job, and that there were enough clues pointing to her involvement in

some seventy capers that she was sure SOTE would be on her trail as well as the

regular police. She claims to have attended some of Sector Five's better schools, and

she's obviously several levels above the usual rank of people we get here." Garst

scrutinized the record a little more carefully. "I don't see much corroboration of her story

here-my man seems to have taken a great deal of it on faith. Or perhaps he took a great

deal of it on credit. In any event, I shall have him replaced immediately."

 

Garst stood up and began to pace around slowly behind his desk. He was quite

conscious now of Lady A's eyes focused on him. She was observing him like a specimen

under a microscope, and he had the feeling that his future employment would hinge

largely on how he chose to cope with this latest development.

 

"Putting aside for the moment the question of how she got here," he said carefully, "we

still face the problem of what to do with her now that she's here."

 

"Indeed." Lady A's brusque comment implied that she wanted to see how he would react

to the threat. Garst suddenly found himself perspiring heavily, even though his office was

comfortably cool.

 

He decided to enumerate the possibilities. "We could kill her, we could take her in and

give her a shot of nitrobarb to see what she knows, or we could let her wander around,

keeping her under close observation to see what she does and whom she contacts.

 

"I'm opposed to the first alternative for aesthetic reasons. Killing is a last resort, because

all the information she has would be lost. It's a move of panic and desperation; so far,

the threat she poses is not that serious. Killing her is the safest thing we could do, but

not necessarily the smartest.

 

"The second alternative is very attractive. There's no way anyone can lie under nitrobarb;

she would tell us everything we needed to know about how she discovered us, how she

managed to get here, what her plans are and how SOTE plans to deal with us. Even if

she died under questioning, we would still benefit."

 

"Yet I seem to detect a note of hesitation in your voice," Lady A observed. "If giving her

nitrobarb has all those advantages, why not do it and get it over with?"

 

"Several reasons. Suppose she's here to contact someone else, someone whom she

doesn't know, but who will get in touch with her using a code phrase of some sort. It

wouldn't do us any good to pick her up in that case, since it would only scare off her

contact. By letting her play on our leash, we may make a bigger haul of infiltrators. Then

too, by keeping her alive, we may be able to use her as a bargaining point later, should

any trouble arise. The longer we're able to string her out, the more we may learn."

 

"This method is the least secure of your three alternatives," Lady A pointed out.

 

"Yes, but potentially the most rewarding. And the threat she poses is still minimal.

There's no way she can broadcast a message off this planet using our equipment without

our knowledge, and I'll have her belongings screened thoroughly-and discreetly-to make

sure she has no transmitters on her. The only way to get off planet is aboard our ships,

and I'll quadruple the guard on the spaceport to make sure she doesn't sneak by us that

way."

 

"What's to stop any of her offworld friends from landing one of their own ships secretly

and meeting her?"

 

Garst smiled. "This planet is well off the main trade lanes, and as you know is listed in

the Empire's files as having been explored and passed over for settlement. The only

ships that should be coming anywhere near here are our own, and we know the

schedule. Anything else that comes within the boundaries of this solar system is blasted

instantly out of the skies. We control all access in and out--of that much, I'm sure."

 

Lady A was silent for a moment. Garst scanned her impassive face, trying to read

approval or disapproval in her eyes. Had he passed the test and retained her confidence,

or had he made some error in logic that would brand him as incompetent?

 

At last the woman spoke. "Very well, Garst, I agree with your reasoning. Putting Helena

von Wilmenhorst under nitrobarb would gain us very little, in the long run. We already

have our own access to most of the information she could tell us about SOTE's

operations in general; and in regard to the specific mission she's on now, you can do just

as well by keeping her under tight surveillance. But you'd better make sure that surveil-

 

lance is tight-no holes, no leaks, no way for her to escape." The or else implied in her

tone of voice was entirely too obvious.

 

"No need to worry about that. Every room in her apartment will be thoroughly searched

and monitored around the clock by my best security people. Beepers will be placed in all

her clothing. Wherever she goes, there will be two people on her tail. We'll keep lists of

everyone she contacts, under what circumstances the contacts were made, and we'll

have tails put on all those contacts who look even the faintest bit suspicious. I'll

personally review the progress of the investigation at least once a day, to make sure

there are no slip-ups. Gospozha von Wilmenhorst will be given more surveillance than the

entire Imperial family. Nothing will slip by us, I'll stake my life on that."

 

"Yes," said Lady A, "you very well may."

 

After his visitor had gone and he had ordered the implementation of his surveillance

tactics, Garst sat alone in his office, deep in thought. What have I gotten myself into? he

wondered. Exactly whom have I allied myself with?

 

He reached across his desk and fiddled with the controls of his recorder. As a matter of

routine he taped every meeting held in this office, so that they could be played back to

refresh his memory. Now, as he sat behind the desk with the lights dimmed, be watched

the ghostly images come to life and repeat the performance of earlier that afternoon.

 

Certain phrases haunted him. "That particular plum has been within my reach before,"

referring to the Throne. And again, "we already have our own access to most of the

information she could tell us about SOTE's operations in general."

 

After his faked death and hasty departure from the gambling moon Vesa, Garst had

desperately utilized all the contacts he knew in the Galaxy's underworld until, through the

friend of a friend of a friend, he had gotten in touch with this Lady A and asked for a job.

He had expected to be integrated into a criminal organization and allowed to use his

talents there; but Lady A's conversation left him little doubt that he was actually con-

 

nected to an Empire-wide conspiracy of infinitely vaster proportions. The thought of what

this could mean filled him with both terror and eager anticipation.

 

Garst was a particularly ambitious man. Until recently, his ambitions had been thwarted

by being confined to a single small satellite; but now, the prospect of true power was

blossoming before him. He found its aroma intoxicating.

 

He got up and walked around to the front of his desk, fingering gently the small medallion

he had been given when he joined the organization. It was a membership badge, he had

been told then, a form of identification. In form, it was quite simple: a tiny integrated

circuit chip on a thin golden chain, almost invisible unless someone looked closely. But it

made him part of something that obviously spanned the Galaxy and had as its goal

supreme control of the human race.

 

Garst knew he would never be content to be a cog in someone else's wheel. He would

have to find the stepladder to the top of this power structure and climb it rapidly. He

might not wind up as the big boss of the machine, but he knew lie was capable of greater

things than this.

 

There would be obstacles, of course. Although he'd been put in charge of this entire

planet, not a single member of his staff was personally loyal to him. They'd all been

picked by Lady A; even Jinda Rawling, his security chief and top aide, would probably

throw her lot in with Lady A if her devotion should ever be put to the test. That meant

Garst would have to work alone. No one else could be completely trusted if lie were to

achieve his aims. But still, he knew he could do it.

 

Helena von Wilinenhorst could prove the key to his upward mobility. Although he had

been careful to mention nothing about it to Lady A, that was another of his motives for

keeping that young lady alive and under close scrutiny. He wasn't sure how yet, but the

young duchess might prove useful to hire in his upward climb. The thought was

exhilarating.

 

CHAPTER 2

Mission on Mellisande

 

The planet Mellisande had five moons that danced an elaborate waltz through its

nighttime skies. The largest was more than half the size of Earth's own moon, and two of

the others were almost as big, which meant that the nights on Mellisande were seldom

dark. A silvery glow pervaded the atmosphere, lending a fairy tale aura to even the most

mundane of settings. When all the moons were up at once, the night could be nearly half

as bright as the day.

 

At present, though, only one large and one small moon were above the horizon, for which

the two shadow-shapes currently creeping through the bushes were extremely grateful.

Their job would be difficult enough without having to run the risk of being spotted in

excessively bright moonlight.

 

The scene below them was a tranquil one: a large manor house set out in the country

more than two kilometers from its neighbors, with open land surrounding it on three

sides. Its back was built against a cliff face that rose fifty meters into the air. The cliff

front was so smooth that it was judged unclimbable, leaving the occupants of the house

secure in the knowledge that they could not be attacked from that direction.

 

The two shadows hoped the inhabitants felt very secure; it would help them immensely.

 

They lay prone side by side for several minutes on top of the cliff, studying the layout

below them. Ten cars were parked in front of the manor house. As they watched, an

eleventh car made its appearance, driving up the narrow dirt road from the main highway

and pulling to a stop beside the others. Two people got out and walked to the front door

of the house. After a few moments of waiting on the doorstep, they were permitted to

enter.

 

"That should be all of them," said one of the shadows in a deep, masculine voice.

 

The other shadow, a female, nodded in response. "Alors, let's stop lolling about and get

to work."

 

The man stood up and lifted a device that looked very much like a harpoon gun. As he

hefted it and focused its sights, his companion took a length of carlon rope from her utility

belt and tied it onto a stake that had been driven securely into the ground near the edge

of the cliff. "Ready," she said.

 

The man took aim with his weapon and fired. The harpoon shot out of the gun and flew

downward toward the roof of the house. Its plastic-bulbed tip shattered in the cranny

between the chimney and the sloping roof, releasing a gummy white liquid that solidified

immediately upon contact with the air. The instaweld formed a permanent bond between

the rooftop and the spear; only the use of a special solvent would remove the harpoon

from its new resting place.

 

The only sound so far had been the small but unavoidable pop of the harpoon's tip as it

came in contact with the building. The two people at the top of the cliff waited

breathlessly to see whether there was any reaction from inside the house. When none

came after three minutes, they let out silent sighs of relief; the rest of their mission could

be accomplished much more quietly.

 

With rapid efficiency, the man pulled the slack out of the line attached to the harpoon.

Then, with the merest of nods to his companion, he grabbed hold of the rope and began

lowering himself in a quick hand-over-hand motion to the roof of the house so far below

them.

 

The woman stood patiently at the top, watching her comrade make his descent and

staying ever alert for trouble. While the man was traveling down the rope, he would be

an exposed target, and she would have to guard him. As soon as he reached his

destination, he signaled up to her and she began her own descent, while he returned the

favor and kept watch for her.

 

The total transfer time to the rooftop was less than five minutes. The instant they were

both together, they wasted no time setting their attack plans into motion. They had

preselected one window as their primary point of entrance; moving swiftly and silently to

the east side of the steeply slanting roof, the man lay prone holding another, shorter

length of carlon rope. The woman took hold of the free end and began lowering herself

over the edge to determine whether the window was unlocked or guarded by alarms.

 

All this work with ropes and climbing was hardly new to these two people; indeed, their

familiarity with the equipment was almost inbred. The woman was Yvette d'Alembert,

and the man was her brother Jules, and until slightly over a year ago they had been the

premier aerialists in the entire Empire. As the star performers of the Circus of the

Galaxy, they had been dangling from ropes and swinging on trapezes since babyhood.

 

But the job they were engaged in this night had nothing to do with trivial entertainment.

Their real employment was as the top secret agents in the Service of the Empire. They

and their entire circus family were among the ablest and most loyal servants the Crown

could wish for; they had proven their worth repeatedly, and asked for little more than the

honor of serving again in the future.

 

As Yvette dangled alongside the window they had chosen, she examined it carefully. It

was locked by a simple turnbolt from the inside, and there were no alarms on it that her

sophisticated pocket sensors could detect. Pulling herself tightly against the wall, she

managed to slide the bolt and pry the window open. From that point, it was a simple

matter to grab onto the sill and pull herself into the room. The inside of this chamber was

dark and still. It appeared to be a guest bedroom, but was not in use at the moment. As

soon as her preliminary check indicated that it was safe, she gave a single sharp tug on

the rope to let her brother know it was all right to follow.

 

Up on the roof, Jules secured the rope by the simple expedient of breaking another small

vial of instaweld at the spot where the line dangled over the eaves. As soon as he

ascertained that the material had done its job, he scrambled down the rope and, within a

minute, was standing beside his sister. Both agents had their stunguns out and ready for

action.

 

Moving with superlative stealth, they padded over to the doorway, opened it a crack and

gazed out into the hallway beyond. The hall was unfortunately well lit, but at least was

deserted. At the far end of the corridor they could see the staircase that they would have

to use to go downstairs where their quarries awaited. Between their present location and

the stairs were three closed and two open doors.

 

The first two rooms they came to were empty. In the third, they encountered a couple of

servants engaged in amorous pursuits; Yvette felt like a terrible spoilsport as she gave

them number four stuns that would knock them out for two solid hours, but she knew her

action was necessary. They could not afford to leave anyone behind them to sound the

alarm; they could fight more effectively on only one front. Whispering an apology that the

unconscious couple would never hear, she closed the door on them once more to restore

their privacy.

 

In the fourth room a man sat at a desk with his back to the door, engaged in writing. The

two shadows crossing the doorway startled him and he turned quickly to see who his

visitors were-but that was the last action he took for several hours. Jules's lightning

reflexes stunned the man down where he was sitting without allowing him the chance to

cry out in alarm.

 

The fifth room was again empty, and they came at last to the stairway. The two

d'Alemberts exchanged brief, encouraging glances. So far, all had gone smoothly; but

from this point onward, they could expect trouble at any second. As nearly as they could

figure it, there were at least two dozen people still occupying the lower floors of the

house. The odds against the agents' catching all of them off guard were pretty high. They

would have a fight on their hands before they were done this evening-but they had

expected that and were prepared for it. Their enemies were not.

 

The time for stealth had passed; speed would now be their best weapon. At the tiniest

nod from Jules, both of them took off down the stairs side-by-side at top speed, streaks

of fury moving at a rate that would have seemed impossible for normal human beings to

attain.

 

But then, the d'Alemberts were not exactly normal human beings. For more than ten

generations their family had resided on the planet DesPlaines, a world of heavy metals

and forbidding mountains with a surface gravity three times higher than that of Earth.

Weaklings were weeded out in the first two generations by the planet's harsh conditions.

The current inhabitants of DesPlaines were all superstrong and superfast. They had to

be-merely standing up and walking around in such a gravitational field would tax the

energies of normal people, not to mention the fact that, on a world where objects would

fall at three times the terrestrial rate of acceleration, a survivor had to have lightning re-

 

flexes. There was hardly any such thing as a "minor" accident on DesPlaines. Those who

survived were definitely the fittest.

 

But their genetic background was shared by more than seven million other inhabitants of

their home world. What made Jules and Yvette stand out even further was the family

heritage of the d'Alemberts, the long line of circus performers that traced all the way

back to the founding of the Circus of the Galaxy. Physical training and agility had been

the keynote of their education from the moment of their birth; now, at the very peak of

their careers, Jules and Yvette were the most perfect physical specimens humanity could

hope to produce.

 

Little wonder, then, that the two SOTS agents came flying down the stairs at speeds

calculated to dazzle the unsuspecting people they were hunting. The middle floor of the

house was populated by the servants, who were banished to this level to be out of the

way of the bigwigs conferring on the ground floor. They were small fry being caught in

the d'Alemberts' net, of no strategic value, but they had to be stunned anyway; they

would otherwise fight to protect the safety of the house, and a fight was the last thing the

DesPlainian siblings wanted.

