The Service of the Empire (SOTE) was founded in 2239 by Empress Stanley 3, the first of the Great Stanleys, who, during her reign of thirty-seven years (2237-2274), inculcated in it the spirit of loyalty and devotion that has characterized it ever since. Its spirit wavered only once, under the weak and vicious Empress Stanley 5, ‘Mad Stephanie’, whose reign fortunately very short (2293-2299) - was calamitous in every respect. SOTS came to full power, however, only under Emperor Stanley ro (reign 2403- ) - the third and greatest of the Great Stanleys to date - under whom it has become the finest organization of its kind ever known.
(Baird, A Study of Security, Ed. 2424, stat. 291.)
The city of Tampeta, Florida, had a population of over fifteen million - a fairly small number compared to
Earth’s other teeming cities. It included not only what had once been Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater, but also all the other cities and towns between Sarasota on the south and Port Richey on the north. Just outside Tampeta’s city limits, well out toward Lakeland, MY the Pinellas Fair Grounds, where the Circus of the Galaxy had been playing to capacity crowds for over a week, with a different show - especially with an entirely different climax - every night.
Jules and Yvette had not even had time to change out of their costumes before they were summoned to the office of their father, the Managing Director. They knew something was brewing, had known it for a month - ever since the Circus had been quickly rerouted here to Earth, breaking more than a dozen engagements in the process. But nothing had ever been discussed aloud; maybe now they would discover what this was all about.
They gained weight the instant they entered the office, for Duke Etienne kept the ultragrav in this particular room set at a comfortable for DesPlainians - two and a half gees. The office was well- appointed with springy turquoise colored carpeting underfoot and richly-grained solentawood paneling on the walls. Three sides of the room were lined with shelves, containing row upon row of books. These were all antiques, since printing was a lost art these days; it was quicker, cheaper and less wasteful of space and resources to store information on electromagnetically-coded reels. Many of the tomes on the Duke’s shelves dated back five centuries or more.
The Duke himself was seated behind a gunmetal gray desk, and turned to face the pair as they entered.
He was a short man, shorter even than these two children of his, and inclined toward portliness. He was approaching fifty, with hair that was thinning in front and graying at the temples. But time could not dull the glint of life and good spirits that lurked within his eyes even at his most serious moments.
He bid them enter with a wave of his artificial hand. It had been more than a dozen years since he had lost his right hand, severed several centimeters above the wrist by a stray blaster beam; but even that tragic loss could not cripple his indomitable will. His new hand, he insisted, was more than a match for the old one. While it looked and felt perfectly normal to casual inspection, the fingers were really special tools which could be unscrewed just above the knuckle bases and interchanged. Duke Etienne wore rings to disguise the seams, and only his closest associates knew the nature of that artificial member.
He spoke bluntly to the two aerialists, without preliminaries, in the Franco-English patois that served as the native language of DesPlaines. ‘This is it.’
They both knew instantly what he meant. The moment they had really been training themselves for all these years had arrived. For just a moment they were speechless, then Yvette blurted out, ‘What’s the assignment?’
‘I don’t know.’ The Duke shrugged his shoulders, a gargantuan gesture of uncertainty. ‘They didn’t see fit to tell me that. I’m an old man now, perhaps they don’t trust me any more.’ But though his words were resigned, there was a twinkle in his eyes that softened their impact. ‘All I know is a place and a code signal. Oh, and I have this to give you.’ He reached into his desk and pulled out a plastic microfile card.
‘What is it?’ Jules asked, taking the proffered card from his father’s hand.
‘The Head’s retinal pattern,’ Duke Etienne said offhandedly. ‘You may need it to make a positive ID. I’d suggest you don’t lose it.’
Brother and sister stared at each other in astonishment. The Head’s retinal pattern! That little plastic card would be worth a large fortune to enemies of the Crown. The fact that they were being given this meant that they would actually be meeting that illustrious personage - and that meant that this job was going to be more important than they could possibly have imagined.
The Duke then told them the recognition code and where they were to make their contact. ‘I’d suggest you go camouflaged,’ he said. ‘We DesPlainians are a little too overly muscled to pass unnoticed on Earth.’
