fortress that, except for the Head’s brilliant strategy and the d’Alemberts’ ability to carry it out, would have been
starkly impregnable. And, even so, the attack almost failed.
“How about this, Major?” Jules asked, as the company, after exploring all the other tunnels and corridors in the
sub-basements, returned to a grimly thick steel wall.
“It opens from somewhere, somehow.” The officer pointed out an almost invisible crack where steel butted against
steel. “It’d probably take a week, though, to find out where or how, I think we cut all external leads to here, but they
could have independent power in that section.”
“We’ll assume they have,” Jules said. “And automatic blasters-or worse, stunners. Gas, maybe, or triggered bombs.
But the Head gambled his life on a lot less than we know now, so bring up your shields and high-powers and burn
the damned thing down.”
When the eight-inches-thick mass of armor-plate fell inward into the brilliantly lighted room, revealing a squad of
tremendously-muscled DesPlainians, it struck a steel floor with a crash that shook the very bed-rock upon which
Castle Englewood was built.
One glance, however, was all Jules had; for even before steel struck steel he was smashed down flat by a force of
twenty-five gravities; and the fact that the musclemen inside the room went down too was of little enough comfort.
They were weight-lifters. He wasn’t.
“Ultra-grav!” Jules gritted, through his clenched teeth. “Can you fellows do anything with it, Rick?” he demanded of
the leader of the fighting wrestlers who had done such good work on Aston. “It looks like they’ve got me just about
stuck down.”
“We’re working on it, Chief,” Rick said hoarsely, and they were.
It was fantastic to see two-hundred-fifty-pound brawlers, muscled like Atlases, exerting every iota of their tre-
mendous strength; first to get up onto their knees and then to lift, with the full power of both arms, a five-pound
weapon up into some kind of firing poistion. Unfortunately, one of the guards-a giant even for a DesPlainian
weightlifter-made it first. His first blast went straight through the man in front of Jules; and Jules, who had
managed to get almost to his knees, lost a fist-sized chunk of flesh out of his left leg and went back down.
Only the one guard, however, beat the d’Alemberts into action. In the ensuing awkward, slow-motion battle eighteen
men died; eight of them being the Grand Duke’s guards. Then slowly, ultratoilsomely, the d’Alembert found the
gravity controls and restored a heavenly three thousand centimeters per second. And Yvette, who had been pinned
down all this time, rushed over and first-aid-bandaged the ghastly wound in her brother’s leg.
They did not try to unlock the vault. It was too late now for cat-footing. Demolition experts brought up their
shields and sandbags and blew the whole face of it to bits. They removed the debris and ransacked the vault-and
they found a Patent of Royalty.
Then, hearts in throats and scarcely breathing, they looked on while hand-writing experts and documentary experts
gave the parchment the works.
“This is the genuine Patent,” the chief examiner said finally; and in the joyously relieved clamor that followed even
the dead were for the moment forgotten.
The rest of the project went smoothly enough. The full regiment of Imperial Guards sealed the Principal Palace
bottle-tight. The Navy put an impenetrable umbrella over all Chicago. Fleet Admiral Armstrong himself led a com-
pany of marines into the Grand Ballroom and broke up the Empress Pro Tem’s party by putting Grand Duke
Nicholas and his entire retinue under arrest. And immediately, then and there in the Grand Ballroom, the Emperor’s
personal physician administered nitrobarb and the Court Psychologist asked questions. And Empress Pro Tent
Edna, her face too stern and hard by far for any girl of her years, listened; and having listened, issued orders which
Fleet Admiral Armstrong carried out.
Since it is much faster to work such an inquiry from the top down than from the bottom up, full information was
obtained in less than a week. And thus, while the resultant vacancies in the various services were many and terribly
shocking, the menace that had hung over the Empire for sixty-seven years was at long last abated.
And thus-a thing supremely important to Jules and Yvette d’Alembert-the Service of the Empire was at long last
clean.
