“There might just be such a place,” Lady A admitted, “but knowing about it won’t do you any good. You remember our little battle stations. There are plenty more of them, and they’d be scattered around the PCC’s asteroid. The Navy could never get through in its decimated condition – and if the PCC even thought there was a chance they could, it would take off again for some place even I don’t know about. It tends to be rather conservative in its strategy.”
Jules leaned back in his couch and thought for a second. “Let me postulate a theory for you, Aimée. Let me assume that you are a very ambitious woman who’s worked for seven decades or so to grab the throne. For part, or even most, of that time you’ve had a very powerful ally, the computer that knows everything going on in the Empire. But let’s also assume that you don’t want to share your power forever. A powerful ally is, after all, a dangerous ally. You’re a woman who likes to come out on top, and who always has a back-up plan for dealing with trouble. Even if you weren’t greedy for all the power yourself, you’d need some protection from your ally in case it decided to double-cross you. My theory is that you know some secret way to destroy the PCC. I don’t think you could be comfortable in any relationship unless you knew how to destroy your collaborator when the party was over.”
“An interesting theory,” Lady A said coolly.
“You’re free to refute it.”
“I’m in no position to prove or disprove anything,” his rival said. “You’ve admitted I’m under sentence of death. Of what possible importance could such theoretical matters be to me?”
“Death later is always better than death now,” Jules said.
“I suppose even you can be right occasionally,” Lady A admitted. “If I live longer, I might engage in a discussion of such speculative topics. But this is not the place and you are not the person for such a discussion. Zander von Wilmenhorst is the man I’d talk to about these things, and only if I were taken to a less …. isolated environment.”
Jules and Fortier faced a dilemma. They were happy to be able to bring Lady A back to Earth for interrogation, but they needed a way to transport her safely. It was unthinkable to bring her into the ship with them. Her robot body was stronger than both of them put together, and it could move so quickly there was a strong chance she’d be able to overpower them and escape. They couldn’t simply tow her pod, because it would be destroyed by the Comet’s exhaust. In the end, Fortier went outside the ship in a spacesuit while Jules kept a careful watch from inside. The naval officer secured the escape pod to the outside of the Comet’s hull as tightly as he could with a length of cable. Traveling through empty space they would meet no wind resistance to blow the pod away; they merely had to make sure the pod’s inertia was overcome as the Comet accelerated and dropped into subspace. Once they were moving at a constant velocity, there would be no problem of keeping the formation intact.
Thus it was that Jules was able to fulfill one of his fondest dreams and bring Lady A back to Earth as his prisoner. He only hoped that what they’d learn from her would be enough to help preserve the Empire.
CHAPTER 13 Return to Purity
If the Empire had been in better shape, Jules would have been accorded a hero’s welcome when he returned with his prize. As it was, affairs were so chaotic and the officers of SOTE so overworked that they didn’t have time for the enthusiasm Jules’s accomplishment deserved. Jules was given a smile by the Head, a hug by Helena, and a long, lingering kiss by Vonnie. That reward would have to suffice – but since it was all he ever asked, he was not disappointed.
Lady A’s escape pod was left in high orbit around the Earth. Since it lacked a motor it couldn’t leave, and a trio of small gunships kept their weapons aimed at it at all times. All radio and subcom frequencies were monitored, too, and Lady A was told in no uncertain terms that she’d be instantly destroyed if she tried to contact anyone not authorized by SOTE.
Zander von Wilmenhorst spoke with her by radio. She had no other direct contacts. The information Lady A had was desperately important to the Empire, but the Head would not hesitate to destroy her should she prove unwilling to talk. The Empire would survive.
Lady A feigned a concern over the ethics of betraying her ally. “The PCC still has a chance of winning,” she pointed out. “Why should I sabotage all I’ve worked for just to please you?”
“The PCC has already deserted you,” von Wilmenhorst said. “You were left drifting in space for weeks; it could have sent a ship to pick you up at any time before we found you.”
“The PCC is very conservative; it probably decided to wait until the area was deserted and forgotten except by history books.”
“Or else it wrote you off as expendable,” the Head persisted. “Once its secret was out, the computer no longer needed anyone to serve as a figurehead. Why should it share the power with you when it could perform all the necessary functions itself?”
In the end, Lady A told him the full story of the PCC’s “life” and how she’d worked with it to organize the rebellion. She also gave him the coordinates where the PCC had probably gone, a spot safely defended by the conspiracy’s forces. “There are twenty-four of our automated battle stations in that region. The plan was for the PCC to sit safely in the center of a double globe of those battle stations. It can carry out all its activities via subcom, so it’s perfectly happy where it is. With the state your Navy’s probably in after the PCC got finished with it, I really don’t believe you’ve got enough firepower to make a frontal attack on that formation and win. You know how formidable those battle stations are.”
“We captured one with only three people, as I recall.”
“We’ve corrected the flaw that permitted that; you wouldn’t be able to duplicate the feat. And if the PCC felt the slightest bit insecure in those surroundings, it would simply leave for some other location I know nothing about.”
Von Wilmenhorst was willing to believe that the story Lady A told him was mostly truthful. “When we make our attack, we’ll take precautions so the PCC can’t get away again,” he said. “As for destroying it…”
“As I said, unless I’m badly mistaken, you don’t have enough firepower. You suffered great losses fighting us a few weeks ago, and further losses when the PCC activated its doomsday plan. You must keep a fleet of ships stationed around Earth at all times in case the PCC attacks, and while your other ships are busy protecting the vestiges of Empire – no, you can’t mount enough of an attack to disable or destroy the PCC’s asteroid. And any such attack would have to be lightning fast, because the PCC would call in some of its own ships to help the battlestations in a protracted fight.”
As much as he hated to admit it, von Wilmenhorst realized she was right. The Navy could spare pitifully few ships these days, even for such an important mission as destroying the Empire’s arch-enemy. A double globe of battlestations would be a powerful obstacle to overcome.
“I understand there might be an alternative,” he said aloud. “My agent discussed with you the possibility of some secret method for destroying the PCC.”
“He was right, I did indeed plan such an eventuality,” she said. “There is a small, well-concealed entrance used by workmen when they were building the PCC. It’s in an area where the computer has a virtual blind spot. Once inside there, a narrow corridor leads up into the central core of the computer. Because it’s not intended for public access, the computer has few monitors or weapons available for use in that spot. There is a rough analogy to the human brain, which has no sensory nerves within itself. Anyone assaulting the PCC through that corridor would be virtually undetectable. It wouldn’t know what they were doing, and it couldn’t stop them.”
“That sounds like a good bet,” the Head said. “I can organize some effective assault teams, as you well know. We can send enough weaponry up that tunnel….”
“It’s not that simple,” Lady A interrupted. “The PCC does have one defense you can’t overcome – ultra grav. The computer might not know precisely what was happening at any given moment, but it would know that something was happening – and it would use ultra-grav in its defense. No assault team you could send in there, not even an army of DesPlainians, could make any headway against that.”