Planet of trechery, p.3
Planet Of Trechery, page 3
Brother and sister blushed. They had both conferred with the Head on so many occasions that it was difficult to remember that Vonnie and Pias had never met him. It was Yvette who finally took the initiative. "Vonnie d'Alembert, Pias Bavol, this is our boss, Grand Duke Zander von Wilmenhorst."
The two introductees were suitably impressed, but the Head put them quickly at ease. "Yvonne, I'd like to say that you're more beautiful and charming than Jules described, but I'm afraid that would be impossible; you'll have to settle for as beautiful and charming. And as for you, Pias," the Head went on, turning to Yvette's husband and looking him straight in the eyes, "I could never adequately thank you for helping save my daughter's life on Sanctuary."
Pias shrugged. "It was something I just sort of fell into," he explained with uncharacteristic modesty.
"And lucky for all of us that you did," the Head added. "Amen," Yvette smiled at her husband.
The Head waved an arm at the chairs around the central table. "Please be seated and make yourselves comfortable. If you'd like some refreshment, you'll find that each place at the table has its own order box. Just punch in your request and it will arrive in a few seconds, compliments of the Imperial Navy."
Jules and Yvette were mad for orange juice, and each ordered a large glass. Yvonne preferred hot tea and a small buttered roll. Pias ordered a glass of acolya, a wine peculiar to his own homeworld of Newforest-and was pleasantly surprised to find that the Navy kept it in stock. Their orders arrived up a small tube within the table in less than a minute-a tribute to the Navy's efficiency.
When everyone was comfortably settled, the Head grew more serious. "As I'm sure you assumed, I didn't ask you here merely for a pleasant afternoon's conversation. There's work to do."
"Isn't there always?" Jules said.
The Head merely nodded and continued his explanation. "As Pias and Yvette found out at the time of Princess Edna's wedding, there seems to be a link between the conspiracy masterminded by C and Lady A, and at least some of the space piracy that is plaguing the Empire. We took care of Captain Ling and his crew, but we discovered that they were building a navy of their own. It wasn't until just a couple of months ago that I learned the Navy had been conducting its own investigation for almost three years and had not thought to tell us about it." Von Wilmenhorst shook his head. "Sometimes I think we may be our own worst enemies, with interservice rivalries and the lack of communication between branches of government. If they'd bothered to let us know..."
He paused and placed his hands face down on the tabletop. "Well, that's a problem for me, not for you. What matters now is that we've opened the channels of communication between us again and some surprising developments are coming out. The most important of them-and the reason for my calling you in-is a person named Karla Jost."
He punched a couple of buttons on his console and a face appeared on the screen in the center of the table. It was a middle-aged woman with mouse-brown hair, a two-centimeter long scar over her left eyebrow and a square, firmly set jaw. There was a steely look about her eyes that marked her unquestionably as a dangerous woman. "I'd hate to meet her in a dark alley," Vonnie commented.
"You won't have to-she's dead," the Head told them. "But the puzzle she represents is far more of a threat than she ever was."
The Head leaned back in his chair once more and began a recitation of facts. "Karla Jost was in and out of trouble ever since she was a teenager. She had a prison record that read like a short novel. About fourteen years ago she threw in her lot with a pirate gang, and rapidly rose to a position of leadership within it. It was her gang that made the famous raid on Taratuil-do you remember anything about that?"
The four agents had to search their memories for a moment. Thirteen years ago, the planet Taratuil was at the outermost limits of the Empire. It was a newly settled world, with a population of only about five thousand people. Seeing it as a weak target, a pirate gang swooped down on it and; with their superior arms, forced the locals to submit to their rule. The Navy, when it learned what had happened, moved into actionbut with the pirates holding the citizens hostage, the government had to move carefully. Finally, after almost a month, a combined action by the Navy, SOTE and the Imperial Marines freed the planet and captured the pirate gang.
