fooling with a little jamtart who has less brains than a flea’s left foot. I practically ran the
whole ship for him, and the only thanks I get is a quick boot in the rear. I’ll show him not
to mess with a Farese.”
“A very commendable spirit, my dear,” Shen said calmly, a broad smile illuminating his
face. “I presume that is where my organization and I come in.”
“Sure. You want to crack it open and get inside, and I’ve got the knowledge to help you
do it. There’s millions of rubles floating free in there, if you’ve got the guts to go for it.”
“My, my, Hell certainly does have no fury, does it? And you offer me all this out of the
goodness of your heart and your desire for revenge, is that it?”
“Hell, no. I take one-quarter, off the top.”
Shen placed his two palms together almost in a position of prayer and buried his face
behind the joined hands. “That’s a rather high commission, don’t you think’! I have
expenses of my own to meet, after all-there’s a payroll and overhead for maintaining this
base. The people who go out on the raids always get a percentage of the take-it’s part
of my incentive program. They wouldn’t be happy with me if I gave away such a large
share to such a little woman.”
“Without me, you ain’t ever going to get in,” Yvette insisted.
“And without me, you won’t have the manpower to complete your revenge,” Shen
countered. “But I’m a generous man. I’ll give you ten percent of the net, after operating
expenses are deducted.”
Yvette hesitated for effect. “Twenty percent,” she said at last.
“Fifteen percent net.” “Fifteen gross.”
Admiral Shen considered her latest counter-offer, then slammed an open palm down on
his desk with a resounding clap. “Done! It’s a pleasure doing business with you,
Gospozha Farese. Now, tell me about those defenses.”
Yvette shook her head. “I may not be no admiral, but I ain’t stupid. If I tell you now, you
won’t need me at all. I’ll go along with your raiders, and I’ll give them instructions as they
need them.”
Shen’s smile broadened still further. “Well, well, ever the practical little businesswoman.
Khorosho, have it your way. When this raid is over, maybe you would consider joining
forces with me. I could find a position for a beautiful woman with the brains to match her
looks.”
Sure, I’ll bet you could, Yvette thought as she noticed the lecherous look in Shen’s eyes.
I’ll bet it’s a horizontal position, too.
But to voice her sarcasm would not be in keeping with the looser, more worldly character
of Mila Farese. Instead, Yvette smiled sweetly back at him and said, “I’m afraid you
couldn’t afford me, honey. As soon as I get my take, I’ll be long gone to a life of ease
and respectability.”
“Suit yourself,” Shen said with a shrug of his shoulders. “I’ll have one of my other men
show you to your quarters, I have a few details to discuss with Rocheville.”
Yvette went with her new guide, leaving the two men alone. The next step of the plan
was up to Fortier, It would be his job to alter the deal Shen had just made with her, by
pointing out that this Brian Sangers must be an exceptional person if he could devise a
pirate defense system that worked so well. Fortier would suggest that they capture
Sangers and offer him a job in their organization.
Shen must have been impressed by the way the Paradise defended itself. It shouldn’t
take much salesmanship on Fortier’s part to switch him around to that way of thinking.
Yvette reached her small cabin and lay down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. So far,
everything had been going according to plan-and for some reason, that disturbed her.
You’re too used to having things go wrong, she chided herself. Lean back and enjoy
them when they go right for a change.
But she found the advice easier to give than to follow.
Chapter 11
Traps
“You told me to keep my eyes open for anything suspicious,” Tanya Boros was saying,
“and this certainly was, or I wouldn’t have bothered calling you.”
A three-dimensional image of Lady A’s head filled the screen of Boros’s subcom unit. The
former Duchess of Swingleton had been a little worried about calling her superior on this
matter; Lady A’s temper was legendary within the organization, and disturbing her for
some trivial purpose was not a recommended practice. Tanya Boros did not think the
matter of this interloper was trivial, though, and she hoped Lady A wouldn’t, either.
Lady A seemed to be in a good mood today; her expression was almost warm as she
looked back at Boros from inside the box. “Explain what happened,” she said.
“A man, one of the villagers, came up the hill and was brought into the house by a guard.
He looked and acted harmless enough, but there was something about him that was
vaguely familiar. I would have killed him outright, but I remembered your instructions so I
just let him go and warned him not to talk about this house to anyone. After he was gone,
I checked his file with the computer.
“He claimed to be Ernst Brecht from Islandia, and that much did check out-but if he is
Ernst Brecht, he can’t be nearly as stupid as he acted here. According to the file, Brecht
and his wife, acting solely by themselves, took over the entire colony world of Islandia
and held it for several days before SOTE captured them. Yet with me, he was practically
drooling in his shoes.”
“There does seem to be a disparity,” said Lady A. “Let me see a picture of him.”
Boros obliged. “This is one the guards took of him when he was at their station. The
other is from his official prison file, showing him without beard and mustache. He looks
even more familiar to me that way, but I just can’t place him.”
Lady A studied the pictures for a moment, and a smile spread slowly across her face.
“Yes indeed,” she said, half to herself.
“You know him, then?”
“I’ve seen him once, at Edna’s wedding. He was the rather athletic young man who
swung down from the ceiling on a rope and spoiled our little surprise.”
“Athletic?” Boros slapped her forehead with her right palm. “Bozhe moi, of course. He
was an athlete, a bodybuilder… what was his name? DuClos, that’s it. I was taking
training from him just before . . .”
Her eyes narrowed as the picture suddenly swam into focus before her memory. “Then
he’s the one who … and I did it. I betrayed my father and mother. It was all my fault they
lost.” Her eyes began to fill with tears. Some were actually for the memory of her dead
parents-but even more were for having blown her own chance to be heir to the Throne.
Lady A let her cry for a moment, an abnormally tender expression on her face. “It was
hardly your fault, child. Your father’s plot was not really intended to succeed.”
Tanya Boros looked up quickly and drew a sharp intake of breath. “What? How did you
… you planned it to fail?” She could hardly believe the implications of what Lady A told
her. She had grown up with her father’s plans for the takeover of the Empire, had seen
him work them out with meticulous detail. Never had there been any mention of anyone
higher up.
“Not as blatantly as you state it,” Lady A said. Under any other circumstances she might
have become annoyed at such rude questioning by an inferior, but with Tanya Boros she
was strangely subdued. “I had hoped, right up to the last, that he would succeed-and his
failure hurt me more than you can guess. But I never really believed he could make it. His
attack was much too frontal, and the threat he posed to the Empire was much too
obvious. SOTE had been looking for both him and the Patent for over sixty years; it was
only a matter of time before they found him. Frankly, I was surprised it took them as long
as it did-but then, your father did inherit a certain amount of native cunning from both his
parents.”
She paused a moment for breath, then continued softly, “No-Banion was at best a feint in
the true plan, an obvious decoy set out to keep SOTS busy while we worked the real
plan behind the scenes. We now reach into every sector of government, in ways that not
even SOTE will realize until it’s much too late.”
-But. . . ,
“Enough of this,” Lady A said, suddenly snapping back into her normal behavior. “There
are more immediate problems concerning us. It seems you have a SOTE agent on your