mere woman had been able to toss him so easily. He was angry, though, at being made
to look a fool in front of the people he’d just been bragging to. He was not going to let
that happen again. With a snarl, he braced his feet firmly and reached for Yvonne a
second time.
The agent dodged again, but this time-instead of flipping Voorhes through the air-she
twisted his arm around behind his back, so high that his hand was well up between the
shoulder blades. As the man cried out in pain, she used the side of her flattened left hand
to give a hard backhand chop to his midsection, right at kidney level. Her victim exhaled
sharply, and she hooked a foot around his to trip him. As he fell to the floor, she fell on
top of him, her knee pressed with just enough force on his windpipe to prevent his
making any sudden moves.
When the fight started, Jules backed away to give his wife more room to work. He knew
that Vonnie was perfectly capable of handling a lout like Voorhes without any assistance
from him; he was more concerned with the rest of the spectators. He was going to make
certain this was a fair fight.
Most of the bar’s patrons were grinning as they watched Yvonne handle Voorhes as
though he were a sack of flour. They had endured endless hours of his pompous boasts,
without the courage to stand up to him; now they were all reaping vicarious revenge on
the bully. But some of Voorhes’s underlings were less than pleased about the way their
boss was being treated. They knew what a temper he had, and they were more than a
little afraid that he would take out his aggressions over this humiliation on them. Three of
them started forward to tackle this presumptuous young lady who had so badly
embarrassed Voorhes.
Although Vonnie could probably have taken care of four louts as easily as one, Jules
could see no reason why he should let his wife have all the fun. As the first of the trio
passed by him, he reached out and grabbed the man’s wrist in an unbreakable grip. With
a quick turn, he flipped the man around so that he went crashing into the other two, and
all three would-be rescuers ended up in a tangled heap on the floor. The rest of the
crowd roared with laughter as the threesome scrambled around on the floor, cursing
madly as they tried to extricate themselves from one another.
But the laughter stopped abruptly as the front door swung open and a man entered the
bar. He was a big black man, easily over two meters tall, with shoulders almost as wide
as the doorframe. The bulky furs he wore made him seem like some wild creature of the
forest. His thick eyebrows arched over brooding, intelligent eyes, and his black beard
held only a few discrete touches of gray.
Neither Jules nor Yvonne needed a formal introduction. This man could only be Kwame
Tshombase, the mayor of the village.
No one moved as Tshombase’s head turned and his eyes scanned the scene with a
penetrating stare. This was a man accustomed to power and the knowledge of what he
could do with it. The mayor’s eyes rested on the helpless form of Voorhes lying on the
floor at Yvonne’s mercy. “What’s going on here?” he asked. Although his tone was
conversational, his deep, booming voice carried its authority to every corner of the room.
Jules was not cowed by Tshombase’s power. Stepping forward, he bowed his head
slightly as a minimal acknowledgment and said, “My wife and I wanted to work for you,
sir.
We asked Gospodin Voorhes about the possibility, and he saw fit to assault my wife
instead. Since we were sure you would not want your officers to appear so uncouth in
public, we took it upon ourselves to reprimand him and his friends on your behalf.”
There was a hint of a smile at the corners of Tshombase’s mouth, but none of it crept
into his voice as he told Yvonne, “Release him.”
Vonnie glanced over at her husband, and Jules gave a short nod. Reluctantly she stood
up, releasing her hold on Voorhes, and backed two steps away. The mayor’s lieutenant
choked and coughed a bit and got woozily to his knees, but could get no higher for
another minute or so.
Tshombase looked back at Jules. “I do not hire warmies, no matter how good they are in
a fight. They simply don’t have the experience to make themselves useful to me. Try
again in a couple of years.”
He then turned to his number three man. “I’ll have a talk with you in my office tomorrow
morning,” was all he said. Without further ceremony, he turned and walked out the door
as abruptly as he’d entered.
Later that evening, after the d’Alemberts had returned home, they discussed the situation
between themselves. Both were disappointed that their prowess had not led to a job
offer; they knew they had to penetrate the organization somehow if they were to find out
how people were getting off the planet.
“We could try taking Tshombase in a fight,” Yvonne suggested. “By beating him we could
take over the whole operation, and start in at the top.”
Jules shook his head. “It won’t work. You have to be more than just a good fighter to rule
a village like this. Didn’t you see Tshombase’s eyes? He’s no dummy. You need a
full-scale organization behind you. If we knocked off Tshombase, we wouldn’t be able to
control his men; the village would split into a dozen different factions as each of his
officers carved out his own chunk of territory. We’d have to work slowly, behind the
scenes, and build up our own organization, to be prepared to step into the power vacuum
as soon as Tshombase’s out of the way. That kind of work takes time-months at a
minimum, years more than likely.”
“We haven’t got months, or years,” Vonnie sighed dejectedly.
“Exactly. Which is why we’ll have to find some other way.” Jules paced about the small
room, pounding his left palm with his right fist. “Somehow, on this crazy planet, there
must be some method of working our way into the system quickly enough to find what
we need.”
But they were unable to think of it that night.
Chapter 7
Pirate Raid
If Pias and Yvette Bavol had founded their ship, the Paradise, as a purely commercial
venture, they would probably have been delighted with the results. The passengers were
all quite rich, and more than happy to spend their money in such luxurious settings. They
praised the rooms and the furnishings. They gambled their rubles away at a prodigious
rate, with the house raking in a generous percentage of the pot. The men and women
Yvette had hired as “escorts” were doing a bang-up business, and the owners of the
Paradise got their cut of that. Money was coming in so well that Pias calculated it would
only take a year, at this rate, to recoup their initial investment and begin to show a profit.
Nevertheless, they were depressed. The d’Alembert family considered its money and its
entrepreneurial talents merely as a means to an end-the end being the safety and
security of the Empire and the Imperial family. In this particular case, they were not
achieving the results they’d hoped for.
The Paradise had started out from Egon to the planet Bromberg, where they picked up
some more passengers for their quadrangle cruise through the chosen four star systems.
Despite the fact that they had the best subspace detection system money could buy,
they detected only one other ship near them during the run-a large, ponderous freighter
that posed no threat whatsoever. On the second leg of their journey, from Bromberg to
Hsoli, and on the third leg from Hsoli to Kuragana there was not the slightest trace of
company. Their alarms went off on the journey from Kuragana back to Egon as a small
fast ship pulled up to them, but it turned out to be a false alarm-merely a private vessel
that had lost its bearings and was needing some help returning to port.
Even the normally ebullient Pias was becoming discouraged. “Maybe we’re not being
obvious enough,” he complained to his wife. “Maybe we ought to paint a sign on the side:
‘First Interstellar Pirate Bank. Withdrawals Encouraged.”‘
“They may be sizing us up. We did put a heavy emphasis on how unbeatable our
defenses were; they may want to see a little more how we operate before trying
anything. We’ve only made one complete circuit so far. Now that our first passengers are
getting off, they’ll spread the word about what a fantastic time they had-and what a rich
haul this could be. The largest part of a SOTE agent’s job is waiting, I’m afraid.”