Luise was not beautiful in the classical sense, but she had the strong presence of personality that many simply beautiful women lacked. Her thin face was highlighted by eyes that shone with intelligence, and she had a long, thin nose whose tip wiggled slightly when she spoke. Long black hair flowed elegantly down her back. Though she was only in her middle twenties, Luise was already one of the Circus's premiere clowns and mimes-and she possessed one of the sharpest young minds in the family. A natural clown had to be able to think quickly, and Luise was one of the best.

  She was dressed in a loose-fitting blouse and long skirt that was the current fashion on the planet Belange, where Winsted had originally come from, and her shoulders were covered by a brown waist-length capelet. She walked in a brisk, businesslike manner, and the stern look in her eyes was that of a woman who brooked no nonsense from anyone.

  Luise walked into Brovnik's Cocktail Lounge and went directly up to the bar. "A Starship Sling," she ordered. Though she shared, along with all DesPlainians, an allergy to alcohol, she could drink the stuff; the results would be uncomfortable for her metabolism, but a member of the Clan d'Alembert would do almost anything in the line of duty. As the bartender mixed the drink for her, Luise turned to survey the lounge.

  The room was darkened to highlight the entertainment, which was a holographic recording of two female dancers doing an impressionistic performance of their art to Raussad's Opus Number 4. All around the stage were tables which were less than crowded-not unusual, considering this was a week night. A few other people stood around, either at the bar or a few meters away, several of them were engaged in private conversations, and the SOTS agent saw the flash of money being exchanged at one spot. She could not tell bow much or what it was for.

  Her drink arrived, and she took as small a sip as she could get away with while still appearing to enjoy it. "I'm looking for a friend of mine," she said conversationally to the bartender. "Perhaps you know him, he asked me to meet him here. His name's Rawl Winsted."

  By the way the bartender's eyebrows arched quickly, Luise could tell that the man had heard that name before. The other recovered his demeanor, though; aside from that one little flick there was no sign of recognition. "No, can't say that I have. Of course, I see a lot of people go by here every day; maybe if you described him I could remember him better."

  Luise pulled out a ten-ruble bill, folded it, and set it gently down on edge on top of the bar. She was very glad this bartender knew the victim; this was the eleventh spot she'd visited, and she was running low on bribe money. "Well, he's tall and kind of skinny, with long, delicate fingers-usually wears gloves, in fact. Dresses fairly conservatively. Dark, heavy eyebrows...."

  "Yeah, I think I know the guy you mean," the barkeep said, palming the bill with one deft gesture and putting it in his own pocket. "Came in here a couple of times with some friends."

  "Do you know where I might find him or these friends?" The bartender hesitated a second, then said, "Sure. Gospodin Cheevers over here was one of them." He signaled the indicated man to come over, and when he did the bartender continued, "Jos, this lady here is looking for Rawl Winsted."

  The man called Jos Cheevers was big, nearly a full two meters tall and close to a hundred kilos in mass. His looming posture was carefully calculated to make smaller people feel ill-at-ease. "Yeah?" he said in a gravelly voice. "What's your business with Winsted?"

  "He sent for me," Luise said calmly.

  Cheevers's eyes narrowed. "You his woman or somethin'?"

  Luise's glare would have pierced a hole through a bar of iron. "I'm his partner. We worked together back on Belange. He sent me a message a couple of weeks ago that he wanted to see me here, that he might have some work for me."

  "What kind of work do you do?" "The same kind Rawl does."

  The big man looked at her curiously. "What did Winsted tell you about his job here?"

  "I believe," Luise said slowly, "I have told you all I am going to, for the present. Perhaps if you would tell me where I can find Rawl, you and I could talk further."

  Cheevers was not used to having a woman speak to him in such a manner. In the social circles he frequented, there were only two types of females: the shy, decent ones whom he could terrify and bully, and the brash, indecent ones who would accept anything he had to say with bland passivity. This woman did not fit into either category, and that disturbed him. "What's your name?"

