The Purity Plot: Family d'Alembert Book 6 by Goldin Stephen & Smith E.E. 'Doc'

Author:Goldin, Stephen & Smith, E.E. 'Doc' [Goldin, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2012-11-30T00:00:00+00:00

There was, of course, no list of customers that the d’Alemberts’ organization had been supplying. Jules and Yvonne spent a full day making up a convincing-sounding list of names. For the sake of thoroughness, they transmitted a copy of the list to the local SOTE office, with instructions that these names were to be entered in the Service’s official files in case Chactan’s people ran a detailed check.

Another snag occurred when Chactan balked at letting the d’Alemberts take their own ship to the secret world where the munitions plant was hidden. His reasoning was logical: the d’Alemberts had already proven their hostile intentions toward his organization, and if he simply told them where the plant was they could fly over it and bomb it to smithereens. Jules and Vonnie countered that if they went in one of Chactan’s ships, some ‘accident’ might befall them.

A compromise was finally developed. Two ships would make the journey, La Comète Cuivré and one of Chactan’s. Chactan would accompany Jules in the Comet , while Vonnie would travel with the crew from the other side; each would serve as hostage to the other’s good behavior. The d’Alemberts were a little reluctant to allow Chactan aboard their vessel because of all the top secret equipment it contained, but they realized there was no other logical way of achieving their goal. They hid as much of the special SOTE equipment as they could, and disguised the rest to look like ordinary spaceship gear. They were fortunate in that George Chactan was not himself a licensed pilot, and had little idea what was supposed to be there and what wasn’t.

Once they had blasted off the surface of Nampur, Chactan gave Jules the directions to head for the system containing the planet Tregania, twenty-three lightyears away. Jules handed Chactan the envelope containing the names of his fictitious customers, and they were on their way .

Once they reached the new solar system, Chactan ordered Jules to go, not to Tregania, which was the fourth planet out from the sun, but to the first planet, which had no official name. There, safe from prying eyes, the munitions plant was in full operation. The people who worked on that world had given it the singularly appropriate nickname of Slag.

Slag was an airless ball of rock ten thousand kilometers in diameter, orbiting a mere fifty-three million kilometers from its sun. As far as anyone outside the conspiracy knew, it was both uninhabited and uninhabitable. Temperatures on the daytime hemisphere were in excess of three hundred and fifty Celsius, hot enough that pools of molten lead and rivers of flowing tin were conceivable, if not commonplace. On the night side, the temperatures plummeted to just slightly above absolute zero. Nobody gave Slag much of a thought when there were so many more planets perfectly suitable for human habitation. That was what made it such a perfect hiding place.

As the Comet approached this barren world, a signal was beamed out to the ship, giving landing instructions so that it could set down near the base.

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