Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (149 page)

Z went to check
it out, as he was sure they expected. It was a meter cube of solid
marble with a hole drilled into the center. A small hole.

After several
people had inspected it, pounded on it and done everything else
they could think of to the marble cube Chart called for them to
roll the thing to the base of the steps. He poured some of the
crystals onto a ceramic plate to display it. It was in the full
sun. There were no more than a few grams of the crystals poured
out.

When the cube
was in place Flale stood on it. "People of Royal City, you have
inspected this solid rock!" he called loudly in his strange accent.
"You see this little bit of powder, which we have made from pink
gold!"

Thing was
waving a tentacle, but few noticed. Flale and Chart did!

"I will soon
pour the powder into this small hole in the rock and we will place
this iron band across the hole to seal it!"

He held up an
iron band.

"When I do that
I want you to move back. The band will be in place and nothing will
be taken from your sight! Nothing can change!

"I will then
tell you when the rock will be shattered to powder by the power of
this little bit of brown powder I can easily hide between two
fingers!"

"Is the stuff
really that powerful?" Z asked.

"If the seal's
tight enough it might split the rock," Tab replied. "I'd say
they've already put about a sixth of a kilo of the tri-iodide in
the hole. They think it's dry enough that the heat of the crystals
they just added will do the job. The concussion certainly will. The
worst they think will happen is the rock will be split instead of
powdered. Still impressive."

"They have an
infrasonic generator behind the third column," Kit said. "Chart
will probably stand by the column and yell when it's supposed to go
off. He'll hit the marble with a concentrated focused sound wave
that'll set the tri-iodide off."

"I'm going to
focus a small microwave beam on it later," Tab said for Thing. "Z
can make a good show by refusing to move away from the rock. It's
not going to go off with that glycerine in there."

Everyone moved
away when Flale ordered them to except for Z, who claimed nothing
was going to happen if anyone was close enough to stop any trickery
so he'd remain right there. Chart and Flale both tried to get him
to move, but he said he was the one responsible. If he were to be
hurt or killed by this it would be because HE was wrong about
them.

They sneered
and moved back.

Hisla and Narum
were on the top steps and Hisla was obviously worried. Z waved at
her and sat on the block. Chart went to stand by the column. He
held up his hands for silence, then told Z it was his last chance
to move out of danger or he was responsible for whatever may happen
to him. Z made a rather universal sign among mammals with the
central finger, which further angered Chart, who then yelled, "It
is your decision and your responsibility!

"NOW!"

Z felt a slight
vibration from the powerful infrasonics, but nothing else
happened.

"NOW!" Chart
yelled again and again the vibration and nothing else. Z gave him
the finger again.

"NOW! GODDAMN
IT! NOW!" Chart yelled in Jornian, again with the same results.

Z put his hands
upward and shrugged. He didn't need Thing's empathic talent to feel
the fury radiating from both Chart and Flale.

"Perhaps the
power powder was not yet dry!" Flale cried. "We will place it in
the sunlight for a moment more! It will work!"

"When Chart's
power incantation in the old magician's language has failed you?" Z
asked innocently. "Tricksters! Phony charlatans!"

Chart came to
push him off of the cube. Flale took the pegs loose from the iron
band as people came close. Thing was still on Tab's shoulder and
Kit was to one side, very close. Chart lifted the band and started
to bend closer to the rock to look into the hole. Z didn't know
why, but he shouted, "Back, evil demon! Hula hula boola!”

A bright purple
flame in the form of a spiral came from the hole in the rock, grew
in height for a moment, then suddenly stopped as a large
brownish-purple smoke ring rose majestically above the granite
block with another purple tongue of flame shooting through the
center. The process repeated four times, then nothing. The smoke
rings turned rust-brown and fell like bits of brown cotton.

"Permanganate?"
Flale cried in Jornian. "How in the hell did permanganate get into
the NI three? What kind of damned screw-up is this? Why the hells
didn't the permanganate catalyze the iodide? Cripes!"

