Appointment At Bloodstar Part 9

And in only five years' time, the Angels' Palace saw an entirely different usage. The so-called Dukes' Revolt was raging against the Emperor's authority and, in a last-ditch attempt to consolidate the imperial forces, Admiral Kiril Bloodstar commandeered the Angels' Palace as his central command headquarters. Thanks to the Admiral's brilliant strategies, the Emperor and his family-and the entire Empire-were saved. In grat.i.tude,. Stanley I renamed the Angels' Palace and gave it in perpetuity to the Admiral's family, in addition to the unique hereditary t.i.tle, Lord (or Lady) Bloodstar of Bloodstar Hall.

The Bloodstar family had served the Empire with distinction ever since. They had produced any number of fine statesmen and military officers, and there was seldom a time when a Bloodstar was not a member of the Imperial Council. There had even been Bloodstar marriages into the Stanley line itself, so that the current Lady Bloodstar was number ten in line of succession to the Throne.

Bloodstar Hall, meanwhile, had become the traditional site for all imperial ceremonies of note. Here was where all Stanley emperors and empresses were crowned; here was where weddings of state occurred, and here was where the Stanleys were mourned when they died. Bloodstar Hall was high on the list of places for any tourist coming to Earth to visit.

The north wing of the hall had been renovated centuries ago into the official residence of the Bloodstar family itself. Thus, though the crowds that had flocked to Earth for Princess Edna's wedding celebration had begun gathering around Bloodstar Hall the day before the ceremony, the north wing was kept free of crowds. The robot duplicate of the current Lady Bloodstar had no problem pa.s.sing through the cordon of guards the night before the wedding; if anyone had even questioned her being out at that hour, she would have said she'd gone out for a brief walk because she was nervous about the next day's activities.

Once inside the hall, she proceeded straight to "her" room, where she confronted the real Lady Bloodstar and that poor woman didn't stand a chance against a robot double who could think and act many times faster than she could and had incredible mechanical strength besides.

With no one now left to challenge her ident.i.ty, the robot impostor traveled around the hall inspecting the security arrangements. No one would question so important a personage; after all, she had every right to inquire whether the Princess would be safe in this hall tomorrow while theoretically under her protection. Everywhere the robot went outside the hall she left a small, timed canister of TCN-14. Inside the hall, she cached a series of handweapons in predetermined locations. When she finished her inspection, she made a surrept.i.tious trip down to the communications room and sabotaged the incoming lines. No matter how desperately anyone outside the hall tried to call in tomor- row, these lines would look perfectly clear and open. The conspiracy was taking no chances that anyone might accidentally learn of their plans and call in a warning.

The robot's next move was to place a call to a certain vidicom number. She let the receiver at the other end buzz twice, then hung up and called again. This time she only let it buzz once. This was the code signal by which Lady A would know the hall had been secured, and that all was in readiness for tomorrow's operation.

With that accomplished, the fake aristocrat returned once more to her room. Being a robot, she had no need of sleep, but she lay on the bed with her eyes closed anyway, in case some servant should look in. And as she lay still, she contemplated her orders for the coup tomorrow.

Jules was fuming as he drove through the crowded surface streets in a desperate attempt to reach Bloodstar Hall before the designated hour. He would have loved to let his car open up and fly to the hall, but he was unable to contact the SOTE contingent there. As Lady A had said, the conspiracy had managed to put a blanket on the communications network leading into the hall. Jules knew that any flying craft approaching that hall today without giving warning would be fired on instantly by the Service personnel on duty-and he was in no mood to be shot down by his own side at this stage of the game.

So he drove through crowded streets that had banners flying in celebration of the Princess's wedding; and as he drove he kept hoping beyond hope that he'd be able to prevent it from becoming the occasion of a funeral as well.

The nearer they got to Bloodstar Hall the worse the traffic became, until finally it reached such a point that Jules disgustedly turned off the motor and got out of the car. "Come on," he said to Vonnie, "we can walk faster from here."

Urgently they pushed their way through the milling throngs, and they were not in the least hit hesitant about using their full DesPlainian strength to shove people aside. When the lives of the imperial family were at stake, rudeness was an acceptable price to pay.

By the time they had reached the outer gates of the hall they knew their behavior had been noted. The guards posted around the perimeter of the building had been specially alert for anything out of the ordinary, and they'd been picked well. Guns were currently being trained on the DesPlainian pair, and Jules knew full well they'd be used if he and Vonnie could not explain themselves satisfactorily.