When he saw that his agents recalled the, incident, the Head continued on. "The top two leaders of that gang were executed after a brief trial, as were eleven of the gang members who were convicted of committing atrocities. The remainder of the pirates-Karla Jost included-were exiled to Gastonia for life. The matter should have ended there-but it didn't.
"Just a few days ago, the Navy put out a decoy ship to trap a pirate group it had been chasing for some time. The pirates took the bait and, after quite a fight, the Navy captured the outlaw ship. More than half the pirates were killed in the battle-and when the Navy went about the routine task of identifying the bodies, they found that one of the women was Karla Jost.
"Quite naturally, they contacted us to tell us that they'd found an escapee, and that we no longer had to worry about her. The problem was that we hadn't been worried about her, all our records indicated that Karla Jost had never left Gastonia."
The implication was not lost on any of the agents, but it was left to Vonnie to voice the obvious. "Then someone spirited Jost off the planet without our knowledge, and she ended up with the pirates."
As the Head nodded, Yvette continued her sister-in-law's line of reasoning. "And where there's one escapee, there might be more. I presume you suspect an organized attempt to get the better talent off Gastonia and into a treasonous conspiracy."
"It sounds like a plan I've heard somewhere before," Jules drawled with no little irony.
Indeed it was. Lady A's conspiracy had already attempted a similar maneuver, hiding some of the Galaxy's most notorious criminals on a world called Sanctuary. Jules and Yvette had broken up that plot-and, in the process, they learned of Lady A's existence for the first time. It was also on Sanctuary that they. met and teamed up with Pias, who had gone there on a private mission of revenge against one of the criminal refugees.
The Head nodded soberly. "It has Lady A's touch, no doubt about it. And as you can well imagine, we're a lot more concerned with these possible escapees than we were about ordinary criminals. Each of the exiles on Gastonia was sent there for one specific crime: treason. We have a planet populated by traitors, every one of whom has some reason for hating the Empire-and many of whom, like Karla Jost, are dangerous people. If Lady A and her cohorts are looking for help, they couldn't go to a better spot.
"As soon as I discovered that, I sent for you. While you were on your way here, I developed a preliminary theory. We already know from the raid on Ling's base that the conspiracy was amassing ships. We can tell from what little wreckage remains of the munitions plant Jules and Vonnie destroyed on Slag that the conspiracy was manufacturing weapons at an enormous rate. If what we fear about Gastonia is true, we now know where the conspiracy is getting some of its manpower."
The Head sat up straight in his chair and ran a hand lightly over his smooth-shaven scalp. "The thing that concerns me the most is that it's all starting to come together. Ships, weapons, manpower-and in the background, a pair of strategists who seem to know every move we make, while we know next to nothing about them. It's going to be soon, I can feel it coming. And in just four months..."
He didn't have to complete the thought; each of his agents knew exactly what he meant. In four months, Emperor Stanley Ten would reach his seventieth birthday-and he had already announced his intention of abdicating at that time in favor of his daughter. Crown Princess Edna would then assume the title Empress Stanley Eleven, becoming the supreme ruler of the Empire of Earth and its trillions of inhabitants. Edna Stanley was a powerful and resourceful woman, a fitting offspring of her noble lineage; but she was only in her mid-twenties, and lacked the depth of experience she might need to cope with a crisis of this magnitude. That, apparently, was what the conspirators were counting on, too.
With his point made silently, the Head shifted topics slightly. "We can't afford to sit around and wait for developments. Jules and Yvonne, I want you to go to Gastonia and find out what's going wrong. If anything's amiss there it's a particular embarrassment to us; the Service is supposed to be responsible for the disposition of traitors. If there are any of our people involved in this conspiracy, I want them weeded out."
"No more than we do," Jules said. His jaw was clenched tight; loyalty to the Empire and to the Service was virtually an inborn trait of the d'Alembert family. The thought of anyone betraying the organization to which he was so devoted was most repulsive to him, and the Head almost pitied any turncoats that Jules encountered. Almost.
