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did something for me.'
'Yeah,' Jules commented. `They blinded everyone in the room so that they wouldn't have to look at you.
By the way, where's the rest of the group we ordered?'
'There wasn't any point to sending them along on a posh ship like this; Rick said that he and his boys
would meet you directly on Aston,' Vonnie said.
Jules and Yvette briefed Jacques and Gabrielle on the personal habits and idiosyncrasies of Carlos and
Carmen, and what would be expected of them. 'Can't you tell us what this whole affair is about?'
Gabrielle
asked.
'Sorry, can't even leak it to family. You'll find out when it's all over, I suppose. In the meantime, I'm
afraid
you'll just have to settle for being decoys.'
Jules and Yvette escorted their replacements secretly back to their cabin, where they turned over the
Velasquez wardrobe and lifestyle to the new people. They had their hair dyed back close to the original
brown coloring and had it restyled so that it would be long and straight. Jules had his mustache trimmed
as well; it looked much better after it had been unwaxed and uncurled, and Yvonne commented
favorably
on it. By the time they donned their shapeless brown homespun trousers and jackets, there was not a
trace of Carlos or Carmen left in them. They looked, instead, like somewhat unorthodox but
still-practicing
Puritans.
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Any enemy spies at the landing field on Aston would have noted nothing suspicious. The Velasquez
couple stayed in their cabin the whole time, their ultimate destination being Lateesta. A man and a
woman
from some heavy gravity planet did disembark, but they could hardly be the same two.
Meanwhile, the new Carlos and Carmen Velasquez traveled on to Lateesta, halfway across the Empire,
where they continued their practice of tossing fifty-ruble bills around like confetti - and where they did
nothing else suspicious whatsoever.
Jules and Yvette took adjoining rooms at a small local hotel, and awaited the arrival of their cousin,
Richard d'Alembert, and his team of circus wrestlers. Word had come that they would arrive on a ship
tomorrow; in the meantime, Jules and Yvette made not a single move in the direction of the bar that was
their next target.
Jules had cleared the few movable items of furniture in his tiny room out of the way so that he had a path
to pace. He always thought better, he claimed, when he was moving. His fists were jammed deep within
his pockets and his eyes were focused intently on the floor as he strode back and forth over the cheap
carpeting. Yvette sat on the edge of his single bed, her brow knit and her lips in a frown of
concentration.
Their new quarters were something of a letdown after their previous accommodations, but neither really
noticed.
'I just can't help feeling that it's like fighting fog,' Jules said aloud. 'We knocked out an entire planetary
organization after a couple of weeks' work, and what did we get for it? The contact point for the head of
the organization on one other planet. Period. There's close to fourteen hundred planets in the Empire. If
we continue on at the same rate, we'll have the whole mess cleared up in only fifty-six years - after which
-56-
we'll probably have to start the job all over again, because we can't expect Banion to be standing still
while we mow down his organization. He'll rebuild as fast as we knock down.'
'He's getting along in years, you know. He could die first.' 'In that case, he'd make his move against the
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"Throne before his death - and if we just keep nibbling around the edges, we won't do him any damage
at
all. There's got to be some other way to go about this.'
Yvette looked up at him speculatively. 'You know, I had a dream last night about Uncle Marcel.'
Jules stopped pacing and looked quizzically at her. What could the Circus' magician have to do with
their
problem? 'You know the key part of his act; the word he's always harping on?'
I should; I was always hanging around his tent as a kid,'
Jules smiled. He let his voice take on a high-pitched, nasal twang in imitation of his uncle. ' "Misdirection
is the key. I tell you to watch one hand and something pops out in the other." Yes, I think I see what
you're getting at.'
He scowled and resumed his pacing. 'It is very pat. In sixty-seven years of investigation - and pretty
intensive investigation, at that - every single scrap of evidence points at the planet Durward as the source
of all the problems. Whenever a top agent would go to Durward and get close to anything, he would
disappear without a trace. Indicating, presumably, that there is something on Durward being guarded so
heavily and so well that none of our people can get near it.'
'Like perhaps the Patent.'
'But would it be there at all? Let's look at a couple of other things. Aimee Amorat disappeared with her
son Banion after their abortive coup against her husband, Duke Henry of Durward. Over the next
sixtyseven
years, an Empire-wide criminal organization builds up . . .'
'And that sort of thing takes cash!' Yvette interrupted excitedly. 'Even assuming that the Beast stashed
away a lot of loot she embezzled from her husband - and as I recall there were some missing funds - she
would have needed hundreds of billions ... no, trillions of rubles to build it up as big as it is now.'
'Of course, much of it could have been expected to pyramid along the way.'
'Even so, she and her son would have needed help. Either they had someone from the start - and with
her connec tions at court that wouldn't be altogether unlikely - or else they latched onto someone very
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quickly.'
'And someone high up.' Jules said pensively. 'They would need a power base to work from, too. They
would need someone with the authority to conceal facts and misdirect snoopers, someone who already
had an organization spread out over wide volumes of space, someone who could act with relative
impunity and move about freely.''
'We are talking,' Yvette enunciated clearly, 'about a grand duke.'
'That's the way I added it up, too.' He stopped pacing again and leaned against a bureau, facing his
sister. 'Only a grand duke would have the widespread organization that could serve as a basis for what
Banion has built up. Only a grand duke would have the initial financial resources to build this up so big in
one lifetime.'
'If this is true, then the work will get a lot harder than it's been. After all, we can't go sticking nitrobarb
into
grand dukes at random. There's only thirty-six of them, and they're bound to be missed.'
-57-
'True, but there may be another approach. If it really is Banion behind all these machinations - and all the
evidence points that way - then he must be preparing for a takeover of the Empire. He's getting old, and
he will want his share of glory before he goes. No matter how impressive that Patent is, he'll need a lot
more than that behind him before he could succeed. He'll need manpower, he'll need arms and he'll need
ships.'
'Those can all be disguised as other things. He could hide whole armies as maintenance men inside
factories, guns could be buried until needed, battleships could be listed as freighters . . .'
Jules nodded. 'But,' he said significantly, 'there is something you can't hide from an expert: cash flow. If
there is a coup in the works, it will show up in finances in various ways - a little too much money being
spent here, one area becoming unexplainably richer than another, a stockpiling of funds over there . . .'
'We'll hit them with accountants!' Yvette exclaimed. 'Why not? It's a time-honored method.'
'Little brother, you are a genius.'
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