STRANGLERS' MOON

 

Volume Two of The classic Family d'Alembert series

 

By E.E. ‘Doc' Smith

With Stephen Goldin

 

CHAPTER 1

Predators and Prey

 

The Golden Crater Casino was unquestionably among the largest and plushest gaming

palaces in the Galaxy. Its reputation for the exotic and the exciting was fully earned, as

the briefest of walks down its crowded corridors and across its even more crowded

rooms would reveal. People were jammed elbow-to-elbow in some places in their

fanatical attempts to lose money to the House. Women in abbreviated costumes roamed

the floor, ostensibly employed as photographers, waitresses and the like-though it was

common knowledge that a fifty ruble bill would procure other services from them as well.

 

The great and the near-great mingled at the tables, amid throngs of those who were

merely wealthy but had aspirations toward greatness. Here a sensable star brushed

against a countess; there a corporation president bumped into a famous news

commentator. Rank and social distinction were of little importance in the casino; the only

question of interest was how well could a person gamble and was luck on his side today.

 

Yet even as notorious and plush as it was, the Golden Crater was considered merely

routine by comparison to other "establishments" on Vesa, the moon that billed itself as

the "Playground to the Galaxy"-and which cynics called a variety of other names.

 

Nils Bjenden, a banker from the planet Lindstrom, stood to one side of a doorway looking

with distaste across the crowded room. This chamber was so jammed with people that

he had difficulty seeing the other side. The ceiling arched high above his head, and on it

was projected a kaleidoscopic light show that continually changed colors with the

changing noise level in the room. But he had not come here to look at the ceiling, he had

come to gamble-and the mob on the floor was packed so densely that he could not see

so much as a single gaming table.

 

"I told you we should have gotten here earlier," he said to his wife Karen, who stood

beside him and looked as bewildered as he felt. Nils found he had to yell to be heard

above the room's din, even though his wife was only centimeters away. "But you wanted

to stop and eat first. We should have left when I wanted to.

"

"I didn't know it would be this crowded," she apologized.

 

A stranger who'd been standing behind them came to the woman's rescue. "Don't blame

her, gospodin. The Golden Crater is like this around the clock. Vesa is `the moon that

never sleeps,' you know; these casinos are ample proof of that.

 

Nils grunted noncommittally and would have walked away, but Karen struck up a

conversation with the man who'd saved her from a tongue-lashing. "You seem to know a

lot about it. Do you live here on Vesa?"

 

The stranger laughed. He was a tall, thin man with brooding eyes and a dark complexion.

His clothing was almost as conservative as Nils's, comprising a lightweight brown jacket

and flared pants, a stiff white shirt and a gold sash tied about his waist. "No, gospozha, I

don't think I'd care to. It's all too hectic, too busy; I'd go crazy in two weeks. I do travel a

lot, though, and I come here fairly often-every couple of months, at least.

 

"This is our first time," Karen gushed. "I've been wanting to come for years and years-it's

not as if we couldn't afford it. But Nils-my husband-is a banker, and he's always busy

with one deal after another. You'd think the entire planet would fall apart without him

there to look after it. I finally had to put my foot down and tell him that we were going to

Vesa, now, or else.

 

"Hmpf," snorted her husband as he craned his neck to look over the throng of gamblers

on the floor. "Some vacation it's been, too. I haven't had a moment to relax since we got

here. There's always people, people, people. What did you say your name was, again?"

 

"Lessin," the stranger replied. "And if you think it's crowded here you should see what it's

like down on Chandakha.

 

It took a moment for Karen to realize what he was talking about. The moon Vesa was so

famous that many people forgot there was a planet it circled. "Oh yes, I remember

reading something about it on our trip out here. They've got an overpopulation problem,

haven't they?.

 

"That's putting it mildly." Lessin closed his eyes and shuddered, as though recalling some

personal nightmare. "Things are so bad down there that the people are little more than

animals sometimes.

 

His tone made Karen shiver. "Then I'm just as glad I'm up here, among civilized people.

 

"I'm not," Nils grumbled. "I should never have left Lindstrom, not with that big deal about

to go through. I don't like the thought of having to fight my way through that mob just to

get near a table and do a little gambling.

 

"I quite agree," Lessin said amiably. "I much prefer the private clubs, myself. If I hadn't

promised to meet a friend here, I'd be at one of them right now.

 

"I didn't know there were any private clubs," Karen said.

 

"Well, they certainly don't advertise-that's how they manage to stay private. They like to

avoid crowd scenes like this one here.

 

"What are these private clubs like?" Nils asked. "They're much smaller, more intimate

places. Couple dozen people at most, and the atmosphere is more relaxed. The stakes

can vary from moderate to high, depending on where you go, of course.

 

"Would there be any chance of our going to one of those places?" Nils asked. "There

sure as hell isn't going to be any action for us around here.

 

The stranger hesitated. "Well, they are for members only.   .    .    . .

 

"You're a member, aren't you?.

 

"Nils! You have no right to impose on this man," Karen complained.

 

"Oh, I don't mind. I was about to continue that the clubs are for members and their

guests. I was going to be taking my friend to one, but," he looked at his ringwatch, "he's

more than half an hour late right now. If I know him, he's probably picked up one of the

floorgirls and has forgotten all about me. I hate going places by myself. In fact, I had just

about decided to invite you two nice people to come along with me.

 

"Yes, that's more the spirit," Nils said, rubbing his hands with gusto. It was obvious he

preferred the thought of a quiet, dignified evening of gentlemanly gambling to the raucous

atmosphere of the Golden Crater.

 

"It sounds lovely," Karen added.

 

"Fine, then it's all settled. Just give me a moment to get my cape from the checkroom

and I'll be right back with you." Lessin smiled at them and moved off quickly toward one

side of the chamber.

 

"We were lucky to meet him," Karen whispered to her husband. Her low voice was just

barely audible above the noise of the casino. "He certainly seems to know what he's

about.

 

"Very good sort," Nils agreed.

 

Their newfound friend was back three minutes later, a full-length brown fur cape draped

elegantly over his tall, handsome frame. "Shall we be off?" he suggested.

 

As they left the casino and the door shut behind them, the drop in noise level was an

immense relief. They faced one of the broad traffic corridors that carried the bulk of

Vesa's public transportation. Being an airless satellite, all life on Vesa existed

underground in the vast hollowed-out chambers and tunnels that honeycombed the moon.

This tunnel was one of the major "arteries" and dozens of electric vehicles went past

them each minute.

 

"Thank goodness," Karen said in the comparative quiet of the corridor. "I thought I'd burst

an eardrum in there." "It's not too long a ride to the club," Lessin said. "Let me see if I

can flag down a jit." He stood on the curb and waved at a likely looking vehicle.

 

A large shuttle lumbered in their direction. This was one of the buses, or "jits," that were

the universal method of transportation on Vesa. Jits were privately owned and operated,

acting as combinations of cabs and busses; they could pick up passengers at will and

take them anywhere on Vesa, without regard to fixed schedules. Tiny computers built

into the driver's controls calculated the fare from the point of pickup to the destination.

 

This jit was obviously an old one, judging from all the paint peeling off its six-meter length.

The glass in four of its windows had large cracks. As it pulled to a stop beside them, the

group on the curb could see the vehicle's occupants-half a dozen seedy-looking men

wearing dirty clothes. Most of them were in need of a shave. They leered out the

windows at the well-dressed trio.

 

Lessin waved the jit away. "That's a problem you'd better be warned about if this is your

first trip here," he explained. "Very few people have private cars; nearly everybody uses

the jits because they allow for more flexibility in the traffic patterns. But there's a certain

outlaw element that takes advantage of that. They'd think nothing of picking up

newcomers like you, beating you up and robbing you. Hardly a week goes by without

some story in the newsrolls about some tourist getting mugged on a pirate jit.

 

"Oh, dear," said Karen.

 

"I have heard about them," Nils said slowly. "That's why I carry a small stunner in my

pocket at all times." "A wise precaution," Lessin nodded. "However, sometimes a little

prudence in one's choice of transportation can eliminate the need for that. Ah, there's a

more likely candidate." He waved at another jit that was coming down the street.

 

This one proved to be much more acceptable to all of them. Not only was it new and

clean, but the six passengers already aboard were far more respectable types who paid

no notice to the new arrivals. Lessin insisted on paying the fares for all three of them as

he gave the driver an address. "It'll only be a few minutes' drive," he told the Bjendens.

"Just relax.

 

The couple from Lindstrom did so. There was little scenery to watch in these tunnels, but

the shuttle's novelty intrigued them. Since it did not go faster than thirty kilometers an

hour-and since the climate was perfectly controlled within these corridors-the jit was an

open-air conveyance with no roof. The slight breeze was deliciously cool as they drove

along.

 

Two minutes later, the jit entered a solitary tunnel slightly darker than the main

passageways. Lessin looked up and suddenly an expression of horror crossed his face.

"Oh no!" he exclaimed.

 

"What's the problem?" Nils demanded.

 

"The ceiling's going to cave in! There's a crack in the roof right up there. See?" Both Nils

and Karen craned their necks to see where the stranger was pointing.

 

At that precise moment, the other six men on the jit exploded into action. Two of them

grabbed the Bjendens' feet, holding them tightly together so that they could not run. Two

more grabbed their arms, pinning them to the sides to prevent struggling. The remaining

two whipped yellow scarves off from around their necks and, in one lightning-fast

gesture, twisted them around the throats of the married couple. The upward-tilted necks

were well exposed-an easy target.

 

The two tourists were taken so much by surprise that they had no opportunity to

struggle, even if the men holding their bodies had allowed such a thing. Their eyes

bugged out of their sockets as the scarves tightened around their throats, squeezing shut

the windpipes and cutting off their air supply. The only sound was the faintest guggling as

Nils and Karen fought vainly to breathe.

 

The last sight either of them ever saw was Lessin's imperturbable face staring at them

with neither pity nor regret in his eyes.

 

When both were quite dead, Lessin-as leader of the stranglers-had the duty of combing

their bodies for loot. He did this efficiently and, within a minute, both bodies had yielded

all that they had of value-wallets, jewelry and keys to a hotel room where more of their

goods would be stored.

 

The shuttle driver's timing was impeccable-just as the leader finished his search, the jit

pulled up to a large white building. Driving into a private accessway, the driver tooted his

horn sharply twice, and a side door opened. Four men dressed in white coveralls

emerged from the building and boarded the jit. They looked down at the two dead bodies

and, without comment, lifted them up and carried them back outside. Lessin gave them a

curt nod as they disappeared inside the building with their burdens and the door slid shut

once more.

 

As the jit backed out into the main thoroughfare again, the leader of the strangler band

sat down in a seat behind the driver. The Bjendens' hotel keys jingled idly in his hand.

Tomorrow, after their rooms had been thoroughly picked over, the Bjendens would be

"checked out" of their hotel and would simply vanish from the face of the Universe, as

many thousands had done before them. Very simple, very routine.

 

Lessin gave an involuntary yawn. The banker and his wife brought his daily total to six.

He decided to see whether he could bring that number up to eight before calling it quits.

Stifling a second yawn, he told the driver to head back to the Golden Crater; the pickings

there seemed exceptionally good today.

 

The man known as Garst was fuming silently as he strode down the marble-floored

hallway. He made no effort to quiet the clacking sound of his boots made with each

impatient step he took; he was angry, and he wanted his anger to show.

 

Her tinning is lousy, he griped silently. Just when I finally had a chance to talk with the

emissary of the Countess von Sternberg. It would have been my big opportunity to break

out of my dependence on one little moon, a chance to reach for bigger things.

 

But maybe that was precisely why she had called him. Maybe she didn't want him

branching out beyond her grasp. Marchioness Gindri was a very possessive person, and

the thought that her own personal lackey might have ambitions to something higher than

her would be a very deep sting. But I'd tried so hard to keep this meeting secret.

 

He stopped as he came to the giant doors that marked the entrance to her boudoir.

These doors stood nearly three meters high, and were elaborately carved out of solid

whitewood and gilded in ornate designs. The knobs were solid gold, sculpted in the

shape of miniature birds flying with wings outstretched. The doors were meant to

impress the visitor, but Garst had been here too many times before and they seemed

just like doors to him.

 

He paused outside the portals to catch his breath and curb his temper. Maybe her

summoning him now was just a coincidence. She'd called for him before at odd times,

this could be just another one. She was, after all, none too bright; it would do him no

good to allow his guilty conscience-or what passed for a conscience in him-to ascribe to

her a cunning she did not possess. Probably the biddy was just suffering from another of

her incessant loneliness jags and needed his services.

 

Garst shuddered. That was perhaps the most distasteful aspect of his entire

operation-making love to her gross, overindulged body. Someday, he was afraid, his

sensibilities would overcome his logical mind and leave him incapable of even performing

the act.

 

He sighed. The truth of the matter was that he needed her to make his strangling

operation work. The Marcbioness controlled the entire moon, at least nominally. It was

she who gave orders to the police force, the hotel employees and the casinos. True, he

was the one telling her what orders to give, but without her authority and her title to back

up those orders, he was lost.

 

Once again, the delightful thought of killing her flashed through his mind. Many were the

times he had fantasized the simple act of reaching his hands out to surround her fat,

multi-chinned neck and squeeze the life out of her. But, though the personal satisfaction

that act would give him would be enormous, the consequences would be disastrous.

Gindri had no direct heirs to inherit her tide, and at her death Vesa would revert back to

the Throne, allowing the Emperor to choose whomever he wished as the new Marquis.

Knowing Stanley Ten's reputation for incorruptibility, the appointee would be someone

Garst would never get a hold over.

 

He sighed again. His success lay in keeping Gindri alive and happy, so that she would not

interfere with the profitable setup he had established. Garst was, if nothing else, a

realist.

 

With his temper now well under restraint, Garst pulled down on the handles and opened

the huge twin doors. Instantly the sickening stench of the Marchioness's perfume

assailed his nostrils, and he had to fight down the impulse to gag. Instead, with his most

obsequious smile plastered tightly onto his lips, he entered the room and snaked his way

over to the side of the bed.

 

Marchioness Gindri Lohlatt of Vesa looked like nothing so much as a beached whale in a

white satin nightgown. She easily massed a hundred and fifty kilograms; Garst had never

asked exactly how much, more out of fear of being revolted by the actual number than

out of politeness. Her fat face was always red and jowly, her many chins overlapping and

virtually hiding her neck in layers of blubber. Her body was as soft and pallid as a slug's.

She would hardly even be able to move on any world with a normal gravity, Garst

thought. Only the fact that the gravity on Vesa was a mere one-quarter Earth standard

allowed her to survive without a heart attack.

 

"You called for me, Your Excellency?" he asked as nicely as he could.

 

"Yes," she said. Her voice was a throaty rasp, escaping from deep inside her throat. She

reached out one ponderous arm to him and extended a hand as round as a balloon.

Garst brought the hand to his lips and kissed it.

 

He wanted to drop the hand after the kiss, but the Marchioness gripped his hand tightly

with her own and pulled him closer to the side of her bed. The stench of her perfume

grew ten times worse with each centimeter closer he came.

 

A silence hung in the air for a long moment, until Garst's impatience got the better of him.

"May I ask, Your Excellency, why you sent for me at this particular hour? Though the

urgency of matters of state of course pales beside my desire to please you, there are

still some details that are important and must be done at certain times.

 

Marchioness Gindri looked up at him with great, rheumy eyes. "You haven't been to see

me in three days.

 

Her voice wavered, as though she were on the verge of tears. "I need to know that you

still love me." Though his outward expression did not alter, Garst's inward fuming

resumed at an increased level. This stupid sow called me all the way over here for that?

he thought. Oh, how good it will be when I can get away from this moon and start out in

business on my own. "Of course I still love you," he said aloud, seating himself on the

little bit of edge next to the woman's enormous body. "What is there not to love about

you? You're beautiful, intelligent, personable, wealthy and powerful, everything I admire

most in a woman." And if you believe that, I deserve the Galaxy Award for acting.

 

But the Marchioness saw no falseness in his words or eyes, and was reassured of his

continuing affection. Spreading her arms apart to welcome him to her bosom, she said,

"Come to me then, my lamb, and prove your love for me.

 

With thoughts darker than the blackness of space, Garst crawled into her arms. I won't

always be stuck on this miserable little rock-and when that day conies, I'll see that you

get the rewards you've earned. Just wait.

 

CHAPTER 2

The Problem with Vesa

 

As La Comete Cuivre drifted purposefully through the void of interplanetary space toward

its rendezvous, its two occupants were keyed to the breaking point with eager

anticipation. Yvette and Jules d'Alembert had been ,.on vacation" for three months-far

longer than they would have liked-and they were itching for action.