"What about us?" Yvette asked.
The Head turned his attention to the Bavol couple. "Yes, you two have a little different assignment. Originally I'd thought to let you work with Jules and Yvonne, so that the case might be cracked twice as fast. But something else came up that might put your talents to better use elsewhere. Some of our people down in Computer Analysis, after performing their arcane rituals with their machines, came to the conclusion that a joint operation between SOTE and the Navy to wipe out the pirates might be a good idea. Piracy has usually been the Navy's territory, and I know that Naval Intelligence has an ongoing undercover operation; but now that the lint: has been found between the pirates and this conspiracy, we do have a vested interest in this aspect of the operation. I proposed a mission to Captain Nacorn of NI, and he's pledged his department's cooperation. Since the two of you helped us crack Ling's outfit-however accidental it was-you're the Service's top experts on pirate catching. How do you feel about the idea?"
"We go where the work is," Yvette said pragmatically. "If the pirates are part of Lady A's plans, it's our job to smash them."
"Good"' the Head exclaimed, a dash of gusto in his voice. "I knew you'd feel that way. This will give us a two-pronged attack on the problem. Jules and Yvonne will work from the Gastonia end, sealing off that escape route, while Pias and Yvette will go to work on the pirates. As always, you'll have carte blanche; when agents produce results as spectacularly as you do, it would be presumptuous-not to mention foolish of me to tell them how to do their jobs."
He took a couple of book reels from his jacket pocket and handed one to each of the teams. "Here is the background information you'll each need, as well as my number here at the base should you need to reach me with any questions. I'll trust you to do your usual superb jobs-within, I hope, four months."
He did not have to emphasize the date. The four agents had already dealt with Lady A, and knew how serious a threat she could pose to a newly crowned empress. They could also sense the process quickening, the pace of the conspiracy accelerating as time went on. It was a feeling they did not like-and it promised to get worse before it got better.
Chapter 3
The Road to Gastonia
Had Jules and Vonnie been less dedicated agents, it would have been a simple matter to have themselves exiled to Gastonia. The Service's Documentation Department would have been happy to build for them a record of treasonous activities as long as they wished. The record would then be fed into the Empire's computer banks, along with the trial judgment that these two traitors be exiled to Gastonia. Jules and Vonnie would be imprisoned and, within a week, they would be on their way to the prison world. It would be an easy, fast and convenient way to reach their destination.
Jules had, in fact, used that procedure before on the planet Chandakha when he wanted to be put in prison to check out the procedures of a criminal mob that was murdering thousands of people every year. But in that case he had been dealing with a small, local organization with no way of tapping into SOTE's tiles to see how valid the fraudulent records were. Lady A's conspiracy was far bigger, spanning perhaps the entire Galaxy, and was much more organized than the Chandakha gang could have dreamed of becoming.
There was little doubt that C and Lady A had some informational sources from within the highest levels of SOTE. They knew who the Head was and they were intimately acquainted with the Service's innermost workings. The Head had been trying to trace down the leaks within the Service for the past several months, without any success; but in the meantime, Jules and Vonnie could not completely trust their safety to their own side.
On their last assignment, they had asked SOTE to provide them with some false documentation to fool members of this conspiracy. They had thought it might take a week or two for the conspirators to check out the sources and discover they were faked; instead, it took only a day--and that slip nearly cost the d'Alemberts their lives. They would not underestimate the opposition again; they'd find a method of getting to Gastonia on their own, without the aid of SOTE.
There was only one way of being sent to Gastonia: commit treason and be sentenced for it.
The situation was a little more complex than that, of course. The very worst traitors were executed rather than sent into exile. That was the fate that awaited C and Lady A when they were finally brought to justice. It was only the lesser traitors who were spared execution and banished to the harsh world of Gastonia.
