office.
The receptionist-a local employee rather than a SOTS agent-came up to greet them at
the front counter. “Can I help you?” he asked.
“Yes,” Jules said hesitantly. “We … that is, my wife and I … we think we overheard some
people plotting against the Empire. This is the proper place to report that, isn’t it?”
The man’s eyes went wide. In the short time he’d been working here, the only problems
SOTE had had to deal with were immigration forms, visas and routine security checks of
police applicants and nominees for the still-forming local nobility. Nothing as exciting as
treason had ever even been intimated on this sleepy young planet.
“It certainly is,” he said, unable to keep the quiver of excitement out of his voice. “You
just wait a minute and I’ll get someone here to talk to you about it.” Returning to his desk,
he buzzed the intercom for both agents, explaining the situation in a few crisp words.
Within seconds, both SOTE agents came out of their offices to greet the young couple.
The men introduced themselves and began asking for particulars. Jules and Yvonne
looked nervously to either side. “Are you sure we’re alone here?” Vonnie asked. “I’m
afraid these people might kill us if they found out we were talking to SOTE.”
“We’re quite alone, I assure you,” the chief agent said in soothing tones.
That was all the d’Alemberts had been waiting for. In one simultaneous gesture they
pulled out their concealed stunners and gave the three startled men a two-hour nap.
Vonnie clucked sympathetically as she stood over the unconscious bodies. “This’ll look
bad on their efficiency reports,” she said. “But they’ll probably be better agents in the
future because of it.”
They locked the front door to prevent other people from wandering in, then dragged the
three stunned men into one of the offices and tied them up securely. That accomplished,
they broke into the locked back room and stole all the weapons stored there. This SOTE
station was not as fully stocked as would be expected on a larger world; there were two
suits of battle armor–both of which were too tall to comfortably fit the d’Alemberts’
DesPlainian body shapes-and some hand weapons, including six blasters.. a dozen
stunners and extra power packs for each. There were no high-powers or mobile field
pieces, nor any indication of special Service spacecraft or attack vehicles. SOTE had not
been expecting much trouble on Islandia-which was why the d’Alemberts had chosen it
as their target. There was a subetheric communicator set against one wall; Jules blew it
apart with one of the captured blasters. It simply wouldn’t do to let any calls for help go
off-planet before the d’Alemberts were ready for them.
With Phase One successfully completed, they drove to the police station and began
Phase Two. The tactics they had used on the SOTE people worked equally well here;
instead of treason, Jules announced that he had overheard some neighbors discussing a
drug smuggling operation.
The only difficulty here was that there were six police to be dealt with at the station, as
opposed to three men at SOTE headquarters. The d’Alemberts could only draw three of
them out to hear their story, while the rest were attending their routine chores throughout
the building. The agents had to settle for those three at once, and then spread out
through the station to take care of the others. The operation did not take very long; the
policemen were all natives of worlds with a standard gravitational field of one gee, and
as such they were no match for the stronger, faster DesPlainians. Jules and Yvonne
picked off the officers one by one before their victims even realized anything was wrong.
With the station now secure, they used the dispatcher’s radio to call in the patrol craft
one at a time on a variety of pretexts. Within five hours, all the on-duty police-plus three
who had been off-duty and came into the station to begin their shifts were in the
d’Alemberts’ custody. With scarcely any effort at all, the SOTE agents had immobilized
all the armed forces on this world that could conceivably be directed against them.
Swiftly they transported their prisoners from the SOTE building to the police station as
well. The jail cells were a perfect place for their captives, so they could eliminate the
unpleasant bonds on hands and feet. The d’Alemberts said very little as they escorted
their prisoners into cells, but they treated their captives with as much courtesy as the
situation allowed, and never spoke harshly to them. They wanted the people to
remember later that they had been exceedingly polite and nonviolent.
While Vonnie stayed behind at the police station-both to keep an eye on their current
prisoners and to catch any more police officers who reported in for work-Jules went out
alone to pay a call on the Duke of Islandia. Duke Phillip had only been appointed ruler of
this world by the Emperor eight months ago, as a reward for his many and valuable
services to the Crown. He had not even begun work on his ducal palace; his official
residence was merely a house slightly larger than normal size, set apart from the main
portion of the city on a parcel of land covering less than two hectares and surrounded by
a simple stone wall. Three bodyguards was the extent of the security force the Duke had
for himself and his family. Jules d’Alembert could have cracked through tougher defenses
blindfolded.
It was now midevening, and Jules knew that the Duke and his family would be at home
either reading, working on late reports, watching the trivision, experiencing the sensable,
or preparing for bed. It was a good time to catch them unprepared.
Parking his car a short distance from the wall, Jules got a running start and easily vaulted
over the barrier. He sprinted toward the house at a pace that would have made many
athletes envious, but which seemed only moderate to him. He was scarcely even
breathing hard as he made it to the side of the house and began disconnecting the simple
burglar alarm the Duke had installed to protect his home.
Jules entered the house through a window he forced open, into a darkened room on the
ground floor. He made his way through the room to the hall door and, stunner in hand,
began his exploration of the rest of the building. The house was not large, and within a
minute he had made his first encounter: the Duke’s teenage daughter. The girl received a
taste of Jules’s stunner before she even had time to cry out in alarm; she dropped
silently to the floor and Jules continued his prowl through the house.
He found people scattered around in ones, twos and threes never in a group so large
that he couldn’t handle them quickly and efficiently. Family members, servants and
bodyguards all fell before the buzzing of his stun-gun. Jules finally confronted the Duke
himself in the study, with one final bodyguard. Jules stunned the guard and turned toward
the Duke. The man was obviously frightened for his life, but held firm despite his fears.
“What do you want from me?” Duke Phillip asked.
“Your job,” Jules said in a matter-of-fact tone. “I’ve always wanted to be a duke, and I
figure I’ve got as much right to the title as you do, since neither of us was born to it.” In
point of fact, Jules d’Alembert was of a far more noble lineage than the man he faced.
His father, Etienne d’Alembert, was the current duke of DesPlaines, and Jules was sixth
in line to inherit the title after his older brother Robert, Robert’s three children, and his
sister Yvette.
But it was Ernst Brecht speaking now, not the young lord from DesPlaines. Duke Phillip,
staring down the muzzle of the stun-gun, might have been frightened but he wasn’t
cowed. “You’ll never get away with it,” he said. “The police … SOTE. . .”
“Interesting that you should mention them,” Jules smiled. “I already attended to those
details before coming here, tovarishch. They won’t give me any trouble.”
“Do you think the Emperor will sit still for.. .”
Jules dismissed that with a wave of his hand. “The Emperor is old and far away. He
won’t care what happens on some obscure little colony. What does it matter to him which
of us is duke, just as long as he gets his taxes on time?” He pointed his gun resolutely at
the Duke once more. “Now, please be so kind as to write your abdication letter. I’ll
dictate it for you.” “And if I refuse?”
“Then I’ll just have to shoot you and forge it myself. No one but historians will ever have
the chance to verify it, and by then it will be too late.”
The Duke set his jaw stubbornly. “You’d only kill me after I wrote it, anyway. Why should