tailor possibly two, since you mentioned he had a wife. How do you propose to cope with
him?”
“I’ll have him killed immediately,” Boros replied.
“No, you will not!” Lady A’s voice was cold and stern. “I’ve waited too long for him to get
there; I was almost beginning to think he wouldn’t show up at all. You will keep a close
watch on him, certainly, to make sure he doesn’t do anything we can’t handle. Other than
that, we will make him come to us. I’ll be out there myself in just a few days, and we’ll
set a trap with bait he’ll never be able to resist.”
“What bait is that?”
“Me,” said Lady A, and broke off the transmission.
The hunting trip proved to be a total disaster from the standpoint of most of Jules’s
companions. More than one-third of the total party was killed during the freak storm, and
the one wallower that they had managed to catch had been lost, buried somewhere by
the blizzard. Jules and Li had been set down about a kilometer outside the camp by the
copter, and Jules managed to carry his companion back to the group. Li was at least still
alive, and after he came around he was most grateful to Jules for saving him. He had
absolutely no recollection of the house or the meeting with Tanya Boros, and Jules-as
he’d been ordered-did not discuss it; it was not that he feared what Boros might do, but
rather that it was none of these people’s business what had gone on there.
Disheartened and discouraged, the hunting party trudged back to the village
empty-handed, arriving well after nightfall the next day. Jules collected the minimal pay
allotted for such a disastrous expedition and hurried back home to Vonnie.
After their lingering welcome-home kiss, Vonnie started talking quickly to apprize him of
what had happened during his absence. “There’s a lot more here than meets the eye,”
she said. “There seems to be a copter somewhere on this planet . . .”
“I know,” her husband said with a slight smile. “I rode in it.”
After a line like that, he had to elaborate. He recounted briefly his adventure in the
blizzard, spending much more time relating what had happened at that fantastic house.
Vonnie had never met Boros, and only knew of her vaguely from Jules’s abridged tales of
his previous exploits, but she knew full well that Boros’s presence here on Gastonia was
both a threat and a promise-a threat to possibly expose Jules’s cover, and a promise
that they were indeed closing in on the mysterious happenings they’d come here to
investigate.
When Jules had finished, Vonnie continued her own story of events back in the village-of
the copter she had heard going overhead, of the discovery that there were native
Gastonians who seemed to be the “forgotten people” of the Empire, and of the offer she
had received just yesterday from the mysterious stranger who wanted to challenge the
village leadership and establish himself at the top.
Although Jules was tired after the events of the past two days and the long hike back to
the village, he knew that time was short. Edna’s coronation would be drawing near, and
with it came the threat of disruption by Lady A’s conspiracy. There were no accurate
timepieces on Gastonia and, although the d’Alemberts knew that a day here was about
twenty-eight hours long, they had lost track of how time here related to the official
Imperial Time which was kept at Earth standard. The two agents stayed up most of the
night discussing the possibilities their discoveries had opened.
“If the copter flew over the village, it means Boros or one of her people was visiting
someone here; if they were visiting someone at the garrison instead and wanted to keep
their presence on this world secret, they’d have flown around the village,” Jules mused.
“The most likely person for Boros to contact here would be Tshombase, since he
controls most of what goes on in the village. That would tie in with what she told me, that
she would know if I talked much about her house to anyone back here.”
“That seems to make it more important than ever that we integrate ourselves into the
village leadership,” Vonnie said. “If we can’t do it through Tshombase, it’ll have to be with
this other fellow who asked for our help. From what you’ve told me. I don’t think Boros
will be picky about who’s in charge of the village; she’ll deal with whoever is the mayor,
and he’ll have to go along because she has the guns and the resources.”
“Yes, we’ll have to make some plans,” Jules said. “When did this guy say he’d talk to you
again?”
“He didn’t. I just told him I’d have to talk it over with you, and he said he’d be in touch. I
imagine it will be within the next couple of days. He seemed pretty eager.”
“Eager, eh? I don’t like that.” Jules paced nervously over the floor. “If he’s in too much of
a hurry, he may make sloppy mistakes that could cost him when he makes his play for
the top. Of course,” he added with a smile, “there may be ways we can use that to our
advantage as well.”
It was two days later when the scar-faced man contacted Yvonne again. She was
walking to work in the morning when she heard her name hissed out from an alleyway,
and there he was, still partially obscured by shadows. “Well?” he asked impatiently.
“We’re in, if you still want us,” she said quietly.
“Good. There’ll be a short orientation meeting tomorrow night about an hour after
sundown at 47 Snowbound Lane. Come unarmed. If you and your husband aren’t there,
you’re dropped from the list.”
“We’ll be there,” Vonnie promised.
Without even waiting for her reply, the man had started slinking away, and within
seconds he was gone. Yvonne shrugged her shoulders and continued on her way to
work. The plan had now begun to move, however slowly; tomorrow night should be very
interesting.
The d’Alemberts arrived at the given address at the appointed time the next night. At
Yvonne’s knock, the door opened a crack and a man behind it gave her a quick glance to
make sure she was one of the ones to be admitted. When her identity had been
established, the door swung open wider, and she and Jules were permitted to enter.
There were fourteen other people in the room. Scarface and three of his beefy
bodyguards stood at the front, while eleven others-probably new recruits like the
d’Alemberts-sat on the floor facing them. Jules and Yvonne were searched for weapons
and, when it was determined they were unarmed, they were invited to sit down with the
others.
The d’Alemberts were apparently the last expected arrivals, because as soon as they
were seated Scarface began to talk. He welcomed the recruits to the new organization,
and promised them all good jobs when he replaced Tshombase as the new mayor of the
village. He explained to them how he had studied Tshombase’s organization, and knew
who and where all the other’s people were. The new organization was still a little ways
from completion; when Scarface judged they were ready, they would attack throughout
Tshombase’s network simultaneously in a complete top-to-bottom coup, leaving not a
single one of the old mayor’s men alive to stage a counterrevolution.
He had just begun explaining the roles each of them was to play in his insurrection when
there was a sudden colossal pounding at the door. Scarface stopped speaking, and the
three bodyguards drew their long knives and turned to face the possible threat. After a
second there was another loud pounding, and the door began to splinter inward. The
recruits in the audience were becoming very nervous, and they all waited quietly to see
what would happen. They were only too aware that they were unarmed.
At the third pounding, the d’Alemberts sprang into action. Leaping to their feet, they
bounded over the other startled recruits and raced to the front of the room. The
bodyguards, facing the threat from the door, barely saw them coming. The two
DesPlainians grabbed the men’s wrists and twisted the knives out of their grasp, Jules
handling two to his wife’s one. Vonnie disarmed her bodyguard, then turned her attention
to Scarface. The rebel leader had started into the next room for an escape attempt
through a back window. With a flying tackle, Vonnie caught him and dragged him to the
floor.
The door broke apart completely at the fourth impact of the battering ram, and in
charged a host of Tshombase’s men, all well-armed with knives. They were expecting
resistance, but found little. A few of the unarmed recruits tried to make a break past
them and out the door, but were stopped by the threats from Tshombase’s men.