door marked “Chemical Reprocessing,” the First Advisor took careful aim with his blaster
and directed a bolt straight at Yvette. The female d’Alembert made a minute swerve and
the deadly beam touched ground only centimeters from her feet, scorching the concrete
flooring. Yvette didn’t even slow down.
A look of terror now crossed the face of the man whose organization had so callously
doomed hundreds of thousands of people to death. This was more a machine than a
person coming at him, a black-clad juggernaut bent solely on his destruction. He tried to
start running again, but his foot slipped on the ground that was now covered by the liquid
spewing from the leaking pipe above. He spread out his arms to regain his balance, but
to no avail. With a cry of doomed anguish he fell through the opened door and
disappeared from view.
As she came to the wet spot, Yvette slowed her own charge so that she wouldn’t suffer
the same fate. Walking carefully up to the edge of the door, she peered inside.
Below her, surrounded by a narrow walkway, steamed a vat of chemicals whose
purpose was to reduce organic materials to their basic molecular components. These
components would then be filtered out into separate tanks and recombined in more
acceptable form for human consumption. There was no chance that any living thing could
fall in there and survive.
As she stared into the greenish liquid her hands clenched and unclenched several times in
frustration. She had wanted to take Garst apart personally, piece by piece, but consoled
herself with the thought that his death had not been a particularly pleasant one. She
found that her lower jaw was trembling, and stopped it with an act of will. “He’s gone,”
she announced simply.
Her brother came racing up to her and put his arms around her. Suddenly all the tensions
of the last two days hit Yvette at once and she leaned, trembling, in his embrace. Jules
held her tightly and said nothing. He wanted very much to ask her what the matter was,
but he knew his sister too well for that. He didn’t want to hurt her pride. When she was
ready to tell him the story, she would do so. In the meantime he would offer her all the
aid he could without invading her privacy.
After a couple of minutes Yvette pulled herself together and smiled up at her brother.
“This affected me a little more strongly than I thought.
He nodded. “You know, I’ve discovered I don’t like working on my own nearly as well. It
gets awfully lonely sometimes.
“Yes.” She continued to smile weakly, then looked down at her feet. “Yes, it does.” After
a moment she looked back up at him, her face back to its normal composure. “Chief
Kantana and her agents should be arriving soon at the Marchioness’s palace. I asked
them to meet me there, since that was where I thought Garst would be. Gindri was in
collusion with Garst, but he was the brains. As soon as I learned he would be here, I left
a note for them to follow me.” She looked around at the devastation the evening’s
activities had wrought at the plant. “There’s nothing really for them to do here. Why don’t
you go back to the palace and help them sort out the pieces there?.
“What about you?.
“I’ll be along in a little bit. I just have a private goodbye to say here, that’s all. Don’t
worry, I’ll be all right.” Jules gave her a quizzical glance, but said nothing. As he walked
out the door, he turned to look back. Yvette was standing beside the opening to the
chemical processing vat, staring blankly into it. There were tears in her eyes, though
whether they were from the chemical fumes or some inner grief he could not tell. With a
shrug of the shoulders, Jules turned and left his sister to work out her emotions for
herself.
CHAPTER 14
The Chandakha Solution
They sent a coded report directly to the Head the next day, and received an answer
within two hours. They were ordered to return on the next available ship, and to leave the
mopping-up operations in the capable hands of Chief Kantana. They were both a little
sorry not to be able to finish completely what they’d started, but they realized the
wisdom of their superior’s decision. After all, they were his top agents and their talents
shouldn’t be wasted on trivia. There were plenty of other people to handle the routine
work.
Despite their own impatience, the Head suggested that they take their time getting back.
The ship on which they booked passage took a leisurely ten days to make the trip to
Earth-time they used well for both emotional and physical healing. Yvette told her brother
all about Dak and her feelings for him, and he comforted her to the best of his ability. By
the time they reached Earth, Yvette was reconciled to Dak’s death. He was only a dull
ache in the back of her mind-if not forgotten, at least put aside for other matters.
They came down at the Canaveral Spaceport in Florida and drove in their own jet-car to
the Hall of State building for Sector Four, located in Miami. Landing on the rooftop, they
took the private elevator tube down to the Head’s office, where Duchess Helena showed
them in with great ceremony.
Grand Duke Zander von Wilmenhorst was seated behind his large desk which was, as
usual, buried beneath a mass of paperwork. He looked much more at home in these
surroundings than he did in his spaceship; the milieu was suited to his basic personality.
He waved them casually into chairs and Helena went automatically to the bar. Knowing
the d’Alemberts’ preference for nonalcoholic beverages, she fixed them both orange juice
freezes.
“Once again I have to commend you two on a superlative job,” he said when everyone
had gotten comfortably settled. “It threatens to become a habit. Of course it’s a pleasant
habit to acquire, considering the alternatives.
“You’re no doubt wondering how the mop-up operations went. I got a report in just
yesterday from Kantana, and her work has been perfect. The ledger reel you found,
Yvette, did indeed contain some of Garst’s records, as well as some notes that let
Kantana discover where he’d hidden the rest of his files. They went right back to the
beginning of his organization, more than two decades ago. The wealth that flowed
through that group was greater than the Gross Planetary Products of many smaller
worlds! It was an incredible system. Garst was an organizational genius, and I’m glad
he’s dead. I’d hate to know he’s still out there plotting. It was only an accident that led us
to him at all.
“So many criminals slip up by getting too greedy, but Garst kept a tight rein on that. He
preyed on only small numbers of tourists-comparatively, of course-where a lesser man
might have tried for bigger scores. By keeping at a low level continuously, he was able to
get away with his crimes far longer than he should have.
The Head absently shifted papers from one stack to another as he spoke. “Once we had
the records, of course, it was a simple matter for Kantana to round up all the members
of the gang on Vesa, including the corrupt police and hotel and recycling plant
employees. And from the information you gave her, Jules, she was able to track down
their training school. There wasn’t much left of it Jakherdi had burned it down and
scattered his personnel the moment word reached him about Garst’s death-but Garst’s
records were complete enough that she knew who she was looking for. A few of the
small fry have escaped detection in Chandakha’s crowds, but all the major officers in the
conspiracy have been captured.
Shifting uneasily in his chair, Jules sipped at his drink and looked thoughtful. When he
was certain that his boss had finished speaking for the moment, he began, “On the way
back to Earth I did a bit of thinking. We’ve smashed the conspiracy on Vesa for now, but
I really don’t think we’ve solved the problem.
The Head raised an eyebrow speculatively. “Oh? How do you mean?.
“Well, the real menace is Chandakha. Garst could never have set up the system he did if
he didn’t have a steady supply of people to commit his murders. He needed hundreds of
men who were so desperate for money and so calloused about the value of human life
that they could kill automatically, like machines. Chandakha is a breeding ground for
exactly that sort of person. Life is the cheapest commodity they have there. People are
so crammed together, crime is so rampant, that recruiting for a strangler’s guild is
simplicity itself. Transport a man from the slums of Bhangora to the flashy casinos of