The Best of E E 'Doc' Smith

by E E 'Doc' Smith

  "Stop crying, Jules, poor dear," the waitress said. She was, of course, a d'Alembert, too; and she had been a star. "Before I break down and dilute your soup with a flood of tears of my own. The King and Queen are dead, et cetera. So what? You're just getting started on your real jobs. The usual?"

  "Not quite," Yvette said. "You can get fresh orange juice here and I'm drowning myself in it. Squeeze me half a liter, please Felice dear, besides the usual."

  "Drowning yourself is right," the younger Yvette said, darkly. "I've got to watch my figure; so I'll have one small glass of lemon sour and a lamb chop."

  After eating, the older Jules and Yvette left the Circus-without a ripple to show that they had gone.

  V

  Communism could gain no foot-hold on the new, raw planets. Communists wanted to agitate, not work; and on the planets a man either worked or died. Confined to Earth and no longer able to keep its masses in line by the imaginary menace of warmongering Capitalism, and facing squarely the fact that men will not produce efficiently under the lash, Communism came to a very low ebb ... until it was saved by Premier Koslov, a strong and able executive, who in 2020 made himself King Boris I of Earth and formed a harsh but just absolute monarchy based upon the profit motive. (Stanhope, Elements of Empire, p. 76).

  Citizens of Earth

  Jules and Yvette studied, analyzed and restudied fortyseven spools of top-secret data, then sent them-topsecretly-through channels back to the Head. Then they visited more or less openly almost every district of Earth.

  At every point they encountered the same not-right odor. Something was definitely wrong. Security had been breached-within the Service itself!

  To Jules and Yvette d'Alembert the situation shrieked for action-instant effective action, at that. If the Service caught a chill, a hundred outlying planets lay under the threat of double pneumonia. For the Service was the ganglionic nerve system of the Stanleys themselves ... and every bright, burning star, every immensely long, black spacelane, every whirling world and pocket of cosmic dust trembled and shook when those nerves tingled.

  As the evidence grew it became clear that there were two courses of action. They could patiently, painstakingly search, sift and study ... and hope for a break ... or they could plunge themselves into a trouble spot-offer themselves as bait-risk life and limb on a gamble, and trust to mind and muscle to get them out. These were the choices....

  But really, there was no choice-because they were the d'Alemberts.

  "Out of everything we've learned I can see only three points of attack outside of Durward itself," Jules said, thoughtfully. "Algonia, Nevander, and Aston. Years apart. Three forged Patents of Royalty. Eighty-nine good agents down the drain ... most of them probably as smart as we are ... in spite of all the help the local SOTE could give them... ." He paused.

  "Uh-huh. Go on. Or because of it."

  "Check. The higher the SOTE the solider the security. We think. But that thing in the Head's office didn't smell exactly like Coty's L'Arigon."

  "I'll say it didn't. Usually they commit suicide or get their throats cut, but he simply disappeared. Absolutely vanished."

  "So we'll roll our own, except maybe for tops. So the big question is, what's our best cover?"

  "Well, we can't be Earthers, that's for sure." Yvette shrugged her shoulders and indicated his shape and her own. "Nor Delfians, to stand inspection. We're obviously DesPlainians. No other high-gravity planets were ever colonized, were there? Except Purity, of course ... I wonder."

  Jules frowned in thought. "That's a thought, sis; that splinter-group of crackpots on Purity. We can be Puritans." Yvette nibbled her lip. "But would it work? They won't have anything to do with anybody they don't absolutely have to. Everybody's too sinful. They expect all the other planets, especially mother-planet DesPlaines, to be whiffed into incandescent vapor any minute by the wrath of God. There are a lot of renegade Puritans, though. Sinners."

  "That's what I meant. We'll play it that they kicked us off because we got to be too sinful. We liked to dance and play cards and drink soda pop-to say nothing of mining gold and platinum and diamonds and emeralds and bootlegging all our stuff to Earth. That's the way we made all our money. Remember?"

  Yvette laughed. "Just dimly. I must have been looking the other way at the time, but you can fill me in. They have kicked a lot of people off of Purity for doing just that-and for much smaller sins, as well. Go ahead; it listens good."