"Keep that enthusiasm under control down there," one of the guards advised him sternly.

Jules was deeply out of breath, but he managed to holler up, "Wombat: Situation 39!"

All the Service guards froze at their posts for a second. The code name Wombat (Jules)-along with Periwinkle (Yvette)-was almost legendary within the Service. Though the ident.i.ties of those. two superagents were kept well secret, everyone in the Service knew it would cost him his job to disobey an order given by either of those two. In addition, the code phrase "Situation 39 indicated a crisis on the imperial level. Either of those code phrases would have been enough to make the leader of the security team spring into instant action; both together made his cooperation imperative.

Beckoning Jules and Vonnie forward, he helped them up into his elevated lookout post. "Major Mbente at your service, sir. What's wrong?"

"Everything. Is there any way you can communicate into the building?"

Major Mbente punched a b.u.t.ton on the console before him and waited. After a moment he gave the board a perplexed look and tried again. There was still no reaction. "Something seems to be out, sir," he reported.

Jules grimaced. "Khorosho, then here's what you'd better do. Get all your people into gas masks at once. Then clear the streets completely-there are ten canisters of TCN-14 scattered around the building, and they're due to go off in," he checked his watch, "about twenty minutes, at a minute past noon. Don't _let the people panic; there's an a.s.sa.s.sin inside the building, and we don't want to scare her into premature action. Is there anyway I can get into the hall?"

"You might try that door over there." "Merci. And get these people away!"

"Yes sir." Major Mbente gulped at the enormity of the task. There were upwards of a million people jammed around the perimeter of Bloodstar Hall, with barely a hundred SOTE personnel and three thousand police to control them. Pus.h.i.+ng that many people back without giving them the true reason-which would set off a panic-would be an almost impossible job. SOTE agents took pride in accomplis.h.i.+ng the impossible, though; so instead of contemplating just how hard the job was, Major Mbente set about grimly relaying instructions to the other lookout posts.

Jules and Vonnie, meanwhile, slipped into the hall through the indicated door. The conditions they found inside would have made Bedlam look like a place of peace and contentment. People were running around behind the scenes, pus.h.i.+ng and shoving at one another in mad confusion. At first, Jules feared they were too late and the a.s.sa.s.sination had already happened;. then he realized that all this confusion was just routine for such high state events, with people going crazy in the wings to make everything seem normal out front. He looked about him, but could see no sign of any official SOTE station.

Vonnie was moving ahead of him, elbows swinging viciously as she pushed people out of her way. Even so, the floor area of Bloodstar Hall comprised several square city blocks, all of _them jammed with n.o.bility. Squeezing through that ma.s.s of humanity to reach the Princess in the short amount of time left would be a nearly impossible task.

When a d'Alembert could not see a way through a problem, he found a way around it. Looking about the immense hall, which could be compared to a larger version of the circus tent under which he'd worked for so many years, Jules had an idea. "You try to get through on the ground," he told Vonnie, having to yell to make himself heard above the backstage tumult. "I'll try another route."

He elbowed his way to a door marked "Maintenance" and, to his relief, found it unlocked. Inside was a narrow service corridor that led to, among other things, an elevator tube that could carry workmen to the upper reaches of the hall. He punched a setting for the topmost level and stepped inside. A cus.h.i.+on of air solidified beneath his feet, whisking him upward at a speed that normally would have seemed quite fast. Today, however, nothing moved fast enough to suit him.

He stepped out of the tube to find himself in a world of girders, cables, ropes, and pulleys-the superstructure for the roof of Bloodstar Hall. There were catwalks around the perimeter of the roof for the safety of the workmen, but Jules, of necessity, scorned them. He hadn't come up here to be safe, he'd come because there were no crowds up here, nothing to prevent him from reaching the center of the hall in the fastest time possible.

Leaping over the guide rail, he ran along the naked girders that supported the roof, trusting to his aerialist's sense of balance to keep him from falling. He tried not to think of the drop that awaited him if he slipped. Like all natives of high-gray worlds, DesPlainians had an inbred fear of falling. Performers in the Circus of the Galaxy had had that fear trained out of them since childhood, to the point where Jules would think nothing of working even forty meters above the circus ring. Bloodstar Hall, however, was built on a bigger scale than that; the floor was a full one hundred meters below him, a drop of approximately thirty stories.