 

As Jules raced into the final room on this floor, he spotted a servant standing beside a

basin. He fired his stunner on pure reflex, realizing at the instant he shot that the woman

was drinking a glass of water. The glass fell from the woman's hand and, quick as

Jules's reflexes were, he still could not catch it before it hit the floor. The glass shattered

with a sound that seemed to fill the entire universe with its noise.

 

There was no help for it-the alarm was out now. The people downstairs would have

heard the sound and would be on edge until some explanation was forthcoming. Even

though they would not be expecting a fullscale assault, they would be on the defensive

and not nearly such easy pickings as the servants had been.

 

As Yvette and Jules rushed back to the stairway to continue their descent into the house,

neither said a word. They didn't have to; the two had worked together as a team for so

many years, with their lives literally depending on their split-second precision, that their

minds functioned as a single unit. They both knew what had to be done, and each knew

precisely how the other would react to any conceivable circumstance.

 

As they raced down the stairs in tandem, twin blurs against the powder blue wallpaper, a

bead peered out from a doorway, obviously curious about the crashing noise from

upstairs. The man's eyes widened at the sight of the two forms dashing down the steps,

and he let out a yelp of astonishment. Yvette fired her stunner, but the man was just able

to duck back out of sight, and begin sounding the alarm in earnest. The battle royal had

begun.

 

The stairs ended at the front of a hallway, with a large living room to the left and a

slightly smaller salon to the right. Jules turned without hesitation toward the living room,

leaving the other side of the house to the capable hands of his sister.

 

As he entered the room, Jules looked an imposing foe indeed. His body was short, as

was typical of DesPlainians-only 173 centimeters tall-but he was solidly muscled and not

a man to be regarded casually. He was dressed in a gray jumpsuit (he and Yvette having

decided that gray would offer better camouflage under the moons of Mellisande than

dead black) and the tight cut of the clinging fabric emphasized all the bulging muscles of

his hundred kilogram body. He turned his head back and forth quickly, further ruffling his

short brown hair, as his steel gray eyes scanned the room to size up the situation.

 

There were seven people in the living room, five men and two women. All of them were

familiar to him from pictures he had studied. They were the major leaders of this world's

criminal underground; a list of the offenses committed by just these seven people would

have been taller than Jules, and each of them represented an organization that multiplied

their powers manyfold.

 

The closest person to the doorway was a man seated in a great chair. As Jules's fleeting

form burst into the room, this man started to rise from his seat, one hand reaching into

his coat pocket for a weapon. It was a move he never completed. Jules grabbed the

man's hand before it could reach the holster; using his own forward momentum and the

man's rising movement, he yanked the hapless gangster to his feet. That pull helped slow

Jules down and, expert athlete that he was, he used that to his advantage. With his

unwilling accomplice as an axis, Jules whirled around once, then planted his feet and

swung the man around instead. The man was lifted off his feet and flew heavily through

the air, colliding with another man and woman across the room and knocking them all to

the ground, unconscious. Jules was not specifically a weightlifter-his cousin Rick could

have performed the same feat a lot more effortlessly-but his powerful DesPlainian body

could still put a lot of force behind his movements, and the result was most gratifying.

 

By this time, though, the other four people in the room had been alerted enough to draw

their own weapons-blusters, Jules noted quickly. These people did not play around with

halfway measures. They would rather scorch some of the wallpaper than let him get

away with the effrontery of this invasion.

 

Jules's reflexes were faster, though. Stun-gun in hand, he downed two of the men across

the room before having to duck to avoid the blaster beam that sizzled the air above his

head. He turned his dodging motion into a low flat dive and a roll that brought him into

collision with the knees of the last remaining male. The fellow was knocked off his feet

and tumbled over Jules's body, thereby receiving a blaster bolt intended for Jules. There

was only one foe left, a middle-aged woman with a steely glint in her eyes and a burning

blaster in her hand.

 

Under the proper circumstances, Jules could be as chivalrous as the most gallant

courtier. But niceties such as not shooting a woman did not apply when that woman was

trying to kill him. Raising his stunner once more, he squeezed off a shot that dropped the

woman in her tracks. before she had a chance to correct her aim. He looked around

quickly, making sure there were no other foes in the vicinity, then got to his feet and

raced out to see if his sister needed any help.

 

As she ran into the salon, Yvette d'Alembert looked hardly less formidable than her

brother. Though ten centimeters shorter and thirty kilos lighter, her body was still of the

sturdy DesPlainian stock. The gray jumpsuit that she, too, wore emphasized all the best

aspects of her feminine form. She was a sight that would be pleasing to the eyes of any

man-except one who had to come up against her in combat.

 

She found five antagonists waiting for her as she entered the room, all men. Two of them

she was able to dispose of immediately with her own stun-gun before she had to start

dodging the blaster beams that the other three were employing liberally.

 

She dived behind one large, overstuffed chair to avoid a beam that would otherwise have

hit her at chest level. Taking advantage of her cover, she shot down another of her foes,

and the remaining pair bolted. One of them tried to make it out the door, but Yvette was

not going to allow that. Lifting the massive chair off the ground, she threw it with all her

strength at the fleeing criminal. The man's blaster burned a hole through the upholstery,

but couldn't slow the heavy object in its flight path. The impact of its weight knocked him

hard against the wall, where he crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

 

Throwing the chair left Yvette devoid of cover against the beams of the final gangster.

She twisted away frantically as one bolt went by. It caught the edge of her gun, heating

the stunner so much that Yvette could not hold onto it. She dropped the gun and fell

behind a low coffee table, on top of which were several items of bric-a-brac.

 

The last man, thinking his opponent disarmed and helpless, stood up and aimed his

blaster carefully; he would take no chances on missing his shot this time. But he

reckoned without knowledge of Yvette's resourcefulness and skill. Grabbing a small

emerald statuette from the tabletop, the SOTE operative hurled it with all her DesPlainian

strength and aerialist's accuracy straight at the face of her enemy. The object hit him in

the jaw with a resounding crack of shattered bone, and the man fell backwards onto the

floor, out cold.

 

Yvette was just picking herself up off the floor as her brother raced into the room. He

glanced around the room quickly, viewing the carnage, and asked, "Need any help?"

 

Yvette shook her head. "All smooth. Routine, actually. We'd better check to make sure

this is the entire haul."

 

The two siblings roamed through the rest of the house, but could find no further

opponents to face. They went upstairs and devoted the next half hour to tying up the

servants securely, in case they should come out of stun while the interrogation was still

going on downstairs. Then they returned to the living room and salon and tied up all those

captives. After that, there was still almost an hour's wait until the effects of their stunners

wore off and the interrogation could begin.

 

During their last assignment, traces of a widespread conspiracy against the Throne had

come to light, with implications that were positively chilling. Duke Fyodor Paskoi, ruler of

the planet Kolokov, and his assistant, Dr. Immanuel Rustin, had apparently been creating

robots that looked and acted exactly like real people. One of these robots had been

used in a plot against Crown Princess Edna, but those plans had been foiled by quick

action on the part of the d'Alemberts and their friends.

 

The problem the Service now faced was to find the rest of these deadly devices and

neutralize them. They had no idea how many of them there were, and the duke and the

doctor were no longer among, the living to be able to divulge that information. No record

could be found as to what the robots looked like or where they had been sent-or what

their missions could be. The only thing known for certain was that treason would be

involved.

 

The job of tracking down these insidious devices was not an enviable one, which was

why the Head had assigned Jules and Yvette, his two best agents, to conduct the

investigation. They had an insatiable appetite for work-and the harder the assignment,

the better they liked it.

 

Since Dr. Rustin was the genius behind the actual construction of the robots, the

d'Alemberts had concentrated their initial attentions on his actions for the past several

years. They discovered that he had made a number of trips here to the planet Mellisande

for no apparent purpose. After several more weeks of checking, they discovered that he

had frequently been seen in the company of several of the top hoodlums on this world,

and that there was to be a big get-together of underworld figures-the perfect opportunity

for them to net all their suspects at the same time. It was this path that had led the two

superagents to this particular house on this particular night.

 

With their suspects bound securely, the two DesPlainians examined them carefully. It

was Yvette who first noticed the tiny necklaces that two of them were wearing-integrated

circuit chips on golden chains. "Look at these," she called to her brother. "I seem to

recall from their description that both Duke Fyodor and Dr. Rustin wore necklaces like

these."

 

Jules came over and gave them his close scrutiny. "Absolutement," he said. "We seem

to have found a correlation. Possibly it's some sort of identity code, or has some

fraternal significance. Whatever it means, though, it's obvious that we'll have to

concentrate most of our efforts on these two. I prescribe nitrobarb for them and

detrazine for the rest."

 

Yvette nodded her concurrence and, from a kit in her belt, she began readying the

indicated injections. Both drugs were variations of truth serum; detrazine was by far the

more common, although it was possible for a subject with a hypnotic block or an

extremely strong willpower to be able to withstand its effects. That was not the case with

nitrobarb, the most powerful truth drug known to man. No one could resist telling the

complete truth under its influence-but the drawback was that the drug had a fifty percent

mortality rate, and was very tricky to use. These disagreeable side effects had led to

nitrobarb's being proscribed. Mere possession of it was a capital offense--but that, of

course, did not stop people on either side of the law from using it.

 

It took about twenty minutes for the nitrobarb to take effect. While they waited, Jules and

Yvette questioned the mob leaders who were given the faster-acting detrazine.

Everything that was said went directly into the d'Alemberts' miniaturized recorders for

possible future use by SOTS or other law enforcement agencies. Many subjects were

covered, and the agents dug up enough dirt on these underlings to construct several

large dams-but there was little information in the area of their particular interest. Some of

these people had been introduced to Dr. Rustin and talked to him on social occasions,

but either they knew nothing about the conspiracy to which he belonged or else they had

blocks in their minds that the detrazine could not penetrate.

 

By this time, though, the agents' prime targets were all warmed up and ready for them.

Slowly, patiently, Yvette, who was the more experienced of the pair at interrogation,

picked out the story of the conspiracy or at least as much as these people knew. It was

tantalizing and frustrating at the same time.

 

Both these men knew about the robot-building program. They personally knew of only

four robots that had been constructed, one of which being the one the d'Alemberts had

already destroyed. Of the other three, two were female and the other was male. The

male and one of the females were built to look like natives of some heavy gravity planet

like DesPlaines but-in reply to a sharp question from Yvette-they had not been made to

duplicate either of the d'Alemberts. Jules and his sister breathed a quiet sigh at that; the

thought had occurred to each of them that perhaps their identities had been discovered

and they were scheduled to be surreptitiously replaced. It was a great relief to learn that

their covers were still secure.

 

Neither of the men under the nitrobarb knew what had become of the robots after they

were made, leaving the two operatives as much in the dark as they had been before.

 

On the matter of the conspiracy in general, the men were equally vague. They took their

orders not from Rustin, who was on about the same organizational level as themselves,

but from a woman they knew only as "Lady A." They had only met her once, and

described her as being exquisitely beautiful and as cold as the backside of an asteroid.

Orders would come from her occasionally, telling them to do certain things that seemed

to make little sense; but they knew they were to carry out their orders to the letter, doing

no more and no less. For this they were paid quite well indeed.

 

Yes, they said, the golden necklaces with the integrated circuit chips were identification

symbols of the conspirators. No, they were not sure whether Lady A was in charge of

the entire conspiracy or not; they did recall Dr. Rustin mentioning someone else from

whom he took orders, and whom he referred to as "he." The d'Alemberts could get no

further information on that point, and could not conclude whether the doctor was referring

to his lord-Duke Fyodor-or to some other figure in the treasonous hierarchy.

 

As information went, it was pitifully slight. But it was more than they had arrived with, and

so they could count this raid as a success. "It'll take a lot more successes like this before

we start getting anywhere, though," Yvette commented sarcastically.

 

They left the house the same way they had entered, climbing up the rope to the top of

the cliff where their groundcar was parked. This vehicle looked vaguely like a flashy

sports model Frascati, but was in reality a Mark Forty-One Service Special capable of

converting into a private flying craft. The d'Alemberts had utilized it as such to approach

this out-of-the-way location, and they did so again in leaving. As they flew along, Jules

radioed in to the local SOTE offices, using only his code name, Wombat, and described

the situation at the house as they had left it. The thought of the interrogation tapes

instantly excited the personnel at the agency, who had been trying to get solid

information on these people for quite some time. The tapes would give the local

authorities enough clues to definitely nail convictions on each of these gang leaders-and

Mellisande would be a cleaner place to live for a while.

 

The d'Alemberts left the tapes at a safe drop point and continued along the ground to the

spaceport where their private two-person ship, La Comete Cuivre, was waiting. Its

burnished hull was a comforting sight for the pair of tired agents. Jules drove the car up

the ramp and snugged it into its special berth in the lower portion of the vessel. The. two

climbed out of the car, all set to grab a quick shower and catch up on some much

needed sleep.

 

But they found that sleep was not programmed for them for quite some time yet. On their

message recorder, a red light was blinking furiously. Punching the required button, Yvette

discovered that the message was from the Head himself, with a Class Five priority. The

siblings exchanged worried glances. Class Five was urgent. The message went on to

say that they were to beam a scrambled call back to Earth, using the Head's own private

number-and that they were to do so immediately upon their return.

 

CHAPTER 3

The Missing Girl Friday

 

Their fatigue was pushed to the backs of their minds; the Head's wishes came before

their own personal needs. The two agents began the elaborate process of placing an

interstellar scramble call back to the Head on Earth, a full hundred and ten parsecs

away.

 

The subether drive, invented by Oliver Fenton Arnold in 2011, had opened the way for

the great human exodus from Earth that occurred in the twenty-first century. In the fifty

years following Arnold's invention, it was estimated that more than a billion people left

Man's home planet for more than five hundred different worlds where they would be free

to pursue their individual destinies and philosophies.

 

But if Arnold's brilliant device had earned him the title "concierge to the Galaxy," it was

Anna Sieppi's invention of the subetheric communicator, or subcom, in 2027 that truly

made her the "voice of Empire." It was a simple fact that no political grouping spread

over most of the Galaxy could hold together without instantaneous communication. The

subcom provided that. Though even now, more than four hundred years after its

invention, no way had been discovered to bring the process cheaply to the common

public, it was nevertheless a godsend to government, industry and the news services.

Subetheric communication welded the human occupied Galaxy into one cohesive unit.

 

The d'Alemberts' ship, though small, nevertheless had its own complete subcom unit. In

addition, a small device built into the set would allow messages to be scrambled and

deciphered according to the Service's secret codes----which were changed on an

average of every two months. The scrambler insured the maximum amount of secrecy

possible during communication between the agents in the field and their home base.

 

After ten minutes of intricate dialing, the triscreen brightened and a three dimensional

image of their boss's head and shoulders appeared inside the tiny box. Zander von

Wilmenhorst was almost totally bald, and his face was lined with creases that made him

look older than his forty-eight years. But the look in his eyes made any viewer instantly

aware that this was a man of keen intelligence and insight. As Head of the Service of the

Empire, he was the prime security advisor to the Emperor and the master tactician who

kept peace among the stars.

