"Lemme 'lone," a sleepy voice protested. "G'way. Cut out the damn racket or... ."
"Mr. Borton! Wake up!" the girl almost screamed. "Please wake up! It's a crash-pri red urgent!"
"Oh." That had done it. "Okay, Hazel; thanks."
"You are connected, sirs" and I'm out. Signal green, please, when you are through." She would much rather take a beating than listen to any part of the conversation that was to follow" whether she could understand any of it or not.
"Praxis;" Borton said. (Request for identification, symbol, or authority.)
"Fezzle and Fezzle." (Their own identifying numbers - Agents Eighteen and Nineteen.)
"Holy ..." Borton began, but shut himself up. The very top skimmings of the very top cream of the entire Service! "Okay."
"Rafter, angles, angels. Angled. Suffer. Harlot static invert, cosine design. Single-joyful, singer, status, stasis. Over."
"My-God! Okay, but you didn't say where you are."
"I don't know your code for local specifics, so ... comprehend Old English ig-pay attin-lay?"
"Ess-yay."
"Tate-ess-ay aron-bay berg-oz-zay."
"Catch."
"Front gate. Douse you glims short-long-short. Over and out if okay."
"Catch. Okay," Borton said. And it was okay-perfectly so. If Agents Eighteen and Nineteen told any planetary chief of SOTE to go jump in the lake he'd do it-and fast. "Here's your green, Hazel. Thanks."
In the time that elapsed before Borton's arrival at the estate of Baron Osberg's, Jules and Yvette questioned the eleven men. They didn't get enough to give them a clear lead to the planet Aston and a general idea of what the mob on Aston would have to be like. Then Borton arrived and they let him in.
"You!" he exclaimed, looking from one spectacular agent to the other and back again. "That's a switch. You came in with bands blaring and pennons waving,"
"Check. They would be looking for pussy-footers."
"Could be... If I may ask, I suppose there's a good reason why I wasn't let in on any of this?"
"Very good. Come in and you'll see what it was." They led him back into the commons rooms and Jules waved an arm at the stupefied men who, glazed eyes unseeing, lolled slackly in chairs.
"You used Nitrobarb," Borton said. "And on the Baron of Osberg. Half of them will die. I see."
"They'll all die," Jules said grimly. "Especially the Baron. Those who live through this will live a few days longer than the others, is all. But you really don't see, yet. Keep on looking."
Borton's fast-panning gaze came to a burly, crew-cut man of thirty-odd and stopped. His face turned grey; he was too shocked and too surprised even to swear.
"That's Alf Rixton," he managed finally. "My first assistant. He's been with me over ten years! top clearance-lie detector and hypnosis-every year. He's done splendid work."
"Yeah-for the other side," Jules said coldly. "The only ones he ever gave you were the ones they wanted to get rid of. Take over, Borton, it's all yours. We'll have to stick around for a while-it'd smell cheesy if we'd leave the planet too soon-but we don't want to appear in this. Not a whisper. Nobody around here got a glimpse of us, but there are nine men-" he told him about them-"who shouldn't talk."
"They won't. But listen! This mess here-I couldn't possibly have done this alone!"
"Of course not." Jules grinned. "Your assistant there cooked the whole deal up and helped you swing it. He was a tiger on wheels. Too bad the honours are posthumous."
Borton nodded slowly. "Thanks. One of our very best, he died a hero's death, defending gallantly and so forth-sob, sob-the louse. But this thing of me taking all the credit for an operation that... ." He broke off and grinned wryly. "Okay."
"Uh-huh," Jules agreed. Then he and Yvette said in unison, "Here's to tomorrow, fellow and friend. May we all live to see it!" And they strode blithely out. One nest bad been cleared out-it was time to move on to the next!
Borton, motionless, stared at the closed door. He knew what those two were-Agents Eighteen and Nineteen-but that was all he knew or ever would know about them.... But he had too much to do to waste much time woolgathering. Shrugging his shoulders, he called his office and issued orders.
Then he set up his recorder and began to ask questions of the hoodlums who were still alive.