  Luise deForrest just looked at him, not saying a word. Cheevers stood beside her for a moment, just clenching and unclenching his fists, then finally said, "Wait here. I gotta make a call."

  Luise watched patiently as the big man went over to the booth and placed a communicator call to someone whose face Luise could not make out over the vision screen. The agent dared not crane her neck or appear anxious. All she could do was wait until Cheevers had finished his call, sipping slowly on her drink and trying not to wince as the alcohol burned its way down her throat.

  The big man came back from the com booth and stood beside her. "Come along with me," he ordered.

  "Will you take me to Rawl?" "Yeah."

  Since Luise knew that Winsted was dead, she doubted the big man's sincerity. "I haven't finished my drink yet." "I thought you wanted to meet your friend."

  "What proof do I have that you'll really take me to him?"

  Cheevers moved up closely against her and nudged her in the side. Luise could feel the hard, circular rim of a weapon pressing into her ribs. She couldn't tell whether it was a blaster or merely a stun-gun, but she didn't particularly want to take chances with either. "This is my proof," Cbeevers growled.

  "Ah, well, as long as you put it that way, of course," Luise replied. "I never argue with irrefutable evidence." She set the drink down on the bar-with inward thanks at not having to drink the rest of it-and moved toward the door with Cheevers directly behind her.

  Another man joined them at the door. The newcomer was only slightly smaller than Cheevers but looked, if anything, tougher. Together, the two men escorted Luise out the door and into the darkness of the night. Wherever they're taking me, the agent thought, they certainly want to make sure I get there. "Why couldn't Rawl come and meet me himself?" she asked aloud.

  "Shut up," was Cheever's laconic reply.

  "Is he in any danger? Is he hiding out? You can tell me, I'm his partner."

  "I said, shut up!" Cheevers raised his hand as though to smack the woman across the face-but he did not carry through on that action for one very good reason. The reason's name was Richard d'Alembert.

  Rick, as he was known to his family and friends, was the leader of the Circus's team of wrestlers. As such, he was better than a hundred kilos of the most efficient fighting machine capable of being packaged in a body of flesh and bone. Not only were his muscles supertightened for action, but he had training in every branch of the martial arts and the speed to carry out his actions before most ordinary opponents would be able to think straight.

  He had come along with Luise and waited outside the lounge just in case some trouble might arise. Luise's situation was obvious as soon as she emerged with the two toughs, and Rick had followed them along in the shadows until the moment came for him to make his move.

  That moment was now, with Cheevers's arm raised to attack in a different direction and the other blasterbat's attention focused on his comrade. Rick launched himself at Cheevers with all the strength in his massive DesPlainian body.

  Cheevers, caught by surprise, fell forward as Rick's body hit him from the rear. The Circus wrestler came down on top of his foe, landing a succession of blows to the body designed to daze any opponent. Cheevers, a veteran of many tough fights, was a little more resilient than an ordinary person, and did manage to attempt one blow back at his assailant. Rick parried that swing easily with his forearm, then returned it with a vengeance. His fist caught Cheevers squarely on the jaw, knocking the thug's head back against the sidewalk. Cheevers went out like a light.

  Meanwhile, Luise had not been inactive. Clowns, as well as athletes, had to keep themselves in top physical condition to perform their acts, and members of the Family d'Alembert were more than ordinarily rigorous in their training. She knew that Rick was waiting for the opportunity to attack, and was not caught by surprise when her relative did so. As Rick came flying at Cheevers, Luise stepped aside so that the two bodies fell past her to the ground. At the same time, she turned to the other crook and brought her foot down squarely on the man's instep. The thug howled with pain, but the yell was cut short as Luise swung her fist, with all the not inconsiderable DesPlainian strength at her disposal, into the pit of her opponent's stomach.

  There was a whoosh of air as the man doubled over. Luise interlaced her fingers, thereby locking her hands into one powerful unit, and brought it down on the top of her foe's exposed head. There was a dull thunk as she connected solidly; then the man fell to the ground and lay quite still.

