Revolt of the galaxy, p.3
Revolt of the Galaxy, page 3
He pushed Beti away slightly so he could look into her face. "I have the Empire on one side and you and the family and Newforest on the other. But I can't sit by and let my family be murdered by my power-mad brother. That's not in anyone's interest, not even the Empress's."
He sighed.
Then he moved apart from her, and his tone was all business. "Tell me what's happened since I left. Tell me everything, every detail no matter how small. If I'm going to be of any help, I have to know what I'm facing."
---
After hearing his sister's story and assuring her she'd be safe with Baron Ebert, Pias took Yvonne with him to police headquarters where the would-be assassins were being held. With the word of the baron backing them up, they gained quick admittance to the killers.
Even under detrazine, though, it was clear that Beti's attackers could give them little additional information. They were low--level blasterbats, local criminals hired by an anonymous voice over the vidiphone--with the visual circuits blanked out--to perform the specific task of killing Beti Bavol. They were told precisely where she was staying and that they should perform their task as quickly as possible. They didn't know who had hired them or whether there was any connection with the planet Newforest.
Disappointed, the two SOTE agents flew back to Felicitè, discussing the problem along the way. "From what Beti told me," Pias said, "Tas has revolutionized the planet singlehanded. It was always a rather backward, easygoing place; now he's brought in computerized equipment, he's spying on his citizens, he's even building factories. That's much too institutionalized for good old Newforest. If it were just the factories and the computers, I could excuse it as an attempt to bring 'progress' to the planet--but the ruthless way he's going about it makes it different somehow. Something's happening there, something... well, I hate to say 'evil,' it sounds so melodramatic, but that's the feeling I get. Something evil has gripped Newforest and won't let go. What I don't understand is why the local SOTE office hasn't reported anything about this."
"Maybe they have," Vonnie said. "The Empress gives local nobility a great deal of leeway--it's the only way an empire of this scale can survive. Her father tried to avoid meddling in local matters as much as possible, and Edna seems to be following that same policy. She and the Head may be waiting to see just how far this will go before they step in."
"When it goes as far as murder, that's too far."
"I agree, and something will have to be done. The thing I don't understand is how your brother was able to track Beti down so quickly. Within hours of her arrival the killers knew exactly where to find her. That would be understandable on Newforest, where he probably has lots of spies, but on a distant planet it's much harder to trace someone. He must have some organization behind him."
The implications of her statement remained floating in the air between them, but neither agent voiced them aloud. Instead they flew the rest of the way back to the d'Alembert estate in brooding silence.
As soon as they reached Felicitè, Pias put through a subcom call to the Head's private number on Earth. Grand Duke Zander von Wilmenhorst, the chief of the Service of the Empire, was unavailable at the moment, but Pias spoke to his daughter and prime lieutenant, Helena. He asked for a leave of absence to settle some family matters, and described to her in some detail what he'd learned of events on Newforest. Helena listened somberly as she considered the situation.
"I don't recall any strongly negative reports, from Newforest," she said when Pias was done, "and I see virtually all the reports that come in. I see so many reports it makes my eyes ache."
She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. "As far as I can recall, the only thing that's come in about Newforest was that they were making a big push toward modernization. Nothing wrong with that, so we haven't paid much attention. If what your sister says is true, someone is lying to us somewhere down the line--possibly someone in the Service office itself. I don't like that one bit."
She paused and looked straight at Pias. "What you're describing doesn't sound to me like a leave of absence at all. It sounds like a full-blown assignment, to investigate illegal and treasonous activities on Newforest and to take steps to correct the situation. You don't have to ask permission to do that."
"There are personal matters involved," Pias said, "and I didn't want to just disappear on you if you had any other assignments for me."
"I understand the personal matters very well," Helena said, her expression softening suddenly. "Newforest is your home, and should have been your inheritance. I know the depth of your concern. You know, though, that the d'Alembert teams have a standing assignment to investigate anything that looks suspicious to them--unless they're given something specific to do instead. Right now, everything's quiet--everyone's holding their breath to see what turns out in the Omicron situation. You're free to pursue any investigations that strike your fancy. I appreciate knowing where you'll be, in case of trouble. I'll notify the local office there to stand by to give you any assistance...."
