seated. That left him only the back wall to retreat to-a move which the enemy obviously
expected. Not wishing to disappoint them, Jules made his way through the aisles of
boxes to the back wall, then turned to face the attackers.
They were moving toward him a bit more slowly now, confident of the final outcome and
not wanting to spoil things by tipping their hand too quickly. Overreaction could be
disastrous; they had their quarry boxed in and could afford to take the time to do it right.
Jules faced slightly to his right, away from the direction of the ramp, and seemed to be
giving that third of his attackers the majority of his attention. With his peripheral vision,
however, he was keeping close tabs on the advancement of the group in front of him and
to the left. Suddenly, when the positions were exactly right, he made his move.
From a standing start, he began running straight at the group coming from his left. They
were a bit startled at this direct assault, but they held their line firm and prepared to
meet the onslaught. Jules built up as much speed as he could and, when he came within
five meters of the killers, suddenly bent his legs under him and leaped through the air in a
low arc over the heads of the startled group. One of the killers, a bit faster on the uptake
than the rest, tried to jump up as Jules passed overhead and grab some part of his
clothing to at least slow him up; all he received for his efforts, though, was a kick in the
face as Jules used his aerialist’s skills to twist about in midleap. The jumper fell violently
back into the midst of his fellows, creating more pandemonium.
The powerful muscles of Jules’ legs acted as springs when he landed again, absorbing
much of the shock of impact. He rolled over forward once to absorb most of the rest of
the momentum, then, in one continuous motion, sprang to his feet and began running
toward the ramp. There was no one to block his way now, no obstacles to overcome;
Jules could concentrate purely on speed.
And speed he did. On DesPlaines, Jules in his best form would have been considered a
fast runner, though perhaps not a record holder. The recent injury to his leg slowed him
down more. But on worlds with lower gravities, there was just no comparison. Jules was
far and away the fastest man these crooks ever had or ever would see, a blur in human
form. He had reached the ramp before any of the Chandakhari could even think to pursue
him in that direction.
They did try to give chase, of course. To a man they raced in the direction of the ramp
and upward to the next level. But Jules had had too much of a jump on them and was
moving far too fast, tired though he was from all the fighting. By the time the first ones
reached the fourth level, the only trace left of Jules d’Alembert was the sound of his
receding footsteps as he raced upward and out of the building.
Garst was not pleased. Lessin, the man who had been Conducting the briefing in the
warehouse before the interruption occurred, had gone straight to his boss with the news
of the intruder. Now he was not so sure it was the safest thing he could have done.
“To be spied on is one thing, but to have discovered the spy and let him get away is rank
incompetence!” Garst’s short, corpulent body was trembling with rage. Lessin knew
those rages-in fact, had seen them directed at other people. The results were never
pleasant, and he mentally braced himself for the punishment he knew would come.
“We all tried,” he began to apologize. “I’ve never seen a man move like that before. He
was like a wild animal . . . . .
“And you only outnumbered him thirty-three to one,” Garst sneered. “Panna-cats have
been caught barehanded at smaller odds than those. Your men are all well-trained and
good at their jobs; most of them have been with us for years, yet you could not catch one
simple person.” He banged his palm with his fist in frustration.
Lessin waited in silence for Garst’s rage to blow over. Anything he could say would only
add to the fury the other felt.
At length, Garst’s temper subsided a little. He turned his back on Lessin and walked
around behind his large desk. “The question now is, who was that man? What kind of
threat does he represent? Was he acting on his own, or are there others with him?.
“The men from my Group Two know him. He started working at the docks with them a
couple of days ago. He calls himself Georges duChamps and he’s originally from
DesPlaines. They had a bit of a problem with other workers in their outfit and this
duChamps intervened a couple of times-both for and against them. They can’t figure him
out.
“A DesPlainian, eh?” Garst settled himself behind his desk and drummed his fingers
impatiently across the top. “Well, that may excuse some of your bungling; I’ve heard
some pretty impressive things about them. But still-thirtythree to one. . . .” His voice
trailed off and he shot Lessin a meaningful glance.
The subordinate decided to leap into the conversational breach before Garst had much
chance to contemplate further on the mishap. “I think he was just working on his own.
He’d had a few brush-ups with my men, and was curious about them, that’s all. After all,
he couldn’t be with the police they wouldn’t dare interfere with us. . . .
“But we can’t be sure!” Garst banged a fist down hard on the solid wood desktop. “In
this business, Lessin, we can’t afford to take any chances at all. Take nothing for
granted. There are other constabularies than our own, you know. So far, I grant you,
they have not seen fit to intercede in our business, because we’ve been careful not to be
too greedy. A little trickle diverted from a wide stream is never missed. But there is
always the possibility that we slipped up somewhere and alerted someone. We must
take great pains to find out the truth and, if that is the case, to rectify our error as quickly
as possible.
Garst stood up once more and came around the desk to face his minion. “We must
capture this duChamps fellow-alive. We have to question him to find out how much is
known about us, so that we can assess the danger. If he is just a man on his own, well
and good; he can be eliminated with no one being any the wiser. But if he is part of a
larger force, more drastic measures will have to be taken. I hate to even think about that,
but I know I’ll have to.
He glowered sternly at Lessin. “Since it was you who bungled this matter, I’ll let you be
the one to straighten it up. You will direct the search operations. I want every single man
we’ve got to have a description of duChamps. I want every single hiding place searched
beginning, of course, with his hotel room, though I doubt he’d be fool enough to return
there. We’!! scour every centimeter of Vesa if we have to, but I want that duChamps
found and brought to me alive. Is that understood?.
It was indeed understood. Lessin was actually glad Garst had put him in charge of the
search. It had been duChamps’ fault that he’d had to come to Garst with this problem in
the first place, and he had that debt of honor to pay off. He would find the DesPlainian,
all right-and when he was finished, the spy would wish Garst had allowed Lessin to kill
him right away.
CHAPTER 8
Vanished.
Yvette got only about three hours’ sleep following her chance meeting with Dak Lehman,
and even that was spent fitfully sitting up in a chair, facing the door and starting at the
slightest noise in the hall that might herald the return of the three men who had ambushed
her on the starliner. They had caught her by surprise once, and she vowed that would
never happen again. But this night was a false alarm; nothing untoward occurred.
At 0930 she finally dragged herself out of the chair to get ready for her rendezvous with
Dak. She had neglected to wipe off the makeup from last night and it bad gone gritty on
her face. Added to that were the dark circles under her eyes and flyaway hair from
sleeping in an awkward position. Taking a good look at herself in a mirror, she said, “Dak
must be crazy; nobody in his right mind would ever want to marry someone who looks