 

"I wonder what we'll be up against this time," Yvette speculated aloud. "Are there any

more grand dukes plotting against the "Throne?.

 

"Probably nothing so dramatic," her brother smiled. He spoke in the French-English

patois that was their native tongue. "After all, it doesn't take a direct threat against the

Emperor's life to endanger the peace. There's always a long, uphill battle against

entropy.

 

They stopped speaking as their radarscope indicated they were nearing their destination.

Jules quickly computed the approach pattern and laid it into the ship's computer. The

action was followed moments later by a flashing light on the control panel in front of them

and, five seconds after that, a short blast from the retrorockets. La Comete, according

to the numbers flashed on Jules' screen, would be docking with the other ship in four

minutes, thirty-seven seconds.

 

"Let's see what she's like out there," Yvette said, reaching for a different switch. Both

turned their heads and watched a panel to the right of their seats as a vidscreen that had

been dark suddenly jumped to life. Though they had known intellectually what to expect,

they still could not stifle the gasps of awe as they gazed at the ship they were

approaching.

 

The Anna Liebling was easily the biggest private space going vessel they had ever seen.

The d'Alemberts had grown up among circus ships that had to carry all the personnel and

equipment of the Greatest Show in the Galaxy, monstrous fat freighters ranging up to a

hundred meters long. That was considered the maximum size for any ship that had to

maneuver through an atmosphere and land on the surface of a planet, and they had

never thought they would behold anything bigger short of a battle cruiser. But now they

did.

 

The ship before them looked like a giant rectangular box a hundred and twenty-five

meters long and perhaps fifty wide and deep. Its outer hull was dull and pitted from

uncounted billions of encounters with micrometeoroids. It was a ship that could only have

been constructed in space, and would never be able to land. The dartlike sliver of the

ten-meter-long Comete seemed terribly insignificant beside the space behemoth.

 

"Wow," Yvette whispered softly. "Rank certainly doth have its privileges.

 

As they came closer to the enormous vessel, part of the hull slid open and, like modern

Jonahs, the two d'Alemberts and their ships were swallowed intact by the space-going

whale.

 

The hull closed again behind them as their ship came to rest inside a giant hangar next to

several other small shuttles that served to take the Anna Liebling's passengers to and

from the ship. From one of the hangar's walls a long metal tube three meters in diameter

snaked toward the d'Alembert vessel and attached itself firmly to their airlock hatch. This

shuttle room was simply too big to use as an airlock; it would require too much time and

energy to pump air into and out of it each time it was used. So it was left free of air, and

these transit tubes allowed passengers to walk to and from the shuttles without donning

spacesuits.

 

"All right," Jules said as the tube wheezed its airtight connection onto their lock, "let's find

out what the Head has in store for us.

 

Dressed as they both were in the routine gray spacer's coveralls that fit them only

loosely, neither Jules nor Yvette d'Alembert looked like what they truly were the two

most capable, most highly trained secret agents in the Galaxy. Both were a trifle too

short when compared to the standard Earther height these days-Jules stood at a

hundred seventy-three centimeters while his sister was ten centimeters shorter-but that

was because they weren't from Earth. Both were natives of DesPlaines, that harsh

mining world with a surface gravity three times that of Earth normal. Over the course of

the fourteen generations their family had lived on that planet, they had adapted well to

life under extreme conditions.

 

Under their loose-fitting outfits, their bodies were packed with solid muscle, tested to

withstand the grueling pull of their world's gravity. Their reflexes were lightning fast, as

they had to be-on a planet where objects fell at such an increased rate, even a slight

stumble could be fatal. The d'Alemberts' bones were thicker and harder than an Earth

person's, their sinews tougher, their muscles stronger.

 

But there was more to their heritage than just tough bodies. For the d'Alembert family

had, for the past two centuries, operated and starred in the Circus of the Galaxy, the

number one attraction throughout human occupied space. Jules and Yvette had been the

premier aerialists for the Circus for over a dozen years, their already perfect bodies

honed to clinical precision by the intensive training and impossible demands of their art.

 

Several months ago, though, Jules and Yvette had left the Circus. There was no outward

sign that they had departed, for their younger cousins had stepped in to become the new

"Jules and Yvette," while the old ones, as their predecessors had before them-moved up

to their real jobs: undercover agents for the Service of the Empire.

 

Almost from its inception, the Circus had provided SOTE with its top agents. The

specialized skills its performers possessed were ideal for the jobs that the Service

needed done. Added to that was the fact that the d'Alembert family, led by Duke Etienne

d'Alembert, had always been extremely intelligent and unquestioningly loyal to the

Throne, and that the Circus was able to travel all over the Galaxy without arousing

suspicion. The Circus was SOTE's secret weapon against the forces of disorder, with

the emphasis on the word secret. Only a handful of people knew about it-and since that

handful comprised the Imperial family, the Head of the Service and his chief assistant,

that secret was well-kept indeed.

 

As Jules and Yvette emerged from the transit tube they found the chief assistant waiting

for them. Duchess Helena von Wilmenhorst was obviously bred of Earth, tall, willowly and

beautiful, with her long black hair tied into braids behind her so that it wouldn't be in her

way on the ship. Apparently not all portions of the Anna Liebling were under ultragrav as

this part was.

 

Helena strode quickly toward them. Her brown- and peach-colored pants suit

emphasized the beauty of her body quite nicely, Jules noticed with a smile. She came

straight over to him, put her slender arms about his waist and gave him a warm hello

kiss. "It's good to see you again," she said in Empirese, the Russian-English mixture that

was the Galaxy's official language. "How's your leg, Jules?.

 

Jules reached down and patted his left calf. "Almost as good as new. Those

regeneratives the doctors have now are incredible. They tell me that in another month or

two I'll never even know I was blaster-burned." He and his sister spoke Empirese as

flawlessly as DesPlainian.

 

"Glad to hear it. You fought too gallantly there to deserve a permanently gimpy leg."

Helena turned her attentions to Yvette, embracing her as well and exchanging pecks on

the cheek. "And how are you, my darling Evie?.

 

"Fine physically, but impatient I'm afraid. Vacations are smooth for a while, but they can

get boring too quickly if there's no work in between. I'm dying for some action.

 

"You'll get it," Helena promised. "There's no shortage of work for any of us. Father just

wanted to make sure you were all recovered from that last bout before sending you out

again. You'd better follow me now; he's waiting for us.

 

Helena led the way down the maze of corridors that honeycombed the ship. Jules and

Yvette were astounded at just how luxurious a space yacht this size could be. Paintings

by some of the Galaxy's most famous artists were set in niches along the hallways. One

long corridor wall, extending more than fifteen meters, was a single mural depicting a

breathtaking sunset across a plain on some alien world. Holobiles, those

three-dimensional color laser images, hung from the ceiling, their abstract shapes

revolving in an imaginary wind. The air smelled faintly of jasmine, though the scent was

subtly different.

 

But the surprising thing was that they encountered no other people along their path. The

corridors had the feel of well-traveled routes, yet not a soul was anywhere to be seen.

Their three pairs of footsteps echoed hollowly against the metal walls that lined the

passages.

 

When Jules remarked on their solitude, their guide nodded and summed up the situation

in one word: "Security. The Anna has a crew of over three hundred, but we had these

corridors sealed off for you. Remember, you're our secret weapons; even though

everyone aboard is trustworthy plus, we don't want your faces even associated with

SOTE if we can avoid it. The fewer people who know your connection, the safer you'll

be. "Here we are now," she continued, leading the d'Alemberts up to a plain metal doer

labeled simply "Room 10." "This is where everything comes together. Father thought we

could talk here in the most secrecy.

 

As the door slid open, it revealed to the two agents a room that awed them with both its

size and its functional beauty. Cylindrical in shape, the chamber had a diameter of fifteen

meters and extended upwards for ten. Along the walls a spiral rampway led from the

floor to the ceiling, with banks of computer terminals and readout screens spaced closely

together along the ramp. Doors at various levels led out to other parts of this immense

spaceship, for this was obviously the nexus of all activity aboard.

 

Seated at a small console in the center of the floor, looking dwarfed by the empty

vastness of this nerve center, sat Grand Duke Zander von Wilmenhorst, the Head of the

Service of the Empire. The conservative navy blue body-tunic he wore seemed to make

him even more anachronistic in this overwhelming room of flashing lights and rampant

technology. His basic humanity was out of place amid these machines.

 

Physically he was rather ordinary in appearance, being of medium height and build, but

his almost totally bald head gleamed in the bright lights. It was his eyes, though, that

were his most outstanding feature, for they could not disguise, even to the most casual

observer, the overwhelming intelligence that lay within that skull. Zander von Wilmenhorst

was the master tactician of the Galaxy which was why he headed the Emperors most

select group of agents.

 

But at this moment the Head chose to be neither a grand duke nor a boss; he greeted

Jules and Yvette almost as his own nephew and niece. "It's good to see you both again,

and looking so healthy," he said after gallantly kissing Yvette's hand and shaking Jules'

firmly. "I apologize for the sumptuous surroundings; I prefer doing business in my office,

but this was the most secure spot on the ship and the two of you merit the best. I

sometimes get to play admiral here.

 

Yvette looked around and could indeed visualize the room as it might look during a crisis

situation: hundreds of men and women bustling to and from their battle stations, the low

buzz of continental conversation, the clacking of feet upon the metal flooring, the quiet

chaos of a communications center. And in the very middle of it all, supervising every

minute detail would be the Head himself, eyes gleaming as he snapped out each quick

order.

 

She blinked and the scene vanished. There were just the four of them here---four friends

in casual conversation. The Head guided them over to some chairs and they sat down,

Yvette and Jules in front of the console and Helena behind and a little to the left of her

father.

 

"I suppose you realize that I didn't call you here just for a social visit," the Head began.

"Much as I like your, company, the Galaxy forces us to work. Have you ever heard of

Vesa?.

 

"Who hasn't?" Jules replied. "It's one of the top resorts in the Galaxy, the playground of

the super-rich. It's a pretty wild place, from what I hear. Wide open; you can do almost

anything there if you've got enough money or influence.

 

"The Circus has never played there, though," Yvette added. "At least, not during our

lifetimes. As soon as Vesa started getting a reputation it decided it could do without such

`simple' entertainment as ours. We're not sophisticated enough for them, so they don't

ask us to come.

 

The Head nodded. "Yes, and that complicates my job a little. Ordinarily I'd send the

Circus in there so that your whole family could find out what the problem is. But as things

stand, it'll have to be just the two of you. Do you feel up to it?.

 

"Do stars shine?" Yvette said. "We've been getting impatient for weeks. I feel ready to

lick ten Banions single-handed.

 

"Hopefully that won't be necessary. Banion the Bastard spent years developing that

traitors' nest you smashed, covering most of the Galaxy. This is just a localized problem

that I want to keep from getting out of hand.

 

The Head drummed his fingers on the top of the console for a moment and looked at

them, wondering where to begin. Finally he continued on, "As you're well aware, the

Service is not a police agency. Our primary concern is the safety of the Empire and the

Emperor, not the enforcement of local laws. The Stanley Doctrine laid down by Stanley

Three clearly-and wisely, in my opinion delegates the responsibility for law enforcement

to the local nobility, as representatives of the Emperor. We manage to hold the Empire

together by the simple expedient of not getting involved in local matters. `That Emperor is

best loved who stays away from his people's business,' to quote Milney.

 

"On the other hand, we can't close our eyes to everything. The Empire runs on

interstellar commerce. When the relationships between worlds are affected, it becomes

the Emperor's business-and consequently the Service's as well. And that, I'm afraid, is

where Vesa comes in.

 

The Head stood up and paced around behind his desk. "The planet Lindstrom has

recently been negotiating a big agricultural deal with Appeny, one that would involve

trillions of rubles on both sides. I won't bore you with the details, they're quite extensive

and beside the point. The matter was being negotiated largely through the auspices of

one man, Nils Bjenden-Lindstrom's most influential banker. It was to be his bank that

would guarantee the financial outcome; but more than that, it was his personal integrity

that was keeping both sides interested.

 

"Three weeks ago, Nils Bjenden and his wife disappeared. The deal between the two

planets fell through, causing severe economic hardship to both worlds. I emphasize that

no one stood to gain by their disappearance; it caused a disaster all around. This is the

point where the Service got interested. After all, a fiasco of this size will have economic

repercussions throughout the rest of the Galaxy as well, and we don't like that. So the

chief of the Service on Lindstrom began investigating to find out why the deal had failed

and what had happened to the Bjendens.

 

The Head stopped his pacing and moved in front of the console. Planting his feet firmly in

front of the table, he leaned back against it, looking directly at the d'Alemberts. "It turns

out," he said, "that the Bjendens decided to take a short vacation just before closing the

deal. Being very wealthy, they decided to go off-planet and, never having been there

before, they decided to visit Vesa. They left a clear trail that far; any number of people

saw them on the spaceliner to Vesa, and there is a record of their having checked into a

hotel there. But from that point on, nothing is clear. Suddenly there is no further record of

them at their hotel, or at any other. Their return trip tickets were cashed in, and there is

no record of them buying new ones. All of a sudden, Vesa just swallowed them up,

without a trace. That was all our man on Lindstrom could determine from where he was,

so he referred the case-with a Class Four Priority-to the SOTS branch on Chandakha.

 

"Chandakha?" Jules interrupted. "Where's that? I thought I'd heard of most of the

planets, but that sounds like a new one.

 

"It's interesting how these things work out," the Head said, smiling at Jules' confusion.

"Everybody knows that Vesa is a moon, but it's become so famous that it has figuratively

eclipsed the planet it circles. Chandakha is a planet slightly larger than Earth itself. It was

settled some three hundred years ago mostly by people of Asian stock -particularly

those from the Indian subcontinent. Chandakha has always been a relatively poor world;

the people can raise enough food to feed themselves, but they've had little commerce

with the rest of the Galaxy. Vesa is their big drawing card, and it gets all the attention.

 

"At any rate, our SOTE chief on Chandakha, Marask Kantana by name, received the

report from Lindstrom and, since it had a high priority, she got right to work on it.

Because Chandakha has always been such a quiet world she had a very small staff, but

she did what she could. She checked all the standard places, and came up with the

same answers as the Lindstrom chief-namely that the Bjendens had simply vanished. The

local Vesan police more or less shrugged their shoulders and told her there was nothing

they could do-with so many transients coming and going all the time, it was impossible

for them to account for any particular ones. They were very polite, but their total lack of

cooperation infuriated Kantana and, shrewd woman that she is, she decided to look into

matters a little further.

 

"What she found simply astonished her. She double-check, cross-checked, practically

wove herself into a plaid with all her checking. When she was positive her facts were

irrefutable, she sent them back here to Earth -this time with a Class Eight Priority.

 

     Jules and Yvette cast each other startled glances. A Class Eight Priority was

nothing short of a planet-wide catastrophe. Suddenly this case had taken on much more

dire dimensions than just the disappearance of a banker and his wife.

 

Reaching down onto the surface of the console, the Head picked up three book reels.

"These are her findings," he said. "They came straight to Helena on arrival, and she

brought them instantly to my attention. I'll give them to you before you leave; they'll

probably shock you as much as they did us. There are a few more reels, also, because

we correlated some data of our own. The total picture is frightening.

 

He went back and sat down behind the console, never taking his eyes from the

d'Alemberts' faces. "The disappearance of the Bjendens was no isolated phenomenon.

Over the past twenty years more than two hundred and fifty thousand people have

vanished on Vesa without a trace!.

 

Jules sat bolt upright and Yvette's eyes widened in disbelief. "What?" the female agent

exclaimed. "That's impossible!.

 

"I don't believe it," Jules said, echoing his sister's sentiments. "chat many people can't

simply disappear." "Nobody said it was `simple'," Helena spoke up from behind her

father. "In fact, we suspect it's awfully complex-a full-fledged conspiracy.

 

"There's no other explanation," the Head agreed. "It's so unexpected that no one ever

looked for it before. But a simple check of spaceliner reservations tells a good deal of

the story. Over the last two decades a certain number of tourists have come to Vesa and

a certain number have left. The first number is quite larger than the second." "Maybe

they stayed on Vesa," Yvette suggested.

 

"Unfortunately the answer is not that simple," said the master tactician, shaking his head.

"The population of that moon is well accounted for. We have records on births, deaths,

immigrations and emigrations for that entire timespan, and they entirely explain the

present population level.

 

"But why wasn't this noticed earlier?" Jules asked. "Didn't the spaceship companies think

anything was odd when so many people canceled their return reservations?.