"That might not be such a wise idea," Vonnie said, in view of the fact that someone there might be falsifying the reports."
Helena winced. "You're right, of course. It makes me shudder just to think there might be traitors in the Service; it was bad enough when we had to weed out so many during the Banion mess. Find out what you can, and if it calls for official action we can bring in help from the outside.
"If things are as bad as your sister claims, you won't have to go into much detail; just give us a preliminary report. You're a good investigator and troubleshooter, but we've got specialists in planetary administration who can handle the mop-up once you've pointed them in the right direction. There's no need to risk yourself unnecessarily on a minor housekeeping matter like this; the Service needs your talents too much for major projects."
But to Pias Bavol this was far more than "a minor housekeeping matter." This was his family, and Newforest was the planet he'd once hoped to inherit. Unimportant though it might be in the scheme of galactic history, this was his home and his people--and even though he was sorely tempted to let the friends and family who'd betrayed him suffer the consequences of their actions, he vowed to put into this case every bit of energy it took to set the situation right again.
Chapter 3
Return to Newforest
Pias had a major battle on his hands even before he left DesPlaines. Yvonne d'Alembert--impatient at her enforced idleness and nervous about the fate of her spouse--demanded to accompany him on his trip to Newforest. It would at least give her something to do to take her mind off Jules's dangerous assignment on Omicron.
Pias at first protested that the children would be left unattended, to which Vonnie replied that there were plenty of servants on the vast ducal estate, as well as the Marchioness Gabrielle--and if they got tired of watching the children, Vonnie's father was always eager to see them. "I refuse to be thought of as the weak link in this family," she insisted. "I'm always the one who has to stay behind, and it just isn't fair. I can pull my weight with the rest of you."
Pias agreed that was so, but voiced a new objection. "This is a job that calls for a great deal of subtlety," he said, "and I'm afraid you'd stand out too much."
"Thanks a lot!" Vonnie grimaced. "I'm as good at undercover work as anyone in this family. I was taking classes before you ever thought to leave Newforest, and I got a 989 on the Thousand Point Test. That's not exactly spaceslime, tovarishch."
Pias shook his head as he tried to soothe his Sister-in-law's temper. "I didn't mean to imply you weren't any good, but Newforest is a special case. We stayed isolated from the rest of the Empire until two generations ago. We've got a language of our own and a very distinct culture. Outsiders are viewed with great suspicion and distrust, and it would take you weeks, maybe even months, to learn everything you'd need to be able to pass for a native. I just can't afford the delay. If Tas would try to kill Beti, who knows what he'll do to the rest of the family--or to the rest of Newforest. I've got to stop him quickly."
The argument continued, but in the end Pias was victorious. He would travel to Newforest alone and investigate his brother's activities. He did promise that if any action were to be taken he would notify Yvonne as well as SOTE Headquarters on Earth, giving his sister-in-law a chance to get in on the adventure.
Pias left for Newforest a few hours later in one of the small private ships the d'Alembert family kept at Felicitè's spacefield. It was a long trip from DesPlaines to Newforest, and Pias had plenty of time to consider the strategy he would use in his investigation.
The first thing he would have to do was disguise him self. As a young marquis and heir to the planet, he had always been a popular figure and his appearance was well known to most of the populace. By the edict of the kriss, the council of elders, he was a nonperson and anyone who saw him was supposed to treat him as though he didn't exist. That would make it hard to obtain any information from the people about what was really happening on Newforest. Even worse, Pias was afraid that someone recognizing him would inform Tas, and then he'd be in trouble.