 

He smiled as the images of Jules and Yvette appeared on his own screen. The

expression was a warm one, but weary. "Thank you for answering my message so

promptly," he said.

 

"A Class Five priority calls for promptness," Jules replied.

 

"Yes, but I expected you'd be so busy with your own case that it might take time for you

to get around to answering."

 

"Actually," Yvette said, "we had just wrapped up one stage of our investigation. It'll take

us a while to analyze it and formulate our next move. We were going to report to you

anyway."

 

"Then please do so. My business can wait at least until I hear what you've gotten."

 

With great precision, careful not to omit even the slightest facts, Jules and Yvette filled

their boss in on the results of their raid earlier that day. The Head listened silently, but

from his expression he was obviously not pleased with the implications of what he was

hearing.

 

"This conspiracy seems to be growing bigger with each new report," he said when his

two top operatives were done. "The answers you got point to whole new dimensions.

And the fact that those men knew of only four robots doesn't mean there aren't more. It

gives us a starting point, but that's about all. It's my job to be paranoid; I have to assume

that the actual number is much higher until it's proven otherwise.

 

"Put your findings in writing and beam the report to my office as soon as you can. I'll

have our computers correlate it and see if we can develop any new leads for you. But for

now, I've got something else for you to work on-something a lot more personal."

 

He paused and gazed at them. The look in his eyes was one they'd never seen before.

Slowly he said, "Helena's disappeared."

 

The news shocked them both. The d'Alemberts were extremely fond of their boss's

daughter. "What? How . . . ?"

 

"You remember when last you were in my office, I told you I had sent her on vacation for

a while. She was overworking herself, and she's still too young for that sort of thing. I

insisted that she get away for a month or two, to let herself wind down.

 

"At first I heard from her nearly every day. She kept calling and telling me how guilty she

felt leaving me to run the office here by myself-and, to tell you the truth, she did keep it

better organized than I've ever been able to. Then, after about two weeks, she stopped

calling. I figured she'd finally resigned herself to enjoying her vacation, so I put it to the

back of my mind. But after two months without any further word, my fatherly concern got

the better of me.

 

"I did some preliminary checking on my own. My last contact with her had been on the

planet Evanoe. As it happens, Marask Kantana had been on that planet at the same

time, so I called her to find out if she knew anything. You remember her, don't you?"

 

Indeed they did. When they first met her, Marask Kantana had been the Service's

planetary chief of Chandakha; but she had proven so capable in that position that she

was afterwards promoted to a job as special executive troubleshooter for the Head

himself. It was her particular assignment to travel around and attempt to spot problems

before they turned into major security headaches.

 

"Certainly," Jules replied to the Head's question. "How is she?"

 

"Fine. And she seems to be working out well in her job, too-she's spotted several tiny

problems that we were able to nip before they developed into cancers. She had been

writing a report about one on Evanoe when Helena arrived there. The two of them had

lunch together the day of Helena's last contact with me, and Kantana explained the

problem to her. She told me that Helena had seemed very excited about it, and kept

pressing her for details-and since Helena was one of my chief aides, she told her

everything.

 

"At about that point, I recalled what you had told me when you were last in my office-that

Helena was eager to do some field work, and was anxious to share some of the

so-called glamour of the espionage game instead of being just an office worker."

 

"And you think she took it into her head to work on this case herself." Yvette's tone made

her words into more of a statement than a question.

 

"Exactly. I think she wanted to show her poor old father that she could do something

more than just be a superefficient secretary." He sighed. "Some people never learn to

stick with what they do best-or if they do learn, it comes the hard way."

 

"How much training has she had?" Jules asked.

 

"She's been through the Academy with good marks in everything, so she's well up on

theory. She's had plenty of education in weapons and fighting, so she can take care of

herself in most normal situations. She scored 948 on the thousand-point test, so her

potential is there. But she has no practical experience. Even when I sent the two of you

out on your first major assignment against Banion's forces, you had at least lived all your

lives with the rest of your family and knew the ropes pretty well from hearing their

stories. Your father in particular is a superb teacher; if he weren't so important to me

right where he is, I'd put him in charge of our Academy to see that our agents are taught

correctly.

 

"Helena's never had the practical kind of experience she needs to handle something of

this magnitude. She's read a lot of reports about how agents have behaved under

stress-but it's one thing to read about it happening to someone else, and quite another to

know how to react when you're in the middle of a situation yourself. That's the only thing

that has me worried-Helena's still a little too naive to do the job right." He paused and

gave his head a wry little shake. "That and the fact that I need her back here. The detail

work is getting out of hand, and it takes three other people to handle her position. I have

plenty of agents who can work in the field; I need someone here who can keep my office

in order."

 

"I take it, then," Yvette said, "that you want us to find her, spank her and bring her back."

 

"Find her, yes-several of my lesser agents have already tried and failed, which is why I'm

bothering you with my problems. But as for the rest-well, field experience won't

necessarily hurt her since, as I told you before, I'm training her to take over my position

someday. It'll do her some good to know what goes on in the outside universe; she'll be

able to understand her agents' problems better. But I have to make sure she isn't in over

her head. After all, she is privy to about ninetynine percent of everything that goes on in

our organization. Her knowledge in the wrong hands could destroy us-so our not knowing

exactly where she is represents a potentially serious breach of security. Especially since

she knows your identities and the role of the Circus in our arsenal."

 

The two DesPlainians nodded. Only a handful of people outside the d'Alembert family

knew of the Circus's involvement with SOTE. Security was so tight that there was no

written record of the connection between the two in any of the Empire's vast data banks.

The Circus was the ultimate weapon SOTE had for dealing with plots and treason-and

Helena was one of the people who knew about that. If that information fell into anyone

else's hands, centuries of hard work and security would be undone.

 

"What I would like you to do," the Head continued, "is, after you find her, make sure

she's capable of handling whatever she's found. If everything's smooth, let her be, it'll do

her good. If she needs help, give it to her-you're the best I've got. And if she's in way

over her head, get her out of there as quickly as possible. That's essentially it."

 

But the pair of agents could detect something more in his face. His words were those of

a boss concerned with the safety of one of his employees; but, written clearly in his

eyes, were the words of a father worried desperately about his daughter. Make sure

she's safe and alive, he was saying, and make sure she stays that way.

 

"I've arranged to have Marask brief you on the problem," said the Head. "She can give

you the details better than I can, since she's closer to it and has been working on it

longer. You can call her at SOTS headquarters on Evanoe. I've already told her to

expect to hear from you. She'll have a report all ready."

 

Yvette wanted to reach out and pat her boss's hand, telling him things would be all right.

Unfortunately, that was impossible over a separation of a hundred and ten parsecs, so

she had to settle for saying, "We'll do our best, sir."

 

"I know," he smiled back. "And thanks." He cut the connection, and the screen faded

slowly to black.

 

Yvette fixed. the two of them a quick snack in the ship's small but efficient galley while

Jules fiddled with the controls of the subcom trying to raise Marask Kantana on the

planet Evanoe. It was difficult getting in touch with her because the executive assistant

had no permanent number at which she could be reached. Adding to the problem was

the fact that it was several hours before dawn at SOTS headquarters on that world, and

the staff on duty there were not the top flight people.

 

But what helped cut through most of the red tape was Jules's use of his and Yvette's

code names: Wombat and Periwinkle. Those two names were practically legendary

throughout the Service; there was not a single SOTE employee who would not drop

everything at once to obey the orders he received from either of those two people. Thus,

even though Jules kept his visual transmitter turned off, his words prompted instant

attention. Altogether, it took twenty minutes to establish a linkup with the still sleepy

Kantana.

 

Yvette brought the food into the control room just as Marask Kantana's features

appeared in the screen. She had obviously been roused from sleep to answer this call;

her dark-skinned face was devoid of makeup, making her look slightly older _than her

actual midforties age. Her black hair, which was gray tipped, was tangled and unkempt,

and her compassionate brown eyes were still a bit clouded by sleep. But even under

these conditions, the beauty of her soul showed through. "Greetings," she said slowly.

"The Head told me you'd be calling, but I had no idea it would be this soon."

 

"We believe in moving quickly," Yvette told her. "It's good to see you again."

 

"I wish I could say the same thing-but I understand the reason why I can't." At present,

she wasn't seeing them. Although she had met both of them, the d'Alemberts still

preferred not to transmit their images to a possibly unsecured channel, and so were on

audio only. The call, of course, was scrambled.

 

"We're given to understand that Girl Friday is missing," Jules said, cutting through any

further preliminaries. "We need to know your end of it-the Head thought it might be

enlightening."

 

Marask nodded. "When I had lunch with her a couple of months ago, I told her about the

unusual case I was studying and she pumped me with all sorts of questions. The two of

you might find it quite fascinating, because it involves the disappearance of many

people."

 

Yvette and Jules exchanged startled looks. The case they had investigated on Vesa,

where they had first met Marask, was a murder and robbery ring that had been

responsible for the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of people over two

decades. "Could someone have learned Garst's old game and started it all over again?"

Jules asked.

 

Marask shook her head. "No, this is being played by different rules entirely. The Vesan

disappearances were done in a random pattern, and the victims were relatively

anonymous. Also, the Vesan conspiracy was confined to a single satellite. In this new

case, I've found evidence that it covers at least two dozen worlds. The pattern is

decidedly not random, and the people disappearing are quite notorious and highly sought

after.

 

"In short, the top criminals in this portion of space have suddenly started vanishing. I'm

not talking about petty crooks and thieves, but the important ones - heads of mobs, bank

robbers who pull spectacular jobs, dishonest politicians who are being investigated a little

too closely-that sort of criminal, as well as some of their lesser cohorts. Any time the

police start closing in on them, they disappear without a trace. On only a couple of

worlds, this would be puzzling but hardly noteworthy; but as I've said, I've seen the same

picture emerging on twenty-seven different planets under identical circumstances. That's

part of my job, to correlate individual items and find the pattern. In this case, the pattern

stinks like week-old garbage."

 

"And your conclusion?" Jules asked.

 

"Simply this: that some person or organization has gone into the business of hiding

fugitives on an interstellar scale. The fugitives are not simply being shuffled from one

planet to another; the police are efficient enough to have spotted that. The `vanishees'

are being taken somewhere and kept out of our clutches."

 

"Which means that somewhere," Yvette said, reading between the lines of the report,

"there is a colony of thieves, murderers, grafters and general nogoodniks being

established. While I'm sure there's a great deal of profit in offering these people

sanctuary, I'm wondering whether there might not also be some ulterior motive involved."

 

"That thought had crossed my mind as well," Marask commented.

 

"Think of it," Yvette said, more as musing aloud than as conversation. "A colony full of

some of the most successful criminals in this part of the Galaxy. They would provide

fantastic raw material for any conspiracy interested in more than just breaking the law

and making a little bit of profit."

 

"A breeding ground for treason," Jules agreed. "It's a possibility we don't dare overlook.

As the Head remarked, we're paid to be a little paranoid."

 

"And it's not hard to see how this would have appealed to Girl Friday," Yvette continued.

She was not about to break Helena's cover by mentioning her name over the subcom.

"By posing as some sort of criminal, she would get them to accept her into their

sanctuary, wherever it is. Once there, she would try to learn as much as she could, then

break out and bring the knowledge back to headquarters."

 

"If she can break out," Jules said. "Whoever has set this system up would make security

his number one concern. Getting in could be managed with the right connections, but

getting out again would be an entirely different matter. She could find herself trapped in

there with no way of escape."

 

Kantana nodded. "That's how I read her situation. I didn't know she had vanished until the

Head called me a couple of days ago, but given all that I know and the persistence with

which she asked her questions, I should think it's fairly obvious what's happened."

 

The conversation continued on for another hour, with the d'Alemberts pressing the

executive assistant for more details about the disappearances. When they were finally

satisfied that they knew all that was officially known, they thanked Marask for her help

and told her not to worry further-they would take the matter from here.

 

"Telling her not to worry really won't do any good," Yvette said as the other woman's

features faded off the triscreen. "A good agent worries about everything until the case is

finally disposed of-and Marask is one hell of a good agent."

 

"I know," Jules agreed. "And there's a lot to worry about. From the way she described

these disappearances, the gang behind them is a group of top-notch professionals.

They'll take no risks at all. If Helena gives them even one good reason to suspect her,

they could kill her out of hand. They've got some of the best criminal talent in the Galaxy

working with them, and they won't hesitate to protect their interests. Particularly if, as we

suspect, they've got some further plans in mind for the future."

 

"So we've got to form some plans of our own for infiltrating them and finding Helena. The

obvious ploy is to pretend to be outside the law ourselves so that the people we want will

be interested in us as well."

 

"Not pretend," Jules corrected. "We're going to have to actually be criminals, with a solid

record of accomplishment behind us. I don't want to have any holes in our story at all if

we're going to walk into this particular lion's den in broad daylight."

 

"That sounds vaguely like a mixed metaphor, but I catch your meaning. We're going to be

scrutinized pretty closely, and if we have to perform a rescue mission our credentials

must be above reproach."

 

Although both were tired from their raid earlier that evening, they knew that neither would

be able to sleep until they had at least outlined their plans for saving Helena. For the next

three hours they batted ideas back and forth, discarding the bad ones and refining the

good until at last their plan of attack took on a definite shape in their minds.

 

Only then could they allow themselves a few hours of deep sleep before embarking for

their new destination more than two hundred parsecs away in an entirely different sector

of the Galaxy.

 

CHAPTER 4

Cat-Burglars of Cordoba

 

The planet Cordoba was a relatively prosperous one. With a population of better than

nine hundred million scattered over three large continents, there was no threat of

overcrowding and its attendant evils. Large areas of fertile land were given over to

agriculture,. but that still left much room for virgin wilderness. Industry was high enough

to maintain self-sufficiency without becoming a burden on the environment. No city had

more than two million inhabitants, and only thirty-four on the entire world had more than a

million.

 

The people of Cordoba had their share of problems, but on the whole they were satisfied

with their lot. In the official files of the Service of the Empire, Cordoba was listed as a

very stable planet, low on the list of potential trouble spots.

 

Avila, the capital city of the planet, was ruled by a baroness. Though her rank was

technically the lowest level of nobility, being ruler of the capital city gave her influence

that extended beyond her title, and a tax base many earls, who controlled larger areas,

would envy. The Baroness of Avila was considered to be one of the wealthiest people on

Cordoba.

 

Being a woman of taste and culture, the Baroness preferred to invest her money in

works of art and jewelry rather than commercial enterprises. She had a unique collection

of emerald and gold jewelry, including a ten-piece set that had been crafted particularly

to her order and whose total weight was more than three thousand carats. Also, "in one

particular gallery, she had hung the complete miniatures of the renowned artist

Mastrovnaya-seventeen pieces in all, at an insured value of over ninety thousand rubles.

Her manor house, Casa Avila, was one of the showplaces of the planet.