 

"Apparently not. The customer is always right, and it's not polite to pry into his reasons

for canceling. Perhaps he's decided to stay longer, perhaps he's decided to book

passage with another company. Remember, this was happening gradually, and the effect

was spread out over all sixty-two companies that run ships to Vesa. They just never

compared notes among themselves. It wasn't until we compared all their records

together that we noticed the discrepancy.

 

Yvette found herself shaking her head. "But how can such a huge number of people just

disappear without an alarm being raised? Some of them must have had family and

friends who would miss them. Why weren't the police notified?.

 

"Ah , but they were. Our Central Computer Facility has the records of every police

department on every planet, and we cross-checked their missing persons files. They're

simply bulging with cases of people who went off to visit Vesa and never returned home.

 

"But if that's the case. . . ." Jules began.

 

"I know; it looks like incompetence on someone's part not to have spotted the pattern

long ago. But really, what reason was there to cross-check before? Look at it this way:

there are at present one thousand, three hundred and forty-three planets in the Empire.

If we assume randomness, that equal numbers of people from each planet disappeared

on Vesa, that leaves us with an average of two hundred people per planet. Now average

that over twenty years, and you find that only ten people per planet per year are

disappearing there. Not an extraordinary number at all. The ordinary planetary police

force handles thousands of missing person calls in a year. I assume that, when they

trace a missing person to Vesa, they put in a routine call to the police there for

assistance. The Vesan police give them the same polite brush-off they gave Kantana.

The planetary police have neither the time nor the resources to follow up on these cases,

so they mark them unsolved and stick them away. Ten unsolved cases per year is a drop

in the bucket compared to the volume they're used to handling.

 

Yvette and Jules sat in stunned silence as they contemplated what the Head had told

them. A quarter of a million people had gone to Vesa and vanished. Furthermore, they

were disappearing at a rate of better than twelve thousand a year-or thirty-five a day!

What could be happening to them all.

 

"You're implying," Jules said slowly, "that the Vesan police are in on whatever conspiracy

is occurring there." The Head folded his hands on the table in front of him. "There's

simply not enough information to say. It's extremely likely that they know something.

After all, no matter how many tourists they say they get-and I will concede it's an awfully

large number-it's hard to imagine them not noticing something of this magnitude. But it's

rather obvious that they're choosing to ignore it.

 

"And if they're doing that," Yvette mused aloud, "then they must be taking orders from

someone. The most likely suspect is the person in charge. Let's see, Vesa is a moon, so

it would have to be a marquis-correct?.

 

"A marchioness, in this case," the Head nodded. "Marchioness Gindri Lohlatt, a spineless

sort at best. Our personality profile shows her to be incapable of any sustained

conspiracy like this; she's simply too weak-willed. She may be someone else's tool, but

it's doubtful she's the brains.

 

"A duke, then," Yvette persisted. "The Duke of Chandakha, perhaps?.

 

"The Duke of Chandakha is thirteen years old," the Head informed her. "His mother has

served as Regent since he assumed the title two years ago. The former Duke was

assassinated by a disgruntled peasant after a reign of thirty-four undistinguished years.

 

"In other words," Jules said, "since this activity on Vesa has continued unabated for

twenty years, it's probably unconnected to the Dukes of Chandakha.

 

The Head nodded. "There's a basic lack of continuity in the two regimes, yet the records

indicate that the disappearances didn't even slow down at the Duke's death.

 

"Then the answer is definitely on Vesa." Yvette's words were more a statement than a

question.

 

"Yes. Since the resorts on Vesa account for well over ninety percent of Chandakha's

wealth, the Dukes of Chandakha have always been subservient to the marquisate of

Vesa. They need the tax revenues too badly for their own survival.

 

"At the risk of stating the obvious then," Yvette said, "I gather our assignment is to find

out what's happening to all these missing persons and put a stop to the operation.

 

"Exactly." The Head set his jaw, and fire gleamed in his eyes. "'The thought that this vast

a conspiracy could be going on right under our noses for so long without our even being

aware of it is galling. At least with Banion we knew he existed, even if we couldn't track

him down. But this-" he spread his hands "-this is like them painting over our eyes and

daring us to do something. I don't like being blinded while somebody makes a fool of

me." The Head stood up, determination written in every line of his face.

 

"That's why I want you, my two best agents, to handle the case. I want this menace

smashed, and I want it done quickly!.

 

Back in their own ship again and floating free in orbit around Mother Earth, the two

d'Alemberts studied the reels their boss bad given them. Document after document

reiterated what they had already been told that somehow, thousands of people were

simply ceasing to exist.

 

The supersiblings had found from long experience that talking the case out aloud

between them helped clarify their thoughts. "Let's look at a typical case," Jules was

saying. "Say Ivan and Tatyana Gregorov go to Vesa. Their spaceship reservations are all

paid for, round trip. They check into their hotel and spend a few days gambling and

seeing some of the shows. Then, before their vacation is supposed to be over, they

abruptly check out of their hotel, taking all their belongings with them. They cancel their

return reservations, getting cash for the tickets. And that's it, they're never heard from

again.

 

"Where are they all going?" Yvette mused. "Something must happen to them. They're not

staying on Vesa, unless there's a secret underground city we don't know about. Maybe

they're all being taken into slavery in the deep, dark pits of some treasure mine.

 

"Vesa's got all the treasure mines it needs right at its gambling tables," her brother

pointed out. "More money changes hands here than on the Galactic Stock Exchange.

Your imagination is running a little overtime, sis.

 

"But if the people aren't staying on Vesa, then they must be leaving-and the outgoing logs

of all the ships departing from there indicate no such thing.

 

"Which leaves us in an impossible situation. The people aren't staying and they aren't

leaving. They're simply vanishing.

 

"They could be dead, I suppose.

 

"Yes, it's a lot easier to hide a dead body than a live one. But even so, where do you

stash a quarter of a million corpses so that they won't be noticed?.

 

"They must have some system to it. Vesa's an airless moon; maybe they bury them all in

some crater on the surface where no one ever goes. Maybe they have a catapult that

launches the bodies directly into their sun." "You're beginning to sound desperate.

 

"Sorry; having brain cells chasing themselves around in circles inside my skull tends to

make me dizzy.

 

"We're talking about thirty-five bodies a day," Jules said. "Disposing of them in any way

like that would be a major industry, and terribly wasteful of energy. There has to be a

simpler, more efficient method of going about it. But I'm damned if I can think of what it

could be.

 

"Let's put that problem aside for the moment, before our brains turn to pink jelly. The one

thing we know about this operation is that it's systematized. Anything with that rapid a

turnover of business has to be. And wherever there's a system, there's a way to crack it;

Papa's told us that often enough. We begin looking for common links. Is there anything

the victims have in common?.

 

"Not a thing," Jules said shaking his head. "The victims are totally random. They come

from all over the Galaxy. They're men, women, old, young, famous, obscure, all races,

all religions. They have nothing whatsoever in common.

 

"One thing," Yvette said thoughtfully. "They all came to Vesa from somewhere else.

 

Jules floated in the middle of the cabin, staring at his sister in open-mouthed amazement.

"Evie, you have the, rare gift of spotting the obvious. Of course, they all had to be rich.

Only the super-affluent can afford to go someplace like Vesa. And that means. . . .

 

"That money has something to do with it," Yvette said, completing her brother's thought.

"These people are being killed and robbed of whatever they brought with them, then

disposed of somehow.

 

"Yes!" Jules exclaimed, but then his expression changed. "No, wait a minute. That

doesn't make sense. Vesa has no need to rob and murder people. The casinos gross so

much money that they don't know what to do with it all-not to mention all the hotels, bars,

theaters and brothels that have their own rakeoff. What's the percentage in killing people

for their money when they're determined to give it to you legally?.

 

"How many casinos, hotels, bars, theaters and brothels are there on Vesa, mon frere?

Two hundred? Three hundred? Four? Maybe even a thousand. What's the permanent

resident population of Vesa? Fifty-some thousand, according to the most recent tape I

saw. The legitimate operations probably earn a bundle for the minority of the people who

own them- and the larger majority who work for them. That still leaves an awful lot of the

people wanting a slice of that pie. And it's such a rich pie that none of the fatcats minds

them taking a small share. After all, there are about seven hundred tourists arriving on

Vesa every day; who will miss a small fraction?.

 

"Tu as raison, as always. The percentage murdered is nowhere near high enough to

adversely affect the take in the casinos, so they won't complain. The police are obviously

getting paid off to remain stupid. The murderers get fat off their booty. Everybody wins,

nobody loses except, of course, for the poor victims who wander into the trap.

 

Yvette smiled weakly. "I'm not feeling nearly so dizzy anymore. It's good to know that

this whole mess can be thought out logically.

 

"But just knowing what they're doing is a long way from smashing it," Jules said. "We still

need to know how and who.

 

"A two-fold problem," Yvette nodded. "It seems tailor-made for a two-pronged attack.

The `how' appeals to me, I think. I could travel to Vesa in style, set myself up as a victim

and see what I catch with my bait.

 

"That leaves me the 'who.' It has to be done by the ordinary people living on Vesa, that

much seems obvious. I'll have to get a job there, join their ranks and see what I can

learn. But what sort of job should it be?.

 

"Well, what are your qualifications? You're strong, athletic, agile, not too quick-witted . . .

 

"I beg your pardon!.

 

". . . and obviously suited to manual labor," Yvette finished with a smile. "Not very well

educated, but eager to make a lot of money without having to work hard at it. Just the

sort of man who would turn into a thief and a murderer.

 

"With sisters like you," Jules muttered good-naturedly under his breath, "who needs

enemies?.

 

CHAPTER 3

Locker Room Brawl

 

Spaceports on airless worlds all look pretty much the same. Such worlds are invariably

pitted with craters from meteoroid impacts, and one of these craters is widened out and

deepened to accommodate the landing of ships. Long airtight boarding tubes, similar to

the one in the Anna Liebling's hangar, allow the passengers to disembark down a sloping

ramp to the interior of the spaceport without having to go through the inconvenience of

donning cumbersome spacesuits.

 

The loading and unloading of cargo, however, is a much different matter, since freight will

rarely walk down a ramp of its own accord. The procedure here is to have all cargo

packed in airtight modular sections, usually stored in the lower portion of the ship. Upon

landing, a large section of the ship's hull slides open, exposing the cargo to the vacuum

of the planet's surface. Special cargo tractors emerge from the walls of the

crater-enormous flatbed carriers equipped with their own cranes, winches and other

apparatus. When the tractors reach the ship they disgorge dozens of spacesuited figures

who begin transferring the cargo modules from the hold to the carriers, which then drive

back to their hangars and unload the freight into airlock chambers. From this point,

distribution of the materials can proceed normally. The entire operation is reversed, of

course, for loading cargo onto an outbound spaceship.

 

The men who work the spacedocks are a breed apart. Strong, tough and hardworking,

they nevertheless are quick and agile. They have to be-working in a spacesuit is

awkward at best, hazardous at worst. They are usually a close-knit group, out of a

sense for survival; working in a vacuum makes you very dependent on your comrades.

Even the most trivial accidents can be fatal in an airless environment.

 

When Jules d'Alembert-working now under the name Georges duChamps-arrived on

Vesa, one of the first places he applied for a job was the Vesa Spaceport. His

references-all faked, of course-were impeccable, and impressed the personnel manager.

Two days later, Georges duChamps received a call at the cheap hotel room where he

was staying, telling him to report for work at 1730 the next day.

 

There were the usual preliminary forms to be filled out, and Jules was measured for a

spacesuit. Fortunately, another DesPlainian had worked here several years before, and

there was already a suit in stock that would accommodate the slight but important

peculiarities of the DesPlainian body form. Once those tedious necessities were taken

care of, the personnel secretary led Jules down a corridor to the office of his new boss.

 

The gang foreman was a hulking bear of a man named Laz Fizcono. He stood over two

meters tall and massed a hundred and ten kilos, with a body that had never shirked a

day of work in its life. His leonine mane of red hair topped a round, full face with bushy

red eyebrows and a mangy beard. His eyes glittered with life as he looked Jules over

appraisingly.

 

"Well, what have we here?" his voice boomed out as the personnel secretary brought

Jules into his office. "A dwarf?" He extended a meaty hand in the direction of his new

helper.

 

Jules calmly stood his ground as the bigger man approached. He correctly read the insult

as a good-natured challenge to determine his personality. As foreman, Fizcono wanted

to find out quickly just what sort of man this new fellow was, whether he had a quick

temper, whether he would blow under pressure. A good boss knew the capabilities of all

the people under him.

 

So instead of reacting to the epithet, Jules just smiled. "DesPlaines is a planet of big,

blustery mountains," he said evenly. "We mine them anyhow. It'll take more than a giant

to make me feel small.

 

He took the foreman's proffered hand firmly in his own. Fizcono squeezed it with all the

massive strength his bearlike paw could muster. Jules accepted it without a wince and,

when the foreman had finished with his best shot, Jules began squeezing back. Fizcono's

eyebrows lifted in surprise as the smaller man's strength was more than a match for his

own. Jules just continued to stare up at the man a full thirty centimeters above him and

smiled nonchalantly.

 

Then Fizcono did something unexpected-he laughed, a giant bellow that shook the walls

of the tiny office. "By Fross, I like you, little man," he said. "You don't give in a millimeter,

do you? Yes, he'll do nicely," he added to the personnel secretary, who left Jules' forms

on the desk, smiled and returned to her own office.

 

Jules found himself liking Fizcono as well. The big man had an unforced affability that

would make him a good and loyal companion. He would be a stern boss, but there was

not a malicious bone in his body.

 

"Come on," said the foreman, leading Jules out of the office. "It's almost time for the shift

to begin, and you'll want to meet the rest of your mates.

 

They moved down a maze of corridors, which Fizcono assured Jules he'd learn in a day

or two, and eventually arrived at the suit-up room. There were ten men there already,

and within the next few minutes twelve more arrived. Without exception the men were

taller than Jules, and he took some good-natured ribbing from all of them when Fizcono

introduced him as "my trained midget." But Fizcono's respect for him was also apparent,

and the men took their cue from that. If the boss respected him, he must be good.

 

In general the men seemed to be from planets all over the Galaxy-a fact which was not

too surprising, since Vesa was such a cosmopolitan center. It was a magnet drawing

people from all over. But Jules very quickly noticed that one group of seven men kept

very much to themselves. Their complexions were swarthy, their eyes darker and more

brooding. There was a suspicion lurking in them against their coworkers, perhaps a

smoldering resentment. The emotion was hard for Jules to read, but it was obvious that

something was there.

 

One of the other men, a clean-shaven fellow named Rask, noticed Jules eyeing the

separatist group. "Haven't you ever seen Chandies before?" he asked.

 

"What are Chandies?" Jules didn't like the man's smug, superior tones. They gave

evidence that all was not smooth within this work crew.

 

A third man joined them. It was obvious from his breezy familiarity that he was a crony of

Rask's. Jules searched his memory and recalled that the man's name was Brownsend.

"Chandakhari," explained the newcomer. "They're from that hick planet we're circling.

Farmers, peasants. They stick together because they're afraid of real men.

 

The group of Chandakhari, having already suited up except for their helmets, walked past

without a word, even though Brownsend's voice had been loud enough to carry to them.

Jules was not sure bow he should respond to this bigotry, but he was saved from having

to by Fizcono, who came over as soon as he heard what was going on. "That's enough

from you, both of you," the foreman said, glaring at Rask and Brownsend. "You'll work

together or you won't work for me, it's that simple. I've told you that before. I hope," he

added to Jules, "you won't pick up any bad habits from these two. They're good

workers, but opinionated.

 

"I'm quite capable of forming my own opinions, sir," Jules replied. "I don't have to borrow

anyone else's." Fizcono gave an ursine grunt of satisfaction and moved on.

 

Despite the fact that Jules was in peak physical condition, he found the work that first

day out on the sunfried surface of Vesa grueling. He was quite familiar with the loading

and unloading of ships; after all, the Circus was constantly on the move, visiting a new

world on the average of once every three weeks. When the circus gear was being

packed or unpacked, everyone was expected to lend a hand-even the star aerialists.

 

But Jules was still on the mend from a serious blaster burn that had carved a large chunk

out of his left calf. Grafts and regeneratives had restored the area so that only the

closest of looks would show that there ever had been a wound there. But strength and

agility were other matters. Jules had spent months conditioning the muscles, using all the

knowledge of physical therapy at his disposal to bring them back to their original abilities.

For the most part he had been successful, but occasionally under severe stress-there

were slight twinges.

