The Head looked piercingly at the Bavols. “I’ll want the two of you to stay right here on Earth until we know what we’re doing. Is Vonnie with you, by any chance?”
“Yes, she’s back there by the copter, keeping watch.”
“Good. I’m only sorry Jules is way off on Nereid at the moment – but right now, anything Suspicious, like calling in my best agent for no apparent reason, might alarm the PCC, and we can’t take that risk. I’m glad that at least I have you three here. The Empire is about to go through a firestorm, and I want my finest agents where I can find them at a moment’s notice.”
CHAPTER 8 Attack on the PCC
Edna Stanley, eleventh ruler in the unbroken dynasty that had reigned since the founding of the Empire of Earth, was not in a very receptive mood. Just two days ago she’d returned to Earth from the far-off planet Omicron, where she’d personally observed the destruction wrought by the conspiracy’s fiendish plot, and where she’d promised the inhabitants relief from their misery. Since Omicron was at the farthest limits of the Empire, travel each way was long and, while not arduous, certainly less comfortable than she was used to. Making that journey on such short notice had required a drastic rearrangement of her already busy schedule, and now that she’d returned there were dozens of duties that all required her immediate and simultaneous attention. She was running in circles trying to meet all her obligations – and on top of that, she’d contracted a mild head cold. It was not strong enough to incapacitate her, just bad enough to make her outlook on the world that much more dismal.
As if all that weren’t bad enough, along came an unexpected personal visit from Grand Duke Zander von Wilmenhorst. While she always thought of him as a dear, beloved uncle, she couldn’t help also thinking of him as an omen of doom. Their respective schedules were both so crowded that they seldom had time to see one another unless it was on imperial business – and since Zander’s business was the security of the Empire, that usually meant something was wrong.
It was most uncharacteristic of the Grand Duke to barge in without calling ahead first. While the Head of the Service of the Empire had unrestricted access to the Empress any time of the day or night, he normally conducted emergency business by vidicom. Edna wondered what problem could have caused this break in the accustomed formality.
She soon found out. Grand Duke Zander passed her a handwritten note suggesting that they go for a walk in the imperial gardens. Even though it was the middle of an autumn morning in Moscow, Edna knew better than to deny the request. She donned a sable cape over her businesswoman’s suit-dress to combat the fall chill, and she and her old friend went for an unescorted walk through the elaborate gardens that filled the northwest corner of the palace grounds.
There, amid that gorgeous setting, Zander von Wilmenhorst outlined to her the grave threat that faced the Empire. The Empress listened calmly, as she always did, and sat down on a marble bench to contemplate the problem for several minutes in silence.
At last she spoke. “You haven’t a bit of proof for any of these suppositions, do you?” she asked.
“Not a shred,” the Grand Duke admitted. “They’re based on pure guesswork – but every bit of circumstantial evidence seems to confirm the theory. And the guesswork itself comes from Yvette Bavol; I’d trust her intuitions with my life. I’ve tried every way I could to punch a hole in her arguments, and they remain airtight.
“This theory accounts for so many things. It explains why a woman as grasping and egocentric as Aimée Amorat would share power with someone else – because even if the computer ended up running things, she would still be the figurehead empress. It explains why the conspiracy relies so much on robots, automated battle stations, and human machines like Lady A and Dr. Loxner, and why it handles the people who work for it with machinelike precision. It explains how the conspiracy was able to tamper with our files, how they were able to finance their operations, and how they could get away with the operations on Gastonia. It explains why they knew virtually everything we were doing and why we could never trace the leaks.”
“If the PCC is so all-powerful, why are we still here?” Edna asked. “Surely with the kind of power you describe it should have eliminated us long ago and taken over for itself.”
“I’m tempted to say it was luck, though where the d’Alemberts are concerned I think they make their own luck. Remember, that family has always been our secret weapon – so secret that nothing about them as our agents has ever been written down or entered into any files. That’s been a big void in the PCC’s knowledge of our operations – only the d’Alemberts, when the rest of SOTE was helpless, have managed to save the day. The PCC may have guessed something about the Circus’s involvement – it’s a simple correlation that the Circus has visited some trouble spots and the trouble suddenly vanished – but it can’t really know the extent of that involvement. The PCC tried to lure Jules and Yvette out into the open by using doubles for them, but it knew so little about the true nature of Agents Wombat and Periwinkle that it miscalculated and the trick backfired. It tried to discredit me, but it underestimated the Circus’s ability to dig out the truth. If I hadn’t appreciated how valuable the d’Alemberts were before, I certainly do now.”
“But there’s still no proof,” Edna said. “The PCC is the single most important tool that holds the Empire together. You’re asking me to destroy it on the basis of speculations and unproved theories.”
“Ordinarily, as you know, I counsel conservative action. But in this case, where something so monstrous and monumental is concerned, I must urge radical action. I feel like a doctor wanting to amputate a limb in order to save the whole body.”
“This isn’t a limb, it’s the brain itself. If your theory is right, then of course the PCC should be destroyed as quickly as possible no matter what the consequences for the Empire. But if you’re wrong, if we destroy the PCC and it doesn’t affect the conspiracy, we’ll have done their job for them. We’ll have destroyed our information system and our ability to coordinate action at various places throughout the Galaxy. We’ll be more vulnerable to enemy attack than we ever were before. What would you do then?”
“I’d resign, of course, and take full responsibility for the action-up to and including being executed for treason.”
“You’re wrong on two counts,” Edna said somberly. “The responsibility for the decision is ultimately mine, and I won’t use you as a scapegoat. And it’s my neck on the chopping block more than yours – I’d be dead before I had a chance to sign your execution order.” She sighed. “Are you certain that by taking quick action we can at least save the bulk of the Empire?”
“No,” the Grand Duke said, and when Edna looked at him questioningly he continued, “Even if we could knock out the PCC with one quick blow before it could order a counterstrike, that doesn’t guarantee a thing. It may already have sent out destructive programs to computers throughout the Empire, with itself in an inhibitory position. That would be like a dead man’s switch. The destructive programs wouldn’t go into effect as long as the PCC was around to tell them no – but the instant the PCC is destroyed, there would be nothing to stop the chaos. That, at least, is the way I’d plan it if I were on the other side.”
He looked squarely into the Empress’s eyes. “We must face the fact, Your Majesty, that if we take this route, no matter how successful we are, the Empire as we know it is doomed. We can try to salvage some of it, but we can’t hope for much and we can’t count on any. The PCC has had many years to consider its strategy. I’ve had less than a day. If I had six months I might think of some way to gently divorce the PCC from control of the Galaxy – but we don’t dare wait that long. Sooner or later, through some wrong word or inadvertent slip, the PCC will learn that we know its secret. At that moment it will take its decisive action whether we’re ready or not. I’d rather be the one to pick the time. We can’t stop the blow that will fall, but at least we can brace ourselves for when it hits.”
In all her life, Edna Stanley had never known Grand Duke Zander to make such a gloomy forecast. Certainly he’d given realistic appraisals, but always with the underlying current of optimism that the storm could be weathered. Now even that ray of hope was denied her. There was nothing defeatist or resigned about Zander’s expression; he was, and always would be, a fighter for the proper order in the Galaxy. But he was trying to impress on her the realistic assumption that no matter what course they took, there would be substantial losses.