 

On this particular evening, eight days after the Head had talked with the d'Alemberts, the

Baroness was away from home attending a charity function. She was not especially

worried about the safety of her property, since Casa Avila was guarded by numerous

electronic devices and an army of security guards. The jewels and art were safe from

even reasonably skilled thieves-but few defenses short of an armored fortress would

keep out a certain pair of well-trained DesPlainians.

 

The smooth metal wall that surrounded the estate was four meters high and electrically

charged with enough voltage to stun the strongest constitution. The two SOTE agents,

clad in black leather jumpsuits and black satin hoods, came racing toward the wall from

the wooded area that adjoined the Baroness's estate. Just before reaching the barrier,

they bent their legs under them and leaped in unison. Their two bodies arcing through the

air easily cleared the top of the wall. Like the trained aerialists they were, they landed on

their feet with their legs tucked under them, expended the rest of the momentum from

their leap in a forward somersault, sprang to their feet in one continuous motion and kept

on running. Their pace would have looked like a leisurely gait, yet they were covering the

distance at nearly fifteen meters a second.

 

They had picked a spot far from the house to go over the wall, since the security guards

were likely to be less numerous there. They moved silently as well as quickly through the

darkness, and reached the side of the main building in less than a minute. So far, they

had progressed like two phantoms in the night, and had not been spotted.

 

They scouted the side of the house cautiously, keeping an eye out both for guards and

for a good point of entrance. They found a second-story window with an overhanging sill

that would suit their purposes admirably. As Jules planted himself firmly under the

window, Yvette backed off from him a dozen meters, then ran toward him at top speed.

As she leaped, he went into a crouch; catching her in his cupped hands, he straightened

up again, lending his full strength to the effort of pushing her upward. His toughened

muscles, trained to a gravity three times as strong as this one, vaulted her easily into the

air, and she grabbed the window ledge with a strong, sure grip. After peeking inside to

make sure the room was empty, she took one gripper from her belt and attached it

alongside the window with one hand while continuing to hold onto the sill with her other.

The gripper was a simple metal rod held tightly to the wall by two suction cups. When

that was done, she attached her second gripper to the other side of the window, then

laced a sturdy strap between them. Pulling herself up between them, she now had a

backstrap to lean against, like a window washer, while she worked on the delicate task

of bypassing the alarm circuits and opening the window.

 

Jules waited for her in the shadows at the base of the house, his sharp eyes sweeping

the scene constantly for signs that their presence had been detected. In Cordoba's

moonless night it was almost impossible to see anything. He heard a swishing of air

coming at him rapidly from his left and, on instinct, fired his stunner at the charging

object. There was a slight gasp and whatever it was collapsed on the ground. Jules

decided to risk moving away from the wall for a second to find out what it was.

 

By putting his hands down on the dark lump in front of him, he could tell that it was the

size of a large dog, but the texture of its fur was definitely not canine. Its mouth

contained a double set of sharp teeth; Jules shuddered at the, thought of how much

damage a creature like that could inflict on an unwary victim. That it was some kind of

sentry creature he had no doubt at all; but fortunately it seemed to be mute. Its value lay

in attacking an intruder and disabling or killing him before he was aware of it, rather than

in sending up an alarm. Jules's stun-gun had been set on three, which would be a

twenty-minute stun for a human being., Because this creature was smaller than a man, it

would probably be out somewhat longer. Jules resolved to keep an even closer eye out

for more of those things. The idea of those teeth sinking into his legs was not a pleasant

one.

 

"Are you all right?" Yvette's voice sounded in his ears. They were both wearing miniature

receivers and sensitive throat mikes to pick up their subvocalizations and broadcast to

each other. "I heard a stunner buzz."

 

"I hit the local equivalent of a watchdog. They're silent but vicious, and they've got sharp

teeth, so be careful."

 

"All set with the window," Yvette said a few seconds later. She opened it and climbed in,

then lowered a rope for her brother. Within another thirty seconds, he was standing

beside her inside the house.

 

Jules and Yvette had an advantage over normal cat burglars in that they had visited this

house before. Six years ago, the Circus had played on Cordoba and they, as two of the

show's top stars, had been invited to visit and see the Baroness's collection. They had

never dreamed then that they would be able to put the experience to such practical use.

 

They went to the door of the room and opened it a tiny crack. The hallway beyond was

brightly lighted, and there would be guards patrolling it every few minutes. Both agents

had their stunners set on three for a twenty-minute stun. It would be the most humane

way of dealing with the opposition; they didn't want to hurt anyone if they could avoid it.

Any guard they ran into would have a short nap and be groggy for a little while after that,

but there would be. no other ill effects. Twenty minutes, meanwhile, would be all they'd

need to accomplish their task.

 

On a signal from Jules, Yvette flung the door wide open and the two DesPlainians

dashed out into the hallway. As they had prearranged, Yvette headed directly for the

jewels while her brother went after the collection of miniatures.

 

Yvette ran into a guard as she turned a corner and began to go downstairs. The startled

man had no time to react, though, before Yvette's superfast reflexes had caused her to

fire her stun-gun. The man crumpled silently into a heap on the floor and Yvette continued

on without even slowing down.

 

The jewel room door was guarded by a pair of men, but neither of those worthies had

time to do more than register his astonishment before Yvette's flashing form swept into

view and her stunner buzzed twice more. Inside the room, another two guards were

overcome just as easily and quickly. It was not that all these people were incompetent at

their jobs, but merely that they were caught completely by surprise by someone whose

reflexes they could not have matched.

 

The emerald collection was spread out in three separate "diamont" crystal display cases,

and each case had its own individual alarm system. It took Yvette a full ten minutes to

circumvent all the alarms, but once that was done the jewels were hers for the taking.

Smashing the superhard crystal with her special black-gloved fist, she quickly scooped

the priceless gems into a velvet bag. Once that was completed, she raced back out the

way she had come. She met no further opposition as she returned to the upstairs room

through which she had originally entered.

 

There was no sign of her brother, but they had agreed not to wait for each other. In

three bounding strides she was across the room and standing by the window. Looking

down, she thought she detected something moving at the base of the house and, mindful

of Jules's warning about the watchdogs, fired a couple of stunner shots down into the

darkness. There was a slight sigh, indicating she had hit her target. She tied her bag of

loot firmly around her waist and scrambled quickly down the rope to the ground. Once

safely on solid footing, she raced off toward the nearest point of the wall. Detection was

a secondary consideration now; the speed of her departure was more important. She

met no further resistance and made the leap over the wall with the same ease as before.

She then sprinted for the d'Alembert groundcar, which had been parked on a small side

road more than a kilometer from the Baroness's estate.

 

Jules was not yet there, but that was to be expected. The paintings he was after were

bulkier than her jewels, and dismantling the alarms connected to them would take a little

longer. Yvette waited patiently and, seven minutes later, Jules came running toward the

vehicle. Yvette started the motor as her brother leaped inside and, within seconds, their

"car" was airborne and flying at top speed back to the spaceport.

 

Jules shot his sister a quick smile. "I think we should congratulate each other on our

success," he said.

 

"If we don't, who will?" Yvette's voice was equally brimming with exhilaration. The thought

of a job well done always stimulated them.

 

Leaning back in his seat, Jules interlocked the fingers of both hands behind his head. "I

think, sister dear, that we are about to acquire a reputation around here."

 

Jules's prophecy turned out to be a magnificent understatement. The story of the daring

cat burglars who'd stolen more than two hundred thousand rubles worth of jewelry and

art from the Baroness spread like wildfire through the popular press. The newsrolls were

full of the details of the crime, and a couple of the wire services picked up the news and

spread it to several of the nearby star systems. Within twenty-four hours, the cat

burglars of Cordoba were known to almost everyone on five planets who could read or

listen to the news.

 

Jules and Yvette did not rest on their laurels, either. With their notoriety firmly

established, they began a series of robberies every bit as thrilling as the first. Since there

was no need to make further splash, they stayed away from the nobility and confined

their burglaries to rich members of the common classes. Their take was less, but that

was of no concern to them. The important factor was that the risk was also substantially

lessened; after all, why should they take the chance of being caught accidentally, before

they'd even begun their true job?

 

Speculation was rife about the identity of these ingenious criminals. It was repeatedly

stressed that the thieves could not hope to dispose of their loot, since most of it was

highly identifiable and the police were carefully monitoring all the known fences. That

detail mattered not at all to the two SOTE agents; once they had accomplished their

purpose, they intended to let the loot be found intact. Only the identities of the thieves

would remain perpetually undiscovered.

 

In the meantime, while they spent the late night hours committing their crimes, their

afternoons and early evenings were occupied in another phase of their plan. They had to

become known within-the local underworld and, in particular, they had to find out where

and how they could make contact with someone to "disappear" when the time was ripe.

 

In order to maximize their contact, the two of them split up and frequented the various

hangouts separately. Jules haunted several of the bars, a task he personally disliked-all

DesPlainians were allergic to alcoholic beverages and, while there were other stimulants

available to him, Jules hated cluttering up his body with what he considered contaminants

and poisons. Still, this was considered part of his duty, and he tried to bear it with as few

complaints as possible.

 

After a week he became one of the regulars. The same faces were in and out all the

time, and from overheard bits of conversation he could tell which people were involved in

which illegal activities. He struck up acquaintances with several of the more promising

candidates. They were suspicious of him, at first; newcomers could always be possible

police spies or informants. But Jules worked hard to allay their fears. He displayed a

genuine unconcern for the details of their crimes-after all, SOTS was not a police

agency, and it was not his business to arrest criminals unless their activity bordered on

treason.

 

At length, the people of the underworld came to realize that this affable stranger was no

threat to them, and that he was a new audience for all their old boasts and stories. Jules

also made it clear he was in the same business, though he made no claim to being one

of the now famous cat burglars. An easy camaraderie was established, and Jules felt he

would be able to make the proper connections when he had to.

 

Yvette, meanwhile, was making her own connections elsewhere. While Jules frequented

the bars, Yvette made the rounds of the gambling casinos. Gambling was technically

illegal on Cordoba, but it was so common a pastime that most law enforcement officials

merely looked the other way; the casinos that stayed within respectable limits managed

to thrive.

 

The casinos took all forms. There were some, for the very upper classes, that were

located inside posh manor houses. There, amid elegant surroundings, the wealthy people

of Cordoba could wager their fortunes with style and dignity. For the middle classes, the

casinos usually masqueraded as private clubs or social organizations, complete with

membership fees and constitutions. The style was more casual here, though the ultimate

results were the same.

 

Those were not the places Yvette visited. Hers were the dives, the dirty back rooms, the

cramped, grimy cellars that smelled more of sweat and stale dope sticks than of

perfume and incense. The atmosphere was much more frenetic here, and the gambling

seemed more a compulsion than a means of relaxation. Yvette could not help but

compare the desperation here with the luxurious conditions she had seen at the famous

casinos on Vesa. These places were less crowded than Vesa's, but the tension in them

was even more tangible.

 

Women were not uncommon in these places, although they were usually there to hustle

up a little business on their own. Yvette was a good gambler, moderately successful, and

she managed to work her way into the confidence of many of the regulars. After four

days of steady attendance, she was deemed good enough to be invited into some

private games that went on in back rooms. The conversation there was salty, but Yvette

picked up a lot more information from chance remarks than the utterers would have

believed. She, too, was building a list of possible people to contact when the tune came

to vanish.

 

One day, coming out of a private poker game into the main room, she spotted her

brother with his back toward her, standing in the middle of a crowd across the way. She

was a little startled; this was supposed to be her turf, and Jules would not have come

unless something were about to happen. Crossing quickly to him, she said, "I didn't

expect to see you here."

 

Then the man turned around, and she saw her mistake. It was not her brother after all,

but another man with the same distinctive build of a native from some high-grav world. He

looked her up and down and gave her a pleasant smile. "I didn't expect to see you here,

either," he said. "But I'm certainly glad I did."

 

Yvette gave him a thorough once-over. He was a most handsome young man, possibly in

his middle thirties, with light blue eyes and sandy brown hair that curled in ringlets onto

his forehead. He was dressed like a dandy, with a sleeveless U-necked jumpsuit made of

black glitter-fabric and pants legs that flared at the bottom. Under this, he wore a white

satin shirt with large, puffy sleeves. The shirt was open at the neck and had rows of

ruffles covering the front. A waist-length black velvet cape was draped casually about his

shoulders and a broad-brimmed black hat with a flat top was tilted at a cocky angle on

his head. Tucked into the hat's brim on the right side was a large red rose.

 

"Excuse me," Yvette stammered, embarrassed. "From the back, I mistook you for my

brother Jaro." The man doffed his hat and swept it across the front of his chest as part

of a courtly bow. "You flatter me, gospozha. Any man related to you would have to be

far better looking than I. If I may be of any use to you instead of him, my name is Pias

Nav, at your service." The excess of gallantry might have seemed ludicrous in anyone

else, but in this young man it seemed to complement and complete his personality.

Although there were some snickers from the back of the room at such elegant behavior

in such a seamy setting, Pias Nav's innate dignity overcame any possible

embarrassment.

 

"Thank you, gospodin, for your offer, but it really isn't necessary. My name is Yarmilla,

by the way Yarmilla Dubcek."

 

"I am honored." He took her hand and touched it lightly to his lips as though she were a

grand duchess instead of-supposedly-a common gambler.

 

Yvette did not know quite what to make of this earnest young man-but she did know that

she had an appointment to meet her brother very shortly back in his hotel room. She

could not afford to stand here and allow herself to be charmed by this handsome

stranger. Reluctantly she moved away and said, "It has been pleasant meeting you, even

under these awkward .circumstances. But right now I really must go and meet my

brother. He gets very angry when I keep him waiting."As would I, gospozha, as would I.

What man could bear the thought of your not being there? I let you go with the greatest

of regret and the greatest wish for your happiness. Until we meet again, if we ever do."

And again, he swept his arm in another grand gesture.

 

Yvette left the casino, a very bemused woman indeed.

 

CHAPTER 5

The Disappearance of Jaroslav and Yarmilla

 

"It's a good thing we weren't born needing money," Yvette commented. "With our skills,

we could have been the scourges of the spaceways."

 

She stood with her hands on her hips in front of the loot they had collected on their

burglaries over the past ten days. It had been arranged neatly into two stacks, with

jewelry on one side and art objects on the other, and stored in the food locker in an

abandoned meatpacking plant. They had not attempted to dispose of it in any way; once

their assignment was over, the police would be informed of its whereabouts and it would

be redistributed among its owners. But in the meantime, it was as safe here as

anywhere.

 

"Yes, but all good things must come to an end, to coin a phrase," her brother said. "Our

criminal career is about to be behind us. It's time to move on to the real job."

 

"C'est vrai. It'll be nice to be able to look at myself respectfully in the mirror again."

 

Jules went outside to a public vidicom booth and dialed the number for the main Avila

police station. "Hello," he said in a growly voice that was not remotely like his own, "I've

got some information about those two cat burglars."

 

"If you'll hold on just a minute, gospodin," said a female voice, "I'll connect you with the

detectives in charge of that investigation."

