They tied their two captives up and headed back downstairs. ‘Do you think we laid it on thickly enough for them?’ Jules wondered aloud.
‘Undoubtedly. As soon as they get loose- and we tied those ropes pretty sloppily – they’ll be reporting every thing to whoever the contact man is on Durward.’
Gathering up their six relatives, the d’Alembert party moved back to the spaceport, where Jules and Yvette were in for a pleasant surprise. Rick and his team had come to Aston in one of the large transport ships the Circus used for heavy moving – and one of the items that had been fitted into the hold was Jules’ and Yvette’s own two person subspacer, La Comete Cuivre. They were delighted to see the ship, because now they could give it its first official use – and because it would get them back to Earth faster than the big, bulky freighter the others had come in.
They said farewell to their relatives and spent the rest of the evening and night inside the Comet’s control room – the most secure spot they could find on the planet. They occupied their time encoding and transmitting a report to the Head on all they had uncovered here and saying that they would be returning to Earth directly; but they did not mention their suspicions about grand ducal involvement. Better not to cast aspersions until they had a few more facts to go on.
When that was done, Jules rose, stretched and walked over to the galactic chart. His eyes brooding, he set it for maximum span and turned on the activating circuits. As the great wispy star clouds of the galactic lens took form, each surveyed star positioned with minute accuracy, he keyed the index locators for Durward – the planet to which all their hard-earned information pointed so surely – and then for Earth. Quickly the taped data spools whined and spun and printed out course and the dizzying distance in parsecs between the two planets. ‘Every single clue we’ve seen,’ he said slowly, ‘points directly and unequivocally to Durward as the spot where the action is…’
‘I know, Julie,’ said his sister, covering a yawn. ‘So of course we’re going to Earth. Well, what are we waiting for?’
Another green dot turned to blue, thought the tall, thin man as he angrily crumpled the report he’d just read on the Aston fiasco. Another planet lost, for the time being. He still had plenty, so the loss was not critical, but nevertheless … nevertheless, this slow, tiny erosion was annoying.
A follow-up report indicated that most of the gang on Aston had been picked up by the local branch of SOTS and would probably receive prison sentences. Serves them right for being so incompetent, he thought, then turned his attention to the matter of the special SOTE team of agents. They had shown themselves to be terribly resourceful in their first two attempts, but of course they were bound to fail now.
The entire planet of Durward was filled with booby-traps, ready to spring on any agents who came looking for him there. No, now that they were heading for Durward he could dismiss them utterly from his mind and concentrate on the real problem – the fleet strategies for his upcoming naval uprising against the
Crown. But even that would have to wait a moment, as the chiming of his clock reminded him that it was time for his appointment with his physical fitness counselor.
Had he known that the two agents were heading toward Earth rather than Durward, he might have spent a few more minutes contemplating their identity and their fate. But, confident of his booby -traps, he proceeded on to his appointment without another thought given to those two determined operatives.
CHAPTER TWELVE – THE MASSAGERIE
The planet Earth, as was only proper, became the seat of Imperial government. Moscow was chosen as the site for the principal Imperial Palace, with subsidiary palaces in New York, London, Tokyo, Buenos Aires and Los Angeles. Imperial court took place at any of these locales, but the administration of the Empire was a business that occupied nearly a third of Earth’s population either directly or indirectly. Because of the fact of Earth’s central position in the Empire, the various nobles of Earth held far more actual power than their titles indicated. The counts of Moskva and Los Angeles, for example, held more real power than most earls and marquises; more power, even, than a great number of dukes.
(Manley, Traces of Royalty, slot 176.)
Jules and Yvette had no sooner arrived back on Earth than they found a message waiting for them, along with any number of reels of computer output. The Service accountants had completed their financial survey of galactic trends, and the results were all ready to be analyzed. Rolling up their figurative sleeves, the pair dug in and started the monumental task.
Three days later, certain trends were beginning to make themselves evident. Through eyes made bleary by fatigue and staring at too many numbers, the d’Alemberts looked at the graphs they had drawn and began making some conclusions. ‘It looks fairly certain,’ Jules said wearily, ‘that there are unaccounted influxes of cash in Sectors Two, Thirteen, Twenty, Twenty-Two and Thirty-Five. The money just disappears once it goes in there, as though they were dumping it in a hole.’
‘Or a secret army,’ Yvette pointed out.
‘That is the more logical guess. Thirteen and twenty, in particular, are the big gainers. I find it interesting that Durward, which is in Sector Ten, shows no unusual cash problems whatsoever.’
‘Confirming y our guess that it’s only a decoy.’
Jules shrugged. ‘Perhaps. At any rate, we now have some new facts to play around with. Let’s see what we can do with them.’
They requested – and got – the complete dossiers on the rulers of each of the suspicious sectors and their families. Another whole day was spent going over these records, then they had another conference.
‘Every one of them is beyond reproach,’ Yvette said dejectedly. ‘Not a single scandal has marked any of those families for at least a hundred years. If Banion is involved with any of them, he’s managed to keep himself squeaky clean for quite a while.’
‘He would, of course. He’d do everything in his power to escape detection until he’s ready to make his move. Even so much as a traffic ticket could bring him to the attention of the Service’s computers. But I’m more convinced than ever that the person we’re looking for is somewhere within that group.’
‘Swell, but how do we narrow the field? As I said before, we can’t just go around sticking nitrobarb into grand dukes until we find the right one.’
Jules considered the problem. ‘The only way,’ he said, ‘is to get to know them better, get ourselves in a position of trust that we can work from.’
“There’s only two of us, so we can’t hire out as servants to all our suspects.’
‘Khorosho, then we find some service that we can perform for all of them equally. What’s faddish in the Upper Court this year?’
‘Physical fitness, from what I read on the newsrolls. Everybody and his noble brother has a private gym and a personal instructor to keep him from getting too flabby. Being in top condition has become an obsession in the higher echelons. Of course, we were into it before it became stylish.’
‘I’d say that’s just about perfect for us. It’ll let us get close to them without their realizing what we’re up to.’
‘But how will we make them come to us?’
‘Make them?’ Jules smiled. ‘They’ll consider themselves lucky if we let them!’
One month later, safe within the confines of his private office, the Head was talking to a tall, thin man with graying hair who, while old, was in no sense decrepit. Duchess Helena sat across the room with her shapely legs crossed, sipping nonchalantly at a cream liqueur while her father and his friend talked.
‘I’m afraid they’ve even got me confused, Zan,’ the older man said. ‘What can it all mean? Under no circumstances is the Circus to go to Durward, they say, and preferably it’s to remain here on extended performance. That’s easy enough to arrange, it’s a popular enough attraction. Carlos and Carmen Velasquez are not to report in, they say, and nothing that pair does, however wild, will be of any importance. That’s fine, too. But what is the meaning of this beauty parlor business right here on Earth? It doesn’t make sense!’
‘Not a beauty parlor, Bill,’ the Head said quietly. ‘A massagerie deluxe. Or rather, “The House of Strength of Body and of Heart.” ‘
‘Little difference. Do you at least know what they’re doing?’
‘Very little; and what’s more, I don’t particularly want to know. They’re the top people I have…’
‘Potentially,’ the other pointed out. ‘Remember, the thousand point test only measures potential. They’ve never had field experience on any case this major before.’