The two younger people thought for a second, then Yvette said, ‘How about going as Delfians? They always wear those long, heavy robes and never take them off in public. We’d still be noticed in that get- up, but in a different way.’
The Duke nodded appreciatively. ‘Splendid. Misdirection, as Marcel would say. I’ll call right down to Wardrobe and have them get the costumes ready for you.’ His tone indicated that he thought the discussion should draw to a close. As the two younger d’Alemberts stood up to depart, he looked them both squarely in the eyes. ‘Take extra care, both of you, and good luck. Oh, and take the good car.’ They knew which one he meant.
Both of them raced down to the Wardrobe Department, where Mimi - one of their great-aunts - outfitted them perfectly: Yvette in a pale blue Delfian robe and hood, Jules in silver. They were so excited at the prospect of this new action that they could say nothing.
Thus it was that two short, heavy-set Delfians, muffled to the eyes in the shapelessly billowing robes and hoods that were the trademarks of their planet, milled through the crowd that was still departing from the main tent and even yet talking about the unbelievable act it had witnessed. It took half an hour for the crowd of people to file through the exits and out into the enormous parking lot, but those mysterious, silent Delfians appeared to take no notice of time. Delfians, as everyone knows, are never in a hurry.
They found the car at the far end of the lot. At first glance it appeared to be a standard sports model Frascati, a low, sleek, silver-gray bullet for shooting down the highway. Only to the trained eye would that car have appeared a little too long, a little too wide, a little too round and much too heavy to be a standard model - and, of course, there was a reason for that.
Once out of the traffic jam created by cars leaving the Fair Grounds, Jules maneuvered his sporty vehicle up into the second-level, westbound stretch of Interstate Four. Like all cars on the more civilized planets, this one was equipped with the option of being computer-controlled by the electronic guidance equipment installed in the roadbed itself, but Jules preferred to do his own driving - and his reflexes were almost as fast as the traffic computer’s.
It took almost no time at all to reach the Dunedin district and pull into the parking lot of the Dunedin Arms, one of the most exotic nightspots along the renowned Gulf Strip. At the Arms, Jules slipped a twenty ruble bill to the parking lot attendant - the car could have been parked automatically, but Earth had to find some jobs for its surplus billions - another to the resplendently-uniformed doorman, and a third into the palm of the usher who escorted them, with great ceremony and a flourishing of his arms, into the elevator tube and up to the dining room on the fourth floor.
No one thought it unusual that the two Delfians refused to part with any of their muflings, for such was the custom of their secretive race. Jules did, however, tip the cloakroom girl a five ruble bill just for being clad in, as Yvette put it later, ‘a couple of sequins and a bangle.’ The two Delfians, alas, had no reservations, but a fifty ruble bill slipped to the table captain brought beneficent assurances that something would be ready for them shortly. ‘Thank you, gospodin and gospozha,’ the maitre d’ said obsequiously: ‘There will be a delay of perhaps five minutes, regrettably, but not more than that. Perhaps you would care to spend that time having a cocktail in our bar?’
The table captain had spoken in Empirese, the Russo-English mixture that was the official language of the Empire, and Jules answered in the same tongue. ‘That would be delightful, thank you.’ This delay was included in his plans.
The entrance to the bar was just in front of them. Jules and Yvette paused at the threshold and gazed around the huge room. The decor was dark, elegant, subdued. At the right, running the entire two hundred meter length of the room, was the bar, made of ornately carved rare mahogany and backed by a mirror that was veined and flecked with gold. The far wall was a rich chocolate wandwood, hung with heavy velvet draperies of dark red. Little niches were spaced every few meters along the wall, in which resided suits of armor and marble religious statues from ancient medieval times. Wrought-iron sconces held myriads of candles; their light mingled with the candles set in the three enormous wrought-iron chandeliers to illuminate the room to a comfortable, if dim, degree.