 

The work was made easier by the fact that Vesa's surface gravity was only twenty-five

percent of Earth normal-less than ten percent of what he was accustomed to on his

home world. His movements in the bulky spacesuit were a poetry of fluid motion; he

could have been born in a spacesuit for all the natural agility he displayed. There were a

few times when he felt his bad leg about to give out unexpectedly under him, but Jules

was able to shift his weight to the other leg in time so that nothing happened. Fizcono, he

noticed, was watching his performance extra carefully, but if the foreman spotted any of

these slight lapses he did not choose to mention them.

 

The real trouble started almost the instant the shift was over. Rask and Brownsend had

spent most of the day hovering near Jules, despite his growing distaste for the two men.

Every time one of the Chandakhari slipped up or made the slightest error, they would dig

each other or Jules in the ribs and cast significant glances through their helmets, as if to

say, "See how inept those Chandies really are?.

 

As soon as they were back in the changing room and had removed their helmets, Rask

and Brownsend continued their jibes. Fizcono cast them a warning glance as he left to

work on his reports, but they refused to acknowledge it. "Those Chandies sure are lucky

Fizcono protects them," Rask sniped. "They wouldn't be able to find jobs anywhere else.

 

"Except maybe as stokers in the recycling plant," Brownsend agreed. "There they'd be

reaching their natural level. But you can't expect really skilled work from a bunch of

farmers and peasants.

 

Jules was watching the group of Chandakhari carefully. They were tense and doing their

best to ignore the taunts -it was obvious they were used to them by now-but there was

one among them who was tenser than the rest. He was quite young, not yet twenty Earth

years by the look of him. His long, straight black hair hung down over his forehead almost

into his eyes, and he had tried to grow a mustache that struggled to exist on his upper lip

as a skinny black smudge. For the life of him, Jules could not remember the lad's

name-but that was not important. More significant was the fact that the boy was about to

explode with anger at the two persecutors.

 

Hoping to avoid a scene, Jules stepped up to Rask and Brownsend. "Farming is a lot

more demanding a skill than you think it is," he began in a conciliatory tone. "I tried it

once when I was younger, and had to give it up. It's a lot simpler to tote boxes than run a

farm, believe me.

 

Brownsend looked Jules up and down, wondering what to make of this change in tack.

Finally, deciding that he was bigger than the newcomer, he thought he would include him

in the litany of abuse. "I'm not surprised you found it hard," he said. "Leave it to the runt

of the litter to defend the honor of those ignorant yokels.

 

Jules was struggling so hard to keep his own temper at an even level that he did not

notice the young Chandakhar launching himself angrily across the room at Brownsend,

murder in his eyes. The lower gravity did, however, allow him time to realize what was

happening and get set for action while the youth was still in the air. To Jules, the young

man's body floated with excruciating slowness while the SOTE agent eyed the rest of the

figures in the room and prepared for the coming battle.

 

Brownsend, his reflexes not as fast as Jules's, was caught by surprise at the sudden

attack. He barely had time to fling his arms up in defense as the seventy-five-kilogram

body crashed squarely into him, knocking him backward onto the floor. He hit with a thud

that knocked the wind from his lungs, and found that the Chandakhar had a grip on his

throat that was intended to keep air out of them permanently.

 

The other Chandakhari were as startled by their fellow's attack as Brownsend was, and

they exhibited a split second of hesitation. Not so Rask, who looked as though he'd been

all set for a fight. There was a wrench in his belt, one of the many tools that dangled

there for the cargoman's use. Instantly it was in his hand, and his arm was upraised to

deliver a blow that would smash the young man's skull.

 

It was at this point that Jules chose to interfere. As Rask's arm came up, Jules grabbed

the wrist in an unbreakable grip and pulled down hard from the rear. Rask, his body

unprepared for an attack from this new direction, flipped over backward. So slowly did

he spin in the air as he came down that Jules had plenty of time to turn around, bring up

his knee and deliver a staggering blow just under the man's ribs. Rask was unconscious

before he even hit the floor.

 

Without pausing to check the results of his action, Jules turned his attention to the pair of

bodies struggling on the floor. Brownsend was writhing about, trying to dislodge the

young man who clung tenaciously to his throat. Spinning once more, Jules faced the two

combatants and swung his right arm downward in a wide, graceful motion. Despite the

fact that his movement looked casual, there was a loud smack as his fist connected with

the side of the Chandakhar's head. The force of the impact knocked the youngster aside

and made him release his hold on Brownsend's throat. The older man lay quietly on the

floor, gulping in huge breaths of air to his oxygen starved lungs, while the younger knelt

stunned, shaking his head to clear it after the mind-numbing blow it had been dealt.

 

The fight should have ended there, with the three hot bloods incapacitated. But just out of

the comer of his eye Jules caught a flash of movement, and be whirled to face the

oncoming charge of the six remaining Chandakhari. They had seen him attack their young

friend and, notwithstanding the fact that he had also prevented the lad's head from

getting bashed in by Rask's wrench, they felt obliged to protect their countryman from his

assault.

 

Jules had fought six men at a time before, and in circumstances much more harrowing

than this. But the fact that registered the strongest in his brain as he watched the half

dozen opponents charging him was that they moved as a precision unit. By all rights, six

men in a spontaneous situation like this should have been an uncoordinated mob; even

with a common purpose, some of them should be duplicating their efforts while leaving

several other openings free'.

 

Instead, these Chandakhari behaved like a military drill team going through its paces.

Two of them snatched at Jules' ankles, pinning them solidly together and anchoring him

to the spot. Two more grabbed at his wrists, holding them straight out to the sides. A

fifth grabbed Jules by the waist and, with the help of the other four, lifted the startled

DesPlainian bodily off the ground. The sixth man locked the crook of his elbow tightly

about Jules' neck, pulling the head back sharply and exposing his gullet.

 

Being held at all points as he was, Jules was totally deprived of a leverage point to use in

his struggles. Had he been even the slightest bit less powerful he might have been killed

on the spot. As it was, it took every iota of his supernormal strength to wrench free his

right wrist from the grip of the man holding it. That breaking free unbalanced the hold his

attackers had, and he dipped suddenly toward the floor.

 

With the speed of reflexes unique to the d'Alembert clan, Jules reached down with his

now free right hand and grasped the legs of the man holding his waist. One mighty heave

was sufficient to pull the man off his feet, and the entire configuration caved in. Jules

lashed out with hands and feet as he found himself on the floor amid a tangle of bodies.

 

"What's going on here?" boomed the loud voice of Laz Fizcono from across the room.

 

All action ceased as the big man's words penetrated the brains of those present. The

anger, the frustration, the tension that had been so explosively released was now just as

quickly quelled. Every man in the room was suddenly aware that his job was on the line,

and that he'd better play it cautiously.

 

When no one answered his question-which had been largely rhetorical, anyway-Fizcono

put his hands to his hips and glared into the faces of all present. "It looks to me like a

fight," he went on, "and I hate fights among people who have to work together in

dangerous situations.

 

I want you all to hate fights, too. And just to make sure that you'll all hate fights, I'm

docking everyone who was in it a full week's pay.

 

"But I didn't . . ." Brownsend began to rasp.

 

"You were in it," Fizcono said sternly, "and you couldn't have been doing it all by yourself.

Nor could anyone else. We have to stop this kind of crap before someone ends up dead

outside." He stopped and looked particularly at Jules. "This was a bad way to start a

new job, duChamps. I expected a little better of you; frankly, I'm disappointed.

 

As the foreman disappeared into the corridor again, an awkward silence fell upon the

changing room. Men averted their eyes guiltily, not quite daring to look at each other. As

for Jules, he sat on the floor for a moment, stretching his neck and thinking about the

way the Chandakhari had attacked.

 

CHAPTER 4

The Resurrection of Carmen Velasquez

 

While Jules was investigating Vesa's society from the bottom up, both d'Alemberts bad

agreed that Yvette should investigate it from the top down. Setting herself up as a target

was potentially more dangerous, but the life she would be leading in the meantime would

have its compensations. Thus, while her brother took the fastest flight possible to Vesa,

Yvette d'Alembert devoted some time to building a good disguise and arranging luxury

accommodations for herself on the plushest starliner heading for her destination.

 

"Carmen Velasquez would be perfect for this assignment, don't you think?" she'd asked

her brother as they planned their respective modes of attack.

 

"I think all that rich living went to your bead," Jules retorted. "Carmen was exactly the

sort of person who would be missed-not a good prospective victim at all:.

 

Yvette pondered her brother's words for a moment. On their last assignment-that of

tracking down and destroying the Galaxy-wide treasonous network of Banion the

Bastard, pretender to the throne-the two of them bad posed as Carlos and Carmen

Velasquez, two nouveau riche ex-Puritans. The Velasquezes had actually been a parody

of wealth, wearing outlandish costumes and throwing hundred-ruble bills around as

though they'd been kopeks. Amid the subdued richness of the planet Algonia they had

stood out like a supernova in a bathtub.

 

There had been a good reason at the time for such a broad burlesque. Banion's forces

were getting closer to the day of their unleashing, and a tempting target had to be

offered. With no leads at all, the d'Alemberts had had to make absolutely certain that

they would be noticed. They were, of course, and the comparative small fry they caught

with that net had enabled them eventually to trace down the entire organization.

 

But Jules was right-the old Carmen would not be the sort of victim the Vesan murderers

were looking for. As flashy and funky as she was, she would make an impression even

on that flashy, funky moon. Her sudden disappearance would be noticed-something the

crooks were obviously trying to avoid. "Well," Yvette admitted aloud, "there will have to

be some changes made. . . .

 

And indeed there were. The old Carmen had been a madcap wife; the new was a

sedate, rational widow. The old Carmen had dressed in outfits that showed as much

bare skin as the local law allowed; the new wore clothes that were elegant and

moderate, neither brassy nor matronly, but designed to show tastefully that there was

still a beautiful woman inside them. The old Carmen had glittered from head to toe with

expensive jewelry; the new, while not shunning such displays of opulence, wore her

jewels one or two at a time in such a manner as to tastefully enhance, rather than clash

with, her outfit.

 

The Empress Irene was one of the newest and most luxurious starliners cruising the

spacelanes-the natural vehicle for a person like Carmen Velasquez to utilize on her

vacation trip to Vesa. Her suite was spacious, with plush carpeting and drapes, a

king-size bed and a bathtub longer than she was. For her particular convenience, the

rooms had even been specially rigged for ultra-grav. While the entire ship, except for

certain recreation areas, was under one gee of artificial gravity, her own suite had been

raised to three at her request. Since Carmen was ostensibly from Purity-a heavy-grav

world settled in part by religious fanatics who broke away from DesPlaines-her request

for the higher gravity was in no way surprising.

 

The voyage from Earth to Vesa was to take ten days, but from the very first Yvette

established herself as one of the people aboard. As lovely and wealthy as she was, she

was constantly invited to dine at the captain's table. When word got around that she was

single as well, men were lining up outside her door to escort her to dances or to offer to

be her partner in some of the many shipboard activities and sports. Yvette reveled in the

attention. After all, there was no law that a dangerous assignment had to be boring as

well.

 

On the fifth day out, Yvette met up with a very charming man from the planet Largo. His

name was Dak Lehman, he was an industrialist on vacation, and he was most girls' idea

of a dream man. In his early thirties, he was a blend of mature sophistication and boyish

enthusiasm. He knew all the social graces, and could converse with both wit and

intelligence. Even more important, he knew the value of good listening. When he was with

a woman she felt she had his entire attention; a flattering quality that made him the

delight of all the females aboard ship.

 

It was only natural, then, that the two most attractive people aboard the liner should find

one another and become instantly attracted. Dak took Yvette to the dinner dance that

fifth night, and the beautiful SOTE agent knew she was in for a delightful evening. Dak let

her do most of the talking during the meal, which Yvette didn't mind -it gave her a good

opportunity to practice her background story and polish it up for Vesa. She let her date

know that she was a widow at twenty-nine, but that her husband had left her exceedingly

wealthy. The mining operations that they had started together were now in the hands of

an efficient and honest business manager, so poor Carmen had nothing else to do but

travel around and enjoy herself. It was a carefully crafted story, designed to let would-be

murderers know that her disappearance would cause few ripples in the stream of life.

 

Dak listened sympathetically as she talked. "You look awfully young to be a widow," he

said when she'd finished. "I didn't know they'd set an age limit. Poor Carlos was buried

under a rockfall in one of our mines. His body was never recovered." Yvette allowed

herself a languid sigh.

 

"I still find it hard to believe that someone as worldly and sophisticated as you could have

come from Purity. Pd always heard that they were . . . well. . . .

 

"Try, 'stuffy,' 'provincial' or `boring.' Most fanatics are. I was raised that way myself, and

I still surprise myself with the traces every so often. Fortunately, money can teach you a

lot of things in a hurry-or at least buy you the teachers. Carlos and I decided we enjoyed

life too much to coop ourselves up with that Puritanical existence, so we left for Earth

seven years ago." She sniffed. "Poor Carlos. To have died so young, without knowing so

many of the pleasures.

 

At this point the orchestra began to play. Dak invited her out onto the dance floor, and

Yvette accepted happily. Both of them, it turned out, were superb dancers, their bodies

melding into one smooth movement that swayed with the rhythm of the music. Yvette's

body tingled as it pressed ever closer to Dak's. This was certainly one charming man,

the sort a woman could easily fall in love with.

 

When the dance ended, Dak guided Yvette out of the ballroom and into the adjoining

chamber known as the Cosmos Room. This was an open room twenty meters across

with a domed ceiling that rose ten meters up over the heads of the people inside. The

room was kept permanently darkened while a kaleidoscope of pinpoint lights played

across the dome, giving it the appearance of a psychedelic planetarium. Occasionally the

magnified picture of a nebula or foreign galaxy would appear, swooping downwards onto

the populace like a descending hawk.

 

Ostensibly the Cosmos Room was designed for meditation on the vastness of the

Universe; in point of fact, it served to spur the development of shipboard liaisons that

were part of a starliner's legendary appeal to romantics of both sexes.

 

Dak led Yvette to the hand railing along one wall and together they watched the light

show play across the dome for several minutes. It was Yvette who broke the silence.

"I've spent the entire evening so far talking about myself," she said. "How about letting

me know a little bit about you? Who is this fascinating fellow named Dak Lehman?.

 

Her date was strangely silent for a long moment, which Yvette found quite

uncharacteristic. Dak was never pressed for an answer in conversation. Yvette was

about to comment jokingly on his hesitation when she felt a strange prickly sensation on

the back of her neck. Someone was watching her; her agent's instinct was definite on

that point. Casually she shifted her body around so that she could look in the direction of

the stare without appearing to notice it. As her eyes peered through the darkness of the

room she could make out the shapes of two men. One was of normal height but slightly

portly, the other was tall and lanky. She couldn't make out much else in this poor light,

but they were definitely watching her. That was all they seemed interested in for now, so

Yvette filed the information away in her mind for later evaluation and turned her attention

back to Dak. She kept checking the watchers every few minutes, though, to make sure

they weren't up to something.

 

Dak had finally gotten around to answering her question. Yvette laid a hand gently over

his wrist as he spoke. "Oh, I'm not anybody too important, really. My father ran a small

voice writer manufacturing company on Largo. When I inherited it I expanded the

operation until we became the largest business machine company in that sector of

space. We've recently branched out still further into computers, and were doing

fantastically well there, too. I decided to get away from home for a while, before too

much success did me in. It can be pretty heady wine, but the social atmosphere was

getting rather stifling. I'm hoping Vesa will change that; I hear very few people ever win

anything there. It'll be a refreshing difference." "And there aren't any women in your life?.

 

Again, that slight pause. "No, no, not at present. I've always been too busy to let

anything really permanent develop. Sort of married to my work, you might say.

 

Yvette had put her hand on his wrist for a reason. As sensitive as she was she could act

as a human lie detector, picking up the small changes in pulse rate, the minute tensions in

the muscles that occurred when a person was ill at ease with what he was saying. It was

a trick she had learned years ago from her Uncle Marcel, the Circus' magician, to whom

it was an indispensable part of his mentalist act.

 

What she'd learned from "reading" Dak's wrist annoyed her. He did not seem to be

directly lying, but at the same time he was steering his way very carefully between the

pillars of -the truth. Not a single thing he'd said had been completely accurate. This

disturbed her, for she'd begun to find herself caring for him quite a bit.

 

From back in the ballroom the orchestra had struck up another dance tune. Yvette

suddenly found herself impatient with this time and place. "Let's go back and dance some

more," she said, taking her date firmly by the hand and leading him in the direction of the

dance floor. He offered no resistance whatsoever.

 

The two watchers vanished into the shadows as she moved back toward the ballroom,

and that disturbed her even more. Why were they watching me? she wondered. Do they

have anything to do with this case? But they couldn't have broken my cover this quickly.

 

Questions swarmed around her mind all evening, refusing to let her simply enjoy herself.

