Stranglers moon, p.5
Stranglers' Moon, page 5
Ostensibly the Cosmos Room was designed for meditation on the vastness of the Universe; in point of fact, it served to spur the development of shipboard liaisons that were part of a starliner's legendary appeal to romantics of both sexes.
Dak led Yvette to the hand railing along one wall and together they watched the light show play across the dome for several minutes. It was Yvette who broke the silence.
"I've spent the entire evening so far talking about myself," she said. "How about letting me know a little bit about you? Who is this fascinating fellow named Dak Lehman?
Her date was strangely silent for a long moment, which Yvette found quite uncharacteristic. Dak was never pressed for an answer in conversation. Yvette was about to comment jokingly on his hesitation when she felt a strange prickly sensation on the back of her neck. Someone was watching her; her agent's instinct was definite on that point. Casually she shifted her body around so that she could look in the direction of the stare without appearing to notice it. As her eyes peered through the darkness of the room she could make out the shapes of two men. One was of normal height but slightly portly, the other was tall and lanky. She couldn't make out much else in this poor light, but they were definitely watching her. That was all they seemed interested in for now, so Yvette filed the information away in her mind for later evaluation and turned her attention back to Dak. She kept checking the watchers every few minutes, though, to make sure they weren't up to something.
Dak had finally gotten around to answering her question. Yvette laid a hand gently over his wrist as he spoke. "Oh, I'm not anybody too important, really. My father ran a small voice writer manufacturing company on Largo. When I inherited it I expanded the operation until we became the largest business machine company in that sector of space. We've recently branched out still further into computers, and were doing fantastically well there, too. I decided to get away from home for a while, before too much success did me in. It can be pretty heady wine, but the social atmosphere was getting rather stifling. I'm hoping Vesa will change that; I hear very few people ever win anything there. It'll be a refreshing difference." "And there aren't any women in your life?
Again, that slight pause. "No, no, not at present. I've always been too busy to let anything really permanent develop. Sort of married to my work, you might say.
Yvette had put her hand on his wrist for a reason. As sensitive as she was she could act as a human lie detector, picking up the small changes in pulse rate, the minute tensions in the muscles that occurred when a person was ill at ease with what he was saying. It was a trick she had learned years ago from her Uncle Marcel, the Circus' magician, to whom it was an indispensable part of his mentalist act.
What she'd learned from "reading" Dak's wrist annoyed her. He did not seem to be directly lying, but at the same time he was steering his way very carefully between the pillars of -the truth. Not a single thing he'd said had been completely accurate. This disturbed her, for she'd begun to find herself caring for him quite a bit.
From back in the ballroom the orchestra had struck up another dance tune. Yvette suddenly found herself impatient with this time and place. "Let's go back and dance some more," she said, taking her date firmly by the hand and leading him in the direction of the dance floor. He offered no resistance whatsoever.
The two watchers vanished into the shadows as she moved back toward the ballroom, and that disturbed her even more. Why were they watching me? she wondered. Do they have anything to do with this case? But they couldn't have broken my cover this quickly.
Questions swarmed around her mind all evening, refusing to let her simply enjoy herself.
The next five days went by rapidly. For the most part they were very relaxing, with Yvette spending most of her time in Dak's company. They conversed in trivial matters, childhood experiences and gossip about the activities of their fellow passengers. They played at the shipboard sports, and Yvette had to be supercareful not to let her physical talents show too much. Their favorite pastime was "free-swimming" in the zero gee room, a sport far superior to water swimming for several reasons: it could be done in three dimensions without the heavy resistance of water, there was no drying off to do afterwards, no special clothing to wear-in fact, free-swimming was usually done nude-and there was absolutely no fear of drowning.
Yvette was used to freefall, having been traveling through space with the Circus since she was a baby, but she rarely had the pleasure of enjoying it in a large room where she could be free to soar and do acrobatics to her heart's content. She really came alive while free-swimming, and her exuberance infected all those around her. She twisted and spun and somersaulted in the air to the applause of her fellow passengers-who had no idea they were watching the premiere aerialiste in the Galaxy.
"You certainly do that well," Dak remarked one time as his eyes admiringly tracked over Yvette's lovely, svelte body.
Yvette flashed him her warmest smile. "Physical fitness has always been a passion of mine. My body is my home and I have only the one-I want to take care of it as best I can." She spent the rest of that day teaching Dak the basics of her art. He was an apt pupil, and after only a couple of hours they were performing together in an acceptable, if not totally polished, manner.
The only thing that marred the blissful perfection of those last few days was the continued presence of those two shadowy watchers. At first, Yvette noticed them only when she was together with Dak-a pair of indistinct forms observing them discreetly from a vantage point where they themselves could only barely be seen. But after a while, as her relationship with Dak deepened, one or the other of them was with her almost constantly.
For convenience' sake, she named the tall one Gaspard and the fat one Murgatroyd, and tried every trick she knew to bring them out into the open-to no avail. She tried ducking around corners and doubling back on them, but they were wise to that trick and refused to be caught. She tried mingling in large crowds and open rooms, but they were equally adept at mingling and remained hidden while watching her. She was able to shake them off her trail temporarily several times, but on a closed ship there were only so many places she could go and they always picked her up again within a couple of hours.
