Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (167 page)

"Wait a moment,
please," the second Jornian said in very bad Tlorgian as he turned
to go back into the ship. He soon returned with a standard
translator machine which he set for Tlorgian and Jornian.

"Who are you?"
he asked.

"I'm the
demon-wizard, Boss, and this is my good friend, a demon from Hades,
a Pluton. He's called Kurk," Z answered. "It is considered polite
to give one's own name before asking that of another."

"I'm called Nax
Plea," the first Jornian said. "This one is called Froh Kim.

"What is your
business here?"

"We're citizens
of this world," Kurk replied. "There's no reason why we should be
asked OUR business. You're obviously NOT from Tlorg. It would be
for you to state YOUR business. It was YOU who challenged the
wizard, you will recall.

"Well, he's
answered that challenge. He's here. Shall we see if you can really
destroy him?

"Personally I
doubt you can compete with his actual powers. I'm from a plane
where we have spacecraft, nuclears, lasers and the rest of it. I
know full well we can't defeat him with all of that."

"Are you saying
this primitive magic shaman can defeat our science?" Nax
sneered.

"I'm standing
right here," Z said quietly. "You speak as though I were somewhere
else. There is no call for this rudeness. You may wonder how I knew
where you were if you doubt my powers. You would be wise to wonder
how I know this document is a threat to me, though I can't read the
script. I have defeated many very powerful sorcerers in the past.
It is because I can use whatever they send to me against them. I
can return any of your evils, too.

"Beware!
Arrogance and pride precede defeat!"

Froh waved a
hand laser at Z and said, "You have no concept of what this magic
wand can do!"

"It is not a
magic wand," Z replied placidly. "It is but a device that has no
magic in it. It has much energy stored in the part inside of your
hand. It will throw that energy. I can turn that energy back on
you. Beware!"

"It's called a
beam laser, Boss," Kurk said. "It beams the energy. It can burn
through the hardest steel."

"It is only
energy," Z insisted confidently. "It will turn when properly
commanded."

Froh turned the
weapon to the side of Z and fired. Z palmed a small reflector
shield and waved it into the heat beam, turning the energy beam
back to the pistol – which immediately started the sleeve of Froh's
robe on fire. He yelled, swearing in both Maitan and Jornian as he
dropped the laser.

Z didn't change
expression. He seemed almost bored.

"If it had been
you or me it would have burned our hand off if we'd put it in that
beam," Kurk pointed out. "Believe me, this magic stuff really
works. I've been here for six years and I've seen it all. I've got
an education in the sciences and can't find a basis to formulate a
theory about some of it."

"They are like
small difficult children," Z chided. "They will learn in time if
they don't first manage to bring death on their own heads.

"What do you
want here, otherworlders?"

"How do you
know of any other worlds?" Nax asked. "What makes you think we come
from another world?"

Z shook his
head and spoke condescendingly. "Kurk is from another world. Fale
is from yet another and Linx from yet another. I can open portals
to those planes to allow my friends to come and go as they please.
I would therefore have to know of those few other worlds, from
which I surmise any numbers of others, though the demon planes are
not other worlds. They are Tlorg at another dimensional nexus. My
portals are planal distortions, which allow a movement from one
plane to another.

"I speak with
these terms because Kurk has taught them to me. I know the planes
as other worlds. You are from no planal nexus that can be opened
from Tlorg, thus you come from some other world on this plane. No
ship is needed to cross the planal interstices so you came here
across space in that ship.

"Before you ask
how I know about space, I know it is there and I know it has no
substance – not even air. I can go there like this."

He used the
spell that was shown to Burl that bent light around him. He stayed
in the curvature for half a minute, then "returned" to stand as he
was before the Jornians. Froh talked excitedly in Jornian about
telekinesis and Nax answered that the Tlorgians seemed to have some
psy talents. He was excited, too. Both of them were showing some
fear now.

"You went into
space just then?" Nax asked. "How could you survive?"

"It is cold and
it has no air," Z answered. "I can stay for no time. I will die in
seconds there. It is space."