On the floor of the hall, the ceremony had proceeded so far without a hitch. There had been interminable processions all morning as the thousands of visiting n.o.bles, clad in formal court robes, had marched into the hall according to their rank, preceded by banners, fanfares and all the other hoopla of their station. The Imperial Choir had treated the audience to a truly inspirational set of a cappella renditions. The Imperial Color Guard had given a show of precision drill work, and the official bands of many individual Sectors and planets had also paraded around the floor, entertaining the waiting audience. Finally, only ten minutes ago, the Emperor and Empress had arrived at their special box, accompanied by their retinue; both were in their full state court robes, his of scarlet, hers of peac.o.c.k blue. They bore their ma.s.sive platinum state crowns with imposing majesty. All festivities had ground to a halt while the royal couple were given a standing ovation lasting seven minutes.

Jules reached the center of the roof structure and looked down. All attention was on the floor as Choyen Liu, the bridegroom from Anares, had just entered from a side aisle with his honor guards. Liu was wearing an under tunic of green, peac.o.c.k blue, and silver brocade; his peac.o.c.k blue velvet tunic and trousers were cut in Chinese style, lined with silver sable and trimmed with emeralds. On his head, a peac.o.c.k blue Tibetan crown covered an underact of emerald green velvet; at his neck, a double set of emerald frogs clasped the tunic together. His peac.o.c.k blue gloves were heavily jeweled, and a pair of silver leather boots completed his outfit. He looked every centimeter a fit consort for the Galaxy's next ruler.

Jules checked his watch. Eight minutes to go. Soon Princess Edna would be entering from the far end, with the ersatz Lady Bloodstar as her matron of honor. He had come this far just by his hunch that it would be the fastest way to go. Now that he was here, he would have to devise some plan for getting down to the action and quickly.

Although Bloodstar Hall was no longer used as a site for sporting events, the large scoreboard that used to hang from the center of the ceiling was still in existence, pulled up near the top and dangling just fifteen meters below him. The hall was still occasionally used to stage plays and operas, and farther down were ropes from which scenery flats could be raised and lowered. There should be some way, he thought, for an enterprising young man to use those facts to his advantage. All it takes is a system to get front here to there to there.

The column that held up the scoreboard was ma.s.sive, though small in relation to the scoreboard itself. Wrapping his arms as far around it as he could, Jules slid downward until he was standing atop the giant scoreboard structure. It was big enough to support his weight easily-it had been built to hold several workmen at a time, if need be, for repairs.

As Jules began searching for his next step there was a fanfare below him and the organ music swelled. All heads, including Jules's, turned to the far end of the hall, where Princess Edna had made her entrance.

Edna Stanley was not an excessively beautiful woman, but there was a presence about her that carried her beyond the normal meaning of the word beauty. Though several years younger than Jules, she had spent all her life training to be the next ruler of the Empire of Earth. All the majesty, all the power that went with her future position radiated from her in waves as she stood in the doorway, acknowledging the cheers and applause of this immense crowd.

The Crown Princess was clad in a tightly fitted strapless gown of white satin, heavily embroidered in pearls and diamonds. The overgown of silver spiderweb lace had its cuffs and hemlines heavily trimmed with bands of emeralds and sapphires. She wore a collar of emeralds, with one large square-cut emerald dangling from it as a short pendant. Her headdress was a paG.o.dalike crown of platinum and diamonds, from which hung emeralds cut into the shape of bells. Her veil was of silver gauze and reached halfway down her back.

As she walked into the hall, her retinue of attendants followed her. These ladies, n.o.blewomen all, were wearing pastel silk mandarin court robes, all heavily em- broidered. Lady Bloodstar was among them, looking perfectly innocent of any taint of treason.

The time for niceties had pa.s.sed. Jules could not afford to waste so much as a single second more looking for the safest or most efficient way down. Much as he hated to do it, he would have to come swashbuckling into the middle of the Princess's wedding, making a spectacle of the occasion. He consoled himself with the thought that the alternative was far worse.

The Princess stopped halfway down the aisle, in front of the imperial box. At this point her father-a tall, distinguished man with graying hair and regal posture -stepped out beside her and led her the rest of the way down the aisle.

