tonia.
Although outwardly they acted stunned, inwardly the d’Alemberts were much relieved.
Taking over an entire world had been the easy part of their assignment; the hard part lay
ahead of them on the cold, forbidding exile world of Gastonia.
Chapter 4
The Paradise
Pias and Yvette Bavol faced a somewhat different problem how to work their way into
the pirates’ base without being obvious about their intentions. It was a problem that Pias
attacked with his usual good humor.
“How does an ordinary honest citizen become a pirate?” he mused aloud as he and
Yvette were discussing their strategy. “It would be gauche to run an ad: ‘Situation
wanted: pirate. Formerly free-lance, now seeks association with others. Good shot,
good tighter, no piloting experience. Prefers administrative position.”‘
“You never know,” his wife laughed. “You might get some interesting offers.” She cleared
her throat and grew serious again. “But they must get new recruits from somewhere. We
could make the rounds of the spaceport bars and underground hangouts until we hit
some contacts.”
Pias made a face. “I had my fill of those places when I was hunting Rowe Carnety.
Three years of low dives can build up a toxic reaction. There has to be another way.” He
paused and smiled at his wife. “Besides, my love, you should know by now that that’s not
really my style. I prefer something with flash and elegance. Let the mountain come to
Mohammed; I’ll be more valuable to them if they have to seek me out.”
“I don’t think they’re that desperate for manpower; there are plenty of cheap blasterbats
for hire on any planet in the Galaxy. The only people they seek out are their victims.”
Pias snapped his fingers and pointed at her triumphantly. “Then that’s what I shall be. I’ll
make myself such a great target they won’t be able to resist me.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Why not? It worked for us before, didn’t it? We smashed Ling’s gang after they
captured the ship we were on.”
“We were very lucky,” Yvette reminded him. “We almost didn’t make it out alive.”
“That’s because we stumbled into the situation accidentally. This time we’ll be planning
the program in advance, so we can take the variables into account.”
“But our job is to infiltrate the pirates, to join their organization and destroy it from the
inside. You can’t do that if you’re a victim.”
“With my boyish charm, I’m sure I can reason the situation out with them.”
“Your ‘boyish charm’ didn’t work on Ling-and I’d like to see you reason with anyone after
you’ve been chucked out an airlock with no spacesuit.”
“Mere details,” Pias said with an expansive gesture. “They can be worked out more
conclusively once the broader plan is decided.”
Though she loved her husband very much, Yvette would be the first to say that there
were times he vexed her considerably. One of those times was now. She was still more
used to working with her brother, and Jules had always preferred the direct approach.
Search and destroy had been his motto; on the few occasions when they’d been forced
to let the opposition find them, such as on Algonia during the Banion case, Jules was
always much happier after the waiting was over and he could go into action. With Pias,
she suspected, this was all much more of a great game; he seemed to enjoy the setting
up of ruses as much for their own sake as for their ultimate end.
Still, she could hardly fault his performance. Even though he didn’t have the family
tradition in the Service that the d’Alemberts had, Yvette knew he was dedicated to their
job. And she had to admit, his methods got results. She had doubted him before in their
last mission, on Purity, but he had succeeded there, where her more direct attempts
could not.
Yvette sighed. She would go along with his plans, if only to keep a check on some of his
more extravagant ideas. But she still wished he were less unorthodox.
Pias’s plan was to offer the pirates a target so irresistible that they would have to make
a try for it. “Pirates go for money,” he reasoned. “We’ll have to offer them one of the
richest ships in the Galaxy to guarantee their attack.”
“Money alone isn’t enough,” Yvette countered. “Some of the richest people in the Empire
travel on the big liners all the time without worrying about safety.”
Pias thought that over. “Liners don’t have a high enough concentration of wealth,” he
decided. “You have a few rich people and a lot more ordinary ones who are traveling on
business or who have saved up for years for a luxury vacation. A big liner is a hard
target, because it takes more manpower to overrun it-and for the small percentage of
really rich people, it’s not worth the effort.
“From what I’ve heard of pirates, they prefer either a cargo ship with a load of freight
that can be resold at high profit margins or else the smaller private or chartered ships
with enough people to hold for ransom.”
“I know,” Yvette exclaimed. “We can start a cargo company, specializing in rare and
expensive merchandise, risky loads that other companies refuse to handle. That should
offer a tempting package for pirates.”
Pias thought the matter over, then shook his head. “No, not good enough. For one thing,
how likely is it that we would form such a company? Neither you nor I can pilot a
spacecraft, and there isn’t enough time to learn if we want to crack this case before the
Princess’s coronation. Nor is it very likely that the nonflying owners of such a company
would waste their time flying on every one of their flights-and if we’re not along, we don’t
get a chance to meet the pirates.
“Besides,” he added with a grin, “it’s not flashy enough. It gives the pirates no incentive
to deal with us directly.” Yvette’s patience with her husband was momentarily pushed
beyond the exasperation point. “Then what is flashy enough for you, your majesty?”
Seeing that he’d upset her, Pias backed off a bit from his assumed stance of grandeur.
“Actually, I was thinking in terms of a gambling ship. If there’s one thing I do know, it’s
that.”
Yvette’s irritation dissipated as she considered the idea. Pias had spent three years
posing as an easy-going professional gambler while he sought revenge on Rowe
Carnery, the man who’d murdered his former fiancee. It was a role perfectly suited to
Pias’s eccentric temperament-and one that added to the aura of mystery about him that
Yvette had found so fascinating at the time.
Pias watched her reaction and saw that she was calming down, so he proceeded to
outline his ideas. “Not just an ordinary gambling ship, either; if we want to attract the top
money to act as pirate bait, we’ll have to give them something worth coming to. The most
glamorous space going casino ever conceived, an interstellar vessel overflowing with
decadence and luxuries.”
Some of Pias’s enthusiasm was now beginning to rub off on Yvette-as he’d been sure it
would. “An exclusive pleasure palace,” she said, eyes beginning to glow as the idea
caught fire within her mind. “The more exclusive we make it, the more people will be
clamoring to get in-and the more select our clientele. Admission by invitation only, with a
basic two thousand ruble fee at the door.”
“Fifty ruble minimum bets,” Pias went on. “And a strict house policy of no credit.
Everything will be on a cash basis which will ensure our having plenty of rubles to lure the
pirates.”
“We’ll bill ourselves as being a hundred percent safe, completely pirate-proof. Not only
will that help our image with potential customers, but it will be a gauntlet in the pirates’
faces. If we keep shouting loud enough about how impossible it is for them to take us,
their own egos will eventually make them come to us.”
“Is it possible to be completely safe?” Pias wondered. “And would we really want to be
even if it were?”
“Yes to both. As long as the pirates don’t simply blast our ship out of the skies-which
would hardly be profitable for them-I can find us a crew to repel any possible boarding
party. And if we want them to deal with us as equals, and take us into their plans, they
have to respect us first. By beating them at their own game, they’ll have to come to
terms with us.”
Such was the genesis of the Paradise, the most lavish vessel of its kind ever conceived
and built in the history of the Empire.
It was not meant to compete with the large luxury liners; those were intended to impress
their passengers with their size and stateliness. Even drawing upon the fortunes of the
d’Alembert family and the Circus of the Galaxy, the Bavols could not have afforded such