Kurk said,
"We're here because you challenged Boss, not to discuss his
abilities and knowledge. I would suggest you use your most powerful
weapons from the first so we can return to Loosta and Teeme. I have
some studies to complete and I know Boss was studying what we
Plutons call plasma physics, but which he calls 'energizing the
air'."

"We would like
to study Boss," Froh said. "The only wizard we know is Zaft. She
doesn't have the powers that Boss exhibits. Not even a small part
of them. He's amazing!"

"Have you ever
heard of Zaft?" Kurk asked Z.

"No," he
replied. "She would have little real power or I would know of her.
I could go to her use of energy as I came to the waste of energy
here. I do not pretend to understand why there is so very much
energy stored in a small spherical area below the center of your
ship. Perhaps it takes a great deal to cross space. I know there
are vast distances in space where there is little or no energy to
be used. I know also there are strange directors that hold the
energy inside with use of other planals."

"You sense
energy?" Nax asked.

"Certainly!" Z
replied. "That is such a simple spell even one without the wizard's
talent can learn it. It does not even use enough of the psy ability
to measure."

"The wizard's
talent? TK?" Froh asked.

"Some TK and
some plain old-fashioned magic stuff," Kurk agreed. "I believe they
have to have some TK to control the magic – or maybe it's the other
way around. My theory is that it acts like sensors to detect radio
or other broadcast energy, though Boss can easily detect static
charges and battery storage such as you use in the laser, too.

"I'm a
biologist. I've been studying the power or whatever it is for six
years and can't find much about it. I came here with Boss to watch
his magic wipe out all your science. I know damned well he can do
it! I've seen it before. There were once a shipload of people from
a race who called themselves Immins here. Boss didn't even have to
come himself. He sent a little demon to kill them all and to make
their ship disappear.

"These wizards
have incredible powers. They don't need our science, though they're
curious about it."

"Why does he
use radio, then?" Nax asked. "Can't he simply use the TK?

"How could a
ship be made to disappear?"

"He doesn't use
radio!" Kurk declared. "Whatever makes you think they use
radio?

"I can't find
what he did to the Immin ship. Maybe he opened a portal and moved
it into another plane."

"We detect some
strong radio and microwave emissions ever since he came," Froh
replied. "That's why we sent the note. It merely says that anyone
from another world – in this plane – should leave."

"We Plutons are
using radio, not Boss," Kurk said. "We don't use it much so as not
to disrupt the society here, but we've been using it since Boss
came to try to find out where he's been. We woke up the other
morning and that enormous solid gold castle was up there on the
mountain like it had been built there a century ago! We know for a
fact he and his demons haven't been here on Tlorg. Not where they
could be found."

"Then they ...
they're really from space!" Froh insisted in Jornian. "I don't know
if ... he's an empire agent. I know it! There isn't any other
explanation. If only I could be sure...."

"Not now! What
does the castle look like?" Nax interrupted.

"Like a
castle," Kurk answered. "What do you mean?"

"Have you been
inside?" Froh asked. "Can you be sure it's not a disguised
spaceship?"

"I was on the
ramparts and in the main dining hall for a few minutes before we
came here," Kurk replied. "Fale stayed inside for the night. It
described the place from the lower basements to the courtyard in
the center as well as the sleeping rooms. It's really a castle.
It's far too big, heavy and bulky to be a spaceship. It's large
even for a castle here and some of them, particularly in Loosta,
are more than a hundred meters on a side."

"I'd like to
have a look at that magic shell!" Froh said in Jornian. "I'll bet
it's a gravitic floater disguised as some sort of magic ship!"

Z pressed a few
buttons under his robe. The floater in the center of the clamshell
distached itself, folded into a disk a few centimeters thick and
dropped out below the clamshell. It was in deep grass where it
could move away undetected on small tracks. Kurk again made noises
about the challenge for awhile, the Jornians backed away from the
subject. Z suddenly turned, went to the clamshell, reached inside
and poured himself some wine, He offered some to the others, who
couldn't resist the chance to examine the craft. Froh asked if he
could look the magic shell over. Z shrugged.