  "Okay, but I don't know exactly what ... get into compound low, brain, and start grinding ... how about this? We'll have the Head make us ex-Puritan Citizens of Earth. You know how toplofty and you-be-damned Earthers are, out on the planets."

  "Uh-buh, and we'll be toploftier and you-be-damneder than anybody. I like."

  "Right. Concealment by obviousness. But as you said, not too many people ever even heard of Purity, and with our builds-your build especially-but wait a minute, how about disguising me? Hair down to my shoulders; waved and liquid-golded. Eyebrows shaved to a different shape and golded. Handle-bar moustache, waxed to points and golded. A cockeyed hat with gold plumes two feet long. Cloth-of-gold sleeveless jersey and tight purple trunks. Arms and legs bare. A million dollars worth of jewellerygenuine-and a big, heavy swagger-stick that's really a blaster on one end and a stunner on the other. Think anybody'd recognize me as a DesPlainian in that kind of a fancy rig?"

  "I'll say they wouldn't!" Yvette laughed delightedly, "anywhere on DesPlaines they'd shoot you on sight. The idea being that everyone would look at you and not bother to even wonder whether I was a DesPlainian or not."

  "Uh-huh. Maybe it's a bit thin, but... ."

  "I've got news for you, Buster." Yvette laughed again. "Not only it's thin, but also if you think I'm going to play little brown hen to that gorgeous hunk of rooster you're out of your mind. I'll design me a costume that will knock everybody's eyes right out of their sockets-one that no DesPlainian woman would be caught dead in at a catfight."

  "Now you're chirping, birdie!"

  "That'll be fun! But it'll take months to grow your hair ... a wig? Uh-huh."

  "Uh-huh is correct. Too chancy. But they've been working on this case for sixty-seven years, so a few extra weeks isn't going to make any important difference. And we'll have plenty to do in the meantime."

  "That's true. Okay-let's fly it."

  Thus it came about, some time later, that the Executive Office of the Duke of Algonia was invaded by a couple whose likes bad never before been seen on the planet Algonia-or, for that matter, on any other planet. Jules was just as spectacular as his specifications had called for; Yvette was even more so. She, too, wore purple and gold-what little there was of it-with the arrangement of colors the exact reverse of his.

  Her shoes-not silly pumps, but half-calf-high suregrips studded with precious stones-were royal purple. Her tight shorts were of exactly the same shade of purple as her shoes and hair. She wore a wide, heavily-jewelled belt of nylon-backed gold; a jewelled half-veil of fine gold mesh; and, to cap the climax, a towering gold-filigree headdress of diamonds, emeralds and rubies that had been appraised at and insured for one million three hundred ninety thousand dollars.

  Paying no attention to the startled stares of the waiting people and office personnel, they walked calmly to the head of the line at the receptionist's desk. "We are citizens of Earth," Jules explained, as he courteously but firmly edged himself into the narrow space between a fat woman and the desk. He leaned over, picked up the amazed receptionist's hand and tucked a hundred-dollar bill into it. "Carlos and Carmen Velasquez, Citizens of Earth," he said gently, and dropped two ID cards onto her desk. "This is where visitors to your fair planet register, is it not?"

  "Oh, no, sir-thank you, sir," the flustered girl said, as soon as her eyes got back into place and she could again use her voice. "That's downstairs, sir. The SOTE, sir."

  "You will take care of it, my dear." Jules dropped three more notes on the desk. "Bring the cards over to the Hotel Splendide
, after you have attended to it. We'll be there for a few days ... or a few weeks, perhaps. Thank you, my girl." And the two walked out of the office as unconcernedly as they had walked in.

  At the Splendide, which was the plushiest caravansery the planet boasted, they soon became the favourite guests. Not only because they had the penthouse suite; but also because neither of them knew, apparently, that there was any smaller unit of currency than a five-dollar Earth bill.

  Whatever else they did, however, they always walked at a good, stiff hiking gait for at least an hour after supper. For the first few nights they explored; but after that, having found a route they liked, they stuck to it. Every night thereafter they drove out beyond the city limits, parked their car and took a six-mile hike along a fixed succession of narrow, lonely back-country roads and bridle-paths; a route that had five places made to order for ambush-and a route that they had gone to much trouble to publicize.