At the same time, Jules leaped from his safe platform downward toward the ropes that were tied back out of the way. It was perhaps the mightiest leap of his life, born entirely of desperation. No man native to Earth would have believed it possible; even Jules him- self in a saner moment might not have attempted it, for the alternative if he missed would be a long fall and a horrible crash to the floor below.

Jules used every trick he-knew as the premier aerialist of the Galaxy to gain the few extra centimeters he needed. He flattened his body against the almost unnoticeable air currents circulating in the upper reaches of the hall, stretching his muscles to their utmost in his attempt to reach those ropes. It was the finest single acrobatic performance of his entire life-and it went completely unwitnessed, as everyone within the hall was still watching the Princess and the Emperor making their stately way to the dais.

Jules's fingers tightened on the rope and he pulled himself against it. A surge of relief swept through his body. The impossible had been accomplished. From now on, the rest of what he had to do was almost child's play by comparison. Almost...

The rope had been tied loosely out of the way, but it had not been intended to hold against the drag of his hundred-kilo body. The rope pulled free of its moorings and began a slow pendulum swing out over the audience. This was exactly what Jules had hoped for. At the same time as the rope began its swing, Jules began sliding down its length as rapidly as he could, trying to time his maneuver so that he'd be as low on the rope as possible by the time it reached the nadir of its arc.

Jules knew from experience that a stun-gun would have absolutely no effect on the treacherous robot masquerading as Lady Bloodstar. It would take a blaster bolt, and it would have to be done with a single clean shot. The robots, he knew, had reflexes that put even a DesPlainian to shame, and if he missed on his first try he would not get a second; the robot would have enough time to kill both the Emperor and the Princess. Even if that were not so, he still dared not miss on his first shot-with so many high-ranking n.o.bles in the audience, random blaster fire would certainly wound or kill someone of great importance.

As his rope swung lower, the audience suddenly became aware of him. Heads turned in his direction to stare, and a m.u.f.fled gasp arose as everyone wondered what brash and unexpected action was occurring. Could this be an a.s.sa.s.sination attempt? Where were the guards? Where had this stranger come from and how had he managed to do what he did? These and a dozen other questions shot through people's minds, all entirely too late; the action would be completed before anyone could begin to react.

Among the upturned faces that stared at him in wonder, Jules suddenly noticed one that startled him completely-that of Lady A. She had dared to come to the ceremony right under SOTE's very nose! But then, only five people in the entire government knew of her existence, and they had taken great pains that she would remain unaware of the fact. It was only natural that she felt perfectly safe here.

Had Jules known all the Brief that lav in store because of that one person, he might have directed his blaster beam at her instead, thereby saving countless lives. But there were only two lives on his mind at the moment-those of the Emperor and the Princess. Both were in imminent peril from the robot, and it was his sworn duty to protect them. With intense concentration, Jules brought all his attention to focus on the figure of Lady Bloodstar, who was standing behind and slightly to the right of the Emperor and Princess. Already the robot had seen Jules coming; her computerfast brain had a.n.a.lyzed the situation and her right hand was lifting ominously...

Jules could wait no longer. Even though he was not quite at the bottom of his swing, his hand was a blur of motion as he brought up his blaster and fired. The searing beam streaked out of the nozzle of his gun and raked across the body of the mechanical a.s.sa.s.sin. Sparks flew, and there was a slight hissing of molten metal and plastic.

Events followed in rapid succession. The Emperor, belatedly recognizing Jules, moved sideways to get out of the line of fire and to knock his beloved daughter to the ground. He covered her with his own body so that if there were any more gunplay at least the succession would be a.s.sured. There was a small explosion from the robot, causing a few minor injuries to nearby spectators but no major catastrophe. The crowd began to shriek in earnest now, convinced that an all-out war was about to erupt.

As Jules's rope reached bottom and started to rise again, he let go and allowed his momentum to carry him soaring out over the crowd. Twisting in midair, he again sought Lady A. He caught a quick glance of her, but the beautiful conspirator had managed to duck down within a group of bystanders who had risen to their feet in panic. Jules could not get a clear shot at her, and he refused to shoot wildly with his blaster into this crowd.

Jules had enough control over his flight to be able to land in a relatively empty spot. He knocked over a handful of people as he bowled into them and rolled awkwardly to his feet again. If he couldn't shoot Lady A from the air, he would pursue her on foot; he was determined to capture her this time. Fate, however, conspired against him.