The practice of exiling people to Gastonia rather than killing every convicted traitor began under the short, unhappy reign of Empress Stanley five, more commonly known as "Mad Stephanie." Whether she was any madder than some of the other Stanley rulers is a matter of some dispute; her nickname derived from her fanatical knack for smelling treason on every breeze and spotting traitors in every crowd. This obsession did have a basis in fact; when she was thirty-six her younger brother Edmund made a power play for the Throne, killing her father (then-Emperor Stanley Four) and very nearly killing her. Only the supreme loyalty of the Navy-primarily in the person of Fleet Admiral Simms-prevented the revolt's success. After several weeks of turmoil, the rebels admitted defeat, and Stephanie ascended to the Throne with a vengeance.
Prince Edmund and Grand Duke Gaspard of Sector Nineteen, the principal architects of the revolution, were publicly tortured and executed. Seven hundred and twenty-eight naval officers were court-martialed and shot. Stephanie combed the entire peerage; any noble who could not prove a record of unimpeachable loyalty was apt to find himself facing charges - of treason-and, since Stephanie's will was the ultimate law, a trial was but an automatic prelude to death.
When, after a year, Stephanie showed no signs of abating her purges, all the Empire--including her closest advisors began to worry. At the rate she was going, there would soon be none of the nobility left--and she was already beginning to accuse the more influential commoners as well. To prevent a further bloodbath, the Imperial advisors finally convinced their empress to banish the lesser offenders to the newly discovered planet of Gastonia at the outermost limits of Sector Twenty. The death penalty, while still the official punishment for treason, became reserved only for those who opposed their sovereign on a grand scale. In Stephanie's eyes, there were still plenty of those to go around-but thousands of people escaped execution and were "merely" banished for life.
As Stephanie's tyrannies grew more obsessive, the plots to depose her became very real indeed. The Service of the Empire, founded by Stephanie's grandmother Empress Stanley Three, had its work cut out for it, becoming little more than a terrorist police squad. Even SOTE could not keep the lid on all the revolutions, however, and Stephanie--along with most of her family-was finally assassinated in 2.299, six long years after the start of her bloody reign. Only her youngest son Edward survived, and became Emperor Stanley Six. To his credit, he pardoned most of the prisoners who had been unjustly exiled to Gastonia-but he kept the possibility of banishment open for future cases, and so it had remained down to the present day.
Jules and Yvonne thus found themselves having to tread a fine line. They had to commit treason; ordinary criminals were dealt with on a local level, and usually assigned to planetary prisons. The treason they committed had to be serious enough to rank them above the level of the common crook-but not so serious that they would die for it.
After a couple of long brainstorming sessions between them, the d'Alemberts decided that they stood the best chance of being noticed on one of the younger pioneer worlds. They took the names of Ernst and Florence Brecht. ostensibly raised in a backwoods community on the very crowded planet Promontory. This identity was carefully selected; since Promontory was so crowded, and since its backwoods area was so primitive, a great many people existed without adequate documentation.
The fact that the Brechts had no birth certificates, no marriage license-indeed, no records of any sort-would not be considered unusual.
Also, because of its overcrowded condition, Promontory was a focal point of the Empire's emigration drive. Whenever there were new planets opened, the: Empire subsidized migration from the crowded worlds to the newer ones. The population of the Empire kept moving and spreading; theoretically, there was no end in sight.
Thus it was that, one afternoon, Ernst and Florence Brecht showed up at the emigration office in Tor, capital city of Promontory, and volunteered to emigrate to the new planet Islandia. The recruiting officer was delighted with this young couple, in such fine physical condition, and did not delve too deeply into their background. He had a quota to fill, and this couple satisfied all the necessary conditions. Within three days, the Brechts were aboard a spaceship bound for lslandia.
The planet Islandia was so named because more than ninety percent of its surface area was covered by water. These vast oceans were dotted by thousands of small islands, many of them still unexplored. The islands were a biologist's paradise, since many species of animals had evolved separately on each of the islands, making it an ideal laboratory for testing theories of parallel evolution. In addition, the sea life was rich and varied; most of the colonists' food and materials came from the oceans.