To avoid that problem he dyed his sandy brown hair a deep black, changed his hairline with plucking and growth inhibitors, used skin pigments to darken his complexion, and applied a thick mustache to his normally bare upper lip. He inserted contact lenses to change his eye color from blue to brown. For hours he practiced speaking in a voice that was higher and more nasal than his usual tones, and he gave himself a trace of a country accent that would label him as coming from well outside the capital city of Garridan where the Bavol family made its home.
Landing on Newforest would be awkward. Because of its high gravity, no one went there casually-- and because it had little heavy industry or interstellar trade, the planet attracted even fewer visitors than DesPlaines did. Anyone landing at the spaceport was an immediate object of suspicion --and particularly so if he arrived in a personal spaceship. Very few Newforesters could afford their own private ships; landing at Garridan Space port would attract undue attention--something an undercover agent preferred to avoid.
Pias would have to land somewhere unofficially. There was a range of hills about thirty kilometers south of the town where he thought he might come down unseen. He hated the thought of walking so far into town, but he could think of no alternative. Meanwhile, in preparation, he went through the ship as thoroughly as he could, removing anything that might identify it. If someone spotted it while he was gone, he didn't want to leave any clues pointing to himself or, worse, to the d'Alemberts of DesPlaines. He'd also brought along some cases of expensive perfume and some mildly pornographic sensable tapes; if planetary officials examined the ship, they'd think he was a smuggler, not a spy.
He'd thought a secret landing would be easily arranged. Garridan was not a busy port and its detection equipment was largely unsophisticated. Since there was no naval base there either, there should have been no detectors capable of spotting his small craft--or, if they did spot him, there would be no resources for tracking him down and following him to his landing site. He would be at most a momentary enigma that would fade from their memories almost as fast as he faded from their sensor screens.
His ship emerged from subspace about twenty million kilometers out from Newforest and quickly began spiraling in. His troubles began just before he reached the uppermost levels of the planet's atmosphere. An official radio announcement demanded that he identify himself immediately or face legal action. Pias ignored the warning and concentrated on plotting a course to land at his chosen hiding site.
The warning came a second time, and Pias suddenly noticed two ships on his sensor screen coming up to intercept him. Newforest had never had a big problem with smugglers, and no one ever wanted to land here illegally, so the government had never bothered to challenge ships before. He cursed himself for not expecting a fight after everything Beti had told him about Tas's security crackdown, but it was still hard for him to think of his home world as anything but easygoing. In the back of his mind, Pias knew that such measures meant there was something on Newforest that required guarding from prying eyes. But that was a consideration for later; right now, he had some evasive action to take.
He wasn't much worried about the two ships themselves. He'd naturally be careful, for either of them would have the firepower to blow his own small vessel out of the ether, but he'd evaded more thorough opposition in the past. The real threat would be from the organization behind those fighters. Newforest was now a planet on guard against intruders, and that would make his mission infinitely more dangerous.
The attackers began firing at him even before the second warning was finished, but by that time Pias already had his craft in motion. The vessel dipped and rolled and twisted as his hands played across the ship's controls, and the fighters trying to intercept him were slow to respond; apparently they were not as accustomed to combat situations as he was--and Pias was still a rank amateur compared to his brother-in-law Jules. The security systems on Newforest must still be comparatively new, then, and the pilots unpracticed in their roles. That gave him some hope of success.
Pias's ship darted and wove an intricate pattern through the upper levels of Newforest's atmosphere, and the interceptors followed awkwardly behind him. At first Pias did not return their fire, waiting to see how serious the situation would become. When no more attack ships rose from the planet's surface to chase him, he guessed that the pair were all Tas had at the moment.
When he was sure there'd be no further opposition, Pias turned on the automatic weaponry. Spaceship battles were haphazard affairs because of the relative motions of all parties through three dimensions, and the computer-guided weapons were never as effective as an experienced human gunner because they couldn't be as intuitive. Pias would have liked nothing better than to have his beloved Yvette there to fire at the enemy--but since she wasn't there and he couldn't handle the guns and the controls at the same time, he had to let the machines do his fighting for him.
