The only problem was that the Duke's defenders could track them to this kitchen, and from there it would be a simple matter to deduce where the intruders had gone. Luise was faced with a hard executive decision-but she did not shirk it. "Rick," she said, "we have to go through the dumbwaiter. It's our only way. But they'll know we've gone in there and can flush us out unless at least one of us is left outside causing them confusion."

  "Don't worry," Rick said, eyeing the dumbwaiter entrance. "It looks a little small for me, anyway. I'll give them so much hell they'll think all four of us are still on the loose."

  Luise flashed her relative a quick smile. The d'Alembert family loyalty was such that any of them would have done the same for the others had the situation warranted. Rick was the logical choice in this situation.

  Then, without wasting any more time, Luise ran over to the entrance and lay down on the conveyor belt that fed into the hole in the wall. The belt was not turned on at the present time, which meant she had to crawl forward-but she was still safe from discovery for the moment. Behind her, Jeanne and Claude also inched their way into the tubes.

  Thus began more than an hour of nightmare for the Circus trio as they crawled through the very foundations of Rimskor Castle itself. Luise tried to keep them headed in the general direction of the front of the building, though the tubeway took so many right-angle turns that it was hard to keep the direction straight. Twice they had to change levels, climbing with difficulty up a series of grippers in the walls that were designed for holding packages. They passed occasional doors, but a peek out of them showed Luise that those rooms were well guarded and that to leave the dumbwaiter would be to invite certain death.

  Occasionally, too, they could hear the sounds of fighting coming through the walls. True to his word, Rick d'Alembert was giving the defenders a hard time. Fighting against truly overwhelming odds, he was making his presence felt throughout the castle and keeping attention from being focused on the tubes where his comrades were installed. How he stayed alive, none of the other three could guess; but they all prayed that his luck would continue and trusted to his special skills as a d'Alembert.

  Finally the trio came to another door that opened out into a room beyond. Sliding the door open just a tiny crack, Luise ventured a peek inside. There were only two robot guards in the room-the lowest number of any she had yet seen. There was one human, unarmed, and another thing that at first she took to be a tall machine until it turned and she could see that it was really Duke Fyodor, firmly enmeshed in the mechanical cradle that kept him alive. A board of flashing lights across the room gave some evidence that this might be the central nerve point for all the castle's security operations-in which case she had reached an unintended but quite welcome destination.

  She whispered the news most quietly to her two companions and explained her plans. Then, scrunching herself up as best she could in the narrow tunnel, she prepared for action. When she was absolutely ready, she slid the door all the way open and kicked off against the back wall of the tube. Her beautiful, agile body sprang outward and sailed through the air into the security office, completely startling the four occupants.

  Before anyone had a chance to react, Luise had hit the ground, rolled, and come up with her blaster at the ready. The two robot guards were just a fraction of a second too slow as the SOTE agent's beam cut each of them in two. As the other d'Alemberts began scrambling out of the dumbwaiter, Luise trained her weapon on the two humans. "Don't try anything," she warned-superfluously, for the Duke and his associate were not about to make any foolish moves while staring down the muzzle of a blaster.

  As soon as Jeanne and Claude were both safely inside the room, Luise turned her thoughts to Rick, possibly still out there fighting for his life. "I want you to call your guards and tell them to stop fighting at once. One of my friends is still out there."

  "He's already been stunned down," the Duke said morosely. "We were just about to go question him when you arrived." He paused to regather his strength and assume an air of outraged dignity. "I hope you realize that, whoever you are and whatever you think you're accomplishing by this raid, it will never work. I am duke of this entire planet, and I won't rest until you're tracked down and destroyed."

  Luise paid no attention to his bravado. Instead, she waited until both Claude and Jeanne had drawn their own stunners, then tucked her weapon inside her belt. Reaching into her utility pouch, she pulled out a small hyposprayer filled with a colorless liquid. "This," she said without emotion, "is nitrobarb. You've heard of it, of course, and you know what it can do. You have a few answers that I need, and I intend to get them."

  The Duke had indeed heard of nitrobarb. He knew that it had a 50 percent mortality rate on healthy people, and he knew that, if he survived the drug itself, he would never survive the repercussions of the answers he would reveal under its influence. "This is highly illegal," he protested.

  Luise stared at him coldly. "So is treason, Your Grace, and that's what we're talking about, isn't it?"

  As Luise took a step toward the ruler of Kolokov, the other prisoner in the room spoke up. "Please, don't give him that injection. The Duke is a very weak man, his system couldn't tolerate it. As his doctor, I can tell you he'd be dead in minutes and you wouldn't learn a thing.

  Luise turned to look at him. "You must be Doctor Rustin, then." She paused to consider his words. It was well known that Duke Fyodor had lived on the edge of death since childhood. The very fact that his body was only kept alive by carting around such an incredible contraption testified to its frailty. Nitrobarb was very strong, and what the doctor said could very well be true. She could be murdering a duke to absolutely no gain.

  But what choice had she? Her mission here was a failure unless she could discover some more about the time bomb that was to be used against the Princess. No other questioning would be effective, either, for the Duke could lie under less strenuous procedures.