 

"No!" Jules croaked vehemently. "I'll tell you, now, or I don't talk to anyone." The girl at

the other end of the line was clever; if she could have persuaded him to hold the line

open, the call would be traced back to this number. Jules wanted his call to be

completely anonymous.

 

"Very well, gospodin, I'll take the message." The woman would be signaling someone in

her department to trace the call anyway, but Jules didn't care about that. By the time

they could even get started, he would be finished.

 

"Look for a man and a woman named Jaroslav and Yarmilla Dubcek. They're brother and

sister, I believe, and they're staying at ,the Androvoy Hotel." Without further ado he cut

off the line. Let them try to trace that, he thought smugly.

 

The d'Alemberts could have predicted quite accurately the events that would transpire

next. Within fifteen minutes, several squads of police would converge on the Androvoy

Hotel. They would indeed find that Jaroslav and Yarmilla Dubcek were registered in ad-

 

joining rooms on the second floor, and that they were frequently out to all hours of the

night. Proceeding up to the rooms, they would discover that the suspects were nowhere

around, but there would be plenty of equipment-ropes, grippers, wire cutters, electrical

apparatus-to indicate that the Dubceks were indeed the cat burglars. No trace would be

found of the loot they had taken-nor would there be any clear fingerprints to use as

identification. The two agents had been very careful on that point, because they wanted

to leave no permanent traces of themselves here.

 

With that much to go on, the police search would begin in earnest. Hotel staff and guests

would be questioned for any information they could give concerning the two strangers. In

a relatively short time a description of the fugitive pair would be flashed to police stations

all over the planet, and from there the information would be disseminated to individual

officers. Within two or three hours, the d'Alemberts, alias Dubceks, would be the two

most wanted people on the entire planet.

 

This, they knew, was the chanciest part of their entire plan. They had to count on the

contacts they had made to help them reach the agents for the conspiracy. Cordoba had

been chosen specifically because more criminals had vanished from here than from any

other world-but that did not mean lightning would strike again. The conspiracy normally

took native criminals with long past histories; the d'Alemberts were hoping that their

recent record was spectacular enough to make them worthy prospects.

 

If they could not get in touch with the conspiracy, they'd find themselves in serious

trouble. They would be the subjects of a massive manhunt, the likes of which this planet

had never before seen. All ships taking off, including. their own, would be thoroughly

searched. Just giving back what they'd stolen would not be any excuse for having taken it

in the first place, and the hunt for them would continue. Should they be caught, they

dared not break their covers and reveal their true identities-it would nullify their future

usefulness to the Service. They'd be forced to serve their time in prison like any other

criminals.

 

The plan would just have to succeed. They had no other option.

 

They waited for about three hours, so that news about the Dubceks would begin filtering

down through the ranks of the underworld. Then, when they were certain people would

know about their plight, they began calling their respective contacts, pleading for help.

 

"The offs are closing in," they would say when they reached one of their newfound

friends. "I need somewhere to hide, fast. Can you help me?"

 

The reply, if there was one, was usually a quick no; most of the time, the connection was

simply broken with no response at all. You sure learn in a hurry who your friends are,

Yvette thought after her sixth call had ended in a discouragingly negative response.

 

Finally, Jules hit paydirt. The man at the other end of the line was silent for a minute, then

said in slow, careful tones, "There might be a way. I've heard of some people who

specialize in that sort of thing. What's it worth to you to find out?"

 

"Five thousand rubles."

 

"Make it ten." The guy at the other end knew he had the upper hand, and was prepared

to make the most of it.

 

Jules pretended to hesitate and consider. "Khorosho, you've got a deal. How quickly can

you find out for me?"

 

"It might take an hour or two. Do you have a number where I can reach you?"

 

Jules gave a bitter laugh. "No, circumstances compel me to remain mobile at this time.

Why don't I call you back at this number in, say, three hours? Will that do?"

 

"Smooth." The man clicked off, and Jules went to inform his sister that their all-important

connection was on the verge of being made.

 

That left them only with the problem of how to spend the intervening time without getting

caught. Retreating to public 'freshers, each of them put on a wig and enough makeup to

disguise their faces from recognition on casual scrutiny. Then they went to a local

amusement park, taking advantage of the crowds to hide themselves and have a few

moments of relaxation before they had to return to work. The thrilling rides, the cries of

the barkers and the smells of concession-stand food reminded them very much of the

midway of their own beloved Circus. Every so often, one or the other of them would stop

dead and let the atmosphere of the place wash over him. The other would stand patiently

by and wait until the rapture had passed, and then the two would move on without a

word being spoken. Each knew what the other felt. The Circus had been their entire life

for more than twenty-five years; even their loyalty and duty to the Empire could not fill the

emotional void that leaving the Circus had imparted.

 

At last their time at the park drew to a close. The respite was a brief one, and now they

would have to go back to the dancers of their work. Even as they walked toward the

front gate, Yvette reached over and squeezed Jules's hand abruptly, whispering a single

word: "Rube."

 

The abbreviated version of the old circus battle cry "Hey Rube!" brought Jules instantly to

attention, though outwardly he continued to appear relaxed. Glancing casually in the

direction his sister's eyes indicated, he saw a policeman in uniform walking slowly toward

them. The man did not have a weapon drawn and seemed slightly hesitant, which was a

positive sign. He had probably been told to look for anyone with a build that indicated

high gravity origins. Even though the d'Alemberts had deliberately worn loose-fitting cloth-

 

ing and had changed their faces slightly, they were still close enough to the description of

the wanted burglars to arouse suspicion in this officer. He was coming over to check

them out more closely-something they could not afford at this stage of the game.

 

"I copy," Jules whispered back. "We split, no panic unless called for. Rendezvous Site

B."

 

"Smooth."

 

Quite casually, the two began to drift apart, each walking perpendicular to the other's

path until they were separated by more than thirty meters. At this point, the policeman

realized what they were doing and his suspicions doubled. Without a partner to help him,

he decided to go after Jules and leave Yvette alone. He began walking faster. Jules,

noticing this, also began walking faster, so that the gap between himself and the officer

remained constant. Every time the policeman increased his pace slightly, Jules did

likewise.

 

Finally the policeman tired of this game. "Wait up, you!" he called out to Jules. "I'd like to

talk to you." Obligingly, Jules halted. He turned to face the officer, his face a mask of

utter innocence. Then, after putting the policeman momentarily off his guard, he made his

move. From a dead stop, he suddenly raced off toward a group of sheds at a speed that

left the officer sputtering with amazement. It took a full two seconds for that worthy to

even think about drawing his stungun, by which time Jules was well out of range. The

innocent bystanders wandering through the scene would have made random shooting

hazardous in any event. There was nothing the policeman could do except try to run after

his suspect.

 

Jules had little difficulty putting distance between himself and his pursuer. With his special

athletic training and the inborn speed of a son of DesPlaines, he constantly increased his

lead, dodging between and around groups of startled spectators. The policeman

managed to keep him in sight, but that was about all.

 

Finally Jules made it to the sheds and ducked behind them. For one brief moment he

would be out of the lawman's viewing range. Two meters away was the outer wall of the

amusement park, barely three meters high-an easy leap for a man with Jules's abilities.

But Jules did not take that avenue of escape. Once the policeman knew that Jules had

fled that way, he would call in to headquarters and the area surrounding the park would

be cordoned off for kilometers around. He might be able to slip through such a blockade,

but it would be time consuming and risky.

 

Instead, he elected to jump to the roof of the shed. He made it in a single easy leap, then

waited, crouched, for his pursuer to appear.

 

The man rounded the corner at top speed, gun drawn. He saw the wall and hesitated,

thinking that his suspect must surely have gone over it already. While he stood there

hesitating, Jules dropped on him from the rooftop. The impact of his hundred-kilo body

caused the gun to fly out of the policeman's hand. Jules used his forward momentum to

roll in the appropriate direction. He swooped up the stunner, rose to his feet, checked the

gun's setting-it was on three-and fired, all in one continuous motion.

 

With the officer now definitely unconscious for twenty minutes, and too groggy to report

for perhaps another ten, Jules took a slight running start and leaped easily over the

fence. In half an hour, he could be so far away from here that no cordon would be

successful and the police would know it. They would have to keep their attention

dispersed throughout the city-which was fine with Jules. In the meantime, he had a call to

make, and it was already ten minutes overdue.

 

"What kept you?" said his contact when Jules finally got to a vidicom booth and placed

the call. "I don't like to be kept waiting."

 

"And I don't like being caught," Jules retorted angrily. "In case you don't know it, every

off in the city is looking for me. Have you got what I want?"

 

"It's all set. That's for you and your sister, right?"

 

"Right."

 

"It'll cost you." "How much?" "Fifty thousand rubles."

 

"That's not too bad, I guess, if they can deliver the goods."

 

"That's apiece."

 

Jules feigned shock. "That's robbery. I'll pay forty each."

 

The man at the other end of the line smiled a greasy smile. "You ain't in no position to

bargain, tovarishch. My contact says it's an even hundred for the both of you or no deal.

Take it or leave it."

 

"You're right, I have no choice. Khorosho, what are the details?"

 

"You're to get all your worldly possessions together in one small bundle. All dealings from

here on are strictly cash, so you'd better have a lot of it. On top of the hundred thou for

him and the ten for me, he says to plan on living expenses for several years. You're

going to be gone a long time, tovarishch, but it's necessary to clean your trail."

 

"Understood."

 

The man gave Jules the address of a warehouse on the south side of the city. "You and

your sister are to be there in ninety minutes, no later. If you're not there, you've missed

the ship and no one'll listen to your story again. Copy?"

 

"Copy," said Jules. The other man nodded and the line went dead. Jules felt

exhilarated-the plan had worked, and they were now on the road Helena had probably

taken.

 

Rendezvous Site B was a specific group of bushes in the plaza across from one of

Avila's major hotels. Yvette was waiting for him as he strolled past, and she took his arm

like a long lost sweetheart. "You sure took your time getting here," she said. "I had to

wrestle a couple of squirrel like things for the right to stay there." "I may be slow, but I

get results." Jules told her about his conversation, and what they were supposed to do.

 

Yvette gave a low whistle. "Demanding lot, aren't they? All they want is everything we've

got, immediately. What if it's a trap? What if they deliberately lure fugitives into their lair

with a promise of sanctuary, kill them, take everything they have-which could be a tidy

sum, considering some of their clients-and then dispose of the bodies? It would be a

sweet racket-and there'd be absolutely no one to blow the whistle on them."

 

"Whatever their game is, we'll have to find it out eventually. This has got to be the route

Helena went; if there's murder involved, it's best that we learn about it now. I'm not

recommending that we walk in there like lambs to the slaughter. But," he added, looking

at his watch, "if we don't walk in there soon, we might as well not go at all."

 

They walked quickly to a garage where they had previously parked a rented car. The

suitcase in the trunk contained a couple changes of clothing for each of them and five

hundred thousand rubles in cash. The Circus maintained master bank accounts on every

planet it visited, and they were able to tap into this fund for "incidental" expenses. So top

secret was their work that they were not even on SOTE's payroll. The Emperor saw to it

that the Circus's taxes were secretly rebated-and so large was this sum that it was

sufficient to bankroll any operations the d'Alemberts saw fit to perform.

 

The two agents counted out a hundred and ten thousand rubles in cash and stashed it in

Yvette's purse; the rest was put back into the suitcase for future use. Quickly then, for

the deadline was almost upon them, they drove to a spot three blocks away from the

designated warehouse and walked the rest of the way, with Jules carrying the suitcase

casually in his left hand. His right hand stayed near his pocket where he had a mini-

 

stunner hidden; Yvette's mini was already cached in the palm of her hand. Each agent

was prepared for any trouble that might arise.

 

They approached the warehouse cautiously. There was only one door that they could

spot, and they didn't have the time to look for alternative means of access. The door was

slightly ajar and they had to squeeze in one at a time, fully aware that several blasters

would probably be trained on them each step of the way from now on.

 

The ceiling of the warehouse towered more than fifteen meters above their heads, and

the enormous room stretched for perhaps two hundred meters in front of them. Large

boxes and heavy crates were stacked efficiently in rows, with aisles wide enough to

permit a forklift to travel with ease. There was the smell of sawdust in the air, a clean,

woodsy scent.

 

Jules and Yvette started walking down the center aisle slowly, mindful of a possible

ambush. As they approached one intersection, Jules's contact man stepped out in front

of them from behind some crates. He was apparently unarmed.

 

"Glad to see you could make it," he said. "I presume you have my ten thousand."

 

Yvette reached into her purse and fished out the appropriate bundle. "Here you are."

 

The man took the stack of bills and counted it with experienced rapidity. "Khorosho," he

announced when he'd finished. "It's been a pleasure doing business with you. I now turn

you over to Gospodin Kharmahn, who will handle your affairs the rest of the way."

 

As he spoke, another man emerged from a side aisle one intersection further up.

Kharmahn was of average height and weight, with red hair and beard. A long white scar

twisted its way down the left side of his face from temple to lips, and his left eye

seemed-larger and redder than his right. He walked with the faintest trace of a limp in his

left leg. He too appeared unarmed, but the d'Alemberts guessed that he had some

confederates backing him up who would be armed to the teeth.

 

"Good afternoon, comrades. I trust our mutual friend has explained the details of our

transaction." He nodded his head to indicate Jules's contact, who was even now

disappearing out the door with his money.

 

The two agents walked forward slowly toward Kharmahn. "Somewhat," Jules answered.

"He was quite adamant about the price."

 

"It's our standard," Kharmahn shrugged. "You are being charged no more nor less than

anyone else who has used our services. I presume that suitcase contains enough money

to last you for a while. You will be traveling to a place of temporary retirement, and you'll

be forced to live off of your previous earnings."

 

"We'll manage," Jules said cagily.

 

"Khorosho. Then if I can have your payment, we can proceed."

 

As before, Yvette reached into her purse and produced the desired amount. Kharmahn

took the bundle casually and did not bother to count it. "I know you won't cheat us," he

said. "Your lives will be in our hands for quite some while, and that would not be to your

benefit. Now, would you come this way, please?"

 

Kharman led them down one row of crates and stopped before a large leaden one that

was marked in bright red letters:

 

DANGER FISSIONABLE MATERIALS RADIOACTIVE

 

Walking right up to the crate, Kharmahn pressed an almost invisible stud on the side.

One metal side swung open to reveal a smaller lead box inside, just barely big enough

for two people.

 

"Those will be your travel accommodations, I'm afraid. Not luxurious, but you'll only be in

there a maximum of three hours. Oxygen masks will of course be provided. Once you're

sealed in, we do indeed fill the rest of the crate with radioactive material, to pass in-

 

spection at the spaceport. Don't worry, your own private container is more than

sufficiently shielded to protest you from the hazards. It's just that we've found the

authorities are a little more willing to pass on fissionable material with a minimum of

inspection-and, of course, with all the radioactivity inside and shielding around it, they

couldn't begin to X-ray it. Once your ship has safely taken off, you will be decanted, as it

were, and given better quarters until you reach your ultimate destination. Please get in

now."