 

The next five days went by rapidly. For the most part they were very relaxing, with

Yvette spending most of her time in Dak's company. They conversed in trivial matters,

childhood experiences and gossip about the activities of their fellow passengers. They

played at the shipboard sports, and Yvette had to be supercareful not to let her physical

talents show too much. Their favorite pastime was "free-swimming" in the zero gee

room, a sport far superior to water swimming for several reasons: it could be done in

three dimensions without the heavy resistance of water, there was no drying off to do

afterwards, no special clothing to wear-in fact, free-swimming was usually done

nude-and there was absolutely no fear of drowning.

 

Yvette was used to freefall, having been traveling through space with the Circus since

she was a baby, but she rarely had the pleasure of enjoying it in a large room where she

could be free to soar and do acrobatics to her heart's content. She really came alive

while free-swimming, and her exuberance infected all those around her. She twisted and

spun and somersaulted in the air to the applause of her fellow passengers-who had no

idea they were watching the premiere aerialiste in the Galaxy.

 

"You certainly do that well," Dak remarked one time as his eyes admiringly tracked over

Yvette's lovely, svelte body.

 

Yvette flashed him her warmest smile. "Physical fitness has always been a passion of

mine. My body is my home and I have only the one-I want to take care of it as best I

can." She spent the rest of that day teaching Dak the basics of her art. He was an apt

pupil, and after only a couple of hours they were performing together in an acceptable, if

not totally polished, manner.

 

The only thing that marred the blissful perfection of those last few days was the

continued presence of those two shadowy watchers. At first, Yvette noticed them only

when she was together with Dak-a pair of indistinct forms observing them discreetly from

a vantage point where they themselves could only barely be seen. But after a while, as

her relationship with Dak deepened, one or the other of them was with her almost

constantly.

 

For convenience' sake, she named the tall one Gaspard and the fat one Murgatroyd, and

tried every trick she knew to bring them out into the open-to no avail. She tried ducking

around corners and doubling back on them, but they were wise to that trick and refused

to be caught. She tried mingling in large crowds and open rooms, but they were equally

adept at mingling and remained hidden while watching her. She was able to shake them

off her trail temporarily several times, but on a closed ship there were only so many

places she could go and they always picked her up again within a couple of hours.

 

Who are they? she found herself wondering more and more. They're damned good, I'll

give them credit for that. Could they be a part of the conspiracy I'm here to investigate?

There's no evidence to suggest that the mob has advance scouts on the ships coming

into Vesa-but that doesn't mean they don't. Whoever they are, they give me purple fits.

 

It was now the last night of the voyage. Tomorrow the Empress Irene would be docking

on Vesa and Yvette's real work would begin; but as for tonight, she just wanted to relax

and enjoy herself. She and Dak had a marvelous dinner and their conversation was freer

than any they'd had before. A couple of times Yvette saw a dark thought pass behind her

date's eyes and he almost came out and told her what it was. But something made him

hold back, and he would change the subject abruptly. Yvette, feeling it was not her place

to pry, said nothing.

 

After dinner they walked slowly about the ship, arms around each other's waists, not

saying much of anything. When they came to the elevator tube where they would have to

part to go to their respective suites, Dak invited her to come to his for the night instead.

Yvette hesitated, then turned him down politely, citing her recent widowhood as an

excuse. "As I said, occasionally my Puritan upbringing comes through and surprises even

me. Your offer is tempting, but Carlos' death was so recent. . . :' She let her voice trail

off wistfully.

 

"I understand," Dak said softly. He turned toward her, gazing down into her beautiful

face, and both his arms wrapped around her. Their bodies were pressed together for a

silent sensual minute before he spoke again. "I'm usually so well spoken that when a

genuine emotion comes my way I sometimes get choked up. This is one of those times. I

know there's a mystique about shipboard romances, and it's something I've been

consciously fighting -but I've lost. Carmen, I think I'm in love with you. Will you marry

me?.

 

Yvette found herself suddenly with tears in her eyes. "Your speechlessness must be

contagious," she stammered. "The only thing that comes to my mind is the old cliche that

this is all so sudden. I don't know what to think. You deserve a better answer than that, I

know, but that's all I can give you at the moment.

 

Dak shrugged. "I'm not expecting an answer tonight. Maybe in the cold light of morning

on Vesa we'll think how silly we were to mistake desire for love. Let's both just think

about it for a while, shall we?.

 

"I can't think of a pleasanter subject to think about," Yvette replied.

 

The two stood by the elevator tube for a long minute with their bodies held closely

together, luxuriating in the feel of one another's warmth. Then Dak bent his head down to

hers and their lips met in a passionate kiss.

 

Yvette's whole body was still tingling from that kiss as she went up the tube and then

made her way down the long corridor to her suite. Her mind was in a pleasant haze of

confusion brought on by a conflict between her emotions and her rational mind. Her

feelings were telling her that here at last was a man she could love. She was twenty-nine

years old and still single; among the prolific d'Alembert clan that was considered slightly

unusual. She had had her share of romantic entanglements, but never before had the

magic spark burned so brightly as now: Dak Lehman was handsome, intelligent,

charming, pleasant, wealthy, available, and in love with her. The combination couldn't get

more perfect than that. It didn't matter that her father, besides managing the Circus, was

also the Duke of the entire planet of DesPlaines and that she herself was a Lady of the

Realm. There was no stigma attached to marrying a commoner; in some circles, in fact,

it was actively encouraged.

 

The one fact she could not ignore, however, was that Dak Lehman was not a

DesPlainian. It was not chauvinism but practicality that made that point so important.

Dak's home planet of Largo had a surface gravity approximately equal to Earth's, while

Yvette came from a world three times as strong. He could never live comfortably on her

home world; even in peak physical condition as he was now, he would be largely

incapacitated. In ten, twenty, thirty years he would become a hopeless cripple.

 

Yvette would be able to tolerate the low gravity of other worlds much better, but there

would still be complications. People from high-grav worlds tended to develop bone

diseases when they moved permanently to smaller ones. She herself could wind up an

arthritic cripple-a fate she didn't relish. Plus, she would have to go into a self-imposed

exile from all the friends and family she felt closest to.

 

There was the question, too, of relative strength. She had had to be very careful thus far

in their relationship not to use her full strength. Even in the midst of their most passionate

embrace she had had to hold off using her power, for fear of cracking several of his ribs.

If they were to be married she would be living with that fear constantly, afraid to let

herself go completely because she might hurt or even kill him. It was this collection of

doubts that tempered her ecstasy as she fished in her purse to find her key.

 

But I do love him, she realized.

 

As she pulled the magnetic key from her purse and was about to run it over the surface

of the door's lock, she noticed a light shining out from under the doorframe. She distinctly

remembered turning out the lights as she'd left her room four hours ago . . . and these

lights were not automatically timed to go on by themselves.

 

Instantly all thoughts of Dak Lehman were banished from her mind and she was once

again Yvette d'Alembert, top agent for the Service of the Empire. Business was at hand.

Some person or persons had broken into her room, had turned on a light and had left it

on. It could be a simple burglary and the thief may have departed hours ago, but she

could not afford to take that chance. Searching back through her memory, she suddenly

realized one reason why this evening had seemed so carefree--her two menacing

shadows had not been following her. It had perplexed her slightly at first, but she had

forgotten it in the delightful evening that followed. Now it was all suddenly clear. They had

not followed her because they were setting an ambush in her own room. Yvette was glad

she had not accepted Dak's proposition. She'd been getting very nervous about these

two faceless ones for some time now but had been unable to initiate action. Now it was

finally they who were starting something, and Yvette resolved to be the one to finish it.

 

Her analytical mind raced, deciding what strategy she should take. The hall was normally

quiet and she had made no attempt to silence her footsteps, so Gaspard and

Murgatroyd would know she was presently standing outside the door. They would be

taking no chances-their guns would be trained on the door to shoot her the instant she

opened it. Blasters or stunners, it would make no difference; they would be trying to

incapacitate her somehow.

 

But they would be aiming at a target standing in the doorway, because that was the

normal way people entered a room. They would probably aim fairly low, waist height or

lower-to ensure a hit. But there might be another way to enter a room. . . .

 

Looking quickly around, Yvette spotted what she wanted. All starliners were equipped

with series of handholds for emergency use in case their artificial gravity failed. These

had been made to blend in with the decor, but they were there and would be sturdy

enough for what she had in mind. She fixed in her mind the position of the one just above

her door and braced herself for action.

 

She rubbed the magnetic key across the surface of the lock, but did not stick around to

await the results. Instead, she leaped for the handhold above her door. As the door slid

silently open, she could hear the low buzzing of stun-guns discharging, firing at the spot

where she should by all rights have been standing. Instead, the beams passed

harmlessly through the air and vibrated against the opposite wall of the corridor.

 

Yvette grabbed the handhold firmly and used it as a pivot point. Taking advantage of the

forward momentum of her leap, she swung her legs forward and to the side, through the

upper half of the portal, and landed out of the line of fire next to a chair. As she was

descending, she noted that her ambushers had turned the gravity in her room back down

to one gee, obviously for their own convenience. What they did not realize was that the

lower gravity would also make it easier for her to fight them.

 

The two men had stationed themselves three meters apart against the far wall and were

aiming at the doorway to catch her in a vee crossfire. Yvette's brain assimilated that

knowledge in a fraction of a second and plotted her next move accordingly. She did not

pause as she landed, but instead bent her legs under her as springs, using the force of

her impact as the impetus for another leap. She flew across the room toward the man

she'd name Murgatroyd, twisting catlike in midair as she did so; by the time she reached

him, her feet were in front of her to cushion her landing. At the same time her right hand

lashed out sideways and the edge of it delivered a vicious blow to the side of the man's

neck. Had she not deliberately pulled the punch at the last second the neck would have

snapped; as it was, Murgatroyd reeled and fell unconscious to the floor while Yvette, in

one fluid motion, spun herself around and launched herself at the other gunman.

 

This fellow was the one she'd called Gaspard, and his reflexes were good. Yvette's

attack on his companion had given him the split second he needed to recover from the

surprise of her entrance and begin to turn in her direction. Even so, his reflexes were no

match for those of a DesPlainian in peak condition.

 

Just as he swiveled and brought his gun up level to fire, Yvette was on top of him,

seventy kilograms of infuriated mass. The impact of her body knocked them both to the

ground, and a quick jab of her stiffened fingers just under his ribcage knocked the air out

of his lungs and the fight out of his spirit.

 

As the second man went limp, Yvette breathed a small sigh of relief and got to her feet.

A sudden motion caught her eye at the very limit of her peripheral vision, but before she

could turn to see what it was she heard the buzzing of a stun-gun. Paralysis numbed her

body and she fell, limp-boned, face forward onto the carpeting. The hidden gunman must

have used a number one setting on his stunner, the minimum possible, because Yvette

did not lose consciousness. All that happened was that her voluntary muscles refused to

obey her strenuous demands to act, leaving her lying helpless in the middle of the floor.

The fact that her assailant had used so low a setting was encouraging-he could just as

easily have killed her-but it was little consolation to her at this particular moment.

 

Yvette was furious at herself for having been so stupid. Just because she had only seen

two followers before didn't mean that there only were two. She had allowed her own

self-confidence to lure her into a false assumption; she should never have relaxed her

guard until she'd checked the room thoroughly to make sure there were no other

attackers hiding in it. In the deadly game of espionage, a player was usually allowed only

one mistake, because one was usually fatal. Yvette was praying that would not be the

case this time, and 'she swore she would never make such a stupid blunder again.

 

As she lay there she could hear the approaching footsteps of the person who'd shot her.

She could not turn her head to see, but soon a pair of men's shoes stepped into her field

of vision. "You are to be congratulated, Gospozha Velasquez; you fought better than

anyone would have expected. We underestimated you, and that's something I hate to do.

Rest assured, that will not happen again.

 

"I should begin, I suppose, by telling you that we mean you no harm personally. That

sounds ludicrous in view of our ambush, I know, but all our stunners were set on one. We

merely wanted to have a talk with you without your interrupting or objecting. We are

reasonable men.

 

The voice paused as the stranger took one step backwards and sat down on the edge of

her bed. "We've noticed, in the last couple of days, that you've taken an inordinate

interest in Gospodin Lehman. As it turns out, we also have an interest in Gospodin

Lehman, and we become-how shall I say it?-jealous when other people enter the picture.

We would strongly prefer it, Gospozha Velasquez, if you would refrain from seeing

Gospodin Lehman again. We know how these shipboard romances can happen-as I

said, we are reasonable men-and if you never see Gospodin Lehman again you will

never see us again, either.

 

"You are about to vacation on Vesa, one of the Galaxy's greatest playgrounds. There will

be more than ample opportunity to forget all about Gospodin Lehman. You are a very

attractive woman, Gospozha Velasquez, and I have no doubt there will be scores of

handsome men throwing themselves at your feet to compensate for the one you must

give up. You are also an intelligent woman, which is why I will not belabor the point of

how upset my friends and I would be if you should disregard our suggestions.

 

The man stood up again and came over to Gaspard. The tall man had not been knocked

completely unconscious by Yvette's blow-she had been meaning to question him about

his reasons for following her-and had been quietly retching while his comrade was

speaking. Now he was slowly picking himself up, aided by his friend. Together, the two

of them went over and inspected Murgatroyd, who was still out cold.

 

Picking up their fallen companion, the two men headed for the door. As they stopped on

the threshold, the one who had done all the talking said, "Again, I offer our apologies for

the disturbance, Gospozha Velasquez. We hope you have a pleasant vacation on Vesa.

 

By the time the effects of the stunner wore off some ten minutes later it would be

impossible to track down the men. Yvette had to settle for lying awake in her bed all

night, staring up at the darkened ceiling and planning exactly what she would do to that

trio the next time she ran into them.

 

CHAPTER 5

Accidents

 

Jules' second day at work on Vesa was much calmer than the first. The air was very

quiet; even people who hadn't participated in the previous day's brawl were walking on

eggshells, afraid to set off the dynamite that they knew instinctively was still buried in the

personalities of the men involved. A fragile tension buzzed through the air like a noisy fly

uncertain where to light.

 

Adding to the problem was the fact that the crew was shorthanded today. Brownsend

did not show up for work, and a quick call to his apartment by Fizcono yielded no results.

"Probably nursing his wounds," the big man muttered. "He didn't look so good when he

went home yesterday. He'd better be back tomorrow, though, or he's fired. I won't

tolerate jackdandles around here.

 

Rask went around sullenly, not speaking more than a couple of words to anyone as he

suited up. It was obvious he felt unfairly punished for the fracas-after all, it had been the

Chandakhari who had attacked first; he'd just tried to protect his friend, and had been

docked a week's pay for it. The injustice of it all grated harshly on his ego.

 

The Chandakhari, in turn, were even more stand-offish, more clique-ish, more withdrawn

from the other workers. The young man who'd begun the actual fighting-Jules

remembered now that his name was Radapur-stood aloof and proud, glaring

occasionally across at Rask with a semi-sneer across his lips.

 

Jules was in the worst position of all, because nobody was quite sure where he stood on

the matter. During the fight he had come to the aid of both sides, and had earned enmity

each way. No one could bring himself to completely trust this newcomer, and so he

became the outcast for the day.

 

That was all just as well as far as he was concerned, because he had a good deal of

thinking to do. He had gone out yesterday after work, checking out the bars in the

shadier portions of the underground city. He had not been able to cover 'it all in one night,

of course; the settlement that was Vesa comprised millions of square kilometers of

caverns and corridors, with more being added all the time as the moon's wealth grew.

But even though he'd just seen a tiny fraction of the life here, a picture was beginning to

emerge that puzzled him greatly.

 

Vesa had quite a scandalous reputation throughout the Galaxy as a gambler's haven, a

world of iniquity, where anything goes as long as the customer has enough rubles to pay

the price. Based on this reputation, Jules had expected to find the private life on Vesa

equally lascivious and wild. Instead, he found it just the reverse. The permanent

inhabitants of Vesa were, on the whole, a clean-living bunch. The handful of bars he

visited were orderly and sedate, with little raucous laughter and no fights breaking out at

an instant's notice. There were the usual drunks and dyevkas, but they seemed

somehow set apart from the run of the ordinary people.

 

Jules saw little evidence, on that quick skim, of any major corruption, let alone an

enormous conspiracy to kill tourists. How could so quiet and civilized a people be

responsible for what all the evidence indicated was happening.

 

On the other hand, there was still the fascinating development of what happened during

the fight. Those Chandakhari had reacted like a well-rehearsed fighting unit. Each man

had known exactly where to go and what to do when the trouble started. That was not

the sort of thing he would expect of a group of farm peasants, or even dockmen used to

barroom brawls. There was a military precision to their actions that was frightening. The

Chandakhari would, Jules decided, bear closer inspection.