  For six nights they swung along at their five-miles-an hour hiking gait in complete silence....

  Complete silence? Yes. Their suregrip shoes made not even a whisper of sound against the blacktop: no item of their apparel or equipment rattled or tinkled or squeaked or even rustled. Everything had been designed that way.

  They could hear, but they could not be heard. Anyone laying for them would have to see them--and they themselves had very acute hearing and aerialists' eyesight.

  Swinging along a clear stretch of road" Yvette asked"

  "S'pose we goofed, Julie?"

  "Uh-huh. Pretty sure not. It's just taking them time to get set. Senor and Senora Velasquez aren't the type to just disappear; it'd raise too much of a stink. Also, besides the king-size fortunes we're wearing, everybody knows that we've got enough money in the safe at the Splendide to start a bank and they'll want that. So the job will take a lot of planning. This three-quarters-naked stunt wasn't designed to make it tough to impersonate us, but how would you go about finding two people to check out of the Splendide-and get that half a megabuck out of their safe as us?"

  "Nice!" Yvette laughed. "I never thought of it cutting both ways. They'll simply have to get a DesPlainian gangster and his moll ... but wouldn't they have them ready?"

  "I don't think so. You don't find very many DesPlainians on light-grav planets except in grav-controlled buildings. They no like-for which I don't blame them. Another month of this with no work at grav and you and I both will be as flabby as two tubs of boiled noodles."

  "So we hope it won't be a month. Okay; well give 'em a few more days."

  Five more hikes were eventless.

  But on the sixth, at a place where the road wound through a coppice of small trees and dense underbrush" their straining ears heard sounds and their keen eyes saw movement.

  For concealment, the place was perfect, but in order to act the attackers had to move-and low-echelon thugs are not very smart. Also, they had no idea whatever how fast their proposed quarry could move. Jules' hat and swagger stick and Yvette's tiara and handbag hit the blacktop practically at once as the two took off in low, flat dives; he to his side of the road, she to hers.

  Diving straight through a bush, Jules slapped the nearest man lightly on the head-gently, so as not to break his neck-picked him up, and hurled him at another man, some twelve feet away, who was just getting to his feet. One jump-he slugged the third in the solar plexus and in the same instant kicked the fourth in the face-not with his toe, but with the whole big flat sole of his shoe. Four down and one to go. But this action had taken almost a second of time-plenty of time for Number Five to get organized. Maybe he was the boss, since he'd been smart enough to station himself well off to one side.

  Number Two, who hadn't been hurt much, began to regain consciousness and to thrash around. Jules snaked belly-wise over to him, picked his stunner up, and tapped him on the jaw with its butt. Then Jules crawled noiselessly around until he found a place from which he could get a fairly clear view toward Number Five; who, although he did not seem to realize it, was making a lot of noise. The seeing wasn't good-the moon, while high, was only at quarter-but not much light is necessary to use a stun-gun at close quarters.

  "P-s-s-s-t!" the hood said, finally. "Ed! Hank! Spikel Did you get 'em. What the hell goes on?" He put his head out from behind a tree ... and what went on was a halfhour stun.

  "Eve?" Jules asked then, of empty air. "Five here."

  "Same here," she replied from across the road. "No sweat. Is there any clear space over there?"

  "Yes-we'll lug 'em over here."

  Yvette recovered her towering headdress and bag, then came across the road, dragging two limp forms by the collars of their leather jackets. In a few minutes ten unconscious or dead men-Jules was afraid that he had hit Number Three a little too hard-were laid out on their backs in a neat row.

  Jules picked up a stunner, then paused. "Uh-uh." he said, "Better give 'em the talk-juice now, so they'll be ready when we get 'em out to the house."

  "That'd be better." And Yvette took a hypodermic kit out of her bag and went to work.

  VI

  In two centuries the colonized planets numbered seven hundred, many of them having large populations. Interstellar commerce increased exponentially. Interstellar crime became rampant. The government of Earth, under a succession of strong and able kings, had been in fact an imperium for many years when, in 2225, King Stanley the Sixth of Earth crowned himself Emperor Stanley One of the Empire of Earth. (Stanhope, Elements of Empire, p. 539).