Z began
clapping and hooting and soon the whole crowd joined in. Hisla was
laughing so hard she almost fell down the steps while Narum just
looked a bit scared.

"Our powder was
contaminated!" Chart yelled. "We'll show you! In the morning in the
south fields! We'll add some of our powder to plain water and
you'll see what power really is! You'll see!"

"When you say
the powder didn't work because it wasn't dry you'll add water to
make it work?" Z asked innocently, to which Flale gave him the
finger. The Jornians went into the palace and Z went up the steps
to speak with Hisla and Narum. He advised them to leave the palace
for the night, saying angry sorcerers, for that was surely what the
scientists must be – or perhaps much worse – weren't to be
trusted.

"Have you ever
actually seen any of them?" Z asked. "Or have they always hidden
themselves? Have you seen the fourth of them since ... since the
bandits found the elemental? What if that demon was the fourth
socalled scientist?

"I have some
power of premonition and it is telling me that you two must take
your trusted staff members away from that place this night!
Something evil and terrible is about to happen! I fear Royal City
itself may be doomed! Get away so that you are not consumed in this
evil!"

"I feel that
all is very wrong, too," Hisla agreed. "We will go. I'll hear no
argument, Narum. If nothing happens here we may return on the
morrow no harm done."

Z was getting
more and more uneasy. The people were muttering among themselves.
If the scientists didn't produce a show – and one hell of a show,
tomorrow – it was going to get nasty.

Kit, Thing and
Tab came to take Z back to the rooming house, then out of the city
before dark. They watched as the king and queen and the entire
household staff went in four mountbeast carriages toward Dockside
Station. When things happened, they happened fast! Thing, Tab, Kit
and Z were aboard the special floaters while Maita, TR and T6 came
overhead. In the morning everyone in Royal City awoke to a very
strange place.

Saj Saved

It had been a
busy night. The entire crew, including the ships, had played their
own parts in it. It started soon after nightfall. Maita sent the
floaters to start quietly releasing a special gas specifically
tailored to the physiologies of the Saj. It caused them to become
more and more tired so not much more than three hours after it
first started spreading everyone was fast asleep and wouldn't
awaken for more than four hours.

Shortly after
that, a rumbling noise that shook the houses hardly more than made
them turn over in their sleep. Few awoke for even a full
minute.

*That's it! You
were right, Thing! They got in a big hurry to produce a large
quantity of the glycerol trinitrate at once! The floaters showed
the three of them were in the lab together. The entire palace caved
in on them, but I imagine they were blown to a messy pulp with the
initial explosion. There won't be anyone there to put on the probe,
which is my only regret because I agree that this is not nearly
over with Savaraj.*

"Okay," Z
answered. "Up to this point I knew what to expect and it's gone
pretty much the way I thought it would, but what now? Isn't this
exactly the sort of thing to suggest that science isn't anything to
mess with?"

[ No, Z! Our
show this afternoon and your story about the Northfork Demon will
occur to them at the same time. I hope we can get one body out of
the palace that isn't too terribly splattered. If one of them was
in the pod we have it or if one was in the supply room behind that
huge wall we'll have it. Maita, get some floaters to start digging.
We have to get rid of the pod and some of that equipment. Change
those parts on the stuff around like we planned. Nothing will work.
]

"T Six and I
are already using the short beams and the sonics on the buildings,"
TR reported. "We'll have time to decompose the marble deep enough
to do what we want if we all get on it now."