VII
THE STANLEY DOCTRINE. Empress Stanley 3 also reorganized, simplified and in a sense standardized the theretofore chaotic system of nobility. Her system, which has been changed very little throughout the years, is in essence as follows. Grand Dukes rule sectors of space, each containing many planets. Dukes rule single planets. Marquises rule continents or the equivalent thereof. Earls rule states or small nations. Counts rule counties. Barons rule cities or districts. Primogeniture is strict, with no distinction as to sex. Nobles may marry commoners or higher or lower nobles; the lower-born of each pair being automatically raised to the full rank of the higher-born spouse. (Stanhope, Elements of Empire, p. 541).
The Switch
The news broke early the following morning. It broke with a crash that was channelled to every planet of civilization. Carlos and Carmen Velasquez knew nothing of it until half past ten, when the eager waiter hurried in with the breakfast they had ordered a few minutes before. He was accompanied this time by his captain, who carried both morning papers in his hand.
"Good morning, sir and madam," that worthy said. "You have perhaps not heard the extraordinary news on your receiver?"
"Uh-us." Jules covered a yawn with his hand and shook his head. "We're hardly awake yet." He was wearing only purple-and-gold pajamas; Yvette wore her fabulous headpiece and a purple-and-gold robe that, while opaque in a few places here and there, was practically transparent everywhere else. "Something happen?"
"Most assuredly! The most tremendous, the most sensational of happenings, be assured!" He put the papers down on a side table and helped the waiter arrange the breakfast table most meticulously. "But you will read of it later. You will eat your breakfast now, please, while it is hot." And the two hotel men accepted gratuities and went back downstairs.
After eating, Jules and Yvette went through the story with interest-if with an occasional snort or giggle. The official version was of course new to them. SOTE, under the masterly direction and leadership of Planetary Chief Borton, had been keeping this band of traitors under close and continuous surveillance for over a year. They had waited until they were sure that they had found every member and connection of the band, then they had struck everywhere at once. They had made a clean sweep. Faced with absolute proof of guilt, each traitor had confessed and each had been promptly executed, including the Baron of Osberg, who had been the leader. Al! had been cremated and their ashes had been dumped. The reporter was very glad to say that, since the Baron was the only member of his family involved in the crime, the Barony of Osberg would not revert to the crown. The Baroness Carlotta, who was very well known as a philanthropic clubwoman would succeed-and so on.
Planetary Chief Borton had had no help, not even from Earth. And there was no hint anywhere that nitrobarb-the mere possession of which was by law a capital offense-had been used.
"Nice," Yvette said. "That story is so tight I almost believe it myself. But you said we'd have to stick around. Why? The fact that we were here on the planet-coupled with the fact that those two Delfians had to be DesPlainians -would be plenty for people not half as smart as they are. Whether we stay here a month or leave today makes no difference-except perhaps as an exercise in the old guessing game."
"That's probably right" at that ... Okay, we'll shoot in a call for the ship as soon as we're dressed."
Since the ship had to come from DesPlaines, it was eight days later that Carlos and Carmen Velasquez left the Hotel Splendide for the spaceport, scattering largesse from the penthouse to the limousine as they went.
It was good to feel real gravity again; it was vastly more than good, when, safely inside a private lounge of the big subspacer, they were met by
three particular people - two of whom were very special people indeed.
"Jules!" a brown-haired girl shrieked, and took off at him in a flying leap from a distance of twelve feet. "Vonnie! Sweetheart!" He caught her expertly, although her momentum swung him around in a full circle; and for a long, ecstatic minute they stood almost motionless, locked fiercely in each other's arms.
Yvonne pulled back a little, looked at him closely and shook her head. "I've got to have a picture of you. Both of you. They told me, but this is a thing that has got to be seen to be believed. You always were a handsome dog, Julie, but now you're simply beautiful!" She kissed him a few more times. "But I don't like that moustache-it tickles! You know something? I asked the Council to let me be Carmen Velasquez-begged them, practically on my knees-but the old stinkers wouldn't. They made me take the thousand-point test, just like everybody else, and Gabby here beat me out."
Jules grinned. "Did you think they wouldn't?"