  Storming the Castle

  Jules and Yvette did not drive their car-which was of course the biggest and most expensive one obtainable back to the hotel. Instead, they loaded their victims into the limousine like cordwood and took them to the "house" they had rented long since-an estate so big and so far away from anywhere that the nearest neighbours could not have heard a forty-millimeter Bofors working at full automatic.

  They unloaded their freight, then listened to the nine surviving hoodlums tell, completely unable to lie or withhold knowledge, everything they knew about crime-and especially its biggest chief.

  The gamble paid off. "Got it!" exulted Jules when they were done. "I knew our friends-whoever they are wouldn't stay out of a heist with this kind of money involved. But who would have thought that it was the Baron of Osberg... ."

  "You for one, brother dear," supplied Yvette. "And maybe me for another-at least we knew the boss traitor had to be somebody big-but tell me, are we going to sit here all night patting you on the back or are we going to do something?"

  Jules grinned and gave her a mock-salute. Then they gave each of the men a twelve-bour stun and went elsewhere.

  The castle of the Baron of Osberg was some seventy miles away. They parked the car a good mile down the road from it and. after selecting certain items of equipment, went the rest of the way on foot, being very careful not to be seen. Then, very cautiously and keeping continuously under cover" they made their way around what was actually a fortress.

  The two gates, front and rear, were built of two-inchsquare bar steel, topped with charged barbed wire. Neither could be opened except by electronic impulses from inside the castle. The estate was surrounded by a reinforced concrete wall fifteen feet high, surmounted by interlaced strands of charged barbed wire.

  The two grinned at each other and separated. Taking advantage of the high, thick hedges bordering the drive, they sneaked up to within six feet of the wall. Both squatted down. Eyes met eyes through the lower, leafless part of the hedges. Muscles tensed and, at Yvette's nod both leaped at full strength upward and inward. Each cleared the topmost wire by a good three feet, stunners drawn, and at the top of their silent flight they fired rapidly and precisely, stunning every guard they could see. Then, running around the main building, each taking a side, they stunned everything that moved. Yvette ran for the garage; Jules ran to the castle's back door. It was locked, of course, but a Talbot cutter burned the lock away in seconds.

  Jules did not know whether that door op
ened directly into the kitchen or into a hall; but the fact that it did open into the back ball made the job easy and simple. The door to the kitchen was not locked. The dozen or so people in it slumped bonelessly to the floor before any one of them realized that anything unusual was going on. Through the kitchen Jules went, through the butler's pantry and the serving hall, and put an eye to a tiny crack between thick velvet drapes.

  The "commons" room was immense. Its beamed ceiling and panelled walls were of waxed yellow-wood. It was furnished lavishly and decorated profusely with ancestral portraits. At the far end there was an antlered fireplace in which a six-foot log smouldered.

  Eleven men were in that room; some sitting, some standing; smoking or drinking or both; talking only occasionally and mostly in monosyllables; glancing much too frequently at watches on their wrists. Jules brought his stunner to bear and all eleven collapsed limply into their chairs or onto the floor.

  In a couple of minutes Yvette came in. "Okay outside." she reported crisply. "Now the big frisk."

  "That's right."

  They went over the castle from subcellar to garrets, and when they were through they knew that everyone else inside the wall was unconscious. Then, and only then, Jules went over to the communicator, cut its video and punched a number.

  "This is the Service of the Empire," a perfectly-trained, beautifully-modulated voice came from the speaker. "How may I serve you? If you will turn your vision on, please?"

  "Sote six," Jules said. "Affold abacus zymase bezant. The head depends upon the stomach for survival."

  "Bub-but-but, sir... ." The change in the girl's voice was shocking. She had never heard any two of those four six-letter code words spoken together, and coupled with the words "head" and "survival" they knocked her out of control for a moment; but she rallied quickly. "He's home asleep, sir, but I'll get him right away. One moment" please," and Jules heard the strident clatter of an unusually loud squawk-box.