On the left were three tremendous windows overlooking the beach and the open Gulf four floors below. On a stage at the far end of the room, a pair of entertainers from one of the more exotic planets - perhaps Binhalla, judging from their long, slender appearance - were engaged in a sleek, sensual dance depicting a mating ritual and leaving little to the imagination. For the most part, the audience - which was seated at the sturdy solentawood tables scattered not too closely spaced around the floor - gave the dancers their full attention, with the exception of several parties engaged in private conversations. The room was jammed with a bright, colorful and festive crowd, all thoroughly enjoying themselves; there were only a few vacant spaces even at that incredibly long bar.
‘Yes indeed,’ Jules reiterated, taking his sister’s arm. ‘A cocktail or two would be sublime.’
At the bar, Jules laid a fifty ruble bill on the surface and said, ‘Two vodnak slings, please. Made with Estvan’s from a new bottle; sealed, if you have it.’
‘We have it, gospodin.’ The barkeep seemed slightly insulted that they would question his integrity as he set before them the heavy, crudely molded green glass bottle of the one hundred and twenty proof beverage that was the favorite tipple of the rim-world, Delf. ‘We’ve got just about everything. The Dunedin Arms caters to all tastes.’
Jules was just as glad his face was muffled as he gazed at the distinctive bottle that was the unmistakable trademark of Estvan’s, for with the hood and wrappings the bartender would not see the grimace he made. DesPlaines’ dense atmosphere had, over the centuries, wrought subtle changes in the body chemistry of its inhabitants, making them allergic to alcoholic beverages in any form. Though he and Yvette could drink the cocktails - and would in the line of duty - the sensation would be unpleasant and he was not looking forward to it.
The bartender broke the seal on the bottle and poured the glasses about three-quarters full of the vodnak, then added the dashes of jumberry fizz that made vodnak slings such popular drinks. Taking the fifty ruble bill from the counter top, he brought out ten rubles and assorted kopeks change. Jules waved the money away with an impatient gesture.
‘I do believe,’ he said, holding his glass up to the light, ‘that this is the only civilized drink in all the Galaxy.’
His voice was loud enough to be heard for several tables away. ‘In all the Universe l’ Yvette chimed in, just as loudly.
Neither of them had the opportunity to taste their beverages, though, for within several seconds a tall, slim Earthman had come up to the bar, taking the spot next to Yvette. He did not look at the ersatz Delfians, but instead held up one finger to attract the bartender’s attention. When that worthy came over to him, the newcomer began, ‘I’ll take a jigger of the ...’
That, however, was as far as he got. Yvette, whose eyes had remained constantly on the mirror in front of her, detected a rapid movement down at the near end of the bar. Rapid as that motion was, though, Yvette’s reaction was faster. Reflexes on a planet like DesPlaines, where even a simple stumble could shatter bones, tended to be lightning fast.
The old-time circus battle-cry of ‘Hey Rube!’ had survived even to this day at least in part - so that her shout of ‘Rube!’ brought her brother, as well as herself, into instant action. She grabbed the heavy Estvan’s bottle that the bartender had resealed, gripped it firmly by its neck and hurled it even as she dropped. A vicious blaster beam blazed through the air, incinerating the slender Earthman and sweeping through the space her chest had occupied just an instant before. Still in air, falling almost flat, she braced one foot against the bar and pushed off it as strongly as her powerful thighs could manage. Her dive brought her headfirst under the nearest table; bending her back, she heaved it upward.
But the deadly blaster beam she feared had already died out - along with the gunman who’d fired it. The heavy bottle, made of thick glass and half-filled, had been hurled with a DesPlainian’s strength and with an aerialist’s sure control. It had struck bottom-on squarely in the middle of the gunner’s face- and now that gunner had no face at all, and scarcely enough head to be recognizable as human.
Jules had not been idle during this interval, either. He, too, had dropped at his sister’s warning, scanning the room as he fell. But he hit the floor like a spring, with his legs tight under him. In what looked to be a contradiction in action, he fell to the ground and leaped simultaneously. His leap was high and far, toward a table for six three meters away at which only two couples sat. One of the men at that table, half hidden behind a tall, statuesque blonde, had begun to rise to his feet and was reaching for an object inside his overtunic that made just the slightest bulge near the left armpit.