 

The d'Alemberts climbed into the tiny box with their suitcase and adjusted the oxygen

masks about their faces. Room within the compartment was at a premium, and both

DesPlainians found themselves wishing they bad learned to be contortionists like some of

their other relatives in the Circus. Three hours of this was bound to be a grueling ordeal.

 

As soon as their crate was closed up, they could feel themselves being moved to another

location presumably to add the fissionable material around them. Their compartment was

pretty thoroughly soundproofed so they felt, rather than heard, the vibration of the

loading. Then they were moved again to what apparently was the back of a truck for,

after being at rest for half an hour, there was a constant jostling movement that indicated

they were being driven somewhere. Hopefully, their destination was the spaceport.

 

There was still, in the back of their minds, the fear that this might be some sort of

elaborate trap. They were no longer worried that their box would be simply dumped in

the ocean-Kharmahn would never have let them take the suitcase inside with them if he

intended that-but they were only too aware of how dependent they were on those

oxygen masks. All Kharmahn had to do was pump poison gas in to kill them effortlessly,

then open up the crate and take their money.

 

They had to have faith in their hypothesis that the cabal behind these disappearances

had further plans for the criminal talent they were assembling, and that their clients would

be more use to them alive than dead. As time dragged by and the bumpy ride in the truck

continued, that hypothesis looked more and more likely. If Kharmahn had intended to kill

the d'Alemberts, he would have done so quickly and disposed of them. The fact that they

were being taken for a long ride was an indication that he had been smooth with them.

 

After an hour the jostling ride stopped. Suddenly their crate was hoisted roughly into the

air and they were bounced around inside their tiny compartment. The bruises they

received only added to the torment of their already cramped muscles. Their crate was

set down again with a harsh bump, and there they sat for half an hour. Then the lifting

and setting process was repeated another time. The agents were just coming to the

conclusion that this was not so much an escape as a series of carefully designed tortures

when they felt a new force suddenly pressing them down hard against the floor of their

chamber. This, at least, was a very familiar feeling-the acceleration of a spaceship taking

off. The three gees of acceleration would have felt good to them under normal

circumstances but, cramped as they were, it only added to their discomfort.

 

When the acceleration finally ended, they experienced the opposite sensation-zero gee.

The floating feeling eased the pain in their limbs a little, but not too much.

 

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of confinement, they could feel the material

around them being unloaded. Then their box opened and light streamed in on them,

blinding after so long a period in darkness. They blinked furiously, squinting against the

light, and eventually they could see the silhouettes of three men standing before them.

Rough hands reached in and grabbed their arms, yanking them ungently out of their

compartment.

 

"Welcome aboard the Linnea Rose," said one harsh voice. "You're on your way to

Sanctuary."

 

CHAPTER 6

Flight to Sanctuary

 

With their bodies aching from the abuse of their confinement, the d'Alemberts climbed

gratefully out of their hiding place. They were in the hold of what was obviously a cargo

ship, surrounded by scores of other boxes and crates much like their own.

 

"Do all those boxes have people in them?" Jules asked as he began doing some freefall

exercises to limber up his muscles once again. Yvette, too, was stretching herself out full

length and twisting her body in odd ways to get the kinks out of her system.

 

"Nah, we only take a few per trip," volunteered one of the men who'd unpacked them.

"Don't have room for more than that. Come on, I'll show you to your quarters."

 

He swam off toward the "ceiling" of the room, its forward wall while the ship was in

motion. Jules and Yvette, their bodies still sore but at least functioning, swam after him.

A passenger ship would have been under ultragrav for the convenience of its more

planetbound passengers, but a cargo ship could not afford that luxury. The crewmen

here learned to handle themselves in freefall or else they found other means of employ-

 

ment.

 

The crewman led them down one corridor to a pair of plain metal doors. The two

adjoining rooms were identical in their stark simplicity: a zero-gee hammock stretched

along one wall, a small set of drawers built into the wall for holding personal items and a

personal freefall 'fresher unit set in one corner. The walls were bare metal, gray and

cold.

 

"I suppose it's an improvement over the box we just got out of," Yvette commented. "But

not much." "You'd think fifty thousand rubles apiece would go a lot further than this,"

Jules added.

 

"Quit grumbling. You're paying for our service, not for the accommodations," the

crewman said. "It'd be harder getting you offworld on a cruise ship. You'll- get better

quarters when you're living on Sanctuary. In the meantime, be glad you're here. Dinner'll

be in two hours. Mess hall's up forward." His welcoming duties done, he left to return to

his regular chores.

 

"Well, cramped as it is it's still better than a prison cell," Yvette said. As she talked, she

reached over and touched her brother lightly on the shoulder. Her fingers tapped out a

brief coded message: The room's probably bugged.

 

Jules gave a slight nod. It would be difficult for them to find anyplace aboard this ship

where they could have' a free conversation. They dared not expose the fact that they

were infiltrators while they were in such controlled enemy territory.

 

"I think you're right," he said aloud. "Personally, I want to stretch out and take a nap after

all that time in the box."

 

And he meant it. The day's activities had taken their toll; even the supernormal stamina of

the d'Alemberts could be overtaxed, and today had been an exceptionally busy one. He

and his sister split up, then, to get a bit of _rest before dinner.

 

Feeling a little more refreshed, the agents met two hours later and swam together

toward the front of the ship. After a short period of exploration, they found a crewman

who directed them to the mess hall. By the time they got there, nearly everyone else

aboard ship had already assembled.

 

The Linnea Rose had a crew of twenty-one and was carrying three passengers in

addition to themselves. The others were no doubt along for the same reasons that the

d'Alemberts were-they had purchased tickets to Sanctuary to escape the consequences

of their crimes.

 

As Yvette scanned the rows of faces, she was startled to see one she recognized. It

was the gambler she had met on Cordoba, the dandy from the high-grav planet whom

she'd mistaken for Jules. She searched her memory frantically and after a moment came

up with the name that went with the face: Pias Nav.

 

The gambler was dressed as grandly as before, though a bit more practically for a

zero-gee environment. He was sans chapeau and wearing a full black jumpsuit with no

cape. On the left shoulder of his garment was an artificial red rose; the soft cloth of its

petals flowed gently in the air each time he moved. He caught sight of Yvette at almost

the same moment she spotted him, and his face lit up with delight.

 

"Gospozha Dubcek!" he called loudly. All heads in the room swivelled, either to him or to

the object of his attention. Pias Nav went on, oblivious to the stares. "What an

unexpected pleasure running into you again. I'd been told there was a lady aboard ship,

but I hadn't realized it would be you. And that must be your brother. Please do come

over here by me. I insist."

 

Yvette smiled and started in his direction. Jules followed after her, perplexed. "Who is

he?" Jules whispered as they swam down the center of the mess hall.

 

"He's the guy I mistook for you once at the casino. I told you about him."

 

Jules looked Pias Nav over from top to bottom with a disapproving glare. "I don't see

how you could have made that mistake. I'm much more handsome than he is."

 

Yvette gave a short laugh. "And much more prejudiced. I think he's charming."

 

"He's also some kind of big-time crook, or he wouldn't be here," Jules cautioned. "Keep

that in mind."

 

They floated over and steadied themselves beside the flamboyant gambler. "I would

bow, milady, but that doesn't work too well in freefall," Nav apologized. "But if I might

kiss your hand as a token of my esteem-"

 

"Of course," Yvette offered her hand and Nav touched it to his lips as elegantly as though

he were at a ball at the Imperial Court itself.

 

Jules floated by himself a short distance away, muttering something under his breath

about "damned foppish showoffs." Then, so he wouldn't feel so useless, he went to the

food dispenser and got the platters for Yvette and himself and brought them back to

where his sister was still engrossed by Nav.

 

The food was typical space fare, hardly exciting. There was some clear broth in a

squeeze bottle as soup; a globe containing bite-sized squares of protein paste that had

been made to resemble cooked meat; and three more squeeze tubes containing

creamed vegetables, hot coffee and a custardy dessert, respectively.

 

"Well, we hardly have to worry about spoiling ourselves on this," Jules commented as he

handed his sister her meal.

 

"Never mind, milady," said Nav. "With you beside me, even the simplest repast is a

banquet beyond compare."

 

I think I'm going to throw up, Jules thought, but kept his opinion of the gambler's loquacity

very much to himself. He sucked on his broth and vegetables and chewed the protein

squares in silence.

 

In some ways, though, Nav's blather was proving very useful. A natural-born busybody,

he had already learned a great deal about their fellow passengers. "That fellow over

there," he said, indicating a lean, middle-aged man with rapidly thinning hair and squinted

eyes, "is the former accountant for the Earl of Arabolia. It is supposed that he managed

to embezzle nearly two million rubles before vacating his post in somewhat of a hurry; he

refuses to quote exact figures, though. And our other companion is Rowe Carnery, who

has pirated ships successfully from more than a score of planets."

 

Yvette thought she detected a slight change in Nav's voice when he talked about

Carnery-a little bit less lightness, a darker undertone. There's something strange

between Nav and Carnery, her instincts told her, although she had no real evidence on

which to base that assumption.

 

Still, she gave Carnery a very thorough scrutiny. The man was big, just under two meters

tall and easily massing a hundred and ten kilos. His black hair was cut close to his scalp,

and his bushy eyebrows grew together to make one dark line across the bottom of his

forehead. He had a two-day growth of stubble on his face and a nose that had been

broken several times in the past. His deep-set dark eyes brooded over some hidden

horrors that only he could see. Definitely not the sort of character to take on a picnic,

Yvette decided. I wonder what the connection is between him and Nav.

 

She told Nav the story about herself and her brother, about their being the famed cat

burglars, and he was duly impressed. "What about yourself?" she asked when she'd

finished. "What did you do to merit this trip to Sanctuary?"

 

"Ah, compared to such illustrious company my sins are positively puny," said Nav with a

flourish. "I am, by trade, a gambler, and I gambled entirely too well to suit certain casino

owners back on Cordoba. After I had won several hundred thousand rubles from a few

of them, they pooled their resources in thinking up methods to discourage me. The latest

method involved sending a couple of their bouncers to rough me up. In trying to defend

myself, one of the men ended up dead, so they took that opportunity to frame me for

murder. This trip seemed a more convenient alternative than explaining the story to the

local police."

 

"You don't look like a very experienced fighter to me," Jules commented icily.

 

"Indeed I'm not," Nav agreed with a cheery smile. "There are times when most of my

energies are directed at preventing violence. But, as I'm sure you know, these people

from the lighter gravity planets can sometimes move too slowly for their own good."

 

This turn in the conversation gave Yvette a perfect chance to ask, "Where are you from,

by the way?, You don't have a DesPlainian accent, and you're obviously not from Purity.

There aren't too many high-grav worlds."

 

"Indeed there aren't," Nav smiled. "I happen to be from Newforest."

 

Yvette's eyes widened just a trifle. Newforest was the so called Lost Colony that had

been a myth for centuries until finally discovered just fifty years ago. In the early

twenty-first century, a group of some two dozen small ships filled with dissident gypsies

and "tinkers" took off from England to avoid the purges that were then sweeping Earth.

All contact was broken and, by the official formation of the Empire of Earth in 2225, it

was generally assumed that the ships had either been lost in an uncharted sector of

space or else had landed on an inhospitable world where no survivors were left. But

there were strange occurrences. Every so often, a spaceship would set down on a rural

planet. The captain and crew would claim to be inhabitants of a world called Newforest,

and that they were descendants of the people from those lost ships. Eventually these

Newforesters took on mythic proportions. About all that was known about them was that

they came from a high-grav planet whose location they kept totally secret.

 

After some elaborate detective work on the part of the Service of the Empire, the actual

location of Newforest was deduced. The planet circled close to a red star so small and

faint that it was almost totally ignored in galactic surveys. The population of Newforest

had been very uncertain about the Empire, remembering the purges that had driven them

off Earth in the first place. But when a fleet of twenty-five imperial battlecruisers ap-

 

peared in their skies demanding that they pledge their loyalty to the Empire or be

obliterated, they had no choice but to join Earth's system of government.

 

The affair had caused a sensation five decades ago, but since then things had settled

down. Newforest, a world with two and a half times the surface gravity of Earth, turned

out to be a very quiet, bucolic place. Its people for the most part minded their own

business and caused little trouble. Citizens from Newforest-as did citizens from all

heavy-grav worlds-traveled seldom because of the discomfort of constantly adjusting to

weaker gravitational systems. Consequently, Newforest was known more for its exotic

past than for its commonplace present.

 

"I've never met anyone from Newforest before," Yvette said, quite honestly. "What's it

like there?"

 

Given a prompting like that, the verbose gambler could elaborate for hours. He began

telling Yvette, in his usual elegant terms, what life was like under a dim red sun. He

described the brilliant crimson foliage and the fascinating native animals. He told her of

some of the customs that had developed on the planet during its centuries of isolation

from the rest of humanity, and what life might be like for a typical Newforester. So elo-

 

quent was his style that Yvette floated and listened to him, entranced.

 

Jules, meanwhile, had finished his dinner and was feeling terribly bored. His sister was

devoting all her attention to that jackdandle beside her, and Nav was playing to his

audience like a master musician. The few remarks Jules made were lightly passed over

as inconsequential, making him feel as useless as wheels on a starship. Finally tired of

floating idly by while the other two chattered, he excused himself and left the mess hall.

His departure was barely noticed.

 

Needing something better to do than stretch out in his room and brood over Yvette's

preoccupation with that garrulous wastrel, Jules decided to explore the ship. Swimming

up and down the passageways, he soon learned the locations of the crew's quarters, the

galley, the recycling stations, the cargo holds and the officers' lounge. That last place, he

was informed in haughty tones by the officer in there at the time, was completely off

limits to him. As a passenger, he apparently was expected to stay mostly in his own

cabin except for meals-a routine that could become very boring indeed.

 

During his roving, though, he did find something extremely useful. It was a hatch that he

almost missed at first glance and, opening it, he discovered a small storeroom for

oxygen tanks and safety equipment. It had the musty smell of a place that was seldom

used-and it was almost certain to be free of electronic bugs. This would be a place

where he and Yvette could come and share their ideas in complete privacy something

they had been hoping to find. Excited by his discovery, he went back to their adjoining

rooms to tell Yvette. She wasn't back from dinner yet, so he went to his own room to

sulk until she returned.

 

One hour and forty-three minutes later-he had kept very careful track of the time-he

heard voices out in the corridor. Opening his door a crack, he peeked out to see exactly

what was going on. There was Yvette locked tightly in an embrace with her new

acquaintance. Out of embarrassment, Jules averted his eyes. The kiss seemed to last

forever; had it been practical in freefall Jules would have been tapping his foot with impa-

 

tience. At last Nav left and Yvette slipped into her room alone.

 

Jules swam quietly over and rapped lightly on her door. She opened it and was about to

greet him, but he put his finger to his lips, indicating he wanted silence. Then he

beckoned her to follow him and willingly she did so.