 

The first part of the day went evenly enough, even if the tension among the work crew

was thick enough to cut with a butter knife. Shortly after the lunch break, though, a minor

explosion occurred. One of the Chandakhari was using his crane to swing a cargo

section out of a ship's hold and onto the flatbed carrier. It was Rask's assignment to

clear the space for the section and guide it home, while others of the workers helped

steady the box. Somehow a signal was missed on one side or another, and the box went

tumbling out of control from the crane. It landed with a noiseless thud that jarred the

soles of everyone's feet, not on the carrier but on the floor of the crater itself. The impact

was more than the container was built to withstand, and it smashed open, scattering its

contents all over the airless surface.

 

Rask's anger flared like a supernova. "You filthy little kulyak!" he screamed over the

radio circuits for all the men to hear. "You missed my mark on purpose!.

 

The Chandakhar crane operator, a man named Forakhi, did not take kindly to being

compared with one of the least sanitary animals of the Galaxy, and yelled something

back in his own native tongue. It must have been pretty vile, because the other

Chandakhari seemed to wither at its usage. Then the crane man continued, "I didn't miss

your mark-you deliberately gave me the wrong one so that I would drop the box." "Are

you calling me a liar?" Rask roared.

 

Suddenly the presence of Laz Fizcono had insinuated itself between the two arguing

men, and that was a presence to be reckoned with. "I don't want to hear any more talk

of things being done intentionally," the big man bellowed, drowning out the noises Forakhi

and Rask were making. "I was watching it all very closely, and it was an accident pure

and simple. We're all tense today; we'll have to try harder to avoid mistakes.

 

He turned to look at the cargo that had spilled over the floor of the crater. The ruined

container had been filled with lettuce, tens of thousands of heads that now lay ruined all

around the carrier. Since lettuce is composed mostly of water, the harsh glare of Vesa's

sunlight and the open vacuum combined to sizzle all the juices out of the scattered heads

and turn them almost instantly into disgusting lumps of brownish green slime.

 

"What we need to do right now," the forman continued, "is get this mess cleaned up so

that we can get on with our work." He turned to Jules. "DuChamps, I want you, Hastings,

Ktobu and Hassahman to clear out the area. Get rid of this stuff before it gets fried

completely to the ground. Me, I've got to go fill out the insurance forms on this, and that

always gives me a headache. The rest of you men can continue with what you were

doing; an accident is no excuse to stop working.

 

Jules and his there designated coworkers set about their new task at once. Racing back

to the hangar where equipment was stored, they located the special unit they needed

and drove it out to the site of the mishap. This machine, called the "scraper," was

essentially a tractor with a sharp edged flattened front that acted as a huge dustpan. As

it drove forward it scraped the frying lettuce heads off the smooth ground and, when

enough had been collected, it lifted them over the heads of the crew and deposited them

in a large bin. Jules and Ktobu went ahead of the machine, helping to guide the refuse

into it while Hassahman drove and Hastings tamped down the bin after every filling.

 

"What do we do with all this garbage once we pick it up?" Jules wondered aloud. "Does

it just get burned, or what?.

 

Ktobu shook his head. "Can't afford to waste it like that. The recycling center comes and

picks up the bin." Once Ktobu pointed out the obvious, the solution made eminent sense

to Jules. Vesa, as an airless moon, was a closed society. There were probably small

hydroponic gardens scattered about growing a small percentage of the food consumed

here, but most of it had to be imported from Chandakha and elsewhere. All organic

matter was potentially edible, and none could be allowed to be wasted. In order to cut

down on the amount of importation, there would have to be a recycling plant to sort

through the organic refuse and salvage as much of it as possible for future use. All

airless worlds had such systems, but Jules had not visited too many and had never given

the matter close consideration before now.

 

It took the rest of that work shift and a half hour of overtime besides to clean up the

mess that had been made. Fizcono, efficient as ever, had put in an order for a truck from

the recycling plant, and it arrived just at the time Jules and his crew brought the scraper

with its bin filled to overflowing back to the hangar. The white-clad recycler attendants

went silently about their business of transferring the refuse from the bin to their truck,

then drove off with hardly a word. "Are they always that brusque?" Jules asked Fizcono.

 

The big man nodded. "It's almost a caste situation," he explained. "The caste system

was officially ended long before Chandakha was settled, but social taboos sometimes

take a very long time to die, especially among such traditionalist people. Because the

workers at the recycling plant handle wastes and dead matter, they're ritually unclean

and are shunned by most of the rest of society. People just prefer not to have too much

to do with them." He shrugged his massive shoulders. "Can't say I blame 'em much,

either. It's a pretty disgusting occupation, once you think about it.

 

As soon as Jules clocked out he went back to his cheap hotel room, changed his clothes

and went out for another night of barhopping. The situation was much as he had found it

the night before-entirely too quiet. He did overhear a few conversations indicating that

there was some criminal activity on the moon, but it was of a routine sort: drugs, theft,

prostitution and extortion. The local police were-or should be-able to keep that under

control; Jules was looking for bigger game. And it was nowhere to be found.

 

I'll have to try a new direction, he thought wearily as he came home and climbed into his

bed. There's got to be a hook to this affair somehow. Thirty-five people a day are

vanishing. There's got to be an organization around doing it-and if there is, they'll have to

surface somewhere.

 

He fell asleep quickly, but got little rest that night; dreams of indeterminate murders

tossed him all about the bed.

 

It was a chore just to drag himself to work the next day. His lack of success at finding

clues about the conspiracy was depressing him, and the thought of another eight hours

on the job sandwiched between two warring factions only added to the feeling of

malaise. He toyed with the idea of dropping the job and spending all his time

investigating; he certainly didn't need the money, and the hours spent at the dock were

detracting from both his time and his stamina for his real work. But, attractive as that

idea was, he let it go past with only a sigh of regret. Being a secret agent, he knew, was

ninety-nine percent legwork. He needed a basic identity in case he got into trouble, and

he shouldn't be letting the glamor of the field go to his head. This dull job, too, came with

the territory.

 

He arrived five minutes late, and almost everyone else was suited up. As he quickly

scurried into his own spacesuit, he looked around and noticed that they were two hands

short today-not only was Brownsend still absent, but so was Rask. "Where is

everybody?" he asked.

 

"There's still no word from Brownsend," Fizcono growled. Clearly he was not happy at

having to work shorthanded. "I'm putting him on suspension for now and requisitioning a

new hand from one of the other teams until he either comes back or we replace him

permanently." The tone of his voice made it plain that he considered the latter possibility

preferable.

 

"As for Rask," the foreman went on, "I don't know exactly where he is. His suit's gone

from his locker, which means he might have gone outside early. That's not like him at all;

he's competent, but doesn't have that much initiative. I've tried raising him on the radio,

but he doesn't answer, so your guess is as good as mine as to where he is." The big

man shook his head. "Don't you go temperamental on me too, duChamps, or I'll have a

nervous breakdown.

 

The new man that Fizcono had requisitioned would not be able to join them until later in

the shift, so the work crew went out onto the field two short. As usual, the Chandakhari

stayed in a group by themselves, talking but little and being very introspective. They

walked to the mobile crane that was their particular specialty and set out across the

open crater toward the ship they were currently working on. Jules, Fizcono and the rest

followed slightly behind in the flatbed carrier that was to hold the unloaded cargo.

 

Jules had let his mind go pleasantly blank as a relaxation technique during the mildly

jostling ride, but suddenly a movement from the right brought his attention back to full

alert. From behind two nearby ships, the small scraper suddenly darted out at full speed

and launched itself toward the mobile crane. It was only traveling at twenty kilometers an

hour, hardly a breakneck pace, but even so it was lighter and more maneuverable than

the vehicle it was approaching.

 

Fizcono spotted the scraper at almost the same instant Jules did. "What in hell's going on

out there?" he exclaimed.

 

Jules' sharp eyes had focused on the driver of the vehicle. "It's Rask," he said curtly. "I

think he's going to ram the crane.

 

The words that burst from Fizcono's lips were in a slang peculiar to spacemen and

dockworkers, and they expressed his displeasure in particularly graphic terms that would

have burned the ears off more sensitive listeners. Jules was familiar with this brand of

swearing, so it wouldn't have bothered him even if he'd been listening -which he wasn't.

He was never one who could sit idly by and watch something happen; even as he was

telling Fizcono what Rask was intending, he had started into action.

 

The crane was about ten meters ahead of the carrier on which the SOTE agent had

been riding. With a slight running start, Jules leaped from the front edge of his vehicle

toward the crane. His spring had been carefully gauged to utilize Vesa's low gravity to

the fullest extent. The arc of his flight was a low, flat one, because he knew that the

higher he went, the longer it would take him to come down and the further the crane

would have traveled in the meantime. Even so, it seemed to take forever to his

speeded-up senses before he approached the crane; objects fell much more slowly on

Vesa.

 

While still along his arc he called out over the radio, "Everybody off the crane! Rask

means business." At the same time, he twisted his body around in a quick acrobatic

maneuver so that he would land on the crane feet first. And, while his attention was on

his landing spot, he nonetheless had time to give a couple of quick glances to see what

the scraper was doing.

 

Rask was driving the smaller vehicle in a most uneven manner. While there was no

question of what its target was, the course it was taking weaved along the floor of the

crater as though the driver had only partial control. Its motion was also slightly uneven,

accelerating in a series of rapid jerks rather than a smooth pace.

 

That didn't matter. The scraper would still strike the crane with an impact that would

cause major damage. And in the vacuum on the surface of Vesa, any accident could be

fatal.

 

The crane stopped moving shortly before Jules reached it, as the Chandakhari aboard

realized what was happening. After an initial moment of surprise, they reacted in

accordance with Jules' suggestion, clambering off the crane as quickly as they could.

Being in suits made it both difficult and dangerous, for quick movement around machinery

could easily lead to a tear in the material, which in turn led to instant death. Still, Jules

was encouraged and relieved to see just how fast they could move.

 

Jules landed with his knees bent to cushion the impact and grabbed at a nearby strut to

stabilize himself. Then, with the momentum of his leap dispersed, he ran forward to the

crane's cab and took the controls.

 

Rask was coming broadside at the crane for maximum impact. There was no way a

crash could be avoided the crane moved entirely too slow to dodge-but it was Jules' plan

to try to turn the big crane through as large an angle as possible. The collision with the

scraper would not be as catastrophic if the angle of impact were less than ninety

degrees.

 

There was no sound on the airless surface of Vesa, but the noise of the gears grinding

was very strong in Jules' imagination as he pushed hard at the controls. Rask's scraper

was only a couple dozen meters away and closing the distance rapidly. The caterpillar

treads of the crane shuddered as Jules forced them beyond their level of tolerance. Five,

ten degrees the crane turned, and then it was too late. The scraper struck the side of the

crane with the full force of its twenty-metric-ton mass.

 

Jules abandoned his position the instant before the crash occurred-he had no intention of

being tossed around inside the cab and possibly having his spacesuit ripped. He was out

the open door and standing on the side of the crane when the impact happened. The

force of the collision transmitted itself through his feet and jarred his whole body. His

head was so badly shaken that his teeth threatened to break loose and roll around in his

mouth like dice on a gaming table. A sudden stab of pain lanced through his left leg just

below the knee, where it was still recovering from its previous injury; Jules winced as the

leg buckled slightly under him, and he grabbed a nearby strut for support.

 

As Rask's vehicle had hit the crane, he had activated the lift mechanism of the scraper

blade, hoping to be able to overturn the larger machine. The crane rocked and trembled,

and Jules was afraid for one instant that Rask might actually accomplish his goal; but the

crane was simply too massive, and after a couple of seconds Rask abandoned that

effort in favor of new mayhem.

 

Radapur, the young Chandakhar who had started the fight two days ago, had jumped

away from the crane with the rest of his colleagues, and was now by himself on foot

some fifteen meters away. Rask saw this and, backing away from the crane, he

propelled his scraper in the direction of the lone Chandakhar.

 

Judging from the relative positions, Jules realized that there was no way anyone else

could reach Radapur before Rask's scraper did. He would have to act on his own to save

the lad. He tried to yell out a warning, but by this time the radio band was so full of

yelling and epithets that no individual voices could be heard. Giving his left leg a quick

test, he decided it was ready enough for action, so he braced himself to move once

more.

 

Above and in front of him, some twenty-five meters off the ground, dangled the sky hook

of the crane. Jules took a slight running start and, with legs curled under him like tightly

coiled springs, he leaped upward for it.

 

Even considering Vesa's light gravity it would have been an impossible feat for anyone

from an Earthlike world but Jules was a DesPlainian and trained in the expert use of his

physical abilities. Centuries of genetic adaptation and a lifetime of physical conditioning

were implied in the force of his leap, and he made it with energy to spare.

 

He grabbed at the hook as he would a trapeze, and his forward momentum caused it to

sway a bit. By leaning his body in the proper direction he was able to increase the swing

slightly, although the hook was far more massive than any trapeze he'd even worked

with. Slowly, very slowly, his pendulum was making longer and longer swings, building up

the momentum he would need for one more leap.

 

Down on the ground, the scraper was closing in on Radapur. Slow as that vehicle was, it

could still outrun a man. The young Chandakhar was using a stall tactic of leaping high

into the air to get out of the machine's path, but that tactic could only be used for so long,

because he would come down so slowly that Rask bad time to position himself closer to

the landing spot. It would only be a matter of a few seconds before the maddened driver

flattened his quarry.

 

The hook he was riding was now swinging to Jules' satisfaction. Holding his timing until

just the proper moment on the downswing, Jules let go of his perch and soared out over

the empty crater toward the moving scraper. His aim bad to be exceedingly accurate,

since be was not working in an atmosphere that would let him make minor course

corrections by adjusting his body position for variable air resistance.

 

Rask was apparently tiring of his hit-and-run game with Radapur, now, for he had

stopped his vehicle and was standing up, pulling a blaster from his belt. He fired off a

couple of bolts in Radapur's direction, but missed by wide margins. This erratic firing,

coupled with Rask's earlier insane driving, led Jules to the inescapable conclusion that

the man was either drunk or drugged.

 

Rask's stopping the scraper threw off Jules' calculations slightly, and his downward

descent was a little forward of the mark. As he came down over Rask's head, though,

the SOTS agent managed to kick out with his right foot and knock the blaster from the

man's hand. The gun went sailing through the airless sky to land harmlessly on the

ground some fifteen meters away.

 

Jules came down two meters in front of the scraper and rolled, being extremely careful

to take the brunt of the shock on the tough parts of his suit-gloves and boots. Springing

once more to his feet, he spun lightly around to face his antagonist.

 

Most of the yelling over the communications band had died down now, and Jules could

make out Rask's voice. The man was ranting away at the top of his lungs. ". . .

murderers, all of them. You must be one, too. You all killed Brownsend." Then he

launched himself at Jules.

 

The circus star easily sidestepped the oncoming body and grabbed it as it went by.

Flinging it around with one hand like a rag doll, he pulled back with his other hand and

landed a closed-fist blow right under Rask's ribs. The man's eyes bugged out inside his

helmet and air was forced from his lungs. His body went limp as all the fight apparently

drained out of him.

 

Jules lowered Rask's body gently to the ground and sat straddling him. "What's gotten

into you, anyhow?" he asked angrily. "I want an explanation for this.

 

The defeated man gasped several times like a fish out of water before he could speak

again. Finally he got enough air in his lungs to say, "They killed him! Those damned

Chandies killed him!.

 

"Killed who?.

 

"Brownsend. I went to his apartment last night. There was no trace of him or his things.

Landlord said he just left a note saying he was leaving, but I know better. Those

drapping Chandies killed him and cleaned him out to cover it up. They never did like him.

I'll kill them all, every last drapping one of them!" Rask started struggling again, but Jules

held the man's arms tightly to his sides and thought.

 

Rask's hypothesis struck a very surprising note. What he was describing seemed to be

the modus operandi of the very gang Jules had been sent here to investigate.

 

Could it be that he'd stumbled on the gang totally by accident.

 

But even as he thought that, he could see that it was not the whole picture. The seven

Chandakhari worked an eight-hour shift here. Assuming they spent another eight hours

on such necessities as eating and sleeping, that meant they would have to be killing the

average thirty-five people a day in only another eight hours. A rampage of death like that

could not be missed even by the tourists, let alone the police. No, the seven Chandakhari

working here were not the entire group he was after.

 

On the other hand, any doubts he had about their being involved were rapidly

evaporating. He remembered back to the fight that had taken place two days ago and

recalled how impressed he had been with their coordination. That they were a well-drilled

team he had no doubts at all. They had almost been able to kill him, despite his

considerable skills. These were not innocent farmers and dockhands-not at all.

