The purity plot, p.1
The Purity Plot, page 1
The Purity Plot
By E.E. 'Doc' Smith
Volume six of The classic Family d'Alembert series
With Stephen Goldin
Chapter 1
The Glasseye Gang
The planet Glasseye was named for its appearance from space. Tuan Ho, the scoutship pilot who discovered it, remembered his initial impression in an interview with
Imperial Newsworks Reelzine: "I came out of subspace and there it was, staring straight at me--a large blue green ball with that one dark continent in the center. It looked for all the universe like a glass eye being displayed on a piece of black velvet, with the stars as a background to lend effect to the scene."
Since that discovery in 2374, the planet had been well explored and colonized, and its name took on an extra significance. The one major continent was found to contain rich deposits of a fine silicate mineral called fargerite, after its discoverer-that occurred nowhere else in the galaxy; furthermore, this silicate produced some of the finest glass ever made. "Glasseye glass" became renowned throughout the Empire, and no one with any pretensions to culture would feel his collection of objets d'art complete without several pieces. Producing, blowing, and exporting the glass became the planet's leading industries, and the entire world thrived, basking in the glow of its reputation. So abundant was the fargerite that the Glasseyers even used it as a construction material for building their cities. When combined and fired in the proper way, it became a substance stronger than steel, with the added advantage that it was more easily recyclable. If one tired of it in one form, one could melt it down and reshape it into something else with a minimum of trouble.
Glasseye cities therefore looked like fairy towers of crystalline perfection. Glass needles rose into the sky, their walls refracting the sunlight into a million rainbow patterns. Glass latticeworks connected the city in a transportation system of small, high-speed shuttles that whisked people wherever they chose to go in a matter of minutes. The cities presented an ever-changing face, as old portions were constantly being melted down and replaced with newer, more modern-looking sections. Transience became ingrained into the planetary character of the Glasseyers themselves; there was a joke common throughout the Empire about a starving Glasseyer who was given a bowl of apples, pears, and grapes, but died before he ate any--he was not quite satisfied with the arrangement of the fruit in the bowl!
Visitors flocked to Glasseye from all over the galaxy to observe the breathtaking beauty of Glasseyer cities. Tourism was Glasseye's second largest industry; the planet represented an almost perfect visual paradise. But even paradise has its problems.
The group of masked figures had little trouble breaking into the new Imperial Trade Tower in Southbeach City . This tower, the latest in a series of new buildings to house the local arm of the imperial administration, was not scheduled to open officially for another week, during which final checks of the wiring and plumbing were completed. There were only two guards stationed at the building's base, and they hadn't been expecting any trouble. The party of invaders blasted them in cold blood, then continued with their mission.
The leader checked the elevator tube and found it in workable condition. He and his friends got in and rose quickly to the upper stories. The Imperial Trade Tower had been designed like an enormous tulip about to blossom, with the bulb beginning a full thirty stories above ground level. The intruders got off at the thirty-fourth floor and spread out. Each of the eight team members planted his explosive charge in one of the offices around the floor's perimeter, then returned to the central shaft. They went up the tube four more floors. So far, everything had gone according to their plans, but now they ran into something they had not counted on: people.
As it happened, this brand-new building, a showcase of Glasseyer architecture and design, had attracted the interest of Lord Hok Fu-Choy, nephew of Grand Duke TChen who owned Sector Seventeen in which Glasseye was located. Lord Hok had requested a personal inspection while he was here on Glasseye, and Baron William of Southbeach was most happy to consent. During the day though, the building was still swarming with construction workers, and it would be hard for Lord Hok to observe it in its proper form. Also, the Baron promised, Lord Hok would get a splendid nighttime view of the panorama ofSouthbeachCity if he came up here after hours. Lord Hok agreed to a nighttime tour.
Neither Baron William nor his guest had expected to encounter any trouble in an uncompleted building during an unannounced visit. Each man only had one escort-bodyguard with him-wholly inadequate, it turned out, for the situation they found themselves facing.
It would have been hard to say which side was more surprised at seeing the other there, but the invaders who'd been prepared for anything that might happen-recovered first. Being well armed, they drew their guns to kill the strangers, and they would have, but the leader recognized the Baron and Lord Hok. Making a snap decision, he ordered his followers to take them alive.
The escorts fought well, and managed to burn down two of their attackers, but they were hopelessly outnumbered. In the end, they lay dead on the floor while the two noblemen looked on, helpless. The saboteurs took their prisoners and set the remainder of their explosive charges. Then, herding their captives into the elevator tubes, they descended once more to the ground level and to the shuttle prepared for their escape.
They pushed Lord Hok into the craft first. The young nobleman resented this brusque treatment and, despite the guns that were trained on him, he began a brief struggle. His attempt did not last long, as one of his captors hit him soundly across the face with the butt of a blaster, but the minor scuffle did give Baron William a chance to break free of the men who were holding him. Before any of the invaders knew quite what had happened, the Baron was running down the transit tube into the darkness. A couple of the men started after him, but they were called back by their leader. Their time was running out; they dared not waste any by chasing the fleeing man. They still had one captive after all, and a very important one at that. Headquarters would approve highly of what they'd done; there was no need to endanger themselves further.
