THE IMPERIAL STARS
Volume One of The classic Family d’Alembert series
By E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith
With Stephen Goldin
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE – THREE MEN
CHAPTER TWO – JULES AND YVETTE
CHAPTER THREE – THE BRAWL IN THE DUNEDIN ARMS
CHAPTER FOUR – THE HEAD
CHAPTER FIVE – THE CHASE
CHAPTER SIX – BANION THE BASTARD
CHAPTER SEVEN – CITIZENS OF EARTH
CHAPTER EIGHT – AMBUSH IN THE PARK
CHAPTER NINE – STORMING THE CASTLE
CHAPTER TEN – THE SWITCH
CHAPTER ELEVEN – THE BLINDING FLASH AND THE DEAFENING REPORT
CHAPTER TWELVE – THE MASSAGERIE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN – THE FORTRESS OF ENGLEWOOD
CHAPTER FOURTEEN – THE IMPERIAL STARS
CHAPTER ONE – THREE MEN
By the year 2447, the Empire of Earth would have looked remarkably healthy to an outside observer. In the almost two centuries since its formation, it had nearly doubled its size in terms of subject planets, while trade between inhabited worlds was proceeding at a smooth and industrious pace. Hunger and need had been, if not obliterated, at least confined to small pockets of despair. Yet even the most vigorous body politic can harbor a cancer that, if not excised quickly, will eat away at the insides and leave just a useless shell as evidence of its passing. Such a cancer was, in that year, threatening the very existence of the Empire.
(M’benge, The Empire – Yesterday and Today, slot 437.)
The first man was dressed in black from head to toe, the only break in that color scheme being the goggles over his eyes – and even they were smoky gray. The dark cloth was smooth and pliable; it made not even the slightest swishing sound as he moved.
The man’s belt was divided into a series of compartments, each housing a useful and, in several cases, lethal tool. Outside, the clothing was completely insulated against electrical shock; inside, between the black fabric and the man’s skin, was another layer of insulation, this designed to keep the man’s body heat in so that he would not register on an infrared detector. Because of this insulation, the interior of the suit was hellishly hot, but the wearer did not complain. Better to be uncomfortable than dead, was his belief.
The night around him was cool and dark. The planet Durward had three small moons, but only one – the smallest – was shining tonight. Its light was scarcely more powerful than a flashlight at a thousand paces – hardly a threat to give him away.
The house in front of him was another matter. Set out in the open countryside, kilometers away from its nearest neighbor, it looked to his trained eyes like nothing so much as an enormous booby trap. One false step, one misguided movement would certainly mean the end of his life … and possibly worse than that. The fate of the Empire could be resting on his skill, but the thought didn’t make him hesitate. There were some risks that had to be taken.
There were no guards patrolling the wall that surrounded the house, and that fact worried him more than if there had been a regiment. No guards meant that the wall itself was hazard enough, and that the people behind it expected very few survivors to cross to the interior yard.
Reaching into his belt, the man in black took out a sensitive energy detector and gave the wall a quick scan. He felt no surprise to learn that the barrier was composed of only a thin shell of stone, inside which was a plethora of electronic equipment. The sensors within the wall could detect heat, electromagnetic discharge, pressure, or an attempt to alter the circuit functions. The scattered bodies of birds, insects and small animals at the base of the barrier gave mute testimony to the fate of anything coming in contact with that wall.
The man had come prepared for this eventuality. Beside him on the ground was a long fiberglass pole. Picking it up, he backed off some twenty meters from the wall and then ran at it full tilt. Well-trained leg muscles helped push him upward as he dug the shaft into the ground and polevaulted over the barrier. Four meters high the wall went, but he cleared it with easily twenty centimeters to spare.
He hit the ground beyond with his legs coiled under him; he rolled over and used his momentum to propel him into a running start across the open courtyard between the wall and the house. This was a dangerous stretch, for there was no cover but the darkness. He crossed the fifty meters of ground silently, then pulled up panting alongside the building. As far as he knew he was still undetected. He was sweating profusely inside his insulated clothing, but gave not a thought to his discomfort. There were bigger matters demanding his attention.
He walked slowly all around the house, checking the windows. None were open he hadn’t expected them to be -but the alarm system on them was of the standard variety. Reaching into his belt again he took out two wires and clamped them to the edges of the window frame, thus jumping the alarm circuit.
With this done, opening the window and slithering inside was a routine matter.
He found himself in an unknown room cluttered with furniture. He dared not bump into anything and make a noise; and turning on a light, of course, would have been sheerest folly. Flipping a tiny switch on his belt, he turned on a portable radar device, a type invented for blind people. Instantly, the returning radio echoes painted a picture of the room’s layout for him. The door he wanted was three meters away; it would only be a matter of navigating past a few chairs.
Still he didn’t move. Reaching again into a belt compartment, he pulled out the sensor he had first used on the wall to check the floor. It was free of electronic gadgetry, so he walked silently across the room to the door.
The portal was also wired with an alarm. He bypassed it the same way he had taken care of the window, opened the door and looked out into the hallway. It, too, was dark, and there were no sounds anywhere along its length. His radar vision informed him that the corridor was free of obstructions, but the scanner indicated that certain planks in the wooden floor were pressure sensitive, and would give him away if he trod upon them. Exercising the greatest of caution, he stepped gingerly out into the hall, moving toward the staircase one agonizingly slow step at a time. Involuntarily, he found himself holding his breath, fearful that even such a slight chest movement would set off the alarms with which this house was booby trapped.
He reached the stairs and stopped again. According to his informant – a totally reliable one, since he had been incapable of lying under the influence of nitrobarb – the room he sought was on the second floor. Checking out the stairway, he found that a majority of the treads were wired for detection, and that the banister was carrying enough electrical current to light a small city. The man in black set his jaw determinedly and proceeded to climb the stairs two, three, and sometimes four at a time to avoid stepping on the alarms.
Third door on the right at the top of the stairs, his involuntary informant had told him. Tracing his way around the sensors in the floor, he arrived at the desired door. The handle, his instruments told him, was a bomb that would explode at his touch, blowing him into more pieces than he cared to think about. But there had to be some way of getting into the room and he was going to find it. He scanned the wall and found that it was loaded with electrical circuitry. His eyes read the schematics and discovered that one inconspicuous nailhead in the wall beside the doorsill was really the button that would open the portal.
Still he did not enter immediately. He had been lucky so far in that he had not met up with any living beings. Inside this room, that was bound to change. Human guards would be stationed around the safe night and day, adding extra protection for its invaluable contents. The man in black had no way of knowing a priori how many guards there would be; from here on, he would have to rely on luck and his reflexes.
Stun-gun drawn and set on ten – its highest setting – he braced himself for the invasion. The door opened quickly as he pressed the nailhead, a point for him; a slow opening would have alerted the men inside and given them time to prepare for his coming.
As it was, he was almost too slow. There were five guards and two ferocious dogs inside the room. Three of the men were in his direct line of vision and fell instantly as his deadly beams swept across them. The dogs leaped at him from two different directions. He shot the one on his right, but the momentum of its leap carried its dead body crashing into him. Trained athlete that he was, he used that to advantage, falling over backward with the dog’s corpse on top of him. His fall caused the second dog’s leap to be high, and one of the two surviving guards, who had now had time to draw his blaster, also missed him. The man in black had truer aim; even as he hit the floor, he felled the fourth guard with the beam of his stunner.