Jules lit flat on the table and slid angle-wise across its length. His terrific momentum carried him - along with a welter of breaking and flying dishes, glassware, silverware, food and drink - directly at the man trying so frantically to draw his weapon. En route, Jules stuck out one arm and brushed the blonde aside.
He didn’t push her hard at all - just a gentle, one-handed shove, enough to get her out of the way. Nevertheless, she went over backward, chair and all, performing an involuntary somersault that sent her skirt flying to reveal a stun-gun hidden on the inside of her thigh. She landed on her head and was knocked instantly unconscious.
Continuing his slide, Jules made a point of his left elbow and rammed it into the man’s gut. Then, as the man doubled up and whooshed in agony, Jules whirled off the table to a standing posture and chopped the hard, calloused edge of his right hand down on the back of his victim’s neck. The snap of that neck breaking was audible ten meters away above the uproar and screams then going on.
As the man dropped lifelessly to the ground Jules, in one deft motion, snatched the man’s half-drawn weapon and glanced at it. It was a stun-gun rather than a blaster, but its dial was set at ten. Wide open.
Instantly lethal. That, Jules decided, would never do, so he clicked it back to three - a half-hour stun. Then he played its nerve-jangling beam briefly over the other couple at the table - who had appeared far too unconcerned during all this action to be truly unconcerned - and whirled around to see how well his sister was making out.
Yvette was doing quite well. The table under which she had disappeared had leaped into the air, turned over - shedding glasses far and wide along the way - and crashed down at the end of the bar where the first blasterman and three other goons had been standing. Yvette was right behind it, a fury on wheels. The loose, flowing Delfian robes were only a minor encumbrance as she moved, a factor that she had to take into account. One quick swoop sufficed to pick up the fallen blaster, which she then tried to bend around the side of the second man’s head. The gun broke up almost as thoroughly as the head did.
The third man had now had time to reach for his own blaster. He had no compunctions at all against using it in so crowded a room; any number of innocent people could die as long as he wiped out the two targets. The beam had, in fact, already incinerated three patrons at the bar before Yvette could take effective action. Ducking as only someone with her reflexes could, she grabbed this third man by the ankles, up-ended him and kicked the flaming blaster out of his hand before it could do any more damage.
As she rolled to her feet once more, she lifted the thug up over her head and was about to use him as a flail on the fourth when that unlucky wight slumped bonelessly to the floor under the beam of her brother’s stunner.
She had the motion all made, though, and acrobats frown on waste motion. So, continuing her swing, she hammer-threw the man she’d picked up over a few rows of tables and out into fifteen meters of air through the middle of one of the three immense windows.
Have you ever heard forty-one square meters of one centimeter-thick plate glass shatter all at once? It makes a noise.
Such a noise that all lesser noises stopped instantly. And in that strained, tense silence, Jules spoke quietly to his sister. Both were apparently calm, neither breathing so much as a single count faster than normal. Only their eyes - his a glacially cold gray, hers a furiously hot blue - betrayed how angry and disconcerted they both were. ‘Many more of them, you think?’ he asked.
‘Not to spot. Yvette shook her head. ‘And we’ve got no time to check.’
‘Right. Take that one, I’ll bring the other. Fl it.’ Carrying the two unconscious men who were left alive, the d’Alemberts ran lightly, but at a terrific speed, down three flights of stairs and out into the parking lot. The attendant was startled to see the two wealthy Delfians who had entered the building so recently running out now carrying two very dead-looking human bodies; he tried simultaneously to run and to yell, but accomplished neither - a half-hour stun from Jules’ gun saw to that.
Loping across the darkened parking lot; they spotted their car and reached it in seconds. They dumped their reluctant guests in the aft compartment, then climbed in themselves and slammed the doors shut. Tortured rubber shrieked and smoked as the heavy car spun out of the lot and onto the highway. Fortunately the traffic at half past two in the morning was so light that Jules didn’t have to drive far before a moment came when no other car was in sight.