Froh went back
into the Jornian ship for a couple of sensitive detector devices,
then went over the clamshell carefully, though Nax said there
simply wasn't anywhere for a unit to be secreted – after Z removed
the table from the center that housed the floater when it was there
and stood it outside so everyone could reach the wine and
sweetcakes.

"How do you
make it fly?" Nax finally asked.

Z shrugged,
made a couple of passes with one hand turning on some of the
microfloater disks under his robe at the same time. The meters went
wild. He turned them off.

"It's the
repulsor field principle," Z replied. "Isn't that what you called
it, Kurk? You said a gravitic resonance repulsor field?"

"He makes some
kind of antigravity," Kurk explained. "I take it you aren't going
to challenge him?"

"No. He isn't
who we thought he was," Froh answered. "We have no argument with
him."

"I do have an
argument with you, though!" Z snapped. "You are speaking as though
I am not here again! I have tried to tell you such a thing is not
polite. I find it most irritating! Perhaps I will return when you
learn some manners!

"Come, Kurk!
Please replace the table. I would be away from this place.

"I will return,
otherworlders. I sense a great evil here. I sense you should not be
here. I sense you hide from someone. There is much here that you
would wish for us to know, though there is someone else who you
wish not to know more than only us. It is most strange.

"Beware! You
know not with what you toy! There are forces, once unleashed, that
cannot be controlled with all of your science. There is great
danger for everyone here. Nature is not in proper balance and that
is never a good thing. Nature sometimes restores its own patterns
with grave results to those who would disrupt the balance!

"I will seek
this Zaft. I would speak with her. She has much to explain."

"Zaft isn't
here right now," Froh replied. "She's gone to the seaport."

"Then we go to
the seaport," Z said, turning his back on the Jornians. He moved
away from the clamshell to sit in the soft grass and spread his
robes around himself. The Jornians were puzzled as he began to
mumble in English and came to stand over him. He pushed the button
on the unit on the belt under the robe and the floater raced on its
tracks back into the clamshell.

"Fearless
leader," he said to the small transmitter at his throat in the
necklace there (In English, of course). "Get the floaters to locate
this she-wizard for me. We're going to have to force the issue
here. This Zaft character will know what's going on."

"He's using
radio!" Nax exclaimed, looking at his meters. "What's he doing?
What's happening here?"

"I've noted
before that his 'seeker' produces static on the radio," Kurk
explained. "His mind produces some kind of psy-driven
electromagnetic field. That's my theory. Whatever he's seeking
he'll find. He never misses."

Z stood,
pointed straight outward from the shoulder, turned about two thirds
of a revolution and opened his eyes. He was pointing generally
toward the sea.

"She is there,"
he stated positively. "We go.

"Come, Kurk, my
friend. I would be back in Loosta, but there is something much
amiss here. I will put all things to right. It is my duty to my
world to bring nature back to balance."

Z and Kurk
climbed into the clamshell, it rose into the air and went off in
the direction he had pointed. They heard Nax yelling, "The meters!
Look at the power of the field he's generating! Great humping
Zulians! He could run a small city on that! He could run a BIG city
on that!"

Kurk noted they
were followed by a sensor sphere almost immediately. Maita said
detectors showed a TV scanning device was sending video so Z
pointed at it while the floater fired a heat beam at it. It
exploded. Let them think that one over.

They were soon
back to where they left Ehrak and Thing, who were off on their own
floaters somewhere. They would wait.

"What do you
think they're up to?" Kurk asked. "I didn't see any evidence of
anything – but then, I don't know what to look for, either."

"I haven't any
idea myself," Z said. "It would have to be a spice. Those two
aren't really bad, they only want to protect what they think is
something valuable. They do seem to be trying to avoid cultural
interference, but that could mostly be to keep the empire away. If
you knew what Maita does to anyone who gets caught damaging an
emerging culture you'd know why they'd be terrified of taking any
chances."