Who are they? she found herself wondering more and more. They're damned good, I'll give them credit for that. Could they be a part of the conspiracy I'm here to investigate? There's no evidence to suggest that the mob has advance scouts on the ships coming into Vesa-but that doesn't mean they don't. Whoever they are, they give me purple fits.
It was now the last night of the voyage. Tomorrow the Empress Irene would be docking on Vesa and Yvette's real work would begin; but as for tonight, she just wanted to relax and enjoy herself. She and Dak had a marvelous dinner and their conversation was freer than any they'd had before. A couple of times Yvette saw a dark thought pass behind her date's eyes and he almost came out and told her what it was. But something made him hold back, and he would change the subject abruptly. Yvette, feeling it was not her place to pry, said nothing.
After dinner they walked slowly about the ship, arms around each other's waists, not saying much of anything. When they came to the elevator tube where they would have to part to go to their respective suites, Dak invited her to come to his for the night instead.
Yvette hesitated, then turned him down politely, citing her recent widowhood as an excuse. "As I said, occasionally my Puritan upbringing comes through and surprises even me. Your offer is tempting, but Carlos' death was so recent... :' She let her voice trail off wistfully.
"I understand," Dak said softly. He turned toward her, gazing down into her beautiful face, and both his arms wrapped around her. Their bodies were pressed together for a silent sensual minute before he spoke again. "I'm usually so well spoken that when a genuine emotion comes my way I sometimes get choked up. This is one of those times. I know there's a mystique about shipboard romances, and it's something I've been consciously fighting -but I've lost. Carmen, I think I'm in love with you. Will you marry me?
Yvette found herself suddenly with tears in her eyes. "Your speechlessness must be contagious," she stammered. "The only thing that comes to my mind is the old cliche that this is all so sudden. I don't know what to think. You deserve a better answer than that, I know, but that's all I can give you at the moment.
Dak shrugged. "I'm not expecting an answer tonight. Maybe in the cold light of morning on Vesa we'll think how silly we were to mistake desire for love. Let's both just think about it for a while, shall we?
"I can't think of a pleasanter subject to think about," Yvette replied.
The two stood by the elevator tube for a long minute with their bodies held closely together, luxuriating in the feel of one another's warmth. Then Dak bent his head down to hers and their lips met in a passionate kiss.
Yvette's whole body was still tingling from that kiss as she went up the tube and then made her way down the long corridor to her suite. Her mind was in a pleasant haze of confusion brought on by a conflict between her emotions and her rational mind. Her feelings were telling her that here at last was a man she could love. She was twenty-nine years old and still single; among the prolific d'Alembert clan that was considered slightly unusual. She had had her share of romantic entanglements, but never before had the magic spark burned so brightly as now: Dak Lehman was handsome, intelligent, charming, pleasant, wealthy, available, and in love with her. The combination couldn't get more perfect than that. It didn't matter that her father, besides managing the Circus, was also the Duke of the entire planet of DesPlaines and that she herself was a Lady of the Realm. There was no stigma attached to marrying a commoner; in some circles, in fact, it was actively encouraged.
The one fact she could not ignore, however, was that Dak Lehman was not a DesPlainian. It was not chauvinism but practicality that made that point so important.
Dak's home planet of Largo had a surface gravity approximately equal to Earth's, while Yvette came from a world three times as strong. He could never live comfortably on her home world; even in peak physical condition as he was now, he would be largely incapacitated. In ten, twenty, thirty years he would become a hopeless cripple.
Yvette would be able to tolerate the low gravity of other worlds much better, but there would still be complications. People from high-grav worlds tended to develop bone diseases when they moved permanently to smaller ones. She herself could wind up an arthritic cripple-a fate she didn't relish. Plus, she would have to go into a self-imposed exile from all the friends and family she felt closest to.
There was the question, too, of relative strength. She had had to be very careful thus far in their relationship not to use her full strength. Even in the midst of their most passionate embrace she had had to hold off using her power, for fear of cracking several of his ribs.
If they were to be married she would be living with that fear constantly, afraid to let herself go completely because she might hurt or even kill him. It was this collection of doubts that tempered her ecstasy as she fished in her purse to find her key.
But I do love him, she realized.
As she pulled the magnetic key from her purse and was about to run it over the surface of the door's lock, she noticed a light shining out from under the doorframe. She distinctly remembered turning out the lights as she'd left her room four hours ago... and these lights were not automatically timed to go on by themselves.
Instantly all thoughts of Dak Lehman were banished from her mind and she was once again Yvette d'Alembert, top agent for the Service of the Empire. Business was at hand.
