“There’s a pattern to this that Father doesn’t like at all,” Helena said. “As he points out, once can be an accident. twice is a coincidence, and three or more times is enemy action. Three years’ worth of reports don’t get misfiled by mistake. Someone made a deliberate effort to close our eyes to a deteriorating situation – which is exactly what happened to us on the Banion case. It makes us wonder exactly how many other reports have been similarly misrouted, falsified, or destroyed. We’re going to have to conduct a thorough survey of everything we’ve got – and try to do it quietly so we don’t alarm the conspiracy.
“I don’t mind telling you that Father and I are just plain scared. If this sort of thing is widespread, it could make the Banion affair look like a tea party. We’re going to do some more preliminary work before we turn you loose on the case, and we’ll keep you informed as soon as we find anything. Keep your fingers crossed, and keep hoping that Newforest was an anomaly, an isolated incident. But be ready to move at any second.”
Yvette felt a chill go down her spine. Pias had not been involved in the Banion matter and Vonnie had only been in it peripherally, but it had been one of the most horrifying chapters in SOTE’s long history. Banion the Bastard had managed to infiltrate his people into every level of the Service, and weeding them out had been an excruciatingly painful process. Now, despite the most rigorous loyalty tests anyone could have devised, it looked as though that process would have to be repeated.
Helena closed the call on a more upbeat note, informing Pias and Vonnie of what Yvette already knew: that Helena had become engaged to Captain Paul Fortier of Naval Intelligence. Vonnie had never met him and Pias had met only his treacherous robot double, but both had heard stories of the man’s exploits. He’d saved Yvette’s life on the pirate base just before the Coronation Day Incursion, and he’d helped Helena and the Circus track down the identity of Lady A. He had just returned from the dangerous mission to Omicron with Jules and Yvette, and was an outstanding security agent. Pias and Vonnie congratulated Helena on her good fortune and wished her every success in the future.
Helena’s report cast a slight pall over the dinner that evening as the import of what it could mean for all of them began to sink in. However, as Yvette began relating her adventures working with Lady A against the “alien invaders” of Omicron, everyone’s spirits picked up; a rousing adventure yarn with a happy ending always made them feel better. Vonnie and Pias, as others had done before them, puzzled over the meaning of Lady A’s defiant final words that the conspiracy was the Empire and that SOTE would have to destroy the Empire in order to save it. They could not solve the riddle there at the dinner table, however, so instead Pias and Vonnie told Yvette about their own adventures on Newforest.
“In a way, Newforest just fought off its own alien invasion,” Pias observed to his wife. “All that computerized equipment and jackboot efficiency are totally foreign to the Newforest way of doing things. We’ve always prided ourselves on being an easygoing people with a great disdain for rules and regulations imposed on us from the outside. No wonder Tas ended up being so thoroughly hated by everyone on the planet.”
“That’s the way the conspiracy’s always been,” Vonnie said. “Ruthless, cold, and efficient. Look at its leader, Aimée Amorat – a heartless woman to begin with, put into a mechanical body with all the soul of a polished brass doorknob. You were there when she cold-bloodedly killed her own granddaughter in an effort to get at you. The conspiracy treats people no better than machines. Even if I didn’t like Edna I’d still rather see her on the throne than anyone the conspiracy would put there.”
The glimmer of an idea flashed through Yvette’s mind, and then was gone again before she could identify it. She tried to reach in and recover it, but it remained tantalizingly out of her grasp and eventually she gave up the effort. She returned her attention to the dinner table conversation, which had strayed onto the subject of Helena’s engagement to Captain Fortier.
That night, Yvette had a dream. She and Pias were on Newforest facing Tas Bavol, who was now a giant towering above their heads and threatening to squash them with his boot. They ran into a forest of shiny aluminium trees as Tas’s laughter followed them – only now it wasn’t Tas, but the even more dangerous Lady A, her coldly beautiful features staring down at them from an enormous computer screen suspended above their heads. The trees slowly merged into towering cones of computer banks, and an army of faceless robots moved in from all sides, firing blasters at the two SOTE agents. No matter where they ran, that face on the computer screen stared down at them, watching….
Yvette sat bolt upright in bed, her body clammy with sweat. Her eyes were wide open, staring into the darkness of the room before her, focusing on nothing and yet seeing something far greater than she’d ever seen before.
“Mon Dieu!” she whispered, and her whole body began to tremble with the enormity of her vision.
Beside her in the bed, Pias came instantly awake. Her reaction was so severe that at first he looked around for some physical threat – but all was quiet in Felicité. But something was definitely wrong; Yvette was a woman without fear, and Pias had never seen her act this way before.
“Eve? What’s the matter?” he asked, sitting up beside her and putting his arms around her naked shoulders. Her skin felt as cold as a corpse.
“Mon Dieu!” Yvette repeated through her shivers.
“Tell me what the matter is,” Pias insisted.
Yvette blinked and looked around, as though realizing for the first time where she was. She turned her head fearfully, as though expecting to see goblins in every corner. “I can’t,” she said softly. “I don’t know where they are. They could be anywhere, listening, watching. They’ll kill me, they’ll kill you if they knew I know. They can do it, Pias, more easily than you can swat a buzzfly.” Her trembling increased.
This behavior was totally uncharacteristic of the woman he knew and loved, but Pias was determined to solve the mystery. “Is there anything I can do?” he asked.
“Hold me. Tightly.”
That, at least, was an easy and pleasant task. He held her body tightly against his own, while Yvette went through a shivering fit that rocked the entire bed. “This is bigger and deeper than anyone ever suspected,” she whispered in her husband’s ear. “She was right, it will destroy the whole Empire. But we can’t let it succeed, no matter what the cost. We have to stop it.”
The shivering fit stopped abruptly as Yvette worked through her moment of panic. Her muscles relaxed and she became abnormally calm; her respiration returned to its usual rate and her hands were steady. Pias had seen this mood overtake her before, a cold, detached fury, and he pitied anything on which Yvette turned that anger.
“I’m smooth now,” she said calmly as she pulled herself away from him. “Thank you for holding me. I needed it. I know what we have to do now.”
“Well, would you mind telling me?”
Yvette rolled casually off the bed and strode to the closet. She knew instinctively where everything was, and began assembling her wardrobe in the dark. “We are going to get dressed this minute – you, me, and Vonnie if she can pack fast enough – and we’re going down to the spacefield. We’re picking the fastest ship available, and you’re going to fly us at top speed to Earth. Once we’re in subspace I can tell you what I’m thinking, and maybe then you’ll tell me I’m crazy and have me committed to an institution for the terminally confused. But if you agree with me….” She stopped and closed her eyes, not wanting to face the possibility.
Pias got out of bed, turned on the light, and began to get dressed himself. Yvette had one of the most brilliantly intuitive minds he’d ever known; she would not become this frightened for no reason. “Anything else?” he asked as he dressed.
“Yes. We’re going to pray harder than we’ve ever prayed in our lives. We’re going to pray for two things. First, we’re going to pray that I’m totally, completely, dead wrong. Second, if I’m not, we’re going to pray that we’re not too late to save at least some tatters of the Empire before it all collapses in a heap around us!”
CHAPTER 7 Somber Picnic
Being Head of the Service of the Empire was never an easy task, and it seemed to be getting harder these days. The hours were always long, the work went largely unrecognized, and if the job was done properly no one would realize you’d ever done anything. When the Service was working at peak efficiency, there never appeared to be a need for its services.