isn’t going to make any important difference. And we’ll have plenty to do in the meantime.”
“That’s true. Okay-let’s fly it.”
Thus it came about, some time later, that the Executive Office of the Duke of Algonia was invaded by a couple
whose likes bad never before been seen on the planet Algonia-or, for that matter, on any other planet. Jules was
just as spectacular as his specifications had called for; Yvette was even more so. She” too, wore purple and
gold-what little there was of it-with the arrangement of colors the exact reverse of his.
Her shoes-not silly pumps, but half-calf-high suregrips studded with precious stones-were royal purple. Her tight
shorts were of exactly the same sbade of purple as her shoes and hair. She wore a wide, beavily-jewelled belt of
nylon-backed gold; a jewelled half-veil of fine gold mesh; and, to cap the climax, a towering gold-filigree
headdress of diamonds” emeralds and rubies that had been appraised at and insured for one million three hundred
ninety thousand dollars.
Paying no attention to the startled stares of the waiting people and office personnel, they walked calmly to the head
of the line at the receptionist’s desk. “We are citizens of Earth,” Jules explained, as he courteously but firmly edged
himself into the narrow space between a fat woman and the desk. He leaned over, picked up the amazed reception-
ist’s hand and tucked a hundred-dollar bill into it. “Carlos and Carmen Velasquez, Citizens of Earth,” he said gently,
and dropped two ID cards onto her desk. “This is where visitors to your fair planet register, is it not?”
“Oh, no, sir-thank you, sir,” the flustered girl said, as soon as her eyes got back into place and she could again use
her voice. “That’s downstairs, sir. The SOTE, sir.”
“You will take care of it, my dear.” Jules dropped three more notes on the desk. “Bring the cards over to the Hotel
Splendide, after you have attended to it. We’ll be there for a few days . . . or a few weeks, perhaps. Thank you, my
girl.” And the two walked out of the office as unconcernedly as they had walked in.
At the Splendide, which was the plushiest caravansery the planet boasted, they soon became the favorite guests.
Not only because they had the penthouse suite; but also because neither of them knew, apparently, that there was
any smaller unit of currency than a five-dollar Earth bill.
Whatever else they did, however” they always walked at a good, stiff hiking gait for at least an hour after supper.
For the first few nights they explored; but after that, having found a route they liked, they stuck to it. Every night
thereafter they drove out beyond the city limits, parked their car and took a six-mile hike along a fixed succession
of narrow, lonely back-country roads and bridle-paths; a route that had five places made to order for ambush-and a
route that they had gone to much trouble to publicize.
For six nights they swung along at their five-miles-an hour hiking gaint in complete silence. . . .
Complete silence? Yes. Their suregrip shoes made not even a whisper of sound against the blacktop: no item of
their apparel or equipment rattled or tinkled or squeaked or even rustled. Everything had been designed that way.
They could hear, but they could not be heard. Anyone laying for them would have to see them–and they themselves
had very acute hearing and aerialists’ eyesight.
Swinging along a clear stretch of road” Yvette asked” “S’pose we goofed, Julie?”
“Uh-huh. Pretty sure not. It’s just taking them time to get set. Senor and Senora Velasquez aren’t the type to just
disappear; it’d raise too much of a stink. Also, besides the king-size fortunes we’re wearing, everybody knows that
we’ve got enough money in the safe at the Splendide to start a bank and they’ll want that. So the job will take a lot of
planning. This three-quarters-naked stunt wasn’t designed to make it tough to impersonate us, but how would you go
about finding two people to check out of the Splendide-and get that half a megabuck out of their safe as us?”
“Nice!” Yvette laughed. “I never thought of it cutting both ways. They’ll simply have to get a DesPlainian gangster
and his moll … but wouldn’t they have them ready?”
“I don’t think so. You don’t find very many DesPlainians on light-grav planets except in grav-controlled buildings.
They no like-for which I don’t blame them. Another month of this with no work at grav and you and I both will be as
flabby as two tubs of boiled noodles.”
“So we hope it won’t be a month. Okay; well give ’em a few more days.”
Five more hikes were eventless.
But on the sixth, at a place where the road wound through a coppice of small trees and dense underbrush” their
straining ears heard sounds and their keen eyes saw movement.
For concealment, the place was perfect, but in order to act the attackers had to move-and low-echelon thugs are not
very smart. Also, they had no idea whatever how fast their proposed quarry could move. Jules’ hat and swagger stick
and Yvette’s tiara and handbag hit the blacktop practically at once as the two took off in low, flat dives; he to his
side of the road, she to hers.
Diving straight through a bush, Jules slapped the nearest man lightly on the head-gently, so as not to break his
neck-picked him up, and hurled him at another man, some twelve feet away, who was just getting to his feet. One
jump-he slugged the third in the solar plexus and in the same instant kicked the fourth in the face-not with his toe,
but with the whole big flat sole of his shoe. Four down and one to go. But this action had taken almost a second of
time-plenty of time for Number Five to get organized. Maybe he was the boss, since he’d been smart enough to
station himself well off to one side.
Number Two, who hadn’t been hurt much, began to regain consciousness and to thrash around. Jules snaked
belly-wise over to him, picked his stunter up, and tapped him on the jaw with its butt. Then Jules crawled
noiselessly around until he found a place from which he could get a fairly clear view toward Number Five; who,
although he did not seem to realize it, was making a lot of noise. The seeing wasn’t good-the moon, while high, was
only at quarter-but not much light is necessary to use a stun-gun at close quarters.
“P-s-s-s-t!” the hood said, finally. “Ed! Hank! Spikel Did you get ’em. What the hell goes on?” He put his head out
from behind a tree . . . and what went on was a halfhour stun.
“Eve?” Jules asked then, of empty air. “Five here.” “Same here,” she replied from across the road. “No sweat. Is there
any clear space over there?” “Yes-we’ll lug ’em over here.”
Yvette recovered her towering headdress and bag, then came across the road, dragging two limp forms by the
collars of their leather jackets. In a few minutes ten unconscious or dead men-Jules was afraid that he had hit
Number Three a little too hard-were laid out on their backs in a neat row.
Jules picked up a stunner, then paused. “Uh-uh.” he said, “Better give ’em the talk-juice now, so they’ll be ready
when we get ’em out to the house.”
“That’d be better.” And Yvette took a hypodermic kit out of her bag and went to work.
In two centuries the colonized planets numbered seven hundred, many of them having large populations.
Interstellar commerce increased exponentially. Interstellar crime became rampant. The government of Earth,
under a succession of strong and able kings, had been in fact an imperium for many years when, in 2225, King
Stanley the Sixth of Earth crowned himself Emperor Stanley One of the Empire of Earth. (Stanhope, Elements
of Empire, p. 539).
Storming the Castle
Jules and Yvette did not drive their car-which was of course the biggest and most expensive one obtainable back to
the hotel. Instead, they loaded their victims into the limousine like cordwood and took them to the “house” they had
rented long since-an estate so big and so far away from anywhere that the nearest neighbors could not have heard a
forty-millimeter Bofors working at full automatic.
They unloaded their freight, then listened to the nine surviving hoodlums tell, completely unable to lie or withhold
knowledge, everything they knew about crime-and especially its biggest chief.
The gamble paid off. “Got it!” exulted Jules when they were done. “I knew our friends-whoever they are wouldn’t
stay out of a heist with this kind of money involved. But who would have thought that it was the Baron of Osberg. . .
.”
“You for one, brother dear”” supplied Yvette. “And maybe me for another-at least we knew the boss traitor had to be