"E. E. Doc Smith - D' Alembert 4 - Getaway world" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

the jaw with a resounding crack of shattered bone, and the man fell backwards onto the
floor, out cold.

Yvette was just picking herself up off the floor as her brother raced into the room. He
glanced around the room quickly, viewing the carnage, and asked, "Need any help?"

Yvette shook her head. "All smooth. Routine, actually. We'd better check to make sure
this is the entire haul."

The two siblings roamed through the rest of the house, but could find no further
opponents to face. They went upstairs and devoted the next half hour to tying up the
servants securely, in case they should come out of stun while the interrogation was still
going on downstairs. Then they returned to the living room and salon and tied up all those
captives. After that, there was still almost an hour's wait until the effects of their stunners
wore off and the interrogation could begin.

During their last assignment, traces of a widespread conspiracy against the Throne had
come to light, with implications that were positively chilling. Duke Fyodor Paskoi, ruler of
the planet Kolokov, and his assistant, Dr. Immanuel Rustin, had apparently been creating
robots that looked and acted exactly like real people. One of these robots had been
used in a plot against Crown Princess Edna, but those plans had been foiled by quick
action on the part of the d'Alemberts and their friends.




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The problem the Service now faced was to find the rest of these deadly devices and
neutralize them. They had no idea how many of them there were, and the duke and the
doctor were no longer among, the living to be able to divulge that information. No record
could be found as to what the robots looked like or where they had been sent-or what
their missions could be. The only thing known for certain was that treason would be
involved.

The job of tracking down these insidious devices was not an enviable one, which was
why the Head had assigned Jules and Yvette, his two best agents, to conduct the
investigation. They had an insatiable appetite for work-and the harder the assignment,
the better they liked it.

Since Dr. Rustin was the genius behind the actual construction of the robots, the
d'Alemberts had concentrated their initial attentions on his actions for the past several
years. They discovered that he had made a number of trips here to the planet Mellisande
for no apparent purpose. After several more weeks of checking, they discovered that he
had frequently been seen in the company of several of the top hoodlums on this world,
and that there was to be a big get-together of underworld figures-the perfect opportunity
for them to net all their suspects at the same time. It was this path that had led the two
superagents to this particular house on this particular night.