Some person or persons had broken into her room, had turned on a light and had left it on. It could be a simple burglary and the thief may have departed hours ago, but she could not afford to take that chance. Searching back through her memory, she suddenly realized one reason why this evening had seemed so carefree--her two menacing shadows had not been following her. It had perplexed her slightly at first, but she had forgotten it in the delightful evening that followed. Now it was all suddenly clear. They had not followed her because they were setting an ambush in her own room. Yvette was glad she had not accepted Dak's proposition. She'd been getting very nervous about these two faceless ones for some time now but had been unable to initiate action. Now it was finally they who were starting something, and Yvette resolved to be the one to finish it.
Her analytical mind raced, deciding what strategy she should take. The hall was normally quiet and she had made no attempt to silence her footsteps, so Gaspard and Murgatroyd would know she was presently standing outside the door. They would be taking no chances-their guns would be trained on the door to shoot her the instant she opened it. Blasters or stunners, it would make no difference; they would be trying to incapacitate her somehow.
But they would be aiming at a target standing in the doorway, because that was the normal way people entered a room. They would probably aim fairly low, waist height or lower-to ensure a hit. But there might be another way to enter a room....
Looking quickly around, Yvette spotted what she wanted. All starliners were equipped with series of handholds for emergency use in case their artificial gravity failed. These had been made to blend in with the decor, but they were there and would be sturdy enough for what she had in mind. She fixed in her mind the position of the one just above her door and braced herself for action.
She rubbed the magnetic key across the surface of the lock, but did not stick around to await the results. Instead, she leaped for the handhold above her door. As the door slid silently open, she could hear the low buzzing of stun-guns discharging, firing at the spot where she should by all rights have been standing. Instead, the beams passed harmlessly through the air and vibrated against the opposite wall of the corridor.
Yvette grabbed the handhold firmly and used it as a pivot point. Taking advantage of the forward momentum of her leap, she swung her legs forward and to the side, through the upper half of the portal, and landed out of the line of fire next to a chair. As she was descending, she noted that her ambushers had turned the gravity in her room back down to one gee, obviously for their own convenience. What they did not realize was that the lower gravity would also make it easier for her to fight them.
The two men had stationed themselves three meters apart against the far wall and were aiming at the doorway to catch her in a vee crossfire. Yvette's brain assimilated that knowledge in a fraction of a second and plotted her next move accordingly. She did not pause as she landed, but instead bent her legs under her as springs, using the force of her impact as the impetus for another leap. She flew across the room toward the man she'd name Murgatroyd, twisting catlike in midair as she did so; by the time she reached him, her feet were in front of her to cushion her landing. At the same time her right hand lashed out sideways and the edge of it delivered a vicious blow to the side of the man's neck. Had she not deliberately pulled the punch at the last second the neck would have snapped; as it was, Murgatroyd reeled and fell unconscious to the floor while Yvette, in one fluid motion, spun herself around and launched herself at the other gunman.
This fellow was the one she'd called Gaspard, and his reflexes were good. Yvette's attack on his companion had given him the split second he needed to recover from the surprise of her entrance and begin to turn in her direction. Even so, his reflexes were no match for those of a DesPlainian in peak condition.
Just as he swiveled and brought his gun up level to fire, Yvette was on top of him, seventy kilograms of infuriated mass. The impact of her body knocked them both to the ground, and a quick jab of her stiffened fingers just under his ribcage knocked the air out of his lungs and the fight out of his spirit.
As the second man went limp, Yvette breathed a small sigh of relief and got to her feet.
A sudden motion caught her eye at the very limit of her peripheral vision, but before she could turn to see what it was she heard the buzzing of a stun-gun. Paralysis numbed her body and she fell, limp-boned, face forward onto the carpeting. The hidden gunman must have used a number one setting on his stunner, the minimum possible, because Yvette did not lose consciousness. All that happened was that her voluntary muscles refused to obey her strenuous demands to act, leaving her lying helpless in the middle of the floor.
The fact that her assailant had used so low a setting was encouraging-he could just as easily have killed her-but it was little consolation to her at this particular moment.
Yvette was furious at herself for having been so stupid. Just because she had only seen two followers before didn't mean that there only were two. She had allowed her own self-confidence to lure her into a false assumption; she should never have relaxed her guard until she'd checked the room thoroughly to make sure there were no other attackers hiding in it. In the deadly game of espionage, a player was usually allowed only one mistake, because one was usually fatal. Yvette was praying that would not be the case this time, and 'she swore she would never make such a stupid blunder again.
As she lay there she could hear the approaching footsteps of the person who'd shot her.
She could not turn her head to see, but soon a pair of men's shoes stepped into her field of vision. "You are to be congratulated, Gospozha Velasquez; you fought better than anyone would have expected. We underestimated you, and that's something I hate to do.
Rest assured, that will not happen again.
"I should begin, I suppose, by telling you that we mean you no harm personally. That sounds ludicrous in view of our ambush, I know, but all our stunners were set on one. We merely wanted to have a talk with you without your interrupting or objecting. We are reasonable men.
The voice paused as the stranger took one step backwards and sat down on the edge of her bed. "We've noticed, in the last couple of days, that you've taken an inordinate interest in Gospodin Lehman. As it turns out, we also have an interest in Gospodin Lehman, and we become-how shall I say it?-jealous when other people enter the picture.