X
Because of their high intelligence, their super-cat agility, their hair-trigger speed of reaction and their
enormous physical strength, DesPlainians had been the best secret service agents of, in turn, the Central
Intelligence of Earth, the Galactic Intelligence Agency and the Service of the Empire. And of all DesPlainians,
throughout the years, the d’Alemberts had been by far the best. The fact that the Circus of the Galaxy was
SOTE’s right arm did not leak from Earth because only the monarch, the Head and a very few of their most
highly trusted intimates ever knew it. Nor did it leak from the Circus. Circus people never have spoken to
rubes, and the inflexible Code d’Alembert was that d’Alemberts spoke only to d’Alemberts and to the Head
(unpublished data).
Bill, Irene and Edna
Again it was late at night. Again the d’Alemberts Service Special slanted downward through the air toward the roof
of the Hall of State of Sector Four. This time, however, the little speedster was not riding a beam and there was no
spot of light upon the building’s roof. Except for the light of the almost-full moon, everything was dark and still.
Yvette was the Yvette of old. Jules, again short-haired and smooth-shaved, looked like his usual self; but there was
a crutch beside him and his sister was doing the piloting.
She landed the craft near the kiosk of the ultra-private elevator, opened up and leaped lightly out; Jules clambered
out, clumsily and stiffly; and Grand Lady Helena came running up in a very ungrand-ladylike fashion.
“Oh, you’re wonderful, Yvette-simply marvellous!” She put both arms around Yvette’s neck and kissed her three
times on the lips. “I’m awfully glad father let me be the one to meet you!” She turned and went somewhat carefully
into Jules’ arms. “And you, Jules! Oh, I just can’t-but surely you can hug a girl tighter than this, can’t you? Even with
a bum leg?”
Jules, returning her kisses enthusiastically, tightened his arms a little, but not much. Then, lifting her by the arm-
pits, he held her feather-lightly out at arms’ length, with her toes ten or twelve inches in air. “Sure I can,” he said,
solemnly but with sparkling eyes, “but the trouble is, I never hugged an Earther before and I’m afraid of breaking
you in two. It wouldn’t be quite de rigeur, would it, to break a Grand Lady’s back and half of her ribs?”
“Oh, there’s no danger of that. I’m ever so much stronger than. . . .” She broke off and her eyes widened in surprise
as her hands, already on his arms, tried with all their strength to drive her fingertips into them.
“Oh, I see,” she said quietly. “I never quite realized.” Jules lowered her gently to the roof and she led the way into
the elevator. She did not tell them what the Head wanted of them and they did not ask. As the elevator started down
she said, “Jules, I’m going to tell you something. I was all set to fall in love with you and make you love me whether
you wanted to or not. But when I couldn’t make even a dent in those muscles of yours . . . arms as big and as hard as
those of a heroic-size bronze . . . well. . . .” Her voice died away.
“You couldn’t, possibly,” he replied soberly. “There’s too much difference. Three of your gravities is a lot of grav,
Helena. But we have your friendship?”
“More than that, both of you. Ever so much more. That, and admiration and esteem and. . . .” She broke off as the
elevator door opened.
She stepped aside; motioned for them to precede her. They took one step into the Head’s private office and stopped
dead in their tracks, their eyes and mouths becoming O’s of astonishment. For The big but trim old grey-haired man
was Emperor Stanley Ten! The statuesque, regal, brown-haired woman was Empress Irenel And the beautifully
built, prematurely stern-faced girl mixing drinks at the Head’s bar was Crown Princess Edna.
The emperor stood up and raised a hand. “Do not kneel,” he said-but of course, with their speed of reaction, Yvette
was already on her knees and Jules, gimpy leg and all, was on one.
He raised them to their feet, kissed Yvette’s hand and shook Jules’ and said, “During this visit and here-after in
private, my friends, to you two I am Bill.”
“Oh, we couldn’t, Your … Sire . . . not possibly,” Jules said. “But we might call you `sir,’ sir?”
Stanley Ten smiled; and in that smiling shed a heavy load. “Oh? I understand. Many of the younger generation are