The purity plot, p.6
The Purity Plot, page 6
"It's God's work," FitzHugh chided him gently.
"Sister Tresa is merely His instrument for directing it." "Yes, of course. My error is inexcusable. Nevertheless, I want to combat this menace that threatens the salvation of us all personally. Do you know of any way I can do that?"
FitzHugh looked him up and down critically. "There is an organization of people who, like yourself, are dedicated to the Lord's fight. Do you have any references?"
"References?"
"In a closely knit, dedicated organization like this, good intentions are not enough. The applicant must be known and vouched for by at least four other members before he may be permitted to join. Can you meet that qualification?"
Pias's face fell. "I'm afraid not."
"Then I'm sorry, but I'll have to refuse you for now. If you'd like to leave your name and address, though, I'll keep it for future reference, in case you can be of help to us later."
Yvette, meanwhile, went up onto the stage and, with a group of others with similar curiosity, was examining the metal bar Tresa Clunard had bent. It was, as it had been described, a heavy, solid metal construction bar; Yvette, with all her strength, could barely do anything to it, and yet Clunard had handled it effortlessly.
As they left the hall, Yvette discussed the matter with her husband. "Maybe Clunard's just stronger than she looks," Pias shrugged.
Yvette snorted. "I don't consider myself a weakling, yet ! couldn't do anything like that. There's got to be some trick to it." She smacked one fist against her other palm. "I'm sure my Uncle Marcel, the magician, could think of a dozen ways to fake it."
"Perhaps it wasn't faked," Pias said. "I did a lot of traveling during those couple of years I was tracking down Rowe Carnery, and I saw a lot of unbelievable things. An unmitigated faith in something can give a person extraordinary abilities."
"You think God really helped her bend that bar?" "Maybe, maybe not. But her belief in God certainly could have. Faith is a mystery no one's solved yet." Then changing the subject, Pias explained to Yvette his failure to join the Army of the Just. Yvette nodded.
"I was afraid it might be something like that," she said. "They're taking exceptional pains that no one infiltrate their group. On a small, rural planet like this, everyone knows everyone else's business. The true enlistee would probably have no trouble getting the required references; it's only outsiders like ourselves who are suspect. We'll have to go about this from the outside." She looked at her husband. "Have you come up with any brilliant ideas yet?"
"Still working on it."
"Then do you mind if I suggest one?" "I listen to you in all things, my love."
"I want to try breaking into Clunard's offices. There's likely to be something there that will give us a clue about what she's up to, or at least where this army of hers is headquartered. We can't fight them until we know exactly what they're doing and where they are."
Tresa Clunard, like many of the lesser religious counselors, maintained an office in God's Will City. The scope of her operations, though, was far beyond the modest size of her colleagues' spheres. For outward appearances, there was only one storefront bearing her name, no larger than any self-respecting counselor would maintain; but the local branch of SOTS informed the Bavols that Clunard's actual offices occupied all the buildings within that entire city block. When a person became as important as she was, there were administrative difficulties that involved large staffs, even if the counselor were not busy organizing a secret army.
The Bavols waited until three in the morning to make their raid. They would be hampered slightly by the fact that they didn't know the layout of the offices into which they were breaking, but that situation was eased by the fact that the security system within the office complex promised to be very light. While there was some crime on Purity, as everywhere, it was punished with such unrelenting harshness that most Puritans bent on a life of crime chose to go elsewhere. A counselor's offices would not be heavily guarded at all, compared to what Yvette was used to facing.
The Bavols had rented a groundcar, despite the fact that it would make them stand out in the streets; there was never any way of knowing when they might have to make a fast getaway. They - parked their vehicle alongside the building and, using a set of grappling hooks, pulled themselves up onto the roof of the one-story complex. Both were dressed all in black, with infrared flashlights and goggles to help them see, each carried a set of tools that would be useful for breaking into locked places, and a stun-gun in case of trouble. They hoped not to have to use the latter; the whole point of this exercise was to obtain information without the enemy knowing it had been obtained.
There was a maintenance duct opening out onto the roof. Although Puritans did not believe in heating or cooling their buildings, they still recognized the practical necessity of having vents to the outside so that the interior air did not get stale and unbreathable. The Bavols started to pry the cover off the duct; it squealed hideously, and Yvette took a vial of special lubricant from her belt to oil the hinges. The cover came off more quietly then, and the agents lowered themselves inside the building by a carlon rope, which they left in place to help them get out again.
They found themselves in a small janitorial area. Opening the door a crack, Yvette peered out, but could see no signs of any guards in the hallway immediately outside. She and Pias slipped out of their hiding place and split up. There was a lot of ground to cover in this one foray, and they could go over twice as much individually as they could together. They agreed to meet back on the roof in no more than one hour, whether they had found anything or not.
Pias moved from office to office, looking for any sign of a safe. Clunard obviously would not leave incriminating evidence lying in plain view, not while the security about recruiting new members to the army was otherwise so tight. Most of the offices were not locked, and papers were scattered around for anyone to read. He ignored them and continued his search.