Suddenly there was gunplay from several points around the hall, and Jules looked about in confusion. He hadn't known there were any accomplices scattered around, but they were certainly a menace to be dealt with. Even as he got to his feet, he found himself staring down the barrel of a stun-gun. Before he could raise his own weapon in defense, the person threatening him sank to the floor, unconscious, and looking beyond, Jules could see d.u.c.h.ess Helena von Wilmenhorst, decked out in her finest formal gown and holding a ministunner in her hand. She smiled at Jules, then turned to look for more targets around the hall.

Vonnie, too, was making her presence felt throughout the chamber. She had relaxed slightly when she saw Jules take care of the menace from the robot, but when the shooting erupted elsewhere she rose instantly to the challenge. Two would-be terrorists fell before they could even get their guns clear of their holsters, and three more did but minimal damage before succ.u.mbing to Vonnie's attack.

Panic was now endemic throughout the audience, and spectators were rus.h.i.+ng headlong for the exits. Jules and Vonnie noted that flight with dismay. They had warned Major Mbente outside to clear the crowds away from the hall so that the TCN-14 would not harm anyone, and now more people were going outside to be threatened by the deadly gas.

They were not taking into account, however, the resourcefulness of Major Mbente. Realizing that completely clearing the streets would have been an impossible task, he opted for the other alternative: finding and containing the canisters of TCN-14 that had been planted. Working against time and without the proper equipment, the major and his people still managed to conduct an inspection of the area so thoroughly that all ten canisters were found and removed to a place of safety before they could explode and send their lethal contents throughout the crowd that surrounded Bloodstar Hall. The emergence a few minutes later of the panicked people from inside the hall was a serious complication, but not a fatal one.

Inside, the forces of SOTE were once again a.s.serting their authority. The Head had handpicked the security teams to work within the hall, and his faith in them was proving justified. Despite the crush of people in the immense building, the threat from the terrorists was over five minutes after it had begun.

As the Head came over to him to both congratulate him and lead him into a quiet area for further questioning, Jules looked around the hall, discouraged. The threat from the robot had been ended, and even the unexpected uprising of the terrorists had been quelled. But Lady A, whom he had hoped to capture, had vanished without a trace into the milling mob.

CHAPTER 13.

The Wedding of the Galaxy By the time the subcom call from Yvette at the pirate base came through to the Head on Earth, the attempted coup and a.s.sa.s.sination were all over but the final shouting. Her story of the people impersonating the n.o.bles who'd been aboard the Querida came too late to serve as a warning, but it did function nicely as an explanation for the sudden burst of terrorist activities from a supposedly safe and friendly audience. Yvette closed by saying that she, Pias, and Duke Etienne would be speeding back to Earth at once to give a personal report. Traveling at top speed, they expected to arrive in a couple of days.

The decision was made to postpone the actual wedding for a few more days, as well. Princess Edna, while trying to project an impression of imperial calm, was inwardly shaken by her close call and the startling events of what she'd expected to be the happiest day of her life. Choyen Liu was comforting her by holding her tightly and quoting soothing pa.s.sages from Anares's mystical books; he seemed as totally unflappable as ever, and his inward peace was a blessing to everyone. It was rea.s.suring to know that the man who would be sharing the throne with the Galaxy's future ruler could remain so serene even under such trying circ.u.mstances.

The days following the fighting at Bloodstar Hall were almost as busy for Jules and Vonnie as the ones that preceded it. The pirate doubles knew no organizational details of the conspiracy for which they were working. The gangsters, at Jules's orders, were picked up by SOTE from the hospital where they'd been taken after the fire fighters found them unconscious in Howard's gym. Most of them were just hired blasterbats, and knew nothing about higher operations within the conspiracy. Howard, however, was a fount of knowledge on Earthly crime, and it took surprisingly little coercion to make him reveal everything he knew on a variety of subjects.

The vidicom number and address he had for Lady A turned out to be a suite of offices in one of AngelesDiego's cla.s.sier office buildings. The suite had been rented to a woman obviously fitting the description of Lady A; she had operated under the name Sarah Schmidt, and had paid cash in advance for everything. The office had only been rented up until the day of the wedding. "Obviously she figured she wouldn't need it after that," Jules surmised. "If her plan failed, she'd want to be gone in a hurry-and if it succeeded, she could be living in the Imperial Palace after that date."