"Well, they certainly ought to've given me the job, since I'm engaged to the only thousand-pointer alive. Anyway, I speared second place. I got nine eighty-nine."
"That's mighty good going, sweet." There was a brief interlude, then Jules, with his arm still around his Yvonne's waist, turned to the two others, whom he hadn't even looked at before. The man was of his own age, size and shape, his hair, moustache, and eyebrows matched Jules' exactly. The girl, too, except for costume, was a very reasonable facsimile of Yvette, purple hair and all. The man had been embracing Yvette ardently; the girl, having taken the towering ornament from Yvette's head and put it on her own, was unblushingly admiring herself in a mirror.
"Hi, Gabby; hi, Jacques," Jules said, extending his free band.
"'Gabby,' indeed!" the girl said, tossing her head in fine scorn. "'Grand Lady Gabrielle' to you, lout. I don't think I'll even speak to any of the common herd any more unless they come crawling, bumping their foreheads on the floor"
"Here, here!"
"That's telling him, Gabby!" Yvette and Jacques said at once, and Yvette added:
"I liked wearing these jewels and that crown and stuff, darn it," she mourned. "They did something for me," and the conversation became general.
Jules and Yvette took off their spectacular finery and turned it over to the new Carlos and Carmen. They had their hair un-dyed and rebarbered long and plain; and Jules unwaxed and un-curled his moustache. They donned shapeless brown trousers and jackets of homespun and became in appearance somewhat unorthodox Puritans. The switch completed, at the next transfer-point a new Carlos and Carmen Velasquez, still tossing five-dollar Earth bills around like confetti, hoarded the biggest and plushiest liner in port for a planet halfway across all explored space.
There wasn't room enough in Jules' cabin for him to pace the floor, so he stood still, with clenched fists jammed into his pockets. Yvette sat on his narrow bunk, frowning in concentration.
"It's like fighting a fog," Jules said,scowling. "And yet everything we find is just too damned pat."
"You just lost me. Fog, yes. But I haven't noticed any patness."
"Look. In sixty-seven years SOTE hasn't found any evidence that Duke Henry of Durward wasn't I. T. IT."
"Which goes to show that he was."
"Does it? He milked Durward of a staggering fortune, yes. Billions of bucks. But could he possibly have got away with enough to finance a project that big this long? And the others ..."
"I see what you mean. Never mind the others, let's pursue this one. Either he had help from the start or he hooked up with some. He'd have to, to do what he did."
"That's sure. Yet nobody ever got a solid trace, ever. And the leads they did get didn't point to anything solid; just to nit-picking stuff. My thought is that every one of those leads was a trap-a trap that worked."
"And we weren't trapped because we made them come to us."
"I'm not even sure of that."
"My God! Surely you don't think this is a trap!"
"Not exactly. I just think it may be. We have to follow it, of course, but we'll follow it with our eyes wide open and everything we've got on the trips. And if what we dig up points to Durward-we'll go anywhere else in all space but there."
"So you think everybody's been barking up the wrong trees and all they've got is forty-seven reels of junk and ..."
"I said maybe!" Jules snapped. "I don't know anything!"
"Which puts you one up on SOTE," Yvette said quietly. "That makes the most sense of anything I've heard yet. So we jettison the junk and start from scratch ... the big question being-how? You're implying a Grand Duke. We can't go running around sticking nitrobarb into Grand Dukes at random."
"How true; but you've read about how the old FBI used to catcch the top mobsters?"
"Uh-huh. CPA's."
"So look. Durward is in Sector Ten. Algonia is in Three" Aston is in Six, Nevander is in Thirteen and Gastonia is a rim-world clear to hellangone out on the edge of Twenty."
"How did Gastonia sneak into this muddle? It was muddled enough already, without another question mark."
"My own idea. Empress Stanley Five started exiling rebels there way back in the twenty-two hundreds sometime and they've been doing it ever since. What could be nicer for recruiting purposes? But to get back on the beam, the Head thinks this thing is getting ripe. If it is, whoever's doing it has had to do a lot of heavy work and spend an ungodly lot of money. You can hide a lot of building-armaments and such-even without putting it underground. But you can't hide big flows of money from experts who know how to look. So if you don't think I'm nuts, we'll message the Head tonight to check the growth curves of all the planets for the last seventy years and put the best CPA's he's got onto the top five or six."
