evaporating. He remembered back to the fight that had taken place two days ago and
recalled how impressed he had been with their coordination. That they were a well-drilled
team he had no doubts at all. They had almost been able to kill him, despite his
considerable skills. These were not innocent farmers and dockhands-not at all.
So intent was Jules in his thoughts that Rask was able to catch him by surprise. With a
burst of strength that only a madman could muster, he gave one violent jerk that bucked
Jules off his body, scrambled to his feet and began racing off in the direction of his fallen
blaster. The SOTE agent recovered his balance quickly and started after him, but was
too late to avert the tragedy that was coming up.
The Chandakhari had formed as a group by now and interposed themselves between
Rask and his gun. He hit their lines like a maniac, arms waving madly in all directions.
They withstood his assault, grabbing for his limbs and immobilizing them by pinning them
to his body. Then, even as he struggled furiously against their grip on him, the
Chandakhari picked him up bodily and ran him over toward the scraper. With cold fury
they rammed him solidly into the machine.
Rask howled, a scream that would have curdled molten lead, as a large section was
ripped away from his spacesuit. Jules instinctively brought his hands up to cover his ears,
even though his head was solidly encased inside his helmet. The dying man’s shriek
pierced like an arrow through Jules’ brain. It vanished quickly, though, and was replaced
by a few sucking sounds as the air whooshed out of Rask’s suit. Then silence.
As Jules reached them, the Chandakhari slowly lowered Rask’s lifeless body to the
ground. Jules looked around the group at the faces within the helmets, and saw not the
slightest trace of remorse in any of them.
CHAPTER 6
Vesa Vice
When the Empress Irene docked on Vesa, Yvette was too busy packing up her luggage
and supervising its removal from the ship to look for Dak Lehman. She had gotten little
sleep that night, intent as she was on thinking about the attack in her suite. She was able
to come to no conclusion whatsoever about the men who’d ambushed her. There was the
possibility that they were some sort of advance scouts for the murderous conspiracy she
was here to investigate, selecting their target before he even arrived on Vesa. If that
were so, it would imply an even larger organization than anyone suspected, one with
Galaxy-wide connections. Such scouts would perhaps try to chase away anyone who got
involved with their target, since it would add a complication to their plans-as well as
someone who. might raise a hue and cry if the victim turned up missing.
That solution was farfetched, but possible. Yvette wondered at the logistics, though.
After all, the expense of sending out teams of scouts to line up targets in that way would
not be a paying venture. So many rich people visited Vesa anyhow that it would seem
much more feasible to pick and choose among potential victims once they were
on-planet.
What seemed more likely to her was that she happened to stumble into the middle of a
situation that was independent of the Vesa problem. Those three blasterbats had not
really been interested in her at all, but merely in the fact that she was becoming involved
with Dak Lehman. They had not started following her until after she’d begun dating Dak,
and even then they’d taken no active role until they’d established that something might
come of the relationship. And at that, their warning to her had been extremely gentle, all
things considered. They could just as easily have killed her, she knew. And they wanted
her to know that.
She spent a good deal of that night wondering how to respond to the warning. Her
d’Alembert pride had been injured, and that clan was known as particularly stiffnecked.
She did not like being threatened, and she did not like appearing as though she were
giving in. Yvette had a strong contempt for weak-willed women who pretended to be at
the mercy of big, strong men; she was living proof of equality between the sexes and
hated having to subordinate herself.
Dak was obviously in some kind of trouble. Three expert men wouldn’t suddenly start
following him around just for the hell of it. Dak himself seemed to know something; Yvette
recalled all the times when he’d started to tell her something, only to shy away and go
silent at the last moment. What could be the matter with this seemingly ideal man? She
cared a great deal about him, and was caring more every day; she couldn’t just stand by
while he was in danger and not make a move to help him.
But yet, she had a job of her own to do. Dak’s problem could very well be independent of
hers-and if that were the case, it would be unwise of her to get mixed up in it. Fighting on
two fronts at once was not terribly smart, if it could be avoided.
Finally she just decided to take a wait-and-see attitude. She would not seek out Dak and
his problems-but if he should come to her, she would not avoid them. The d’Alembert
family did not believe in dodging responsibility.
After the usual hectic debarking procedures and a short wait going through customs,
Yvette had her luggage sent to the Hotel Regulus where she had booked her
reservations in advance. The Regulus was one of the hundreds of plush hotels on Vesa
that specialized in catering to rich tourists visiting this gambler’s paradise, and they knew
how to treat a guest well-particularly one as wealthy as Carmen Velasquez. In no time at
all, after crossing a number of palms with ten-ruble tips, Yvette found herself installed in
her twelfth level suite. Looking around at the large group of rooms, including a living
room, bedroom with imperial-sized bed, and spacious bathroom, she felt the slightest
tinge of a letdown. Traveling on a first-class liner like the Empress Irene must have really
spoiled me, she mused.
She was here to work, though, not luxuriate, and she’d better set about it. Enough time
had already been wasted on the trip here. For all she knew, her brother might have
wrapped up the case already.
The first thing she did was phone down to the desk and ask them to send up a newsroll.
It arrived while she was still unpacking, and she sat down to read it at once. She glanced
avidly through the personal ads, but there was nothing there yet. If Jules had wanted to
contact her, be would have placed an ad signed “Frenchie.” No such ad existed, which
meant that he had not yet reached any conclusions strong enough to tell her about-either
that or he was in no condition to place any ads in the paper. She dismissed that thought
from her mind almost the instant it came up. Jules could take care of himself.
As soon as she’d finished her unpacking chores, Yvette decided to go out and
immediately taste some of the pleasures that Vesa had to offer. The stack of guidebooks
she had brought along told her of some of the better casinos in the area near her hotel,
and she checked off three that interested her the most. Then she changed her clothes
preparatory to making her debut in Vesan society.
Her basic outfit was a jumpsuit made from a patterned brocade fabric of deep rose and
gold. Gold boots covered her feet and a belt of gold squares set with pearls circled her
waist, holding up a red velvet purse. The turtleneck collar of her jumpsuit was also
lavishly adorned with pearls. Her dark brown hair was swept up and crowned by a
coronet braid of red velvet dotted with pearls.
Over the jumpsuit she wore a ruby-red velvet houppelande, with dagged sleeves that
reached to the ground and a high collar that came up well past her ears. The
houppelande was fastened at the throat with an enormous golden pin, in the center of
which reposed a fist-sized ruby. A golden string of matched pearls -each the size of a
walnut-draped loosely around her neck.
Yvette eyed herself critically in the mirror. It screams rich, she told herself. Rich, but
tasteful. Ready at last, she left her rooms to face the rigors of Vesa.
It didn’t take her long to realize that Vesa was a strange place. She bad known
intellectually that all life on this moon existed in underground caverns carved from the
naked rock; but knowing that fact and actually experiencing it were two different things.
The subterranean aspects could be ignored when one was inside a building; after all,
people are used to having ceilings over their heads when they’re in a room.