"Sarah Schmidt" had, of course, vanished without a trace, leaving Jules and the Head as frustrated as ever in their attempts to track down her conspiracy.

When Yvette's party arrived, the Head called a council of war. In attendance were he and his daughter Helena, Jules, Yvette, and Duke Etienne. The elder d'Alembert had not seen the Grand Duke in person for over five years, and their reunion was a friendly one, with much hugging and backslapping.

When everyone was settled, the Head took some time to acquaint Duke etienne with what was known about Lady A and her conspiracy. "Some of the pressure of secrecy is off us now," he said. "After the attempted coup and our capturing and questioning Howard, the enemy knows we know about them; for us to pretend not to would look suspicious. SOTE is now officially aware that Lady A exists, and that she is a powerful and- high-ranking officer in an organization dedicated to the overthrow of the Stanley dynasty. Period. They still don't know we're aware of their boast that they know most of what's going on within the Service-and our keeping them from knowing that may lead them into the trap of overconfidence. I'm still convinced they know nothing about the Circus's role, nor about the true ident.i.ties of agents Wombat and Periwinkle; if they did, they'd be conducting their campaign in an entirely different manner from the way they are."

The Head sighed. "Secrets within secrets within secrets. It makes it hard for all of us, but we have to play within those rules when the stakes are as high as the safety of the Empire. There are days I'd like to chuck the whole thing and go back to tending my garden at home...

He let the thought drift off. Everyone in the room knew the burden of duty, and each of them had at one time or another harbored similar dreams of freedom. But they all knew how impossible those dreams would be, their own inward sense of responsibility made them the people they were.

The Head derailed that train of thought quickly. "Be that as it may," he said, "I believe Yvette has another piece of the puzzle for us."

Yvette briefed everyone on the conversation she and Pias had overheard at -the pirate base, and about the new figure in the picture: C. "They seem to have an inordinate fondness for letters of the alphabet," she finished cynically.

"One piece of nonsense is as good as another for covering true ident.i.ties," the Head commented. "It makes just as much sense to use the alphabet as it does for us to call you two by the names of rather esoteric terrestrial organisms. The question is, how much do we 'officially' know about C?"

"Nothing," Yvette said. "Both Line and the man who brought him that message died in the battle with our people. None of the other pirates seems to know anything about him."

"Which gives us one more secret to work with," the Head said. "Let me remind you all again: officially, we know that Lady A exists, and we have pictures of her taken by Vonnie during her surveillance of Howard. We'll be actively looking for her now, too, believe me."

"What I don't understand," Duke Etienne said, "is how the impostor managed to sneak guns into the hall. Were you falling down on the job, Zan?"

"Our arrangements were adequate for what we thought was the situation," Helena snapped, a little upset at having her father accused so familiarly. "Every guest was screened discreetly as he went in. n.o.body but our people carried a weapon past the front door."

"We should at least have the decency to blush," the Head reminded his daughter. "We should have antic.i.p.ated a little better. We've learned from questioning some of the terrorists that a confederate-probably the robot Lady Bloodstar-left their weapons in prearranged spots so that, while they came in clean, they could arm themselves inside the hail. I ant proud, however, of the way our people handled the problem once it broke out. Operating under those conditions, I think we did a superb job, and everyone on the security team, inside and out, has received a special commendation.

"The thing that worries me more than the guns, though, is the question of their ident.i.ties. Even given the fact that they had perfectly forged IDs, they still should not have been able to wander around on Earth for two days without a discrepancy showing up in our files somewhere. I'm most unhappy about that, and I intend to see that there's a shakeup in the Computer Correlation Department because of it."

From that point, the conversation devolved into a discussion of more general topics-including weddings. It had been decided that there was no need to repeat the lavish ceremony of Princess Edna's wedding; the festivities had been rescheduled for tomorrow afternoon and would be conducted in relative privacy, though the ceremony would be vidicast all over the Empire. Edna had been disappointed before that her friends Jules and Yvette would be working and unable to attend the festivities; now that they were both here, she insisted that they both be present, and they were happy enough to agree.

And while the subject of weddings was in the air, they decided that two more should take place at the same time-the marriage of Jules and Vonnie and the marriage of Pias and Yvette. The Emperor himself insisted on officiating at those two ceremonies, which set the young people to blus.h.i.+ng furiously. Yvette and Helena excused themselves at that point, saying that they had to round up Vonnie and get a lot of prewedding shopping done in just one day.