On two different occasions he heard the footsteps of approaching guards. The security officers were not expecting trouble, and took few precautions to avoid being heard, making it easy for Pias to avoid them. As he moved deeper into the office complex, he could almost sense his Gypsy ancestors peering over his shoulder and nodding their approval of his methods.
At last he came to an area that seemed to have been made more secure than the previous ones. The doors here were locked, and were wired into simple sound alarms. Pias's training at the Service Academy was still fresh enough so that bypassing the alarms and unlocking the doors was a simple procedure, requiring only a couple of minutes' time; after that, he could enter these private offices at will. He discovered no safes in here either, but the desks were all locked and the tops cleared off. He assumed that the important papers had been locked away for the night, so he began the lengthy task of persuading the drawers open to examine their contents.
His search was still unrewarded as he was rummaging through the fourth of these locked offices. As he was bent over the desk looking for clues, he heard a sound. It was very faint, just the lightest scraping of shoe against floor, but with his senses alert for any sign of trouble it was enough to warn him of another presence. He tossed the papers he'd been reading back into their drawer and closed it silently, locking it as it had been, so no one would be able to tell what he'd seen. He straightened up, and his right hand closed on the butt of his stun-gun. This was not just another security guard; the person was moving too carefully, too quietly. It had to be someone who suspected a burglar was already here, and was trying to surprise him.
The scene was not completely dark to him; Pias had his infrared flashlight, which illuminated the office's interior with an eerie light when viewed through the goggles he wore. The problem was the beam was a narrow one, focusing on a small area. Pias set the flashlight gently down on the desk top facing the door so that its rays would show him anyone who entered; since he was wearing the special goggles and the other person probably was not, he would be the one to benefit. He stood up and backed away a few paces, his stunner aimed directly at the door.
The quiet footsteps outside came right to the edge of the door and then stopped. The doorknob began a slow turn, and Pias's finger tightened over the firing button of his weapon. His heart was pounding so loudly that he thought it would surely alert whoever was out there that the SOTE-agent was inside, waiting.
The doorknob stopped turning, and there was a heart-stopping pause that lasted all of two seconds. Then, with unexpected speed, the door flew inward and a figure burst into the room. The invader was a female, but Pias could not tell much more than that, once she was inside the room, the other person dashed out of the flashlight's beam into the general darkness of the room.
Pias was astonished. No one should be able to move that fast, not on a three-gee world. The idea had occurred in the back of his mind that this might be Yvette, accidentally covering the same ground, but he knew his wife could not move that fast. This woman had burst into the room with a speed comparable to what a heavy-grav native could achieve on a one-gee world-and on Purity, such a feat should be beyond human capacity.
Pias fired his stunner at the intruding form, but he must have been too slow because she did not stop. She moved instead into the shadows out of the beam of his flashlight. Pias could still see her through his goggles as a humanoid-shaped glow of a heat-emitting source, but there were no fine details such as facial characteristics.
She must have seen him too, although she didn't appear to be wearing goggles, for as soon as she was out of the direct beam from the flashlight she started toward Pias at the same incredible speed. Pias turned to face the threat from a slightly different direction, and fired his stunner point-blank into the charging woman. His weapon was set on three, enough to stun a person for about twenty minutes; his attacker should have dropped in her tracks long enough for him to get out of there and warn Yvette that they'd been discovered.
Instead, the woman continued her charge.
Had Pias Bavol been one whit less resourceful, had his mind been duller or his reflexes slower, the only thing left to write about him would be his obituary. But, startled though he was by the stunners lack of effect, his instincts refused to let him freeze up. The glowing shape was speeding toward him out of the darkness, and he had to get out of its way. He fell slightly to one side, rolling as he'd been taught to avoid .
injury even under these gravity conditions. In one smooth motion he had evaded the immediate charge and rolled to his feet once more. He had his stunner up and fired again at the figure-and again, to no avail. As the woman turned to come after him again, he threw the gun directly into her face. Without flinching, she reached up a hand to brush the projectile aside.
It was at this point that Pias decided to exercise the better part of his valor. He had never been the sort to make hopeless stands when simple flight offered him a safer way out. Turning away from his attacker, now, he ran for his life. He left the office, slamming the door behind him. That would only slow the woman down for a second, but every second counted.
On the other side of the building, Yvette picked up the slight but unmistakable sounds of a fracas. Fearing for her husband's safety, she quickly left the office she was investigating and raced out into the hallway, braced for a fight. She stood quietly for a moment to get her directional bearings, then hurried toward the sounds of the skirmish.
As she turned a corner, she ran straight into a pair of guards. Like her, they had heard the strange noises and were on their way to investigate. Being also natives of a three-gee world, they could react with nearly the same lightning speed as she could. But Yvette's training with the Circus, and the fact that she was more prepared for guards than they were for her, enabled her to recover from the surprise slightly faster. She shot the first guard point-blank with a number three stunner beam, and he obligingly collapsed on the floor.
