These days, though, the job seemed tougher than usual. The Service had barely had time to rejoice over its triumph at saving the Navy from a disastrous ambush in the “Gastaadi War” a disaster averted by only the slimmest of margins – when it was faced with the discovery, based on the Newforest situation, that its intelligence evaluation system had been sabotaged. How many other planetary files had been concealed or altered, leading SOTE to think the situation within the Empire was smoother than it really was? Were there planets in worse shape than Newforest, securely under the enemy’s domination while the Empire did nothing? Who was committing this sabotage? How was it accomplished? And; above all, how could it be combatted?
Grand Duke Zander von Wilmenhorst and his daughter Helena puzzled over these problems for days. It was an ironic twist of fate that the very urgency of these matters compelled them to move slowly. They’d known for years that the conspiracy was aware of nearly every move they made, but they’d never been able to seal the leak. If they suddenly began a massive search through the files, it would tip off the enemy that the Service knew something was amiss. That, in turn, might lead the conspiracy to take some precipitate action, and no one knew in what direction the currently wounded enemy would jump.
The Head agonized for some time over how to disguise what he was doing, and eventually hit upon a plan. He would announce an efficiency incentive drive within the Service; those officers and branches with the best records would receive bonuses and promotions. Naturally, to evaluate performance accurately, all past records had to be checked and files had to be reread. A handful of his most trusted aides were given the task of sorting through all the records, and only they were told what they were really looking for – files that had been deliberately misplaced or falsified to give the impression that conditions were better than they really were. With more than thirteen hundred planets in the Empire, the task was laborious and time-consuming – but it was utterly essential if a true picture of the state of the Empire was to emerge.
This effort was just beginning, and the Head was trying to make everything appear perfectly normal, when he suddenly got a call from Yvette Bavol on his personal comline. The fact that the call didn’t come over the subcom meant that Yvette was back here on Earth, which surprised him; normally she would have told him she was coming first. That put him instantly on the alert.
“Well, sir, I’m back, just as you requested,” Yvette smiled at him over the vidicom screen.
He had requested no such thing, and they both knew it. “Yes, thank you for being so prompt.” He had no idea what the matter was, but he would play the game by her rules until he found out. He knew enough to trust the d’Alembert instincts.
“Is today a good day for that picnic at the beach you and Helena promised me? I remember you telling me about that one deserted stretch where nobody ever goes.”
“It may be difficult for us to get away from the office today….”
“I realize you’re a busy man and other things may take priority, but I can think of ten good reasons why you should come on this picnic.”
“Ten?” he asked.
“At least,” Yvette said solemnly. “Maybe even more.”
The Head was stunned. A Priority Ten situation, to which Yvette was obviously alluding, referred to an imminent invasion or armed rebellion. It was the highest priority rating an emergency could have – yet Yvette was saying this one could rank even higher.
What made things even worse was the method Yvette was using to report this to him. She was not going through the proper channels; she was not using a scrambler; she was not using any of SOTE’s official codes. To the Head, that could only mean one thing:
Yvette felt the Service had been so compromised that all of its official communications, no matter how thickly disguised, were open to enemy inspection. The only method of communication she felt safe with was face to face in some deserted spot where there was no likelihood of their conversation being overheard.
In such matters he trusted the d’Alemberts more thoroughly than anyone else in the Galaxy, even his own daughter. If Yvette Bavol was this alarmed, there had to be a good reason for it – and that deserved his instant and undivided attention.
“Now that you mention it,” he said, trying to match her casual tone, “Helena and I have been working awfully hard the last few weeks. A picnic at the beach sounds like a relaxing change of pace.” He described a spot along the Florida coastline where he knew they wouldn’t be interrupted, and added, “We’ll be there in about an hour.”
“Better hurry,” Yvette said. “I can hardly wait.”
The Head broke the connection and buzzed his daughter over the intercom. “Helena,” he said, “call down to the commissary and have them pack us a picnic lunch, on the double. We’re going to the beach this afternoon.”
—
The weather, at least, was cooperative. A few small white clouds dotted the blue sky and the sun shone pleasantly. The day was warm, though there was enough of a breeze to keep it from being unbearable.
Vonnie d’Alembert and the Bavols arrived in a rented copter half an hour early for the rendezvous. They landed the craft almost half a kilometer from the designated spot, and Pias and Yvette walked in with their picnic basket, looking as innocent as they could be. By prior consent, Vonnie stayed with the copter; she would keep an eye on the proceedings to make sure nothing interfered with the discussion. At the slightest sign of trouble, she was prepared to leap into action to protect her friends and associates.
The Bavols spread a blanket on the warm sand and waited. At the expected time another copter carrying Grand Duke Zander and Duchess Helena flew into sight. It circled for a moment, then landed a few hundred meters away. The Head and his daughter got out and walked casually across the beach to the spot where the Bavols had spread their blanket. While Pias and Yvette were wearing shorts and light shirts, the von Wilmenhorsts were not dressed for the beach. The Head was in one of his standard gray suits and Helena was wearing one of the jumpsuits that were so much her signature style. They’d had no time to change clothes to something more appropriate, so the meeting on the beach was an odd blend of casual and formal.
As her bosses approached, Yvette scanned them with the portable detector she’d brought with her. They were clean; neither had any listening devices planted on their clothing. Both were carrying miniature blasters, but that was only to be expected.
The Head, feeling strange emotional echoes of his shoreline meeting with Lady A just a few weeks earlier, wasted no time with small talk. As soon as he and Helena sat down on the blanket, he asked, “What’s the emergency?”
Yvette took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I think I know who C is,” she said, “and if I’m right, the whole Empire is in imminent danger.”
“Who?” Helena asked breathlessly.
“Not so fast,” Yvette said. “This has to be built up slowly or it’ll sound crazy and you’ll lock me away. Pias and Vonnie had trouble believing it when I told them….”
“Yet the more we thought about it,” Pias interrupted, “the more we realized she’s probably right. It’s screwy and insane, but it makes so much sense it’s scary.”
“Khorosho,” the Head said. “Give it to me at your own speed.”
“I got the idea from listening to Pias’s story of what happened on Newforest,” Yvette began. “He was fascinated at how efficient it all was, and how computerized such a backward planet had become in so short a time. Vonnie pointed out that the entire conspiracy acted with the cold efficiency of a machine.
“Let’s examine what we know about C. No one’s ever seen him, with the possible exception of Lady A. When Jules and Vonnie questioned her on Gastonia she gave them a description of him, almost certainly false. Later we learned that she told Tanya Boros there was no such person as C. With Aimée, it was always hard to know when she was telling the truth and when she was planting false clues to mislead us. But you said yourself, sir, that the best lies contain an element of truth. Maybe there is no such person as C.
“We know that the conspiracy has access to the Empire’s innermost secrets. You’ve tried for years to trace the leaks, without success; no matter what loyalty tests you give, our people keep passing them. Now we’ve learned that not only does the conspiracy have access to our information, it’s actively tampering with it in subtle ways to give us a false sense of security.