WORLDS of the IMPERIUM
By KEITH LAUMER
ACE BOOKS, INC.
23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N.Y.
Copyright, 1962, by Ace Books, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Printed in U.S.A.
[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any
evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
DOUBLE TROUBLE FOR A DUPLICATE DICTATOR
For Brion Bayard, the discovery of an alternate world to Earthwhere history took a different turn in the road was not a pleasantexperience. His kidnapping brought him some startling revelations.Here was a world in which appeared identical doubles of famouspersonages—including a dangerous and hated dictator named Brion Bayard!
His assignment seemed simple enough. Dressed as his double, Brion wasto enter the enemy stronghold, kill the dictator, and take his placeuntil law and order could be maintained.
But once having seen his mirror-image brother, Brion had as littleinclination to murder him as some other people had to let him live.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Brion Bayard: How much of his double was himself?
Chief Inspector Bale: In alternate worlds, he still meant doubletrouble.
Hermann Goering: The same name, the same body, yet not the same man.
Barbro Lundane: A Swedish lass with a sweetish air.
Gaston: In a second world, he still had but one life to give for thecause.
Brion Bayard (2): His arch-enemy was his only friend.
Chapter 1
I stopped in front of a shop with a small wooden sign which hung from awrought-iron spear projecting from the weathered stone wall. On it theword Antikvariat was lettered in spidery gold against dull black. Thesign creaked as it swung in the night wind. Below it a metal gratingcovered a dusty window with a display of yellowed etchings, woodcuts,and lithographs, and a faded mezzotint. Some of the buildings in thepictures looked familiar, but here they stood in open fields, orperched on hills overlooking a harbor crowded with sails. The ladiesin the pictures wore great bell-like skirts and bonnets with ribbons,and carried tiny parasols, while dainty-footed horses pranced beforecarriages in the background.
It wasn't the prints that interested me though, or even the heavygilt frame embracing a tarnished mirror at one side; it was the manwhose reflection I studied in the yellowed glass, a dark man wearing atightly-belted grey trench coat that was six inches too long. He stoodwith his hands thrust deep in his pockets and stared into a darkenedwindow fifty feet from me.
He had been following me all day.
At first I thought it was coincidence when I noticed the man on the busfrom Bromma, then studying theatre announcements in the hotel lobbywhile I registered, and half an hour later sitting three tables awaysipping coffee while I ate a hearty dinner.
I had discarded the coincidence theory a long time ago. Five hourshad passed and he was still with me as I walked through the Old Town,medieval Stockholm still preserved on an island in the middle of thecity. I had walked past shabby windows crammed with copper pots, ornatesilver, dueling pistols, and worn cavalry sabres; they were all veryquaint in the afternoon sun, but grim reminders of a ruder day ofviolence after midnight. Over the echo of my footsteps in the silentnarrow streets the other steps came quietly behind, hurrying when Ihurried, stopping when I stopped. Now the man stared into the darkwindow and wai