  She had to follow through on her bluff and hope to crack something. "Well, doctor," she continued, "the penalty for high treason is death, anyway. What does it matter whether it comes sooner or later?" She took another step toward the Duke.

  Duke Fyodor's skin was normally quite pale, and his system would not let him sweat. But if those two conditions had not been true, he would have been ashen and perspiring. He had lived close to death as long as he could remember. His earliest recollections were of hospitals and sickrooms and doctors with funereal expressions. It had scared him, that thought of crossing into the unknown, and he had fought back with everything at his disposal. And he had won. He had fought death and conquered it; even if it made him look like a freak, even if he were despised, he had won and he had lived. And he was not going to let someone kill him now, even if it meant betraying his best friend.

  "Him!" he shouted, pointing at Dr. Rustin. "Do it to him. He knows as much as I do, he was in on all of it. He made it work."

  Luise stopped, rather bemused that her bluff had paid off. Dr. Rustin was well known as the Duke's constant companion. It did make sense that he would have been his partner in treachery as well. "I suppose it's worth a try," she said aloud. "But if I don't get any answers from him, I can still try you next."

  Dr. Rustin cowered as she came near him. He was, after all, an older man and the nitrobarb could well kill him, too, though he was in good health for his age. But he had no choice and in only a few minutes he was in a stupor that would last for twenty minutes-the first stage of the drug's effects.

  During that interval, the room was as quiet as a graveyard at midnight. Duke Fyodor, still in fright at this threat to his continued existence, sat limply in one corner and wondered where he had gone wrong. The three d'Alemberts did not converse among themselves; the situation was too critical, and they did not want to make any slip-ups that might give away their identities.

  Finally, Dr. Rustin began showing signs of coming around. His eyes opened, but were glazed over in an expression that showed the extent of his drugged state. Luise sat down opposite him and questioned him firmly.

  "You and Duke Fyodor have plotted treason against the Empire, haven't you?" she asked sternly.

  "Yes," was the slow, stupefied answer.

  Despite herself, Luise let out a sigh of relief. All this while there had been the nagging fear in the back of her mind that perhaps she and her family were wrong, that they were taking all this hostile action against innocent parties. Now that fear was banished forever, and she could continue on with her interrogation. "Did you hire Rawl Winsted to help you?"

  "Yes."

  "Why did you need his help?"

  "He was good at working with the small parts of the robot."

  Robot? Luise knit her brow in perplexity. "I thought you were making a time bomb."

  A low, droning sound came out of Rustin's mouth. Luise had made a statement, not a direct question, and his drugged mind could not completely cope with it. She mentally cursed herself for sloppy technique and rephrased her last utterance.

  "What sort of a robot were you making?"

  "One that looked and acted exactly like a human being" Where is all this leading? she wondered. What was the connection between a time bomb and a robot? "Did you ever use the phrase "time bomb' in Winsted's presence?"

  "Yes."

  "What was the context?" Luise was getting frustrated by the short, pointed answers. That was the main problem with interrogation by nitrobarb-it left the interviewee totally without will and not capable of involved thought.

  "I said that the robot would be a time bomb against the Princess and the Imperial Family."

  "What made you think that?"

  "Because it was going to marry Princess Edna and would be her husband while she was on the Throne." Pieces suddenly began falling into place. A robot that looked and acted exactly like a human being. It would go on the Progress and the Princess would meet it. "But how could you be so sure the Princess would want to marry it?" "It was programmed to like everything she liked and to conform to her ideals of the perfect husband."

  A chill went down Luise's spine. This was the most insidious plan she had ever heard of. It sounded crazy; no one could have so much information about the Princess as to design her perfect mate for her. And yet, there were computer mating services that did have astonishing success records. And if this were true, it would have far more impact on the fate of the Empire than a mere bomb. There were, after all, other legitimate, if indirect, heirs in the Succession if anything should happen to Edna; but having a husband who was privy to all the secrets of the Empire and who could advise in ways that might lead to her eventual downfall would have much more far-reaching and potentially dangerous consequences for the fate of the Galaxy.

  "How can you be so sure that this robot wouldn't be spotted as a fraud at once?"

  "None of the others has."

  If the previous answer gave Luise a chill, this one froze her completely. "Do you mean that you've made other robots who are masquerading as human beings?"

  "Yes."

  "Were they all supposed to marry the Princess?" "No, they bad a variety of missions."

  "How many of them are there, what are their names, what are their purposes, how long have they been in existence, have any of them been successful?"

  Luise was so flabbergasted by this revelation that she could not stop the questions from gushing forth. This could be one of the most important-and unexpected breakthroughs SOTS had ever made. For the security of the Galaxy, those questions had to be answered.

  Dr. Rustin's jaws moved, but no intelligible sounds came forth. His drugged mind could only work on one item at a time, and Luise had bombarded him with so many things that he didn't know where to begin. He sat staring fixedly ahead, his poor confused mind running in circles.

  While all eyes in the room had been on the doctor, Duke Fyodor saw an opportunity to make his move. He had edged closer to the control board, where he kept a stungun under the console. Now, when the attention of everyone else in the room was hanging on Rustin's words, he acted.