  Luise clapped her hands together as though brushing off some imaginary dirt and looked over at Rick. The wrestler was just getting to his feet, a big grin on his face. "For someone who makes a living at being funny," he said jovially, "you sure taught that bruiser a serious lesson."

  "Thank you, cousin," Luise said with a mock curtsy. "Your timing was pretty good, too. But I think we should stop congratulating each other and take care of our two friends here. Cheevers, the one you knocked out, shouldn't be under too long-at least, I hope not."

  "I gave him but the gentlest of taps," Rick assured her. "Good, because we have to learn where he was taking me-and fast. If we're not there in a reasonable time, Cheevers's boss might get a little suspicious and that would only make our job harder."

  Together, they dragged the two men back to their waiting car. The second thug was tied and gagged securely and stashed away in the back seat. Cheevers also was bound, but they made no attempt to cover his mouth--they wanted him to talk. Then they revived him and began their questioning.

  Their methods of interrogation were less than polite, but about on a par with what Cheevers would have used had the roles been reversed. Thus, in a surprisingly short time they learned that Cheevers had been ordered by his boss-a man named Evekian-to bring the mysterious woman to his office immediately for further inquiry. Coercion was authorized if the victim did not want to come voluntarily. The d'Alemberts also learned the location of Evekian's headquarters and the details of how the place was guarded. By the time he was finished telling them what he knew, Cheevers was barely conscious; the two agents left him tied up in the back seat and placed a coded call back to the Circus.

  A team of their relatives was all set, just awaiting the word from them to move into action. Luise gave the address of the headquarters and described a preliminary plan of attack. She was told that the assault group would meet her there in fifteen minutes.

  As scheduled, the d'Alemberts rendezvoused in the darkness outside the headquarters building. The ground level of this block was mostly stores and commercial establishments, but the top five floors of this one building were staffed by Evekian and his minions. Evekian himself lived on the fourth floor, with several floors standing between himself and an invasion from any ground forces, plus one floor of defense above him in case enemies (or the police) should land by copter on the roof. The only way out onto the street was down a narrow flight of stairs that led out of a currently locked door. Cheevers had said there would be a pair of guards at the top of those steps, and that both would be armed with blasters.

  A setup like that would have daunted many people, but the Family d'Alembert was quite adept at performing the impossible. Frontal attacks from the stairs or from the roof would have resulted in Pyrrhic victories at best; they chose to go around the trouble and sneak up behind it.

  Among the attacking force was a goodly percentage of acrobats and aerialists. They thought nothing, even in the darkness of Kolokov's night, of scaling the walls of the building on the outside, using grappling hooks, ropes, and pulleys to lift themselves to positions outside the windows facing the street. All of them were armed with stun-guns and, more importantly, their own unique talents as rough-and-tumble fighters.

  On a given signal, they launched their attack simultaneously from several spots at once. Kicking in the glass of the windows, they crashed into the rooms beyond, tumbled, and kept on running. This first wave had their stunners at the ready and set on four-a two-hour stun. Anything that moved-anything that even looked like it might move-was given a dose of stun rays from the d'Alemberts' guns.

  This first wave of assault encountered no resistance. The defenders were caught flatfooted; if there was any trouble expected at all, it was supposed to have been from one woman whom Cheevers had picked up in a bar-not from an army of expertly trained agents. Not a single shot was fired in defense as those people still in the building at this hour fell from the d'Alembert assault.

  But, quick as the d'Alemberts were, they were not quite fast enough to stop an alarm from being raised. The noise of the shattering glass windows alone would have alerted the forces inside; that and the fact that several of the people had time to push alarm buzzers before they were felled meant that the d'Alemberts had won only the preliminary skirmish. The full battle royal lay ahead.

  More and more d'Alemberts poured in through the windows as the shock troops pressed onward. The corridors outside the offices became battlefields, with the buzzing of stun-guns reaching an almost monotonous staccato. Plenty of the defenders slumped to the ground under the relentless assault, but there were also a large number of d'Alemberts among the bodies that were soon littering the halls. The DesPlainians were stronger, quicker, and better trained than the people they were fighting, but they were not perfect.