There was a reason why the d’Alembert vehicle was a little longer, wider, rounder- and much heavier - than a standard car. Now, alone in the road for, a moment, Jules punched three innocent-looking studs on the control panel, and three things happened: i) the car’s lights went out; 2) the two halves of an airtight, beamproof, transparent canopy shot up from those too-round sides, snapped together, and locked; and 3) the vehicle went straight up into the air, at an acceleration of four Earthly gravities - they didn’t dare hurry with two Earthers aboard to an altitude of sixty kilometers before it stopped.
Their Delfian disguises had come through the action pretty much the worse for wear. Jules and Yvette removed the tattered remnants and stared wordlessly into each other’s eyes for a long half minute. Then Yvette spoke.
‘That was our contact- our only contact. And we don’t know anybody in SOTE on Earth.’
‘We could go back to Father,’ Jules suggested. ‘If he could arrange this meeting there must be ways to set up others.’ Yvette shook her head. ‘But this meeting was blown! There was a leak. There had to be a leak, Julie.’
‘I’m afraid you’re right. And it was no ordinary leak, either it had to be right in the Head’s own office ...
Jules’ voice died away.
Yvette shivered. ‘Any meeting Father could set up might get blown the same way- and next time, we might not be lucky enough to get away. Any ideas?’
‘Only one. We’ve got to find the Head ourselves.’
‘We’ve got his retinal pattern,’ Yvette conceded. ‘But aside from that we haven’t an inkling of who or where the Head is. He may not even be on Earth.’
‘Well, there’s bound to be somebody here in the Tampeta office, and they’ll be on the alert. That brawl put the stuff into the fan but good. They’ll be monitoring the channel every second, waiting for us to make our move.’
‘But our friends’ friends down there will b e monitoring all channels every second - and they probably have the codes if they were able to know about our rendezvous.’
Jules thought for a minute, then grinned. ‘So I’ll go back to one that’s so old and so simple that they probably never heard of it - unless it’d fool our monitor, too.’
‘I don’t think they’d have any mental defectives manning the SO E boards at a time like this,’ his sister commented. ‘True. Alors, here goes.’
He flipped a blue switch and raised his powerful - and not painfully unmusical - deep bass voice in song: ‘Sing of the evening star, Oh Susan; sweetest old tune ever sung. Oh Susan, sweet one, ‘tis everything soft, Oh ...’
‘Susan here.’ A lilting, smooth as-cream contralto voice came from the speaker. There was a moment of silence, then the voice said, ‘Cut!’ and Jules flipped his switch once more. Satisfied, the voice concluded, ‘We’ll beep you in. Out.’
‘I’ll say they’re alert,’ Yvette commented. She half giggled in relief, then went on, ‘And she’s fast on the uptake - “Sus an here” my left eyeball. You made that whole thing up on the spur of the moment, didn’t you?’
‘Uh huh. If I’d had a little time the verse would have been as good as the music.’
Yvette snorted. ‘Ha! Modesty, thy name is Jules! Perhaps you should have gone into opera instead of acrobatics. But we were right about one thing, at least - no mental defective could have made “S-O-T- E - S-O-S” so fast out of that mess of yowling. But my guess is it won’t really be a beeper.’
‘Anything else but. I’d bet on laser. They’ve got us lined up and they’ll pour it right into our cup so I’d better set the cup spinning.’
He did so, and in less than a minute the pencil-thin beam came in, chopped up into evenly spaced dashes by the rotation of the cup-antenna of the car. There was, of course, no voice or signal.
While Jules was lining up his finders to determine the exact line of the beam, he said. ‘Better unlimber the launchers, Evie, and break out some bombs. Just in case somebody wants to argue with us on the way in. I’ll handle the other stuff.’
‘That’s a thought...’She broke off, and her tone changed. But just suppose that’s their bear n?’
‘Could be; so we’ll have to look out even more carefully when we land. But they know that. So if everything’s smooth they’ll engineer a safe approach we won’t have to. They know who we are - I hope.’
His words were optimistic, but his tone was grim. Things had gone fatally wrong tonight. They had given the right signal at the rendezvous - but the wrong people had responded. Now they had to find out why!