 

He took her to the storeroom he'd found. "I think we'll be able to talk privately here," he

said. "I can't imagine anyone in his right mind bugging a place like this."

 

"Perfect," Yvette said.

 

Without further preamble, Jules said, "I think you ought to watch yourself with that

smooth-talking Newforester. I don't like it."

 

"Why? Just because he's charming and amusing and knows how to treat a lady with

respect?"

 

"He's a crook, and we can't afford to get ourselves romantically entangled with people

like that. Not in our line of work."

 

Yvette looked at him with narrowed eyes. "Mon Dieu, my brother is a prude! I wouldn't

have believed it!" She tried to make light of the situation, but stopped when she saw how

serious he was. "Listen, he's not a real crook. He's a professional gambler, which is legal

on a large number of planets. The only reason he's here is because he got involved in a

situation he couldn't get out of by himself. That hardly makes him Galactic Enemy

Number One."

 

"You believe his story, then?"

 

"For the time being. He's given me no cause not to." "He's an admitted murderer."

 

"So are we, mon cher frere, so are we. We've had to kill at times, both in self-defense

and for the good of the Empire. I won't condemn him solely on those grounds."

 

Jules slapped his left palm with his right fist. "There's something not right about him, Evie.

That's all I can say right now. Something about his story just doesn't lie smooth. He's not

being completely honest with us."

 

"I'll tell you what," Yvette said, trying to assuage her brother's ruffled feelings. "You get

me some proof and then I'll believe you. I trust your feelings when you say he's not being

honest-but I ask you to trust mine that I know he's a good man."

 

Jules grimaced. "Khorosho, you've got a deal. But I warn you, I'm really going to be

looking closely at him."

 

"Knowing you," Yvette smiled, "I wouldn't expect it any other way."

 

At breakfast the next day, Pias Nav was still his same, cheerful self, charming Yvette and

disgusting Jules with his excessive gallantry. But at lunchtime the gambler did not show

up in the mess hall when everyone else did. This made Jules suspicious; on a ship where

meals were the only social activity permitted, missing one was not something a person

would do casually. Jules wolfed down his food and made an excuse to leave early; this

was something that needed looking into.

 

He swam down the corridors to what he'd been told was Nav's room, but there was no

answer to his knock. On a hunch he went back to his and Yvette's rooms, half expecting

to find the Newforester rifling through them. But they were both untouched. Perplexed

now, he wandered the hallways silently, wondering where the man could be and what he

was up to.

 

Finally he heard a faint noise. A door on his left was slightly ajar-it was the door, he had

learned earlier, to Rowe Carnery's cabin. Approaching it slowly, he put his eye up to the

crack and looked in. There was Nav, fishing neatly through the drawers of the built-in bu-

 

reau. He would take out one article of clothing, look through it and, not finding what he

was looking for, set it aside and repeat the process. Finally he found something that

interested him-a large round medallion on a silver chain. Nav held it up to the light and

examined it closely for a minute, then clenched his fist around it. The expression on his

face changed to one of pure hatred, with a murderous glint in the eyes that sent an

involuntary chill down Jules's spine. I don't care what Evie thinks, that's no innocent lamb

there, Jules thought. I'd hate to run afoul of anyone who can look like that.

 

After almost a minute, Nav's normal expression of blandness returned. Very carefully he

put the medallion back exactly where he'd found it, and restacked the clothing in the

drawers so neatly that Carnery would never guess it had been touched.

 

This is my cue to leave, Jules decided. I don't want him to know I've been spying on

him. He managed to swim quickly down the corridor and out of sight before Nav

emerged once more from the room and swam off in the opposite direction toward the

mess hall.

 

Later that evening, as Jules and Yvette were swimming down the corridor together

toward dinner, Jules took his sister aside into their storeroom. "Would you be able to

keep your friend occupied for an hour or two after supper? I'd like to search his cabin."

 

"Only an hour or two?" There was a hint of a twinkle in Yvette's eyes. "Smooth, that

shouldn't be any problem. I'll bet you don't fund anything, though."

 

"I have to check anyhow." Jules decided not to tell her yet about what he'd seen earlier;

he wanted to present her with a complete package of evidence all at one time.

 

Again, Jules ate quickly and slipped away from the mess hall without being noticed.

Pias-Nav was entirely too wrapped up with Yvette to bother much about her brother.

With single-minded determination, Jules swam down the halls until he came to the

gambler's cabin.

 

The door was locked, but the mechanism was an extremely simple one and Jules-with

his extensive training and experience in such matters-had little trouble persuading it to

open for him. The interior of the cabin was much like his own, which meant there would

be relatively few places to search. If the pattern was the same in Nav's case, he hadn't

had much time to pack before coming here, so there wouldn't be much to search through.

Still, Jules hoped to find some clue that would tell him more about this mysterious

Newforester.

 

Despite the fact that he'd been rushed, Nav had taken an extraordinary amount of jewelry

with him mostly rings and pins, with a couple of ornate pendants. There were several

different changes of clothing and large stacks of cash. Interestingly there were no dice,

cards or other appurtenances of the gambler's trade; that was odd, though hardly

condemnatory.

 

Jules was just about to close one drawer in disgust and write this foray off as a total loss

when a single detail caught his eye. Reaching into a stack of clothing, he pulled out a

neatly folded handkerchief with the initials "PB" daintily embroidered at one corner.

 

Either he steals other people's handkerchiefs, Jules mused, or else "Pias-Nav" is not

the name lie always goes by. I wonder what Evie would have to say about that.

 

Tucking the handkerchief back where he'd found it, Jules gave the cabin another quick

glance to make sure he had overlooked nothing, then left as stealthily as he had

entered-making sure to lock the door behind him again as he went out.

 

There was nothing definite yet that he could present to Yvette as a case against the

Newforester. The rifling of Carnery's cabin and the handkerchief with the different initials

were reasons for suspicion but not damning evidence. Pias Nav was not the simple

gambler he pretended to be, of that Jules was sure now. But the full story behind this

mystery still required elucidation.

 

Pias Nav, decided Jules, is going to require a hell of a lot closer inspection.

 

CHAPTER 7

Settling In

 

The flight from Cordoba to Sanctuary lasted four more days. During that time, although

Jules kept a very careful watch on Nav's behavior, the Newforester did nothing further

that was the least bit strange. Nav spent an increasing amount of time in Yvette's

company, and Yvette was not complaining at all. She actually seemed to enjoy the

gallant flirtatiousness that so sickened Jules, and there were a couple of times when

Jules noticed his sister gazing at Nav with a certain wistfulness in her eyes. He wondered

what it all could mean.

 

Had he been able to step out of his skin and view his own behavior a little more

dispassionately, he would have realized exactly what it meant. That same faraway look

frequently was in his own eyes when he was with his fiancee, Yvonne Roumenier. The

simple fact was that Yvette was falling in love with this smooth-talking stranger from the

gypsy world.

 

Being shut out of his sister's universe so thoroughly, Jules tried to keep his mind on

business. He struck up casual acquaintances with the other two passengers; but nothing

much came out of them. Pasqual Ortiz, the embezzler, was a null sort of person, the type

one could easily forget while standing right next to him. Aside from his apparent skill at

juggling other people's funds, he had few talents to recommend him. Rowe Carnery, on

the other hand, was a man who had led too exciting a life and refused to talk about it. He

disliked being approached, and would speak in grunts or brief sentences at best. Jules

could tell that there was a streak of violence in the man lying close to the surface, and he

was loathe to do anything to bring it out-nothing would be accomplished at this point by

antagonizing their fellow refugees from justice.

 

Jules tried making friends with the crew of the Linnea Rose, but found them almost as

uncommunicative as Carnery. They had their jobs to do and, even when Jules-out of

boredom more than anything else pitched in and helped, they refused to talk about more

than trivial matters. In particular he could get no information at all concerning their

destination. Either the crew knew nothing about Sanctuary or they were under strict

orders not to discuss it.

 

Consequently Jules spent most of his time alone in his cabin, resenting Yvette's growing

affection for Nav and concocting elaborate and diabolical explanations for the

Newforester's enigmatic behavior.

 

They were given exactly ten minutes' warning that the ship was about to break out of

subspace above the surface of Sanctuary. They strapped themselves into their

hammocks and experienced the familiar flickering of reality that marked the transition

between normal and subetheric space. Then, in two more hours, they were going through

the braking procedure as the Linnea Rose screamed down through the planetary

atmosphere and settled gently on the spaceport field.

 

Then the passengers were herded out of the ship and into a long, low white building.

There, under a large sign that read "Welcome to Sanctuary," their luggage was opened

and searched thoroughly before their eyes, so there could be no charges of theft later.

Their bodies were frisked, too, for any trace of weapons. "We don't like having guns

loose on Sanctuary," one guard explained. "We prefer to keep it peaceful. You shouldn't

need them here, anyhow; you're among your own kind."

 

The d'Alemberts allowed the guards to find their two ministunners, although the search

was less strenuous than they expected. Jules thought of all the miniaturized electronic

gadgetry he could have smuggled under the noses of these security people, but then

realized that there would have been little point to it. All the microequipment in the Galaxy

would not get them off the planet again. They would need a spaceship for that and the

guards controlled the access to the spaceport quite thoroughly.

 

The SOTE agents weren't worried about being disarmed. The guards, who seemed to

be plentiful, were quite well armed with both blasters and stunners. The two DesPlainians

felt perfectly capable of tapping that resource when the time came. "The best agent,"

their father had told them many times, "is the one who's capable of improvising. If you

plan things out too thoroughly beforehand, something's bound to go wrong somewhere

along the line and leave you stranded."

 

After the search, they waited in the line to receive temporary quarters, much the same

way that Helena did upon her arrival. Their interview went without a hitch, and they did

nothing to arouse the suspicions of the clerk, so their pictures were not flashed directly to

Garst-which was a lucky thing. Had he seen them, he would have ordered them killed on

the spot. He remembered only too well how this pair of agents demolished his

organization back on Vesa.

 

But Jules and Yvette looked to be exactly what they claimed, so the photo images of

them were attached to their records and routinely filed away. Such was the advantage of

a solid cover identity.

 

Like all new arrivals, the d'Alemberts were assigned to temporary quarters until they

decided where they wanted to live. Their rooms were in a wooden barracks building and,

while more spacious than the cabins aboard ship, were still a far cry from the luxuries

they had been led to expect. The literature they were given, however, explained that they

could take their pick of any style accommodations they could afford, from economical to

extravagant.

 

"Wow, look at some of these places," Yvette exclaimed to her brother. Both agents were

sure that these rooms, too, were bugged, so they were being very careful to watch what

they said while indoors. "I want to live in an apartment like this," and she pointed to one

set of pictures that, true to real-estate-brochure form, were more beautiful than true.

 

Jules looked at the picture his sister indicated, and pretended to be concerned about

their financial state. "We can't afford that," he said flatly. "We'll take a two bedroom

place like this one over here instead. At a hundred and fifty rubles a month, it'll allow us a

little more spending money for other things we -may need."

 

They had a mock argument on the subject, with Yvette eventually giving in. "You're

always too practical," she declared.

 

The next day they moved into a two-bedroom apartment similar to the one in the

brochure, though not as picture perfect. Yvette admitted grudgingly that it would be

acceptable, and the argument ended there.

 

In the meantime, too, they had been reading the bookreel they'd been given entitled

YOUR GUIDE TO SANCTUARY. At present the planet contained only the one city, which

had a population of over 27,000. Of that population, almost two-thirds were "refugees"

like the d'Alemberts, with the rest being employees of the government-service personnel

to perform the tasks that needed doing. The clients could take it easy in what was

essentially a retirement village.

 

No effort had been spared in an attempt to keep the immigrants happy with their new

lives. The community was beautifully planned, with apartment buildings skillfully blended

into the natural landscape. Nothing was crowded together. There were parks and

greenery everywhere one looked, and the effect was most pleasing to the eye. There

were plenty of swimming pools and gymnasia, sports areas, shops, theaters,

restaurants, bars, casinos and other places where the newly located citizens could pass

their time without fear of the police.

 

A more critical observer would have noticed some important omissions in the book's text,

however. Nowhere was there any mention of government, or how the people might

regulate their own lives. There was no mention of communicating with anyone offworld.

And nowhere did it say a word about leaving the planet again. Ever.

 

Sanctuary was, in reality, a penitentiary without bars. Luxury plus, it was true, but a

prison nonetheless. The inmates must have realized that fact, at least on a subconscious

level. For the most part these were people who had lived hard lives as criminals, and

they could not easily adjust to unlimited leisure. Drinks and drugs were consumed on a

vast scale, and scarcely a day went by without several major brawls erupting in the bars.

Sanctuary, at best, was an imperfect paradise.

 

Now that the d'Alemberts were finally here, they could concentrate on their real

assignment, which was to find Helena and make sure she'd be able to escape from here

safely. Jules had thought this would mean his sister would finally stop seeing Nav socially

and work with him again. To his chagrin, he found this was not so.

 

"Look at it this way," Yvette said as the two of them were taking a stroll along an

isolated path. They had found themselves taking a lot of walks since coming here; it was

one way of making sure their conversations would not be bugged. "There are more than

?7,000 people here, and we're looking for one particular one. We'll double our chances

of spotting her if we split up and look individually. If Pias wants to escort me all over the

city, what better excuse for me to be out and looking at things? That'll leave you free to

look in the places where I don't go."

 

The fact that her plan was contradictory to his own wishes and yet made so much sense

at the same time only served to make Jules more upset. "He's not being honest with

you," he insisted. "There's something more sinister in him than he's showing."

 

"You keep making these vague accusations. You've been keeping a close watch on him

for over a week now; haven't you learned anything more definite?"

 

Reluctantly, then, Jules told her about Nav's strange behavior in Carnery's cabin the

second day aboard ship. Yvette listened attentively, then was silent for a long moment

after her brother had finished. "I knew there was something unusual between Pias and

Carnery; I could feel it from the very first moment Pias spoke about the man. Khorosho,

so maybe he has a personal grudge against Carnery for some reason. Is that any ex-

 

cuse for me not to like him?"

 

"You didn't see the expression on his face. I tell you, that man is dangerous."

 

"All men are dangerous," Yvette smiled. "That's one of the first lessons a girl learns when

she grows up. If we let that stop us, the human race would have been extinct millennia

ago. Is that all the evidence you have against him?"

 

"No. He's lying to us about his identity, too. I found a handkerchief in his cabin with the

monogram `PB' in one corner."

 

"We're lying to him about our identities, too, you know. I'm not really Yarmilla Dubcek. I

can see a number of circumstances where it might be convenient for a professional

gambler to change his name frequently. It's not the name I care about, it's the person

behind it. He's a good man, Julie; I know that as surely as I know anything in the

Universe."