  Within two minutes, though, the objective of this first wave was achieved-the two guards at the top of the front stairs had been eliminated. That left the way open for Rick's team of wrestlers-not quite as adept at climbing the ropes to the upper stories as their relatives-to come storming into the fray. These were the real troops, each better than 110 kilograms of calculated mayhem. What they couldn't shoot, they simply battered their way through, berserking in combat like a horde of barbarians. Their hoarse battle cries alone struck terror into the hearts of the building's defenders, and the sight of those moving mountains of humanity was enough to dismay even the most stalwart crook. Most of Evekian's guards were so stunned by the thought of Rick's men charging down on top of them that they forgot to even fire their weapons. The d'Alemberts moved triumphantly through the halls and upward to the third floor.

  It was at this level that they encountered blaster fire, and they had to proceed a little more cautiously. Once again the acrobats were brought in, for the speed of their reflexes was greater, if only by an instant, than those of the wrestlers. These people could roll into the corridor so quickly that the defenders would have trouble taking aim; the first shots fired usually missed, but it gave the acrobats a chance to spot where their enemies were. The d'Alemberts' first shots were usually much more accurate. Then the acrobats would roll behind some cover and wait for the opportunity to pull the trick again.

  Slowly but surely they gained ground until finally the third floor was theirs. Quickly the wrestling team moved on up to the largely undefended fourth floor where Evekian lived.

  They found it empty.

  The crime boss, after waiting a minute to see how the battle was progressing, realized that his forces were being overwhelmed. He was not one to go down with his ship, so, since there was no indication of activity on the roof, he headed up in that direction to his own personal copter. Once there, he figured to escape easily.

  He had just seated himself at the controls, though, when a female voice spoke up calmly behind him. "Easy there, Tovarishch. I've got a stunner here, and I've got no compunctions against using it." At the same time, Evekian could feel the hard plastic nozzle press against the back of his head, so that he would know the threat was not an idle one.

  Luise deForrest moved from the back of the cockpit over to the seat beside the pilot's, her aim never wavering from Evekian's head. The criminal leader, being both a realist and a coward, made no attempt to escape. "I don't know who you are or why your people are attacking my offices," he said, "but you've obviously made some mistake"

  `"The mistake, mon ami, is yours, for siccing Cheevers on me in the first place. But I'm going to let you rectify it. The two of us are going to have a nice long talk about a certain Rawl Winsted and why he came to Kolokov."

  "Evekian was really rather helpful once I persuaded him to start talking," Luise reported to the Duke several hours later. "He didn't want to say anything at first-kept insisting I was mistaking him for someone else. As though anyone without something to hide would keep his offices staffed with an army like that. But eventually Rick and I induced him to part with the information we wanted. I think it was the threat to make him a soprano in the choir that did it."

  Duke Etienne leaned back in his chair and stifled a yawn. It was very early in the morning and he had stayed up all night awaiting Luise's report. He wished she would get to the point, but he knew from long experience the futility of rushing his niece when she was relating a story.

  "It turns out," Luise continued, unaware of the Duke's restiveness, "that this Evekian is a big arranger here on Kolokov. He doesn't necessarily do very much himself, but he arranges things for other people-for a commission. If you knew the inside setup for a robbery, for instance, but didn't have the necessary skills to carry off the job, you would contact Evekian and he'd find you just the man to help. If you needed a murder committed, he'd find the killer and you would have an airtight alibi. He's sort of like a marriage broker, getting rich off of other people's talents and abilities.

  "in the case of Rawl Winsted, he'd been asked to find an expert in dealing with miniature workings like watches. There are plenty of legitimate jewelers around, but the client specified someone with a background of illegality and who didn't have a scruple to his name. Evekian sent for Winsted. Part of the job specification was that Winsted would have to agree to have the hypnotic block implanted; but he was getting paid so much money for the job that a slight loss of his memory wasn't so terrible a price to pay in return."

 

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