[ Yes. They
know the marble was quarried as what it looks like so the rotting
process will only have to be a few centimeters deep and Z can tell
some silly story about evil elementals that cause marble to turn to
sandstone when they move it or something. Give it a slant that it
is a case where the good is inside the evil for when the surface
weathers to the marble in a few decades. ]

*You guys take
the floaters and use the stuff like we planned. Z will get his
instructions as we go. Get on it, people!*

[ Do you see,
Z? They'll wake up and their city will look like sandstone and
common soft rock. The marble will be gone. The elite will find
their jewels and riches are common rocks. The fine things will be
nothing. The wines will be sour vinegar and the fancy foods putrid.
That's what the story of the witch island was. It's all illusion!
None of it was real! ]

*It'll have to
be explained to them so you'll have to go back to the square in the
morning and be as bewildered as they are – except Z, who suspected
what it was from the first. He tried to warn them!*

[ Hisla and
Narum will return today. The buildings will be as functional as
they ever were. The difference will be that they're not pretty
marble, but common stone. After a few years they'll discover the
marble beneath and make a truly beautiful city here. The idea can
become truth. ]

"I see," Z
said. "The city can be made into all the things they planned, but
it'll take time and work. I know what to say."

They had to be
very careful about the focus of the devices they were using and
were barely able to finish as dawn was breaking. Flale had been in
the supply room so Maita was able to modify the body to what it
wanted. The scene was carefully set, the crew were back in the
boarding house rooms, the ships were all again beneath the sea. The
floaters released the antidote for the anesthetic.

When the light
was strong enough to see Z took Thing on his shoulder and went down
the steps to the main restaurant section of the inn. People were
wandering around in a daze, staring at the stone walls. Few were
saying anything. The proprietor saw Z and asked in a pleading voice
what had happened there. Others turned to stare at the talebearer
and Zonn.

"I think.... I
am not sure," Z said haltingly. "The palace! I must go to the
palace! The answers are all at the palace!"

He ran out of
the inn, past the walls of dusty grey stone and into the square
where he stopped in astonishment. Where the palace had been
yesterday was a large pile of rubble and rotted stone. Hundreds of
people were coming to stare at the sight. It would soon be
thousands.

Tab and Kit
came running up behind, crying they wanted to know what had
happened!

"The chain! The
chain was broken!" Z cried. "I saw it when the incantation wouldn't
work on the wizard's powder on the stone! The elementals are dead!
At last, there are no more of these demons to torment us!

"Lape! You are
strong! Kemat! You over there! You! Come on! We must go to the
center of the palace! You will see the truth!"

"You can lead
us," Kit suggested. "We have nothing better to do! Can you get
across, old man?"

Z scrambled
across the stone. Thing dropped off and, as this was the easiest of
places for it to travel with its tentacles, went quickly ahead. It
stopped at one place and waved them back. Kit picked up a staff in
the rubble and pushed at some stones, which fell into a cavern
below. They skirted the area and soon found Zonn sitting on a large
boulder, staring at something below. Two Saj climbed up before Z
and Kit to peer at whatever it was. They gasped audibly and made
various religious signs at something.

Z peered down
onto a square piece of black marble cut into the sign of the old
night god. Laying in the center of that altar was the twisted body
of Flale – with Maita's modifications. It was Flale with a short
beak and long, bony fingers tipped with thick claws. The teeth were
now long and sharp and the ears were long and pointed where the
cowl had fallen back.

"So it was
true," Z said. "Come. We will not touch that thing. I think that
when the light of the sun strikes it it will shrivel. Such beings
can't stand light of day. That's why they stayed always so covered
that nothing of them could be seen.

"We will go to
the square where I'll tell one more tale. It will be the mightiest
tale I've ever told and it will be of the place we called Royal
City. The tale will be told after the noonmeal. Perhaps good King
Narum and Queen Hisla will have returned."

"GOOD?!" a Saj
cried. "THEY did this to us!"

"NO!" Z
shouted. "You don't understand anything! Withhold your judgements
until you hear my tale! He who seizes the right to judge accepts
the right to BE judged! They've done much to save you. Don't so
hastily judge and never make judgement until you have the facts.
Had you stopped to think years ago you would never have come
here!"

They weren't
happy about it, but agreed to wait. Kit asked Nesk, one of the Saj,
if he would have brought his family to a city in such a location if
he'd ever stopped to think before making the decision to do so.
Nesk was thoughtful all the way back to the square, then turned to
say, "This is the wrong place for a city! You're right!"