The shuttle with the six surviving invaders and their hostage sped away from the ImperialTradeTowerat top speed. Baron William arrived back at the scene ten minutes later, accompanied by a squad of police, but by that time it was too late. Within another five minutes, the "bulb" of the tower blew apart, scattering shards of glass for kilometers in all directions.
The Head of the Service of the Empire was greatly disturbed by this latest incident of anti-imperialist terrorism. His organization was charged with the awesome task of maintaining the security of an empire that was spread out over more than thirteen hundred worlds. And that job, never an easy one under the best of circumstances, had only been getting harder of late.
Maybe I'm starting to feel my age, he thought, but the last two years have really been downhill.
Not that Zander von Wilmenhorst was that old; at just under fifty he was only now reaching the absolute prime of his mental capacities. But the responsibility of his position would age anyone quickly. And the more dedicated he became, the more seriously he took his duties, which only made him feel older.
He had thought, many months ago, that the breakup of Banion's well-organized plot against the Empire would be the peak of his career, that everything following it would be an anticlimax. To some extent that was true, but it was not the way he had expected. Little things kept popping up, almost trivial in and of themselves, but they had been taking unexpectedly large bites of the Service's time and energy. He had fought off the wolf named Banion-mostly through the talents of his two most capable agents-but now he found the Empire plagued by mosquitoes. And he could not help but recall that it was mosquitoes that carried the germs of malaria.
Acts of terrorism were on the increase. The seeds of discontent were sprouting on planets in every sector of the Empire, with a violence which was unexpectedly strong considering the mild and peaceful reign of Emperor Stanley Ten. Everywhere, groups of malcontents were springing up, chanting slogans for the abolition of the Empire and the destruction of the nobility. For the most part, the groups were led by honest, sincere people who believed in autonomy for their own planets without regard for the larger picture of interstellar relations.
Von Wilmenhorst could not fault the people for their sincere, if misguided, patriotism; the simple fact of the matter was that a strong, central concept such as the Empire of Earth was necessary to prevent countless interplanetary wars between rival worlds, and the deaths of untold trillions of human beings.
The localized insurrections themselves bothered him little, if at all; they were on a scale that the planetary authorities could reasonably handle. But his shrewd mind detected a pattern behind the sudden rise of these problems-and patterns were what he was most suspicious of.
There's a pattern behind every major movement in the galaxy, he thought. Find the pattern and you're halfway to finding the solution.
He had on his desk a series of charts, correlating the growth of terrorist movements. If this had been a medical situation, he would have called it an epidemic. So far, 647 worlds had anti-imperial, terrorist gangs of serious strength, and there was no telling how many more were in the process of formation as he sat and considered the problem. It would be more understandable if Stanley Ten were a harsh, tyrannical ruler, as some of his predecessors had been; people had a natural tendency, after a while, to rebel against such oppression. But, on the contrary, Stanley Ten's reign had been one of the most enlightened sinc e the Empire was formed and, after forty-six years, would soon be coming to a close anyway. While it was not generally known, Stanley Ten planned to abdicate in six months in favor of his daughter Edna...
With that thought, a major piece of the jigsaw puzzle fell into place in his mind.Stanley Ten was not the target. Whoever was masterminding this operation was biding his time, building his power slowly, sapping the Empire's strength with a million tiny brush fires. The real conflagration would come during the changeover, when everyone was in a natural state of confusion anyway. The Empire would be in the hands of a young woman who, while possessing many of the strengths that so characterized her father, was not as experienced as he at dealing with crises. There was more possibility that she, through simple inexperience, would make the fatal slip that would bring about the downfall of theStanley reign, and possibly of the entire Empire.
With the concept of nefarious conspiracies, his thoughts naturally turned to Lady A, the mysterious woman who seemed to be lurking behind so many of them. She had managed to infiltrate the Service itself, and von Wilmenhorst still did not know how. She was a guiding force behind the insidious humanoid robots; two of which had already come too close to wreaking their havoc on the Empire. She'd managed the planet Sanctuary, building up a constituency of the best criminal talent in the galaxy. She was involved with a gang of space pirates and was amassing a space fleet for purposes unknown. And she'd come within a hairbreadth of pulling off the galaxy's most daring coup, at the wedding of Crown Princess Edna.
All of her plans, with the exception of the leak from within the Service itself, had been thwarted by the timely actions of his agents, but that did not make the Head feel any more secure. We've stopped all of her plans that we know about, he corrected himself. How many more machinations are developing that we may not discover until too late? Lady A is a very busy woman.
Along with the incidents of terrorism, space piracy had also been on the rise in the last year or so; Lady A had already demonstrated one connection with that, and there might be others. Somewhere, there had to be a weapons stockpile, some central source supplying these various groups with the arms they needed to conduct their battles. Somewhere, two more-at least-of those deadly robots were engaged in their missions of undermining the Empire. Somewhere, lurking even further in the background, was the person known only as C, the still more enigmatic partner of the mysterious Lady A. Somewhere...