 

She leaned over and kissed her brother lightly on the forehead. "It's very sweet of you to

be so concerned about me, really it is. I know it's because you love me, and I love you

too. But remember, I'm a year older than you are. I can take care of myself, honestly I

can. We're not Siamese twins, I do have a life of my own. I don't begrudge you the time

you spend with VoDnie, please grant me the same courtesy."

 

She glanced at her ringwatch. "I really don't have time to talk about it further right now-I

promised to meet Pias in ten more minutes, and if I hurry I can just make it. I'll keep in

mind what you've told me about him, and I'll keep my eyes open for any sign of Helena at

the same time. That is my primary purpose here, and I know that as well as you do. But

let me do it in my own way. A bientot." And she walked hurriedly away, leaving Jules to

feel very frustrated by his inability to convinct her of Nav's dangerous potential.

 

She's making an idiot of herself, he thought angrily. But he realized at the same time

that his sister was a very strong-willed woman, and that he was not going to change her

mind with a couple of words. Putting her problem out of his mind for the moment, he

concentrated on looking for Helena instead.

 

Yvette met Pias Nav at a restaurant that specialized in Nagalese food. Although he was

already seated at a table right in front, she pretended not to spot him immediately, which

gave her the opportunity to give the room a general scan. There was no sign of Helena,

so she acknowledged Nav's wave and went-to sit beside him.

 

He stood up as she approached and bent to kiss her hand, as was his custom. They

ordered the specialty of the house, which was a platter of raw fish with a large side

helping of vegetables dipped in batter and deep fat fried. There was a wide variety of

sauces in which to dip their foods, which made the meal an exploration into a broad

range of taste treats.

 

Midway through the meal, the Newforester suddenly looked up at her and changed the

topic of their hitherto innocuous conversation. "Your brother doesn't like me, does he?"

 

"What do you mean?"

 

"I'm not blind, Yarmilla. Whenever he's in the same room with us I can feel those icy

stares he sends me. And the curtness of his words is indication enough that he really

doesn't want to talk to me much. Is he giving you a hard time because of me?"

 

"He is upset," Yvette said slowly. As she spoke she was wondering how to phrase

herself in the most diplomatic way possible. "He feels very protective, even though I'm a

bit older than he is. Our family pride is very strong, and he's afraid I might marry beneath

our station."

 

Pias Nav gave a brief chuckle. "What's so funny?" Yvette asked him.

 

With an effort, the Newforester returned his face to its previous serious countenance.

"Oh, nothing really. I, uh, was just wondering how far below your station I was. I'm a

gambler and you're a cat burglar, after all. We both rate pretty low on the scale."

 

Yvette cursed herself for the slip. Their father was the Duke of the planet DesPlaines,

though he preferred to travel with the Circus as its Manager. Marriages between nobility

and commoners were routine, and even encouraged in some circles, so there could be

no legal bar to Yvette's marrying Nav if she chose; nevertheless, she was certain their

rank was one factor weighing on Jules's mind. But stating it the way she had did give the

impression that her origins were loftier than she was admitting.

 

Fortunately, the Newforester seemed to be treating her statement almost as a joke. In

this context, it was ludicrous to be worried about her "station."

 

"I don't think Jaro would consider any man good enough for me," Yvette elucidated.

"Fraternal jealousy is a very strong motivational force. But perhaps you wouldn't know

about that."

 

"Indeed I would," Nav replied. "I have three sisters myself. Two of them married men

whom I consider total louts; the third is only sixteen, so I haven't had the chance to worry

much about her yet. But I know the worry a brother goes through. Especially on Newfor-

 

est-we consider our women almost sacred there. The ancient customs die hard."

 

He looked at Yvette for a long, silent minute and then repeated, "Very sacred."

 

Yvette's mouth was suddenly dry, but she forced herself to keep her tone light as she

asked the next important question. "Does my brother's opinion really matter that much to

you?"

 

"Yes." Nav barely whispered the word, but it hung in the air between them as though he'd

shouted it. "That is, it should, except . . . I don't know anymore, I really don't. I shouldn't

let it affect me so. We're just a couple of wayfarers who have happened to this place

together; we should enjoy ourselves and not think much about the future, correct?"

 

Yvette had never seen her friend so serious. The confusion of his thoughts seemed

almost a mirror to her own. "Yes, that's very much the way I felt. Things work out so

strangely at times; we may have to part and never see one another again, so why should

we get more strongly involved than we are now?"

 

"Exactly," he nodded. "Marriage and the like is completely out of the question."

 

"I never brought the subject up."

 

"And I never meant to," he said slowly. "Let's forget I did." He stared down at his nearly

empty plate. "I think I've had about all the food I want, right now. Let's go for a walk,

shall we?"

 

Once outside in the open air, his mood brightened considerably. The location of this city

had been chosen primarily for its mild climate, and the weather today was even more

perfect than normal. The sunshine quickly restored the gaiety to his voice. They walked

hand in hand across the cool grass of a nearby park, not saying much when suddenly, on

impulse, he turned to her and said, "I know what let's do. Let's go to a sensible show."

 

"Great idea," she smiled back.

 

He had his hat-with its ever-present fresh red rose-in his hand, and waved it about

excitedly. "A very romantic one-melodrama with a happy ending, hero and heroine deeply

in love despite all obstacles and a kiss at the fadeout."

 

Yvette laughed as Pias mimed a swordfight, stabbing his imaginary adversary at last with

a comical flourish. "Yes, touche," she said. "That's exactly what we need. Lead on,

milord, lead on!"

 

The two young people walked to a streetcorner and pushed a button on the call post.

Within two minutes, an automated two-seater cart buzzed quietly to a stop in front of

them and they got in. Nav dialed the code for the public sensible theater, and the screen

in front lit up to tell him how much it would cost to drive there from here. Nav obediently

dropped seven twenty-kopek pieces into the slot and began the leisurely drive to their

destination.

 

The cart proceeded along at its standard pace of fifteen kilometers an hour. On the

street, they passed several other similar carts, traveling at more or less the same speed.

These carts were the only public methods of transportation on the planet, though the

d'Alemberts surmised that the guards had vehicles that could travel much faster if they

needed to get somewhere in a real hurry. The lack of speedy transportation added to the

leisurely atmosphere of Sanctuary-and, incidentally, would serve to keep any rebellion on

the part of the inmates from getting out of hand. Jules and Yvette had been properly

impressed by the ingenuity of the system.

 

Nav and Yvette arrived at the theater and found a private booth of their own. The two of

them looked down the list of available shows and discussed their choice at length, finally

settling on a costume epic set in Renaissance France. Then, leaning back in the special

chairs, they prepared to enjoy the show.

 

In principle, the sensible projector worked much the same way a stun-gun did. Each

device shot a special beam at its target that affected the nervous system of the recipient.

In the case of a stunner, the effects would be paralysis, unconsciousness or even death,

depending on the setting used. The projector, however, had effects that were much more

intricate than that.

 

The sensible, in brief, took over all the senses of the body and played its show to them,

rather than just the senses of sight and sound as previous media had done. The person

undergoing the experience was not merely a viewer, he was a participant in the action

itself. Although his mind remained aware that he was physically seated within a sensible

booth, all his senses told him that he was experiencing the story that was happening

around him. He could see and hear the events as his -"character" felt them; he was

assailed by the scents of the scene; if the "character" ate, he could taste the foods.

Anything the "character" felt--pain, pleasure, running, standing-the participant also

experienced. In essence, the participant was a puppet, acting out the story the play's

creators told while still sitting comfortably in a chair in the sensible booth. It was perhaps

the ultimate in vicarious entertainment.

 

The show that Nav and Yvette were experiencing was one designed specifically for a

romantic couple. There were two major roles, the hero and heroine, and the two

participants acted out their parts with great relish. Yvette particularly found her role

diverting. The heroine was a passive woman who needed the hero to rescue her from all

sorts of dire circumstances. In real life she would never have put up with such a state of

affairs, but she thought it was amusing in a fictional context.

 

They left the theater in a very exhilarated state, completely recovered from the upset

their dinner conversation had brought about. "I've always felt that I belonged in an era

like that one," Nav remarked as he punched the button on the call post for another cart.

"Look at the situation of the Universe today. Where are the great Romantics who would

languish for a rose? Who scaled milady's balcony and swung upon her drape? They've

flown like ashes, I'm afraid, leaving the world to shopkeepers and accountants."

 

"There's always you." Yvette said admiringly.

 

"Yes, we reappear in flashes, relics of a loner-lamented age-but we find ourselves

contrary to the vogue," he sighed. "I feel perpetually as though I should go around with a

sword and a rose and a cape."

 

"The rose and the cape you've got. The sword would be illegal in many places and

wouldn't go at all with your wardrobe."

 

"As well as meeting with such astonished eyebrows," Nav agreed. Their cart arrived and

the Newforester helped Yvette climb inside before getting in himself. "Where to?" he

asked.

 

"My home," Yvette replied. "I'm afraid I'm feeling very tired. I've been living too long on

lighter gravity worlds; I'm starting to fatigue a bit more easily than I should."

 

"The same with me. What I wouldn't give to be back on Newforest right now, sitting in a

glade in the woods with some real gravity pulling on me, whistling a gypsy tune."

 

Nav inserted the indicated fare and drove the cart in the direction of Yvette's apartment.

Neither of them spoke much as they rode. Yvette cuddled up against the Newforester's

strong masculine body and basked in the warmth of their relationship. He felt so right for

her; their personalities, their desires, their thoughts matched one another so well. And

yet she knew, down deep within herself, that what her brother was trying to tell her was

true. She would finish her assignment here, hopefully in the near future, and then move

on to some other hazardous job. Pias-well, he would probably move on, too, to follow his

own particular destiny.

 

Yvette gave a small sigh. All the ifs were so lovely that it seemed a shame to tarnish

them with reality.

 

They came to the corner of the street where Yvette's apartment building was, and there

the cart stopped. The two of them got out and walked with their arms around each

other's waist down the narrow pathway fifty meters to Yvette's door. Their good-night

kiss lasted five minutes, and even then they were reluctant to pull away from each other.

Yvette was seriously tempted to invite him inside, no matter what Jules would think of it;

but then she remembered the dinnertime conversation and decided that, if she were to

survive this affair at all, she would have to keep it on a surface level. Finally she just said,

"I have to go in, now."

 

Her escort nodded. "I'll be in touch with you in the next day or so. After all, we'll be here

for a long time; we'll probably end up becoming bored with ourselves."

 

Yvette nodded and kissed the tip of his nose as she sent him on his way. She stood with

the door open until he made it to the corner. She could hear the Gypsy whistling as he

walked casually down the path to the street.

 

The next morning as the two SOTE agents went for a walk, Jules asked her how she

had fared the night before. "No sign of Helena," she answered, evading the real meaning

of his question.

 

"I haven't found her yet, either. It's becoming very frustrating. What if they've already

spotted her and killed her? We could look for years and never see anything. "Let's not

give up hope just yet. There's 27,000 people living here; we can't expect to see everyone

in the first couple of days."

 

"It would certainly help, though, if you would stop seeing so much of one particular

person."

 

Yvette exploded. "Listen. Brother or not, you have no right to intrude in my affairs this

way. I'm getting tired of your constant carping. Pias has been nothing but charming and

polite to me since the first moment we met. And even if he were to turn suddenly into the

Beast of the Upper Galaxy, I'm perfectly capable of defending myself, thank you."

 

Jules struggled to maintain his own temper. "I just can't help remembering," he said

slowly, "that Paul Symond was incredibly handsome and charming, too-and that we

learned one of Rustin's robots was built in the shape of a male from a high-grav planet."

 

The argument took Yvette by surprise. She stopped walking and gave a tiny gasp. Paul

Symond had been the first of the robots they discovered, built specifically to be attractive

to women-and to one woman in particular: Crown Princess Edna. Dr. Rustin and his

superior, Duke Fyodor of Kolokov, had been intending to have their creation marry the

Princess and thus gain some control over the affairs of Empire. The actions of the

d'Alembert family had broken up that plot; but, as they well knew, there were still some

robots unaccounted for. And Yvette herself had been there when they discovered the

fact that there was a high-grav male on the list.

 

When she regained her tongue, she sputtered, "That's impossible, he couldn't be . . ."

 

"How can you be so sure? Symond was an awfully good imposter. It took special

detection equipment for us to spot him positively, and we don't have any of it with us

now."

 

Yvette sat down on a nearby rock and stared blankly out into space. "He's real, I know

he is."

 

"You could stick a pin in him to see if he bleeds." "You can be a cruel man, frere Jules."

A trace of banter was starting to return to her voice, but Jules could detect the turmoil

and indecision lying beneath the surface.

 

Suddenly his anger at her deserted him. She was his sister, after all, and he shouldn't be

trying to hurt her. "I'm not saying he is a robot," Jules soothed. "I'm just saying that

people in our position can't be too careful. He probably isn't, as a matter of fact; that

would be one bell of a coincidence, wouldn't it? But we're in the middle of enemy territory

right now, all alone, and we may be fighting for our lives at any moment. We have to be

positive about every step we take, n'est-ce pas?"

 

"Oui." She looked up into his face. Was it his imagination, or did he see the glimmer of a

tear in her eye? Whatever it was he thought he saw, it was gone in a second. "All I

know," she said in an even tone, "is that I can't help feeling what I do for him, any more

than you can help feeling what you do for Vonnie. I promise, though, that I'll be a good

little agent and not let my feelings interfere with the performance of my duties."

 

"I never doubted that for a second." Jules gave her an encouraging smile, his first in

almost a week. "I think we should split up for the rest of the day. Why don't you take this

side of town and I'll roam around the west side, and see what we can pick up."

 

"All smooth," she agreed, fully in control of herself once more. Jules left her, then,

without a qualm and took one of the public carts to a shopping center on the west side of

town, where he proceeded to browse around the mall, looking more at the people than at

the merchandise.

 

After two hours without success, he was just about to -give up and try a new location

when he saw her. Helena was coming out of a store with a small package under her arm,

and she began walking off in the direction opposite to him.

 

Jules's heart gave an extra beat. Helena was still alive! That at least quashed the worst

of the fears he and his sister had entertained. That left them with two major questions.

The first was, how much had she learned about this operation . . . and the second, much

more important, was, how were the three of them going to get off this planet alive?

 

CHAPTER 8

Razzle Dazzle

 

Jules was about to go after her when his sharp eyes noticed one other detail: Helena

was being followed. A man who had been lounging against a wall across the way

suddenly straightened up and began walking parallel to her path. The man's demeanor

was casual, and he expressed no overt interest in Helena's destination, but Jules was not

fooled. He'd had sufficient training-and he'd done enough tail work himself-to know when

something looked suspicious. Looking through the crowd, he spotted another tail on

Helena as well-this time a woman. That, he supposed, was so that Helena would not be

able to use the time-honored trick of dodging into the ladies' 'freshers and leaving the

male shadow waiting outside while she disappeared out the window.

 

Jules's heart sank. If the people behind this conspiracy were worried enough about her

to put two tails on her, Helena's cover must be completely broken. And yet they were still

letting her roam free. To Jules, that could mean only one thing-that they were confident