As it turned out, his ship's computers were more than a match for their opposition, who were less adept at dodging than Pias was. Within a very few minutes both ships had been disabled and their pilots had to radio for help. Pias was able to resume his landing unopposed.
He did not delude himself into thinking he was now safe, however; if Newforest had equipment sophisticated enough to spot his little ship in the first place, they would also track him to his landing spot; Soon after touchdown the ship would be surrounded by Tas's security force. He'd have to get away quickly to avoid being trapped in their net.
He began altering his plans. The hills he'd originally selected were too far away from town, and his reason for picking them was no longer valid. Landing there now would handicap him; he'd have to scramble across hilly terrain while his pursuers could track him comfortably in copters.
He began looking at the more inhabited regions closer to Garridan. Newforest was such an underpopulated world that there were still large tracts of undeveloped land near even the largest cities, and as he came lower Pias was able to spot an area that looked suitable--a scattered woodland near the edge of a large pond, with many small farms scattered between the woods and the capital city. The woods would give him cover as he left the ship, and the farms would provide plenty of places to hide if pursuit came after him. Once in Garridan itself, he had no doubts at all about his ability to blend in and disappear.
The landing was tricky--first, because he was having to alter his course from moment to moment to select the best spot, and second, because he didn't have the help of ground traffic control to guide him in. He'd never made such an impromptu landing in his brief experience as a spaceship pilot--and the problem was further complicated by Newforest's heavy gravity. Fortunately, he'd learned his landing procedures on DesPlaines, and he was able to compensate. The ground came up to meet him almost before he was ready, and he had to fire the braking rockets hard to control his descent. There was really no clearing big enough for his ship; he'd have to create one the hard way. His vessel hit the trees with considerable force, chopping off upper limbs and pushing aside the thick trunks.
His ship landed with a tooth-jarring thump. Because of its odd Position within the woods, with trees pressing against it on two sides, it began to tilt over immediately upon touchdown. Pias quickly turned off all power systems to avoid possible explosions, leaving just enough for the lights and air regeneration systems. He held his breath, afraid to move, as the ship's cant increased, and finally relaxed as the nose came to rest against another tree. The little vessel was in a terrible position, but at least it would fall no further. Pias unstrapped himself from the acceleration couch. He was glad he'd prepared everything ahead of time on the long flight here from DesPlaines, and had made the ship look like a smuggler's vessel; with Tas's defenses alerted, he'd have less time to get away from here than he'd planned, and every second was crucial.
He staggered awkwardly through the oddly sloping corridors of the ship to the airlock, and faced an unexpected problem: how to get down. The normal boarding ramp was jammed. It was about a three- story drop to the forest floor--hazardous even in one gee and possibly fatal in New forest's two- and-a-half gees.
There was no time to look for fancy solutions. Pias reached for the handholds in the ship's hull and began lowering himself down the side even though, at this angle, it meant he was climbing almost horizontally, with Newforest's heavy gravity tugging at his back trying to make him fall. The magnisteel hull dissipated heat quickly, but the handholds were still very hot from the atmospheric friction of the landing, and Pias's hands stung from their tight grip on the hot metal. When he reached a point only a few meters above the ground he decided to risk the drop, and fell the rest of the way. Landing the way he'd been trained, he rolled to his feet unhurt and took stock of the situation.
It had been only a few minutes since his ship came to rest, yet already he could hear the whirr of approaching copters that signaled pursuit. Again the small curious voice in the back of his mind wondered what was suddenly so special about Newforest that warranted such thorough protection from prying eyes. There was enough firepower in his ship to blast any copters out of the sky and Pias had enough weaponry on his body to put up a significant fight, but that wasn't his objective. He'd come to Newforest to observe the situation, not to engage in military battles. He'd already made a bigger splash than he'd intended; Tas would be on the lookout for an intruder, making Pias's undercover job that much harder. Taking a stand here would only strengthen the defense's resolve; a smuggler, as he was trying to portray himself, would much prefer to run and hide until they relaxed a little bit.
