Men gasped. Women – some of them, at least – shrieked. But no one in the audience fainted; a sense of macabre fascination pinned everyone’s attention on those two d’Alemberts as they began to fall the remaining twelve meters to the ground.
A high-speed camera, however, would have revealed the fact that their fall was neither haphazard nor out of control. They separated and each curled up into a tight position, knees drawn up to their chins, their bodies braced for impact. As the ground came up to meet them they landed perfectly. Hard-sprung knees took up half of the shock of landing; hard-sprung elbows took half of what was left. Their heads were bent low, with chins tucked tightly against their chests. Powerful leg muscles drove them forward, and thick sturdy shoulders and back muscles struck the floor in perfect rolls. In one fluid, seemingly effortless motion, both brother and sister had hit the floor and somersaulted lightly to their feet.
Hand in hand they posed, motionless for a moment while they recovered their breath. Then they bowed deeply in unison, turned and ran lightly to an exit – and they covered the hundred meters of distance in under eight seconds, at a pace that looked less than a lope.
The multitude of spectators went wild.
They had seen a girl falling to certain death. They had felt a momentary flash of relief – or actually of disappointment? – when it seemed as though her life might be saved. Then they had watched two magnificently alive young people fall, if not to certain death, at least to maiming, crippling injury. Then, in the climactic last split second, the whole terrible accident had become the grand finale of the act.
That it was a grand finale – a crashing smash of a finish – there was no possible doubt. The audience had had its emotions ripped out and wrung for the last drop of feeling. The only question was, which emotion was finally being expressed in that shrieking, yelling, clapping, jeering, cheering, whistling and catcalling throng of Earthpeople – relief, appreciation or disappointment?
No matter; for whatever it was, they had all had the thrill of a lifetime – and few if any of them could understand how it could possibly have been done.
For of the teeming trillions of people inhabiting the thirteen hundred and forty-two other planets of the Empire of Earth, scarcely one in a hundred had ever heard of the planet DesPlaines. Of those who had heard of it, comparatively few knew that its surface gravity was approximately three thousand centimeters per second squared – more than three times that of small, green Earth. And most of those who knew that fact neither knew nor cared that harsh, forbidding, hostile DesPlaines was the home world of the Circus of the Galaxy and of The Family d’Alembert.
CHAPTER THREE – THE BRAWL IN THE DUNEDIN ARMS
The Service of the Empire (SOTE) was founded in 2239 by Empress Stanley 3, the first of the Great Stanleys, who, during her reign of thirty-seven years (2237-2274), inculcated in it the spirit of loyalty and devotion that has characterized it ever since. Its spirit wavered only once, under the weak and vicious Empress Stanley 5, ‘Mad Stephanie’, whose reign fortunately very short (2293-2299) – was calamitous in every respect. SOTS came to full power, however, only under Emperor Stanley ro (reign 2403- ) – the third and greatest of the Great Stanleys to date – under whom it has become the finest organization of its kind ever known.
(Baird, A Study of Security, Ed. 2424, stat. 291.)
The city of Tampeta, Florida, had a population of over fifteen million – a fairly small number compared to
Earth’s other teeming cities. It included not only what had once been Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater, but also all the other cities and towns between Sarasota on the south and Port Richey on the north. Just outside Tampeta’s city limits, well out toward Lakeland, MY the Pinellas Fair Grounds, where the Circus of the Galaxy had been playing to capacity crowds for over a week, with a different show – especially with an entirely different climax – every night.
Jules and Yvette had not even had time to change out of their costumes before they were summoned to the office of their father, the Managing Director. They knew something was brewing, had known it for a month – ever since the Circus had been quickly rerouted here to Earth, breaking more than a dozen engagements in the process. But nothing had ever been discussed aloud; maybe now they would discover what this was all about.
They gained weight the instant they entered the office, for Duke Etienne kept the ultragrav in this particular room set at a comfortable for DesPlainians – two and a half gees. The office was well- appointed with springy turquoise colored carpeting underfoot and richly-grained solentawood paneling on the walls. Three sides of the room were lined with shelves, containing row upon row of books. These were all antiques, since printing was a lost art these days; it was quicker, cheaper and less wasteful of space and resources to store information on electromagnetically-coded reels. Many of the tomes on the Duke’s shelves dated back five centuries or more.
The Duke himself was seated behind a gunmetal gray desk, and turned to face the pair as they entered.
He was a short man, shorter even than these two children of his, and inclined toward portliness. He was approaching fifty, with hair that was thinning in front and graying at the temples. But time could not dull the glint of life and good spirits that lurked within his eyes even at his most serious moments.
He bid them enter with a wave of his artificial hand. It had been more than a dozen years since he had lost his right hand, severed several centimeters above the wrist by a stray blaster beam; but even that tragic loss could not cripple his indomitable will. His new hand, he insisted, was more than a match for the old one. While it looked and felt perfectly normal to casual inspection, the fingers were really special tools which could be unscrewed just above the knuckle bases and interchanged. Duke Etienne wore rings to disguise the seams, and only his closest associates knew the nature of that artificial member.
He spoke bluntly to the two aerialists, without preliminaries, in the Franco-English patois that served as the native language of DesPlaines. ‘This is it.’
They both knew instantly what he meant. The moment they had really been training themselves for all these years had arrived. For just a moment they were speechless, then Yvette blurted out, ‘What’s the assignment?’
‘I don’t know.’ The Duke shrugged his shoulders, a gargantuan gesture of uncertainty. ‘They didn’t see fit to tell me that. I’m an old man now, perhaps they don’t trust me any more.’ But though his words were resigned, there was a twinkle in his eyes that softened their impact. ‘All I know is a place and a code signal. Oh, and I have this to give you.’ He reached into his desk and pulled out a plastic microfile card.
‘What is it?’ Jules asked, taking the proffered card from his father’s hand.
‘The Head’s retinal pattern,’ Duke Etienne said offhandedly. ‘You may need it to make a positive ID. I’d suggest you don’t lose it.’
Brother and sister stared at each other in astonishment. The Head’s retinal pattern! That little plastic card would be worth a large fortune to enemies of the Crown. The fact that they were being given this meant that they would actually be meeting that illustrious personage – and that meant that this job was going to be more important than they could possibly have imagined.
The Duke then told them the recognition code and where they were to make their contact. ‘I’d suggest you go camouflaged,’ he said. ‘We DesPlainians are a little too overly muscled to pass unnoticed on Earth.’
The two younger people thought for a second, then Yvette said, ‘How about going as Delfians? They always wear those long, heavy robes and never take them off in public. We’d still be noticed in that get- up, but in a different way.’
The Duke nodded appreciatively. ‘Splendid. Misdirection, as Marcel would say. I’ll call right down to Wardrobe and have them get the costumes ready for you.’ His tone indicated that he thought the discussion should draw to a close. As the two younger d’Alemberts stood up to depart, he looked them both squarely in the eyes. ‘Take extra care, both of you, and good luck. Oh, and take the good car.’ They knew which one he meant.
Both of them raced down to the Wardrobe Department, where Mimi – one of their great-aunts – outfitted them perfectly: Yvette in a pale blue Delfian robe and hood, Jules in silver. They were so excited at the prospect of this new action that they could say nothing.