Everyone was nervous the next day as they gathered in the grand ballroom of the Imperial Palace. Princess Edna and Choyen Liu were wearing the wedding outfits they'd worn at the official ceremony, cleaned and repaired after the harsh abuse they'd received a few days earlier.

Yvette and Pias were both in outfits of red and gold. Under normal Newforest tradition, Pias would have worn a wedding s.h.i.+rt embroidered by his mother, but that s.h.i.+rt had been burned when his family disowned him. Instead, he wore a cloth of gold s.h.i.+rt embroidered in red with red velvet pants and an open red velvet vest. A large ruby hung in the center of his chest, suspended by a gold chain. He wore red leather boots and a full length red velvet cape with a high flared collar; the entire cape was lined with cloth of gold. In his right hand he carried a single red rose.

Yvette wore a cloth of gold gauze peasant s.h.i.+rt, a red velvet vest laced up the front, and a tiered skirt of red and gold silk brocade. She had a red silk scarf on her hair, red velvet slippers on her feet, and a string of rubies around her neck. In the crook of her left arm was nestled a full bouquet of red roses.

Her brother Jules was clad in a gold acrobat's jumpsuit heavily embroidered in pearls and diamonds. His gold belt was trimmed with rubies, his gold chaplet was set with a ruby in the center, while still another large ruby dangled as a pendant from his gold collar. He wore a white satin cape, white pearl-embroidered gloves and white embroidered boots.

Vonnie, meanwhile, looked ravis.h.i.+ng in an ivory satin gown cut like an acrobat's robe; the shawl collar, hemline, and sleeves were all thickly embroidered with pearls, and her belt was a chain of pearls with pearl cl.u.s.ter ta.s.sels. She wore a pearl necklace and ivory satin slippers. On her head was a crown of pearls set on thin wire springs that moved when her head moved. Like Yvette, she carried a bouquet of roses, but Vonnie's were yellow rather than red.

This was the first time Jules had seen Edna since the fiasco on Sat.u.r.day, and he approached her rather sheepishly. "I have to apologize for messing things up the way I did," he said. "If I'd been a little more on the ball, I could probably have saved you a lot of embarra.s.sment."

Edna kissed him lightly on the cheek. "I'd rather be embarra.s.sed than dead. And the way I see it, you saved me from more than just an a.s.sa.s.sin-you also saved me from having to spend at least six boring hours on a receiving line. For that alone you deserve a medal."

The royal wedding, though lacking some of the grandeur of the previous attempt, was a beautiful production nonetheless. Barr, the imperial bard, sang a wedding march of his own composition that was a work of pure inspiration. The ceremony went off without so much as a single mistake this time, and the scene vidicast to homes all across the Empire was one of unrestrained happiness. The SOTE agents, of course, stayed well out of camera range; it would never do to have their faces broadcast all over the Galaxy.

After the major ceremony, the celebrants retired to a more private room for the two weddings that were less public in nature. Though the guest list was small, it was impressive: Duke Etienne, in a scarlet velvet jumpsuit, a short, Spanish-style coat of black velvet embroidered in gold, and a boutonniere of a red and a yellow rose, gave both brides away in his capacity as Yvette's father and as a close friend of Vonnie's father, Baron Ebert Roumenier; Crown Princess Edna served as matron of honor for Yvette, while the Empress Irene served in that capacity for Vonnie; and, true to his word, His Imperial Majesty William Stanley, the supreme temporal authority in the Galaxy, p.r.o.nounced the words that united the two couples in the bonds of matrimony.

In the general revelries that followed the ceremonies, Vonnie noticed a certain preoccupation on the part of her new husband. When she questioned him about it, he said, "I just can't help but feel a little guilty that I let Lady A escape when I had the chance to catch her."

The Emperor overheard his remark, and leaned over to give him some advice. "Young man, Lady A and her nefarious deeds will wait a little while. I order you to forget her and enjoy yourself."

"Besides," Vonnie said, "if I catch you thinking about another woman on our wedding night, you won't survive the honeymoon. That's a promise!"

Since it is a recorded fact that Jules d'Alembert survived his honeymoon, we may therefore safely a.s.sume that Vonnie did keep his mind off Lady A-at least for a while.