“Then how did you plan to use it?”
“When I devised the plan I had a number of robots at my disposal. Your people have destroyed most of them; any that are left are currently under the PCC’s control and I don’t know where they are. The robot bodies are strong; while they’d have trouble moving in a twenty-five-gee field, they could penetrate far enough to set off bombs and destroy the PCC’s higher functioning.”
“So your plan is useless now, too.”
“Not quite,” Lady A told him. “I still have one artificial body at my disposal – my own.”
There was a long pause before von Wilmenhorst spoke again. “You expect me to just hand you a bomb and set you down there, hoping you won’t doublecross me?”
“You have no other choice,” Lady A said flatly. “None of your people, not even the redoubtable Wombat and Periwinkle, could perform such a mission.”
“Why should I trust you to do what you’ll promise?”
“Because you’ll be paying me handsomely, and you know my feelings in that direction. With sufficient inducement, I’d work with you.”
“And what do you consider ‘sufficient inducement’?”
“A full and complete amnesty from the Empress, plus the title of grand duchess. There should be several such positions open in the new structure of the Empire. I have a sentimental fondness for Sector Ten, but I’d consider others. The amnesty and the title, of course, would be signed before I began my mission.
“The Empress and I will consider your proposal.”
“Take all the time you need,” Lady A said generously. “‘You’re the ones with an empire falling apart, not me.”
She was unfortunately right about the Empire falling apart. Reports had just started coming in from the d’Alembert teams sent to the key planets under the conspiracy’s rule. The rebel forces were moving swiftly to institute police states even more repressive than the one Pias had found on Newforest. New regulations were being issued daily, affecting. every aspect of people’s lives – and the humans who served as the PCC’s local administrators were not known for their charitable natures.
In some places, the people had decided to fight back. Bands of counterrevolutionaries were starting guerrilla campaigns of their own, as they had on Omicron against the “alien invaders,” but they were having spotty success at best. On other worlds, even this much resistance was impossible because of the rebel warships hovering in orbit over their cities, threatening to drop cannisters of TCN-14 if there was any resistance to their rule.
There was little doubt that these tyrannical activities were all being coordinated from one spot. The PCC had its master plan and knew precisely what resources it had to make everything work. Slowly but surely the noose was tightening about these worlds. Unless the Empire could act quickly, the rebellion would solidify its hold on these planets. It would then take years of fighting to dislodge the new governments from their positions of power – if, indeed, it could ever be done. The Galaxy could end up permanently divided into two opposing factions.
But trusting Lady A to do as she promised did not come easily to Zander von Wilmenhorst. Too many times that woman had tricked him and deliberately misled him and his agents. Even with the amnesty and the title she requested, once she was down on that asteroid he’d have no way to control her. She’d have been reunited with her old ally, and she’d be in position to betray the Empire once more.
He explained his dilemma to his daughter and the d’Alemberts a short while later. While technically he should have consulted with the Empress first, he didn’t want to go to her until he had all the arguments firmly in place. Talking to these most brilliant of his subordinates helped clarify his thoughts.
“I wouldn’t trust her,” Yvette said flatly. “Even with the Omicron problem, where she looked completely sincere, she was double-crossing us. She can’t be depended on.”
“The problem is that she can be depended on,” Jules said. “She can be depended on to lie, cheat, and betray. She’s like the compulsive crook who was accused of cheating his friends and said, ‘But I have to cheat my friends – my enemies don’t trust me.’
“I agree with Yvette,” Vonnie said. “With all of us d’Alemberts to help you, we could storm through that asteroid and scramble the computer’s brains.”
But the others were shaking their heads. Jules and Yvette still remembered too well their fight against ultra-grav in Banion s castle, and Pias remembered his struggles in the automated battle station he’d helped capture. They may all have been superbly conditioned natives from heavy-gravity worlds, but twenty-five gees was a force no human could withstand for very long.
“Not even the Circus’s wrestlers and weight-lifters could manage in an environment like that,” Yvette told her sister-in-law. “Lady A’s right; only those super robots of hers have the strength to fight that kind of gravity. We either accept her suggestion or find another way entirely.”
“I’m afraid I’ll have to recommend to Edna that we go for some other solution,” the Head said. “I agree with you; we’ve been burned by Aimée Amorat too many times to trust her in this situation.”
“What if I could find someone who could match a robot’s strength?” Pias asked suddenly. “Would it be worth trying Lady A’s plan then?”
“Possibly,” the Head said. “I presume you have someone in mind.”
“I do indeed,” Pias said, and began outlining his idea.
—
The planet Purity was one of the least affected by the catastrophe that hit the Empire. Its people, including its nobility, were so fanatically religious that the conspiracy had never been able to subvert the rulers, so it did not jump automatically to the side of the rebellion. It was not considered an important enough planet to send ships to threaten it with TCN-14. It merely suffered the disruption of its computerized services – and since the people of Purity believed that such luxuries were the works of the devil, few necessities had been computerized and the disruption was minimal.
The SOTE offices had been destroyed by a bomb and its files were no longer available, but even so Pias had no trouble finding Tresa Clunard. Though her license as a counselor had been suspended, many people still knew who she was and where she could be found. His former adversary, once one of the most famous preachers on the planet, was now a volunteer worker in a hospital, giving comfort to the sick and dying.
Pias arrived at the hospital just at the end of Clunard’s shift, and caught up with her as she was leaving for home. Tresa Clunard was about fifty, and her face was more lined than Pias remembered it. She still wore her long blonde hair in a single braid down her back to her waist, but now there were more than a few streaks of gray running through it.
As she emerged from the hospital Pias walked in step beside her. “May I talk with you a while, Sister Tresa?” he asked politely.
She recognized him instantly and scowled. “About what? Thanks to you I can no longer do any counseling. My life’s work is ruined.”
“Perhaps I was God’s instrument, a way of telling you to move in another direction,” Pias said.
“Again you make fun. You always were a scoffer.”
“No,” Pias said, shaking his head. “I probably believe you more than you realize. That’s why I’m here. I remember watching you perform your exhortations. I watched the glow that enveloped you as you spoke of your ideas and of your faith. I watched you effortlessly bend a solid steel bar when the power of your faith was upon you. Was that just a trick, or did you really do it?”
She stopped and glared at the innuendo. “It was not a trick,” she said, “but it was not I who did it. It was God, acting through me, to show His powers to the sinners and the unbelievers.”
“Could you perform such miracles again?” Pias persisted.
“If God chooses to act through me, of course,” she said. “But I can’t order Him about. I am the mere receptacle of His divine will.”
“Would it help if I said you were at least partly right back then?” Pias asked. “When I heard you lecture, you were preaching that machines were the ultimate in evil, the downfall of humanity. You wanted to launch a military crusade to purify the Empire of this stigma, and it was having your personal army that got you into trouble. But if your faith is still strong enough to let you perform miracles, you may yet be given the chance to save humanity.”
He went on to explain some of the problem the Empire was facing – that while not all machines were evil, there was certainly one that was, and it was trying to enslave mankind in its web. It was the one who’d planned to have a robot infiltrate Clunard’s movement and become her faithful lieutenant. The PCC was the being ultimately responsible for Clunard’s humiliation.