  Reaching quickly under the table, he pulled out his gun and fired. The weapon was set on ten-instantly lethal, and his target fell to the floor, dead. Dr. Rustin would betray no more of the secrets on which he and the Duke had worked for so many years.

  Claude spotted the Duke's motion and fired his own stunner, but just an instant too late to prevent Rustin's death. As the ray hit Duke Fyodor, his entire body went through a series of convulsions like a full epileptic seizure. He thrashed wildly about, and fell with a heavy crash into the control console. There was an eruption of sparks and the Duke screamed, then lay very still.

  Luise ran over to him, but she was too late. The man who had ruled Kolokov was dead. "What setting was your stunner on?" she demanded of Claude. She had wanted the Duke kept alive, if possible.

  "I'd reset it for three," he said, bewildered. "It should only have knocked him out for half an hour."

  "He was unnatural anyway," said Jeanne, who had not volunteered her opinion since this mission began. "There was a wrongness in him. It reacted badly to the beam, I think."

  Luise looked at Jeanne and could see the girl trembling. This entire experience had been a bad one for her, though she had home it without complaint because it was her duty. The animal trainer was a sensitive, and in tune with living things; being surrounded by so many mechanical menaces was playing hell on her nerves.

  "Well, whatever the case, we have enough information for SOTS to act on."

  "If we can get it out of here," Claude said.

  Luise took a small metal box out of her pouch. It was a radio bleeper, and the signal it sent out would inform Duke Etienne that they had gotten what they needed. The Circus manager would be stationed near Rimskor Castle with an army of SOTE agents, waiting for that signal to invade in force. Luise pressed the button and a red light went on, indicating that the bleeper was sending out its signal.

  She waited a minute for the green light beside the red one to light up as well, an acknowledgement that the Duke had received her signal. The green light did not go on.

  "What's the matter?" Claude asked, reading the puzzled expression on her face.

  "Our signal's not getting out. We can't reach them" Luise looked over at the control board. "Maybe it can't get through the metal sides of the mountain. Or maybe there's something jamming outbound transmission."

  "What do we do, then?"

  What indeed? They were a long way from the gate, and the castle was still crawling with guards and booby traps. Their number was already reduced by one, as Rick lay somewhere either stunned or in captivity-or dead. The only two men who could have neutralized the defenses had both been killed-and now Luise, Claude, and Jeanne were the only three people living who knew this information. They would have been willing, before, to die for their cause. Now they had to live to get the information to SOTS.

  But how?

  Chapter 11

  Bur-Bur to the Rescue

  "You don't suppose," Luise said slowly to her comrades, "that Duke Fyodor would have left his communicator lines open?"

  "Not if he's gone to all the trouble to blank out internal radio communication," Claude said. "At least, I wouldn't. I'd want to make sure that if anyone did manage to get in, they wouldn't get out again-nor would any information that they had learned. Once my security network was in place, I'd see to it that nothing got out until I wanted it to."

  Luise grimaced. "That's what I was afraid of." She went over to the security control board and studied it for a few seconds; but nothing on it was labeled, and she could make no sense of it. "No way to figure out how to turn the alarms off or send out an all-clear," she sighed. "I'd be afraid of pushing the wrong button and blowing us all up. We're just going to have to fight our way out."

  There were two alternatives open. The three of them could split up and each try to find his way out separately, thus tripling the chances that at least one of them would make it outside alive with-the vital information. Or, they could stay together to form a cohesive unit. They would all be grouped in one place, and one lucky strike could get them all; but a tightly knit band of d'Alemberts made an awfully invincible force. The opposition had been further weakened since their last run-in with them-Rick had done that much, although now he was out of action. Luise decided on the latter alternative, to keep them all together. Picking her blaster out of her belt once more, she said "Eh bien, let's got"

  The trio went storming out of the security room into the hallway. There were only two robot guards there, and neither had expected an attack to come from that direction. Both went down quickly under the d'Alemberts' beams, without having the slightest chance to sound the alarm.

  There were only two other doorways in the corridor for them to try. Luise headed for the nearer one, flung the door open and darted through it... only to find herself standing on one of the ramps in the Chamber of Angles that Etienne had described. The ceiling vaulted high above her head, the crazy mobiles gleamed as they reflected the room's bright light, and the subsonic vibrations drilled into her bone and nerve tissues in a pattern designed to drive even the calmest of people to distraction. And in this situation, Luise was not the calmest of people.

  Still, there were no defenders in the room at this moment and the ramp was a way for them to get down to the ground level. Luise started forward, her acrobatic shoes making almost no noise on the polished metal flooring. Behind her, she could tell that the room's craziness was affecting Jeanne even worse than it did her--but then, the teenager was the most sensitive member of the group. The poor girl was trembling like a leaf in a high wind as she was forced to traverse the coldly mechanical horror of this chamber--but again, she did it without complaint, because she was a d'Alembert.

  They only made it halfway down the ramp before a party of robots wandered through the room and spotted them. The d'Alemberts' blasters fired quickly again, but not before one of the robots had managed to send out a high, piercing whistle that would bring an army of other guards running into the area.

 

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