 

So intent was Jules in his thoughts that Rask was able to catch him by surprise. With a

burst of strength that only a madman could muster, he gave one violent jerk that bucked

Jules off his body, scrambled to his feet and began racing off in the direction of his fallen

blaster. The SOTE agent recovered his balance quickly and started after him, but was

too late to avert the tragedy that was coming up.

 

The Chandakhari had formed as a group by now and interposed themselves between

Rask and his gun. He hit their lines like a maniac, arms waving madly in all directions.

They withstood his assault, grabbing for his limbs and immobilizing them by pinning them

to his body. Then, even as he struggled furiously against their grip on him, the

Chandakhari picked him up bodily and ran him over toward the scraper. With cold fury

they rammed him solidly into the machine.

 

Rask howled, a scream that would have curdled molten lead, as a large section was

ripped away from his spacesuit. Jules instinctively brought his hands up to cover his ears,

even though his head was solidly encased inside his helmet. The dying man's shriek

pierced like an arrow through Jules' brain. It vanished quickly, though, and was replaced

by a few sucking sounds as the air whooshed out of Rask's suit. Then silence.

 

As Jules reached them, the Chandakhari slowly lowered Rask's lifeless body to the

ground. Jules looked around the group at the faces within the helmets, and saw not the

slightest trace of remorse in any of them.

 

CHAPTER 6

Vesa Vice

 

When the Empress Irene docked on Vesa, Yvette was too busy packing up her luggage

and supervising its removal from the ship to look for Dak Lehman. She had gotten little

sleep that night, intent as she was on thinking about the attack in her suite. She was able

to come to no conclusion whatsoever about the men who'd ambushed her. There was the

possibility that they were some sort of advance scouts for the murderous conspiracy she

was here to investigate, selecting their target before he even arrived on Vesa. If that

were so, it would imply an even larger organization than anyone suspected, one with

Galaxy-wide connections. Such scouts would perhaps try to chase away anyone who got

involved with their target, since it would add a complication to their plans-as well as

someone who. might raise a hue and cry if the victim turned up missing.

 

That solution was farfetched, but possible. Yvette wondered at the logistics, though.

After all, the expense of sending out teams of scouts to line up targets in that way would

not be a paying venture. So many rich people visited Vesa anyhow that it would seem

much more feasible to pick and choose among potential victims once they were

on-planet.

 

What seemed more likely to her was that she happened to stumble into the middle of a

situation that was independent of the Vesa problem. Those three blasterbats had not

really been interested in her at all, but merely in the fact that she was becoming involved

with Dak Lehman. They had not started following her until after she'd begun dating Dak,

and even then they'd taken no active role until they'd established that something might

come of the relationship. And at that, their warning to her had been extremely gentle, all

things considered. They could just as easily have killed her, she knew. And they wanted

her to know that.

 

She spent a good deal of that night wondering how to respond to the warning. Her

d'Alembert pride had been injured, and that clan was known as particularly stiffnecked.

She did not like being threatened, and she did not like appearing as though she were

giving in. Yvette had a strong contempt for weak-willed women who pretended to be at

the mercy of big, strong men; she was living proof of equality between the sexes and

hated having to subordinate herself.

 

Dak was obviously in some kind of trouble. Three expert men wouldn't suddenly start

following him around just for the hell of it. Dak himself seemed to know something; Yvette

recalled all the times when he'd started to tell her something, only to shy away and go

silent at the last moment. What could be the matter with this seemingly ideal man? She

cared a great deal about him, and was caring more every day; she couldn't just stand by

while he was in danger and not make a move to help him.

 

But yet, she had a job of her own to do. Dak's problem could very well be independent of

hers-and if that were the case, it would be unwise of her to get mixed up in it. Fighting on

two fronts at once was not terribly smart, if it could be avoided.

 

Finally she just decided to take a wait-and-see attitude. She would not seek out Dak and

his problems-but if he should come to her, she would not avoid them. The d'Alembert

family did not believe in dodging responsibility.

 

After the usual hectic debarking procedures and a short wait going through customs,

Yvette had her luggage sent to the Hotel Regulus where she had booked her

reservations in advance. The Regulus was one of the hundreds of plush hotels on Vesa

that specialized in catering to rich tourists visiting this gambler's paradise, and they knew

how to treat a guest well-particularly one as wealthy as Carmen Velasquez. In no time at

all, after crossing a number of palms with ten-ruble tips, Yvette found herself installed in

her twelfth level suite. Looking around at the large group of rooms, including a living

room, bedroom with imperial-sized bed, and spacious bathroom, she felt the slightest

tinge of a letdown. Traveling on a first-class liner like the Empress Irene must have really

spoiled me, she mused.

 

She was here to work, though, not luxuriate, and she'd better set about it. Enough time

had already been wasted on the trip here. For all she knew, her brother might have

wrapped up the case already.

 

The first thing she did was phone down to the desk and ask them to send up a newsroll.

It arrived while she was still unpacking, and she sat down to read it at once. She glanced

avidly through the personal ads, but there was nothing there yet. If Jules had wanted to

contact her, be would have placed an ad signed "Frenchie." No such ad existed, which

meant that he had not yet reached any conclusions strong enough to tell her about-either

that or he was in no condition to place any ads in the paper. She dismissed that thought

from her mind almost the instant it came up. Jules could take care of himself.

 

As soon as she'd finished her unpacking chores, Yvette decided to go out and

immediately taste some of the pleasures that Vesa had to offer. The stack of guidebooks

she had brought along told her of some of the better casinos in the area near her hotel,

and she checked off three that interested her the most. Then she changed her clothes

preparatory to making her debut in Vesan society.

 

Her basic outfit was a jumpsuit made from a patterned brocade fabric of deep rose and

gold. Gold boots covered her feet and a belt of gold squares set with pearls circled her

waist, holding up a red velvet purse. The turtleneck collar of her jumpsuit was also

lavishly adorned with pearls. Her dark brown hair was swept up and crowned by a

coronet braid of red velvet dotted with pearls.

 

Over the jumpsuit she wore a ruby-red velvet houppelande, with dagged sleeves that

reached to the ground and a high collar that came up well past her ears. The

houppelande was fastened at the throat with an enormous golden pin, in the center of

which reposed a fist-sized ruby. A golden string of matched pearls -each the size of a

walnut-draped loosely around her neck.

 

Yvette eyed herself critically in the mirror. It screams rich, she told herself. Rich, but

tasteful. Ready at last, she left her rooms to face the rigors of Vesa.

 

It didn't take her long to realize that Vesa was a strange place. She bad known

intellectually that all life on this moon existed in underground caverns carved from the

naked rock; but knowing that fact and actually experiencing it were two different things.

The subterranean aspects could be ignored when one was inside a building; after all,

people are used to having ceilings over their heads when they're in a room.

 

What was not so usual was to have a roof over you when you were "outside." The broad

transportation corridors, with their constant streams of busy traffic flowing by, were

exactly like streets on any civilized world in the Galaxy, except for the fact that there was

a ceiling of solid stone overhead. This was not so bad at the major intersections, where

the ceiling was a dome that rose perhaps fifteen or twenty meters over the ground level;

but in the tunnels that linked the major caverns, the roof would come down to less than a

meter in spots over the tops of the vehicles traversing the roads. It was a situation that

could produce claustrophobia in even the stoutest of hearts, and Yvette found that, for

the first couple of days, she had to fight down the incipient fear that the ceiling would

cave in on her head at any moment.

 

Adding to the underground nature of the environment was the fact that Vesa was a maze

that sometimes defied the best analytical minds. A labyrinth of tunnels, some of them

running for kilometers in length, connected a series of large and small caverns in a

seemingly random pattern that only longtime residents were able to decipher. Yvette

became lost almost the instant she drove away from her hotel in one of the ubiquitous ]its

that served as Vesa's mass transportation system. The driver had never heard of the

casino she wanted to visit, and so he took her to another. "They're all pretty much the

same," was his philosophical comment. "You can lose your money just as fast at one as

at another." She never did find the one she had originally set out for.

 

After two days of traveling around, though, she came to the conclusion that the driver

had been wrong. True, to the casual eye all the casinos did look alike-flashy rooms filled

with flashy people, bright lights glaring from all directions, loud music pumped through the

atmosphere intermingling with the brash spiels of barkers trying to lure people to this or

that area that was less crowded at the moment. The smells of incense, dopesticks,

cigarettes and a thousand and one individual perfumes assaulted the nostrils. Several

times Yvette found herself feeling terribly nostalgic, for the flavor was almost like that of

the midway of her beloved Circus-though the midway had always been far less frantic

and far more innocent.

 

The more careful observer, though, could see slight differences between the different

gambling spots. Some of them were cheaper, appealing to the tourists with only

moderate amounts of money to squander, while others were ultraposh and almost

flaunted their exclusivity. Some places tended to be the preserve of older married

couples, while others were definitely the hangout of young singles out for a good time.

Some casinos were brash and garish while others were-for Vesa-almost reserved and

dignified. Each casino had a character and clientele uniquely its own. But no matter

where she went, from the plushest clubs to the lowest dives, there were crowds.

Hundred upon thousands of people jammed into spaces that would have been cramped

with half that many present. Gambling fever was almost a tangible commodity, a

madness infecting everyone around her. It was as though people, having spent so much

of their money just in getting here, felt a desperate desire to lose the rest of it at the

gambling tables. Some of the more intense gamblers went without foo d or sleep for a

day or more at a time.

 

The magnitude of her problem was beginning to hit home to her. In this faceless mass of

human bodies, it was quite easy to see how thirty-five a day could disappear without

anyone even noticing. They would be replaced as quickly as they vanished by equally

faceless bodies awaiting the slaughter. Yvette had spent a goodly amount of time on

Earth, one of the most highly populated planets in the Empire, and thought she had

known what crowding was like, but this made humanity's mother planet look like the wide

open spaces. The effect of these surging masses was to dehumanize everyone

involved-a result that left Yvette terribly depressed, despite the showy glamor of the

moon.

 

It took her only the initial two days of exploration to establish a pattern for herself. In

keeping with the character of Carmen Velasquez, she narrowed her field down to a

handful of casinos that catered to the younger, richer, hipper crowd. The general age

level of the customers at these places was under forty; the clothing was all sharp and in

accordance to the latest fashions from the various sectors of the Empire. Dopesticks

were more common in this crowd than either cigarettes or alcohol, though hardly de

rigeur. The talk was a bit louder, the conversations more intense, the laughter more

spontaneous and natural.

 

There was a certain repetition of clientele at these places, and after a couple of days of

regular attendance Yvette learned most of the regulars by sight, and a couple by name.

She struck up casual conversations with them and managed to get her story across. It

was impossible to tell who might be an agent of the conspiracy, so Yvette was ready to

talk to anyone who showed even a casual interest in her.

 

Her gambling habits were quite simple-she stuck to card games exclusively. Her father

and uncle were both masters at cards and she had sat in on many a hand late at night

after the Circus had closed to the rubes, absorbing their knowledge and tricks. She knew

any number of methods of cheating, but did not try them here; the house dealers were

too sharp and Carmen Velasquez was not supposed to be a professional. She did,

however, manage to come out a good distance ahead in the long run, and quickly earned

a joking reputation among her newfound friends as a cardsharp.

 

"Where'd you ever learn to play like that?" one guy asked after she'd cleaned out his

pockets one afternoon two weeks later.

 

"It sure as hell wasn't on Purity," said another fellow who had managed to retain at least

some of his chips. Yvette allowed herself a demure blush. "After my late husband and I

made our fortune and got ourselves kicked off Purity for being too concerned with

matters temporal instead of spiritual, we resolved to learn all about the pleasant vices.

Gambling was Carlos' particular passion and he kept insisting that I play cards with him.

Unfortunately I was always better than he was, and it infuriated him when I won. He

swore off gambling once for three whole weeks, he was so mad. I could take it or leave

it alone, which only made him feel worse. I suppose. . . .

 

"Carmen!" The call of a familiar voice rang out across the room, and Yvette looked up, a

curious mixture of emotions churning through her system.

 

Card games usually took place in side rooms off the main gambling hall. These rooms

were smaller and a bit less cramped, since most of the tourists preferred to lose their

money quickly and impersonally at the machines and gaming tables. Cards were a

comparatively slow and more involved method of gambling, and appealed only to a

minority of the crowd.

 

Across this smaller room, hazy though it was with smoke, Yvette could see Dak Lehman

making his way through the press of people towards her table. He must have spotted her

from the doorway, she reasoned. The expression on his face as be came over to her

was a combination of delight and concern.

 

"I thought for a while I'd never find you," he said as he finally reached her side. "I've been

looking everywhere for you ever since we landed here. I was almost beginning to give up

hope. It was as if Vesa had just swallowed you up or something.

 

Yvette cast him a startled glance. Does he know something about the disappearances?

she wondered, scrutinizing his expression carefully. But no, there was nothing menacing

or secretive there. It had obviously been a chance remark that meant more to her than it

did to him. Recovering, she said offhandedly, "This is just such an incredible place it's

easy to get lost. I'm sorry you had to go through such a hassle to find me.

 

"The only thing that matters is that I have found you," Dak replied earnestly. Then,

looking around at the other people seated at Yvette's table, he continued in a lower

voice, "Can we go somewhere to talk privately?.

 

"I don't really think there's anyplace private on this entire moon," Yvette said, standing up

and sweeping her winnings into her purse with one confident motion. "It's all so crowded I

sometimes feel selfish when I shower by myself. But if we walk around the casino I don't

think anyone'll overhear what we say.

 

Dak took her arm and escorted her out into the main casino area. The din out here was

so loud that they practically had to shout in each other's ear to make themselves

understood, but Yvette was right-the nearest thing to private was being in the middle of a

noisy, uncaring crowd.

 

"You left me last time with an unanswered question between us," he said. "You told me

you'd think about it, and that was several weeks ago. Have you come to any

conclusions,.

 

Yvette looked away from him and took a long deep sigh before answering. "I don't want

you to think I've been avoiding you these past weeks, because I haven't. I just haven't

had the time to go actively looking for you." "That's an evasion, not an answer.

 

"I know. I can't give you the answer you want, I'm afraid. I find you a most attractive

man, Dak, and there are more odd moments than rd care to mention when I have to

snap myself out of a daydream about what it would be like married to you. But I just can't

convince myself it would work. Putting aside all the romantic clichés about love

conquering all, there are too many barriers in our way.

 

She explained about the physical problems stemming from their different planetary

backgrounds, problems that would lead to either him being a cripple or her an exile. She

could not, of course, tell him the real story about her family and her job; instead, she

leaned heavily on her love for her dear departed Carlos and how she could not bring

herself to "betray" him so soon after his-death. Dak's expression was grim as he listened

to her speak, but he did not interrupt even once. She tried to finish with as soft a cushion

as she could. "I love you, I really do. That goodnight kiss you gave me last time had me

floating through the air on my way back to my suite, even in one gee. I'm not just saying

this to make you feel better; it's the way I feel. But for all the reasons I've told you, plus

a few personal ones, I don't think we could sustain a long-term relationship. We'll both be

much better off if we break apart now, before our emotions get totally out of hand.

 

Dak scowled, and an angry gleam appeared in his eyes. He was not apparently used to

being turned down in something he wanted. "I still love you, Carmen," he said evenly.

"Being apart from you these past few weeks has made my longing stronger, not weaker.

You say you love me, too. But your reasons for not wanting to marry me just don't hold

air. We can overcome any problems we set our minds to. We both have a good deal of

money, we can go back and forth between a heavy gravity world and a lighter one. I can

buy machines to help me withstand your stronger gravity. I . . .

 

His voice had been rising with each sentence, until it took on an almost hysterical tone.

She raised a hand to silence him. "Dak, please, this is getting us nowhere.

 

He stopped, caught his breath, and then continued in a more reasonable tone, "Look I've

been invited to a really swank party tonight. It's being given by one of the big shots on

Vesa, a man named Garst. Why don't you come along with me and we can talk about

this some more then? I'd be delighted to have your company, and. . . .

 

"I don't think I'm getting through to you. It will not work between us, and all the talking

you do will not make it work. No, I won't go with you tonight; there would be no point to

it.

 

The anger dropped suddenly out of Dak, and he looked instead like a frightened little

boy. "Don't drop me forever," he begged. There was a hint of tears in his eyes. "I really

don't think I could take that, Carmen; you've be come too special to me. Please-if you

won't come to the party then at least say you'll meet me tomorrow and we can visit some

casinos together.