Zander von Wilmenhorst ran a hand over his smooth-shaven scalp in frustration. There were mysteries within mysteries, and so little time to unravel them all. His insight that events would culminate at the coronation of Edna as Empress Stanley Eleven gave him a target date to shoot for-but it was so soon. And the enemy had the natural advantage of knowing his plans as well as its own.
Somewhere, a clock was ticking off the seconds left to the Empire, and unless he could think of something, those seconds would be pitifully few in number.
With a massive effort of will, the Head pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind. Despite the fact of the larger plots against the throne, there were still the everyday details of imperial security that needed tending. At present, the kidnaping of Lord Hok by the rebels on Glasseye was primary.
Turning on his own private subcom set, he punched in the secret identity number that was known to only a few select people in the entire galaxy. Within just a few minutes, a face appeared within the three-dimensional communicator screen-the face of von Wilmenhorst's old friend, Duke Etienne d'Alembert.
Etienne was obviously glad to see his comrade, but at the same time his expression was one of serious concern. The Head of SOTE rarely had the time to make purely social calls, particularly to the secret subcom number. There was bound to be trouble somewhere. "Bonjour, mon ami," he said. "What's the problem?"
Briefly, the Head explained the circumstances surrounding the capture of Lord Hok by terrorists on Glasseye the previous night. "It doesn't appear to have been a planned event," he said, "but you can bet the rebels will make use of it nonetheless. We're expecting a list of demands momentarily."
"All of them impossible, no doubt."
"Even if they only asked twenty kopeks, the price would be too high. It would be a signal to the entire galaxy for a new escalation of these terrorist attacks. I'm already certain there's an Empire-wide conspiracy linking them all together; if this kidnaping tactic, accidental though it was this first time, should succeed, no nobleman or political official will ever be safe. We've got to crush this threat so thoroughly, and with such determination, that it won't be tried again."
Etienne d'Alembert nodded. "And that, I suppose, is where the circus comes in?"
"Exactly. Ordinarily I would consider something like this inside the jurisdiction of local police officials, with the Service sending along a liaison officer as an observer. But Grand Duke T'Chen is as cantankerous as ever, and he's been screaming for SOTE to get his nephew out of there. As a grand duke he is entitled to such considerations. Also, as I said, I want to make an example of this for the rest of the terrorists to note, so I want to unleash my top weapon at them: you and your family."
Duke Etienne smiled at the compliment. "How thorough an example should I create?"
The Head returned the smile. "Lord Hok must be returned to his uncle alive and as unharmed as the rebels have left him. Anything beyond that, I'll leave to your own discretion."
"Ah. I am nothing if not discreet." The Duke's smile broadened into a positively carnivorous expression. "I suppose, though, it would be prudent to leave a few of the scum in a condition to answer further questions."
"Yes, please."
"Time will be a bit of a problem. I'm on Dorlan at the moment. Even breaking off our next three days' engagements and altering our schedule, it would stilt take us about five days to reach Glasseye-and once we're there, it'll take a little time to develop our battle plans."
Von Wilmenhorst nodded. "I know. I've instructed our local chief to stall, play along with them, pretend to consider their demands until he hears from you. He knows he's to give you his fullest cooperation once you arrive, so you should have no problems. And I'll beam you further reports on the situation as it develops while you're en route."
"We're on our way," Duke Etienne said curtly, and the screen on the subcom set went blank as he broke the connection. The Head smiled confidently. It felt good to be able to do something positive, and handing a problem to a d'Alembert was as good as solving it.
He turned back to the stacks of material cluttering his desk. They were in neat piles of varying degrees of urgency. Unfortunately, the "very urgent" pile was still entirely too high for his liking. With a sigh, he reached for the next report from the top of that stack.
It happened to be a summary of the situation on the planet Purity, reported by Marask Kantana, one of his ablest aides. As he read, it became increasingly clear to him that his need for d'Alembert help was far from over.
Chapter 2
The Silent Sortie
The Circus of the Galaxy was one of the Empire's top attractions, wherever it played. Even in an era of sophisticated electronic communications, there was something so elemental about the circus's appeal that it always drew vast throngs to its performances. It was basic entertainment-people executing unbelievable feats with seemingly effortless abandon. Audiences never ceased to marvel at the wonders performed before their eyes.
Duke Etienne d'Alembert, manager of the Empire's premier attraction, never allowed his acts to be filmed, televised or recorded for sensable shows. In this way, he created an aura of mystery and originality about his troupe that no one else had been able to duplicate. He relied heavily on word-of-mouth advertising to bring the crowds, and he was seldom disappointed at the results.
But there was another, deeper reason why the crafty duke refused all offers to broadcast his show to the multitudes, despite the phenomenal amounts of money offered. The Circus of the Galaxy-meaning, in essence, the Family d'Alembert-was one of SOTE's strongest and most secret weapons. The talents of this remarkable family, all originally from the heavy-grav world of DesPlaines, had been called upon time and again for secret missions, much like the one that now took them to Glasseye. Making the faces Aid names of the d'Alembert clan members easily recognizable by the general public would end their ability to do the Empire's work in secret.