That gave the second man the added instant he needed to recover. As Yvette turned to shoot him, he brought his arm up suddenly, deflecting her aim and knocking the weapon from her grasp. Now that her hand was free of its gun, she used it to grab the man's arm in the unbreakable grip of a skilled aerialist. Planting her feet, she whirled the man around her and, when she'd built up enough momentum, let go. The man flew against the far wall and crashed to the ground; under this gravity, he would probably have broken several bones. In any event, he was unlikely to cause her further trouble.
Her stunner was somewhere down the darkness of the corridor. Searching for it would use up the precious seconds she might need to help Pias. Trusting to her inborn talents, she ran on in the direction of the noise.
As she turned the corner, she could see the scene clearly. There were two figures running in her direction. The one in front she would have recognized anywhere as her beloved husband. The one following him was some woman whose face she couldn't make out. Pias had no gun; he must have lost it in the fight. But, though the figures were slightly blurry and indistinct in the infrared glow, one fact was abundantly clear-the woman chasing Pias was running faster than any living being had a right to.
Yvette could tell that her husband would not be able to outrun his adversary, and that he did not wish to stand and fight anyone who could move so quickly. She decided to help him along. Reaching into the tool kit on her belt, she took out the tiny vial of lubricating fluid she'd used on the duct cover and threw it with an acrobat's accuracy at a spot just behind Pias, a few paces ahead of his pursuer.
The vial shattered, oozing its greasy contents all over the floor. Either the woman following Pias did not notice the stain or else she could not stop in time, because she hit the slippery spot at full speed. Her feet went out from under her, and she slid diagonally down the hallway, crashing into the left-hand wall with a solid jolt that made Yvette wince.
Then Pias had reached her, and stretched out his hand to grasp hers. "Let's get out of here," he gasped, pulling her along with him. Yvette was forced to agree; now that their presence had been discovered, it was only a matter of seconds before even more security forces were alerted. And besides, she didn't want to face that woman in battle any more than Pias did.
Hand in hand, the two agents ran at top speed back to their janitorial closet. Once inside, they jammed boxes and crates against the door to gain a few extra seconds, then climbed up their rope back to the roof. From there, it was a fast jaunt back to their line, down the side of the building, and off to their waiting car.
They wasted no time pausing to see whether anyone had followed them out; Pias merely gunned the motor and they shot into the darkness for all they were worth.
Something had gone terribly wrong back inside that complex, and they would have to figure out exactly what it was before they dared take another step near Tresa Clunard's Army of the Just.
Chapter 6
Harassment Tactics
Unlike Pias and Yvette, Jules and Vonnie d'Alembert had a plan carefully worked out long before they reached their target planet of Nampur.
"The way I see it," Jules surmised, floating in the cramped cabin of their personal ship, la Comete Cuivre, "the gang we're up against has a virtual monopoly on the arms sales to the underground terrorist organizations. It's the Head's belief that the terrorists themselves are independent groups, but that they're being guided by some central policy maker and who better to control them than the person who ships them their munitions? They can't function effectively without him."
Vonnie nodded silently. She still felt a little in awe of her new husband and, while they had both worked together before, this was their first mission as husband and wife. She was more than willing, for the moment, to let Jules do all the planning for the team. She could scarcely go wrong, after all, listening to the ideas of the only man alive who'd received a perfect score on the Service's Thousand Point Test of capability.
"We don't really know who the brains are behind this operation," Jules continued. "All the Head could learn were the names of a few contacts on the sales end. We could get in touch with them and try working our way up the ladder to find who's on the top rung. But that's a slow, grinding process at best, and I'm basically lazy. I'd rather make them come to me."
"By pretending to be a buyer?" Yvonne ventured. Jules shook his head. "I considered that, but I didn't like it. Establishing our credentials might be a bit awkward. If, we're terrorists, we'll have to do something to prove it, and I have this natural aversion to hurting innocent people. Besides, the buyer never gets to meet the big boss. The client deals exclusively through a salesman. We learned that from the informant we captured on Glasseye. No, if were going to learn about these arms dealers, we're going to have to be a lot more than mere customers."
"What then?"
"Competitors." And Jules's smile was as broad as a shark's who's just smelled a beach party.
The planet Nampur had little to set it apart from dozens of other reasonably prosperous worlds. Like the planet Chandakha, which Jules had visited once before, Nampur had been settled primarily by terrans from Asia, particularly Indian subcontinent. But unlike Chandakha, the entire planet of Nampur was habitable, resulting in less crowding, less crime and less general degradation. The Nampuri were, for the most part, a prosperous and congenial people; the world itself seldom gave the Service of the Empire any cause to suspect trouble might be brewing there. But, as it turned out, it was the quiet worlds that needed watching the most.
There was a man in the city of Lharampas whose name was Panji. According to the Glasseye informant, this Panji was one of the most important distributors in the chain of operations. So Jules chose to make him the target. He and Vonnie broke into the man's home and office, planting microphones in every room and vidicom set, so they could know his most intimate dealings. They followed him everywhere, photographed and traced everyone with whom he came in contact, made and compared extensive notes, until finally, after weeks of study, they knew all the patterns of the man's life. Only when they were sure of their subject did they start to act.
