question.
“Yes. Since the resorts on Vesa account for well over ninety percent of Chandakha’s
wealth, the Dukes of Chandakha have always been subservient to the marquisate of
Vesa. They need the tax revenues too badly for their own survival.
“At the risk of stating the obvious then,” Yvette said, “I gather our assignment is to find
out what’s happening to all these missing persons and put a stop to the operation.
“Exactly.” The Head set his jaw, and fire gleamed in his eyes. “‘The thought that this vast
a conspiracy could be going on right under our noses for so long without our even being
aware of it is galling. At least with Banion we knew he existed, even if we couldn’t track
him down. But this-” he spread his hands “-this is like them painting over our eyes and
daring us to do something. I don’t like being blinded while somebody makes a fool of
me.” The Head stood up, determination written in every line of his face.
“That’s why I want you, my two best agents, to handle the case. I want this menace
smashed, and I want it done quickly!.
Back in their own ship again and floating free in orbit around Mother Earth, the two
d’Alemberts studied the reels their boss bad given them. Document after document
reiterated what they had already been told that somehow, thousands of people were
simply ceasing to exist.
The supersiblings had found from long experience that talking the case out aloud
between them helped clarify their thoughts. “Let’s look at a typical case,” Jules was
saying. “Say Ivan and Tatyana Gregorov go to Vesa. Their spaceship reservations are all
paid for, round trip. They check into their hotel and spend a few days gambling and
seeing some of the shows. Then, before their vacation is supposed to be over, they
abruptly check out of their hotel, taking all their belongings with them. They cancel their
return reservations, getting cash for the tickets. And that’s it, they’re never heard from
again.
“Where are they all going?” Yvette mused. “Something must happen to them. They’re not
staying on Vesa, unless there’s a secret underground city we don’t know about. Maybe
they’re all being taken into slavery in the deep, dark pits of some treasure mine.
“Vesa’s got all the treasure mines it needs right at its gambling tables,” her brother
pointed out. “More money changes hands here than on the Galactic Stock Exchange.
Your imagination is running a little overtime, sis.
“But if the people aren’t staying on Vesa, then they must be leaving-and the outgoing logs
of all the ships departing from there indicate no such thing.
“Which leaves us in an impossible situation. The people aren’t staying and they aren’t
leaving. They’re simply vanishing.
“They could be dead, I suppose.
“Yes, it’s a lot easier to hide a dead body than a live one. But even so, where do you
stash a quarter of a million corpses so that they won’t be noticed?.
“They must have some system to it. Vesa’s an airless moon; maybe they bury them all in
some crater on the surface where no one ever goes. Maybe they have a catapult that
launches the bodies directly into their sun.” “You’re beginning to sound desperate.
“Sorry; having brain cells chasing themselves around in circles inside my skull tends to
make me dizzy.
“We’re talking about thirty-five bodies a day,” Jules said. “Disposing of them in any way
like that would be a major industry, and terribly wasteful of energy. There has to be a
simpler, more efficient method of going about it. But I’m damned if I can think of what it
could be.
“Let’s put that problem aside for the moment, before our brains turn to pink jelly. The one
thing we know about this operation is that it’s systematized. Anything with that rapid a
turnover of business has to be. And wherever there’s a system, there’s a way to crack it;
Papa’s told us that often enough. We begin looking for common links. Is there anything
the victims have in common?.
“Not a thing,” Jules said shaking his head. “The victims are totally random. They come
from all over the Galaxy. They’re men, women, old, young, famous, obscure, all races,
all religions. They have nothing whatsoever in common.
“One thing,” Yvette said thoughtfully. “They all came to Vesa from somewhere else.
Jules floated in the middle of the cabin, staring at his sister in open-mouthed amazement.
“Evie, you have the, rare gift of spotting the obvious. Of course, they all had to be rich.
Only the super-affluent can afford to go someplace like Vesa. And that means. . . .
“That money has something to do with it,” Yvette said, completing her brother’s thought.
“These people are being killed and robbed of whatever they brought with them, then
disposed of somehow.
“Yes!” Jules exclaimed, but then his expression changed. “No, wait a minute. That
doesn’t make sense. Vesa has no need to rob and murder people. The casinos gross so
much money that they don’t know what to do with it all-not to mention all the hotels, bars,
theaters and brothels that have their own rakeoff. What’s the percentage in killing people
for their money when they’re determined to give it to you legally?.
“How many casinos, hotels, bars, theaters and brothels are there on Vesa, mon frere?
Two hundred? Three hundred? Four? Maybe even a thousand. What’s the permanent
resident population of Vesa? Fifty-some thousand, according to the most recent tape I
saw. The legitimate operations probably earn a bundle for the minority of the people who
own them- and the larger majority who work for them. That still leaves an awful lot of the
people wanting a slice of that pie. And it’s such a rich pie that none of the fatcats minds
them taking a small share. After all, there are about seven hundred tourists arriving on
Vesa every day; who will miss a small fraction?.
“Tu as raison, as always. The percentage murdered is nowhere near high enough to
adversely affect the take in the casinos, so they won’t complain. The police are obviously
getting paid off to remain stupid. The murderers get fat off their booty. Everybody wins,
nobody loses except, of course, for the poor victims who wander into the trap.
Yvette smiled weakly. “I’m not feeling nearly so dizzy anymore. It’s good to know that
this whole mess can be thought out logically.
“But just knowing what they’re doing is a long way from smashing it,” Jules said. “We still
need to know how and who.
“A two-fold problem,” Yvette nodded. “It seems tailor-made for a two-pronged attack.
The `how’ appeals to me, I think. I could travel to Vesa in style, set myself up as a victim
and see what I catch with my bait.
“That leaves me the ‘who.’ It has to be done by the ordinary people living on Vesa, that
much seems obvious. I’ll have to get a job there, join their ranks and see what I can
learn. But what sort of job should it be?.
“Well, what are your qualifications? You’re strong, athletic, agile, not too quick-witted . . .
“I beg your pardon!.
“. . . and obviously suited to manual labor,” Yvette finished with a smile. “Not very well
educated, but eager to make a lot of money without having to work hard at it. Just the
sort of man who would turn into a thief and a murderer.
“With sisters like you,” Jules muttered good-naturedly under his breath, “who needs
enemies?.
CHAPTER 3
Locker Room Brawl
Spaceports on airless worlds all look pretty much the same. Such worlds are invariably
pitted with craters from meteoroid impacts, and one of these craters is widened out and
deepened to accommodate the landing of ships. Long airtight boarding tubes, similar to
the one in the Anna Liebling’s hangar, allow the passengers to disembark down a sloping
ramp to the interior of the spaceport without having to go through the inconvenience of
donning cumbersome spacesuits.
The loading and unloading of cargo, however, is a much different matter, since freight will
rarely walk down a ramp of its own accord. The procedure here is to have all cargo
packed in airtight modular sections, usually stored in the lower portion of the ship. Upon
landing, a large section of the ship’s hull slides open, exposing the cargo to the vacuum
of the planet’s surface. Special cargo tractors emerge from the walls of the
crater-enormous flatbed carriers equipped with their own cranes, winches and other
apparatus. When the tractors reach the ship they disgorge dozens of spacesuited figures
who begin transferring the cargo modules from the hold to the carriers, which then drive
back to their hangars and unload the freight into airlock chambers. From this point,
distribution of the materials can proceed normally. The entire operation is reversed, of
course, for loading cargo onto an outbound spaceship.