She looked at him admiringly. "I'm for it; strong. And then we go to Gastonia, or wherever?"
"No. Then we go to Earth."
She looked puzzled for a moment, then her face cleared. "I see. It would have to be a Grand Duke, at that, to get an agent into-and especially out of-the Head's own office ... and the brains would almost have to be on Earth. You are smart, Julie; maybe we're getting somewhere, after all."
The ship docked and the two, after killing half an hour-they expected real trouble, and preparations were being made to handle it-made their way to the middle-class dive that was the favourite hangout of the lower offices and the highest crewmen of whatever subspacers happened to be in port. That was all they had-the name of the dive and a cryptic recognition signal bought for them by nitrobarb at the cost of a man's life. But it was enough.
Since the latest ship to come to ground was DesPlainian, the six bouncer-guards of the place-it was a somewhat unusual fact that all six of them were DesPlainians-thought nothing of it when half a dozen leather-clad DesPlainian spacemen came bouncing in, shouting for strong drink and friendly girls.
How could the guards have suspected anything? Or the brains, either, since the d'Alemberts had pitched them such a nice curve? There was no evidence that the Velasquez pair had anything to do with what had happened on Algonia. And if they had had, what were they skyshooting off into the middle of nowhere for?
The renegade Puritans came in-it was quite evident that they were renegades, since no Puritan in good standing would ever enter a bar-and looked unconcernedly around. Since it was early in the afternoon, only one bartender was at work and only a few waitresses and B girls were on hand. The two strolled up to the bar and Jules said, "I was told to ask for the Blinding Flash and say the Deafening Report sent me."
The entire room exploded. The six guards tried, but before any of them could get his blaster half into action he was struck by over an eighth of a ton of the hardest meat he had ever felt. In the same instant Jules put his left arm around the bartender's throat and, with the blaster now in his right hand, drilled a half-inch hole through the PBX operator's head. He then whistled sharply at the terrified girls and waved his weapon at a corner; into which they and the few noncombatant customers were very glad indeed to run.
In the meantime Yvette had dived at the PBX board. She snatched the single earphone off the man's head, put it on her own, let the body fall and sat at the board.
In two minutes the place was a shambles. When a five-hundred-pound pair of DesPlainian freestyle brawlers strikes furniture it is the furniture that breaks, not the men. Two tables and half-a-dozen chairs remained intact; one savagely warring pair had gone straight through the heavy yellow-wood bar.
And Jules, standing at ease with his blaster hanging at the loose, studied with keen appreciation the battles going on. He was not worried about the outcome. Only one result was possible. The guards were good, but they were not d'Alembert-and those six d'Alemberts were the pick of the hardest-trained troupe of no-holds-barred fighting wrestlers known to man.
In three and one-half minutes the place was practically a total loss, but the battle was over. The six survivors sported a few eyes that would soon be black, some contusions and abrasions, and several cuts, tears, scratches, gouges and bites that were bleeding more or less freely, but there had been no real damage at all.
"Nice work, fellows; thanks," Jules said, as the sixth spaceman came to his feet, grinning hugely. "Drink up. There'll be at least some ginger ale left in whole bottles-I think. And break out some champagne for the cuties. I wouldn't know whether they're still in the mood for fun and games or not, but at least we'll do the gentlemanly thing about the drinks. "Now, barkeep my friend-" he lifted that wight one-handedly over the bar, set him on his feet and put both big hands uncomfortably tight around his throat--"Do you want to tell me all about all the gizmos between here and the boss upstairs or do I wring your neck exactly like a chicken's?"
"I'll tell, I'll tell!" the man squawked. "Don't wring my neck-please don'tl It's all on the board there-really it is-the whole works !"
"He isn't lying, Julie," Yvette said. "There's a whole row of special red indicators that doesn't belong on a standard PBX. It looks like the boss rings down and they set the traps from the board here."
The Best of E E 'Doc' Smith Page 27