 

There was such an air of desperation to his voice that Yvette had to relent. She did love

him, and it tore her up inside to see him so affected. "All right," she said softly, "I'll meet

you tomorrow, but only for a little while. I have things to do myself, you know. Where and

when do you want to meet?.

 

"Right here at, say, eleven hundred." Dak's face bad brightened perceptibly at her

sudden capitulation.

 

"All right," Yvette nodded. "But I have to be going for now; there are things I must do."

She stood on her toes to reach up and kiss him, intending to give him only a slight peck.

But suddenly his arms were around her and the simple kiss was turning into far more

passionate a thing than she had planned.

 

When finally they did part, she was feeling a little wobbly on her feet. "Whew. See you

tomorrow," she said as she started to walk off.

 

"Don't be late," he called after her. As an afterthought, he added, "If you should need to

get in touch with me for any reason, I'm staying at the Soyuz Hotel.

 

Yvette just barely heard him, for her keen senses were trained elsewhere at the

moment. She had picked up a tail again-Murgatroyd. Apparently even this chance runin

with Dak had been enough to set off the curiosity of that band that was so interested in

Gospodin Lehman's welfare.

 

Yvette did not go straight back to her hotel as she'd intended. She had no way of

knowing whether the trio who had ambushed her knew where she was staying on

Vesa-but if they didn't know, she certainly didn't want to show them. In a concerted effort

to lose her tail, Yvette went through the main halls of the three most crowded casinos

she knew, changed jits repeatedly as she drove all over the tourist district of Vesa, and

ducked into a ladies' room for over an hour before emerging with her houppelande over

her arm to give her an entirely different appearance. There was no sign of Murgatroyd

following her by this time so, realizing that she couldn't just keep wandering the moon all

night, she decided to risk going back to her room.

 

Once inside, she bolted the door and pulled up a chair to sit facing it, just in case the

shadows were to try another attack. She kept herself awake until early in the morning.

 

CHAPTER 7

A Meeting at the Warehouse

 

As he stared at the men from Chandakha, Jules realized that he was the only other

person in the crew who had witnessed their deliberate murder of Rask. Everyone else

was coming from the other side of the spacefield, and the body of the scraper machine

had been interposed between them and the Chandakhari. As the rest of the group, led by

Fizcono, now pulled up to the scene, all they would see was the dead body of their

former comrade lying at the feet of the coterie of Chandakhari.

 

Jules thought quickly. He was the only one who knew the Chandakhari had murdered

Rask with deliberate efficiency. But if they thought he knew that, he might become their

next target. All in all, he decided to feign ignorance of exactly what happened. They must

know he had seen them do it, but by pretending not to know he could plant some doubt in

their minds.

 

So, just as Fizcono and the rest of the crew came around the corner of the scraper, he

asked, "What happened to him?.

 

Forakhi, the unofficial leader of the Chandakhari group, locked his gaze with that of

Jules, as though trying to read the SOTE agent's soul. "We tried to hold him, but be was

like a madman," Forakhi said slowly, his eyes never wavering. "We backed him up

against the scraper, but he was squirming so much that he tore his suit on it." He was

defying Jules to contradict him; Jules said nothing.

 

Fizcono knelt beside Rask's body and verified for himself that the man was dead. "More

drapping reports to fill out!" he muttered savagely under his breath. Then, standing up

and looking at the Chandakhari for a long moment, he said aloud, "I guess you men did

the best you could, under the circumstances. You'll all have to write up your versions of

what happened, of course; insurance companies are fussy about that sort of thing.

 

Then he turned specifically to Jules. "Nice work, duChamps. I can't recall ever seeing

anyone move so fast and so well. Where did you learn all that, anyhow?.

 

"I was on the gymnastics team in school," Jules lied smoothly. "Guess I've always kept

myself pretty much in shape.

 

Fizcono accepted that story with a grunt and began issuing orders to have Rask's body

taken back inside to the infirmary. The rest of the men he told to go back to work, though

even he did not expect them to be able to accomplish much-not after the work day had

started like this. Still, they were getting paid to do a job and it was his responsibility to

see that they did it. He resigned himself to having his crew fall even farther behind in their

work than they already were, and followed Rask's body back inside to answer the

questions he knew the front office would ask.

 

To no one's surprise, the work that day went very lackadaisically. They loaded less than

half of what they should have onto a departing freighter, much to the chagrin of the

captain who bawled them out over the radio for dawdling when he had a schedule to

keep. The men ignored his rantings and went on at their own speed, still stunned by what

happened earlier.

 

Every so often, Jules would look up from his job to see one of the Chandakhari-notably

Radapur or Forakhi -staring at him, as though trying to figure out what sort of a game he

was playing. Jules pretended not to notice their attention and kept on with his work.

 

When the shift was finally over and everyone was unsuiting back in the locker room,

Jules was surprised when Radapur, the young Chandakhar, actually came over to talk to

him. "You saved my life out there," the lad said.

 

"Rask was going to kill me, and you were the only one who acted quickly enough to stop

him.

 

"Somebody had to," Jules shrugged. Open displays of gratitude embarrassed him, and

he hoped Radapur would not be too flowery about it.

 

"Nevertheless, it was you who did it." The youth held out his hand and Jules shook it

vigorously. "I won't forget what you did for me. Maybe someday I'll have the chance to

do a favor for you.

 

Jules was about to reply that such a thing was not necessary and that he would have

done the same for anyone, but he didn't get the chance. Forakhi, with a whistle and a

sharp look, called Radapur back to the Chandakhari group. As Jules watched, Forakhi

spoke a few sharp words in the youth's ear, obviously admonishing him not to speak with

anyone from outside their little clique. The lad cast one long look back over his shoulder

at Jules, then returned to his group.

 

Everyone who was involved in the scuffle had to stay a little late in order to tape-record

their versions of the story for the administration personnel. Forakhi and the rest of the

Chandakhari were visibly chafing at this delay, as though they had some appointment to

go to and were being kept from it. At last everyone was released and told to go home;

but instead of following that advice, Jules chose to follow the Chandakhari instead.

 

They left the port building as a group and flagged down one of the roving jits. Jules

cursed the haphazard transportation system of Vesa under his breath; he didn't want to

let his quarries get away from him that simply. Fortunately, he was able to commandeer

a jit directly behind theirs and, using the excuse that he and his friends bad gotten

separated and he didn't have the address of where they were supposed to be going, he

convinced the driver to follow the other jit. The large tip he handed the man probably did

not hurt his cause, either.

 

They drove through a confusing maze of tunnels, changing direction so many times that

Jules began to get worried that they knew he was following them. But they made no

attempt to speed up or lose him on sharp turns, so he relaxed and guessed that they

were only taking a precautionary route to their destination.

 

Finally the other jit stopped and the Chandakhari got out. Jules' driver had done such a

good job of staying with them that he arrived almost right behind them, and Jules had to

dawdle about getting out of the jit for fear that his quarries would spot him.

 

Actually, despite the long and complicated route they had taken, the Chandakhari had

ended up at a point not too far distant from where they'd started. They were in the

warehouse district where the goods unloaded from the incoming ships were stored

before being distributed to the rest of Vesa. Jules emerged from his jit as the group he

was following entered the front door of one warehouse.

 

Jules looked quickly around for another way into the building. He couldn't go in the same

way the Chandakhari had, or he'd be spotted for sure. His sharp eyes instantly detected

what he was looking for-a freight elevator tube beside the building. Structures on Vesa

were built down rather than up, into the bedrock of the moon for sturdier support. Jules

did not want to activate the elevator itself, for it might make some noise that would alarm

the group he was pursuing; but the tube did have a series of handholds along its length

for the use of repair crews, and Jules descended this ladder until he came to a service

door in the wall. The door was locked, and he had to stand on a small ledge for two

minutes experimenting with the various master keys he always carried with him before he

could get it to open.

 

He found himself on the third level of the warehouse. The large room was dimly-lit and

filled with row upon row of the large airtight crates that he was becoming all too familiar

with. Apparently this was a section for storing goods that had not yet been unpacked.

 

Jules strained his ears, but could hear no sounds around him. Moving with a silence that

would put a cat to shame, he eased his way into the warehouse, using the large

containers as cover while he explored the aisles at this level. No one was here.

 

Now there was a choice to make. Should be go upward in search of his group and check

out the top two levels, or should he go even further down? He decided down would be

best; a group of conspirators would want to be as far from the front door as possible, to

avoid being overheard by casual passersby.

 

Gently sloping ramps led from level to level, broad corridors for lift trucks and dollies to

carry their loads. The ramps were possible points of exposure, since there was no place

for him to hide on them, but short of chancing the elevator tube again they were his only

method of getting from one level to the next. Stealthily he crept downward to the fourth

level, only to find it, too, deserted. On the fifth level, however, he struck paydirt.

 

He could hear the low muttering of voices when he was halfway down the ramp, and he

slowed his pace at once. Hugging tightly to the wall he slithered down to the floor level

and behind the protective cover of some half-opened crates. From here, he was able to

pick his way slowly forward until he had a clear view of the entire scene.

 

The lighting on this level was as dim as throughout the rest of the warehouse, but Jules'

eyes were by this time accustomed to the weak light. A large space had been cleared

throughout the center of the floor, and along one semicircular section of the area sat a

group of perhaps thirty men. The first thing Jules noticed was that they all seemed to be

Chandakhari; all of them had the swarthy complexion and straight black hair that marked

the racial type, although some of the men were old enough that their hair was

predominantly gray. Jules was startled to see men in their fifties and possibly even

sixties sitting in that group, though the majority of the people were late thirties to early

forties. Radapur, the lad from Jules' work crew, was the youngest one there.

 

Before this group, like a teacher in front of a class, was a tall, thin, well-dressed man

with a narrow face and harsh eyes. He sat at ease with his legs dangling casually over

the edges of a pair of packing boxes placed end to end for his convenience. He had a

clipboard on his lap and he was reading casually from it: ". . . Group Three, weekly

intake of five thousand, seven hundred and sixtytwo rubles, which means Group Two's

area seems to be the richest at the moment. I think we'll leave Three where it is for now

and move in One to back Two up. Group Four, I don't have your numbers yet; where are

they?.

 

A man at one side of the semicircle spoke up. "Pakkan was delayed at the last moment;

he'll try to be here shortly.

 

The man in front grimaced. "This has been a bad week for obstacles and delays. All the

other sectors may get ahead of us." He stared directly at the group of Jules' coworkers.

"Your little unofficial forays have been noted and will count against you. You have

repeatedly been told that we act for money only, not vengeance. We must not allow

ourselves to get personally involved in our calling. Any emotion, even vengeance, will lead

eventually to a weakening of will and infirmity of purpose. We must keep our minds and

souls pure if we are to succeed.

 

"Back to business. I can't make final assignments for the week until I hear how Group

Four has done, but assuming they have maintained their average I think I can tentatively

shift them over to pick up the area being vacated by One. Group One then will operate

near Twosay, around the Lucky Streak Casino. Two and Three will stay as they are for

now. . . .

 

Jules heard footsteps coming down the ramp behind him. This would probably be the

member of Group Four who was late-and if so, Jules' position would be exposed. He

looked quickly around for a spot that could not be seen from either the back or the front

and, the instant he spotted it, he dove in that direction.

 

But his motion was far too late. The tardy murderer was at the point on the ramp where

he could just see into the fifth level, and Jules' rapid movement attracted his attention.

For a second he froze, then realized that his mates had not known they were being spied

upon. "Hey, there's somebody else in here!" he called out.

 

The other Chandakhari jumped to attention at his cry. They were paranoid about

outsiders anyway, and this alarm set off their worst fears. Several of the men had been

wearing small jeweled daggers at their belts, and their hands went automatically to their

waists to remove the weapons. All of them looked around to see if they could spot the

intruder, but Jules' chosen spot did provide him with a maximum amount of coverage.

 

The newcomer, who saw where Jules had gone, noted the confusion of his fellows.

"Down there!" he pointed. "Behind those boxes!.

 

All stealth was useless now, Jules knew. He was up against better than thirty men who

knew precisely where he was. Speed, strength and agility were the tools he would have

to use if he wanted to survive beyond the next few minutes. Bracing his back against a

row of heavy crates, he lifted his legs and kicked out at the series of boxes stacked in

front of him. Two of the stacks teetered ominously for a moment; then, as he gave them

a second kick, they toppled over onto the crowd of men that had started after him.

 

The effects of Vesa's gravity made the spectacle almost ludicrous, as the boxes fell in

slow motion towards their targets and the men strained to get out of the path of the

falling objects. Finally, after what seemed like ages, the boxes hit the floor and

shattered, scattering their contents-small metal machine parts-all over the floor and

making the footing treacherous.

 

But Jules had not stayed put to watch the results of his action. Survival depended on

movement, and Jules was a veritable blur. The low gravity both hampered and helped;

hampered because it took so long for objects to reach ground once they were in the air,

and helped because his reflexes, attuned to gravitational pulls twelve times as strong,

were like lightning compared to those of his adversaries. In fact, he had to be constantly

adjusting his strengths downward, or be would have ended up overshooting each goal.

 

A knife flew by his head, but not too close. So slowly was it going that he could have

snatched it out of midair and thrown it back at its owner had he desired. Instead, he let it

continue along its flight path and bury itself two centimeters deep into a wood crate. He

was not too worried about the knives these murderers were carrying; he had given them

a good scan and realized that they were not properly balanced for throwing. Jules'

cousin, lean d'Alembert, was an expert knife thrower, and Jules knew most of the

fundamentals of that art just from observing a professional in action. The blades in

evidence here were all intended for stabbing; if Jules let any of these men get that close

to him the game would be up anyhow-and he knew it.

 

Jules quickly ducked down a cross row of crates, hoping to win access to the ramp and

freedom. His way was blocked, though, by half a dozen of the crooks advancing on him

with murder in their eyes. Gauging the distances, Jules decided against trying to leap

over their heads; a strategic retreat would be a better tactic right here. With a quick turn,

he fled back in the direction from which he'd come.

 

Two thugs leaped at him from atop a packing crate on his right. One of them gripped

Jules' wrist while the other tried to get hold of the SOTS agent's waist. With the sheer

force of his strength, Jules whipped his right hand around, pulling the attached attacker

with it and banging the man's head solidly against a steel container. With a dull groan that

was barely audible over the clang of the collision, the man released his grip on Jules'

hand and fell unconscious to the floor.

 

With an athlete's disdain for wasted motion, Jules continued with the follow-through on

his toss. His body spun around counterclockwise, and the crook who bad been grasping

for his waist slipped away and started falling to the floor. Jules did not allow that fall to

continue unassisted, though; as he spun, he jerked his left foot backwards and clipped

the murderer under the chin with his heel. The man was out cold before touching ground.

 

Leaping nimbly over his two fallen foes, Jules continued along his chosen path, even

though each step took him that much further away from the ramp. Over to his left, a

group of four men were cutting diagonally across the floor in an attempt to intercept his

path. Running at top speed, Jules deliberately rammed his body into another stack of

boxes, which fell slowly but hard into the middle of that group. The men had all been

running too fast to be able to stop and dodge. Most of them were able to lift up their

arms to fend off the falling boxes, but the sharp edge of one container caught one of the

Chandakhari squarely across the top of his head, cutting open a large gash. The man fell

to the floor under the weight of the box, blood oozing slowly from the cut.

 

His intentional collision with the stack of boxes had also affected Jules' balance. He

staggered a bit from the impact and was just about to recover when his foot slipped on

one of the metal pieces from the first stack of boxes he'd knocked over. Trying

desperately to recover his balance, he stumbled into another stack of boxes and got the

wind knocked out of his lungs. He had to stand still for a second to recover from the

blow.

 

As he stood there for a moment, three more of the thugs came charging at him. He was

able to sidestep one completely, and the man went running right past him into the same

stack of crates Jules had just hit. The second man received a karate chop down on the

back of his neck, and it snapped his spine; Jules was fighting for his life, now, and had no

time to pull his punches. When be hit, it was with the full power of an angry DesPlainian.

 

The third man just happened to tackle Jules' bad left leg, sending a stab of pain through

the agent's body. The two men fell hard to the floor, but Jules quickly recovered from the

initial shock of the encounter. Bringing up his right knee, he clipped his assailant under

the chin and the man fell backwards. Jules rolled over and got quickly to his feet again,

ready for more action.

 

Although he had significantly reduced his opposition, he was still vastly outnumbered.

Now that the initial surprise of his presence was wearing off, these Chandakhari were

beginning to react as fighting units once more. Jules had had one taste already of how

efficient they could be; he bad no desire for further demonstrations. They were traveling

in packs now, circling in slowly and hoping to get the chance to use their special

techniques on him. He bad to keep away from them as much as possible, for each