Stepping inside, she pressed the inner plate to close the hatch again and open the outer
chamber door. Normally this would have been a slow process, with the outer door not
opening until all the air had been pumped out of the lock; but the emergency airlock had
been designed for quick use, and the small amount of air that would be lost to space was
considered trivial when people needed to get out of the ship in – a hurry.
As the outer door opened, Helena rushed toward the nearest escape boat. She had to
assume the emergency light had been seen on the bridge the instant she opened the
hatch, and that steps would be taken instantly to recapture her. She had few seconds to
spare.
The emergency boats of the Anna Libeling were always kept in prime condition, and the
one she’d chosen responded instantly to her command. Without even bothering to
remove her helmet, Helena slipped into the pilot’s seat and brought the control console to
life with a quick flip of the necessary switches. The engines charged up and, with a
sudden acceleration that shoved her hard against her couch, the boat shot out of its
berth and into the blackness of space.
The Anna Libeling was surrounded by a swarm of small craft like fireflies. the escort
Captain Fortier had brought with him to ensure there’d be no trouble. As Helena’s craft
zoomed from the big ship’s hangar, her radio crackled to life with a challenge to halt.
Helena ignored the request, which quickly turned into a cold, hard order. She flew at
three-quarters speed, hoping the Navy ships would be tricked into thinking that was as
fast as she could go.
A warning shot blazed across her path, but Helena flew straight on. She made no
attempt to dodge or weave her way through a field of fire; any motion other than straight
forward would only slow her down. She had to trust to the accuracy of the naval gunners,
and to the fact that they’d been ordered to use minimal force to capture and hold her.
They’d be reluctant to simply blow her out of the sky, and would try to disable her
instead.
The screens showed that four ships had left their positions around the Anna Libeling and
had come in pursuit. They were gunboats of the malyenki class-not much firepower, but
plenty of speed and maneuverability. Helena’s boat probably had as much armament as
they did, but she didn’t want a fight.
She’d had perhaps a thirty-second head start, but the gunboats were slowly gaining on
her. Helena watched them carefully on her screen, judging their distance and speed in
relation to hers, and suddenly boosted her own vessel to maximum acceleration. On the
screen, the images of the Navy ships seemed to jump backwards to the limit of detection
range. At almost the same instant, Helena, hoping to catch her pursuers unaware, had
her craft make the jump into subspace.
The trick worked to perfection. The gunboats, confident they could outrun the fugitive,
were unprepared for its sudden burst of acceleration. Their commanders were just
making the adjustments for the new speed when the vessel disappeared into
subspace-something ordinary life craft were incapable of. By the time they could adjust
to this second surprise and switch into subspace themselves, Helena’s boat was totally
off their screens. They split up and fanned out in different directions for a short while,
hoping to pick up some trace of her, but they were out of luck.
Red-faced, the officers returned to their positions around the Anna Libeling, wondering
how to explain to Captain Fortier that a small emergency craft had outraced and
outmaneuvered four Imperial gunboats.
Helena managed to elude capture by staying in subspace for only about ten seconds,
then dropping into normal space again and killing all acceleration completely. Ten
seconds in subspace let her travel far enough to be out of range of normal detection
systems; her boat would appear merely as a floating piece of space rock to any casual
observer. And by dropping out of subspace before the Navy. vessels could enter it, their
subspace detectors would not spot her, either.
She spent a tense three hours watching her own screens nervously, in case Fortier
caught on to her trick. When at last she was convinced she’d gotten away undetected,
she began cruising-at slow, deliberate speed-back toward the planet Preis. The Navy
would send out warnings to all planets for a large radius around, but she hoped they
would be a little less alert within the system she had supposedly escaped from.
Even so, she was careful not to land at a spaceport. She brought her lifeboat down well
away from any populated centers and spent two days walking back into the nearest
town. With the money she had at hand, she bought a tube ticket to the capital city of
Aachen. Two days of walking through semi-wilderness had left her face tanned and
weatherworn enough to be unrecognizable to the people who normally knew her as the
heir to this sector. A few subtle makeup tricks she’d learned at the Service Academy
completed the job.
In Aachen she sold some of the jewelry she’d brought with her. She hated to part with
some of her favorite pieces, but the situation was desperate. The money she got for the
jewelry was enough to buy her some more clothes and a spaceliner ticket to the planet
Evanoe, where the Circus of the Galaxy was currently performing.
The Circus of the Galaxy was one of the prime entertainment events throughout the
Empire, a show offering more live thrills and excitement than even the wildest sensible
adventure could match. More than that, though, the Circus was one of the primary
weapons in SOTE’s formidable arsenal because it was the personal business of the
d’Alembert family. All of its performers, all of its staff-nearly a thousand people-were
members of that impressive clan from high-gravity DesPlaines. The d’Alemberts were
noted for both their incredible talents and their fierce dedication to the Imperial Throne.
Whenever there was a difficult and sensitive task, the Service naturally turned to the
d’Alemberts to perform it. Now, in her moment of greatest need, Helena also wanted to
call on the Circus.
The flight from Preis to Evanoe took a full week. Helena fretted the whole time. She
knew that both the Service and the Navy would be looking for her, and that all sorts of
things might be happening in the silent, secret war between the Empire and the
conspiracy. Aboard a liner in subspace she was perfectly safe from outside intrusion, but
at the same time she was effectively out of touch with any developments that might
occur. As her father’s chief aide, she’d spent the last few years being in constant contact
with developments all over the Galaxy; now she was suddenly cut off from all news, and
the silence was deafening.
She wasted no time upon landing, but took a tube train straight to the area where the
Circus had set up its camp. It was late at night when she arrived, long after the last
performance of the day. All the customers had gone, the midway was shutting down, the
normally hectic atmosphere was subdued. The smell of strange animals mingled oddly
with the odors of foods from a thousand different worlds. Helena slipped quietly onto the
grounds and, trying not to let anyone see her, made her way to the main office.
Because the Circus was traveling most of the time, its personnel tried to make their
surroundings as homey as possible. The main office was thickly carpeted in turquoise
blue and the walls were paneled in richly-grained solentawood. Three sides of the room
were lined with bookshelves. Antique books were both a hobby and an obsession with
Duke Etienne, who insisted that bookreels just didn’t feel right. Some of the volumes in
his collection were more than five hundred years old.
Etienne d’Alembert, Duke of DesPlaines and Managing Director of the Circus of the
Galaxy, was sitting behind his new bronze burlwood desk, and looked up as Helena
entered. The duke was a short, somewhat portly man of about fifty, his hair graying at
the temples and thinning in front-but his innocuous appearance disguised a person of
incredible power and ability. Rumor was that Etienne was the only man who’d ever beat
Helena’s father at chess; he’d been as close to Helena as any uncle, even though they
seldom actually saw one another.
“The perimeter guards spotted you and let me know you were coming,” he said quietly.
His eyes were filled with sadness as he looked at her now. “I turned off the ultragrav in
here so you’d be comfortable. I wish I could say this visit was a surprise.”
Helena nodded. “They told you, I suppose, that I might try to contact you.”
“Yes. I have orders from Edna herself to take you into custody if you showed up here.”