Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (185 page)

In the morning
they went to the farmhouse where the reunion of Kurk with the
children was beautiful to Z and the watching otherplaners. They
were all invited inside where the Frome and the Targ soon also
became close friends with the farmer and his family. Z always got
along well with children so was playing along with the games from
the first. They later rested for the next phase of the plan. That
night they were again in the floater, the otherplaners scanning for
any signs of the portal. Kurk was in charge while Z slept.

Linx and Fale
concentrated on noting anything that seemed particularly unusual to
them. They didn't expect any strong signs or sudden ability to
"see" the portal. Perhaps only an unsubstantial uneasiness or
something.... Anything. Both of the otherplaners noted there was
something slightly undecipherably wrong in a small green valley not
too very far from the place where the Jornian ship had been, but
closer to the sea. When dawn came that was still the only likely
spot. It would have to do. That strange feeling both Fale and Linx
had, a slightly repulsed feeling, all of them noticed, even Kurk,
who wasn't very sensitive to these things.

An hour past
dawn Kurk left Z at the little seaport town then took Linx and Fale
to Loosta.

"What's to
happen here mustn't be witnessed by more than is absolutely
necessary," he explained to the two demons. "There's going to be a
war of sorcerers between Boss and the evil person who would sell
Tlorg and its people into slavery or worse. None of us must be
there. It's far too dangerous to any but the sorcerers. I'll wait
in the town where I left Boss until he returns. I'm personally sure
he'll know success, but that isn't a definite thing. He stands
against fantastic powers."

"I am zhure
Boss will be zafe!" Fale replied confidently. "Boss haz good on hiz
zide! Id izzn'd always drue, bud good zhenerally wins."

Kurk smiled,
then bid the two otherplaners good fortune. He was personally sure
of the name of the person he would find in that valley. The
sorceress, Zaft, hadn't been an innocent bystander by any
criterium. Logic told him the original portal was opened from Tlorg
– had to have been – so it took someone right here on Tlorg to set
up any of it. It also took someone on Tlorg to handle all of this
since the opening of that portal. Nrkll knew nothing of the
language and couldn't leave the chamber in the Jornian ship. It
couldn't have been done from the other end. Period! There was the
likelihood Zaft and Nrkll had met on TTH11 where they could survive
for long enough to work out a deal. It was also true she probably
didn't know the portal they planned would actually kill off
everything on Tlorg – in her very slight favor – but she knew there
would be a large area on the dark continent where all life would be
destroyed. She'd let that much slip.

She had
probably set this up so the Prlnth would give her power over the
whole world of Tlorg. That seemed to be the kind of thing these
types wanted. The fact she had been lied to about what would happen
on the world made no least difference whatever. She sold out her
people. She was as guilty as all the hells!

He flew
directly back to the pretty valley, then searched it at low level
until he found a small cabin hidden close under tall spreading
trees at the stream's edge. It would be the only occupied place in
the area. Zaft would be inside.

Kurk reviewed
all the facts as he knew them. He had a very simple way of looking
at these things: Zaft had betrayed her own race, her own world and
everything that ever meant anything to anyone here. If she hadn't
known what could happen or had been somehow forced to cooperate
with Nrkll she could be forgiven. She had known there was at least
a good chance Tlorg would be robbed of energy, resulting in many
deaths. She still worked with and for those who would do this to
the world.

Had she dropped
her plans, whatever they were, when the Prlnth left there would be
no real need of further action, but she was holding that portal in
place for one reason and for one reason only: She intended to use
it again. Her guilt was an ongoing thing. That settled that!

Kurk went to
the door, knocked and moved to one side. After a few minutes Zaft
opened it with a heat laser in her hand. He grabbed the weapon
before she could swing it around to point at him, crushing her hand
into it, which probably saved his life. The pain stopped her from
using the spell to stop his heartbeat. He then simply reached up to
break her neck. She had been a thing, not a person. Kurk felt
nothing but utter contempt for her. He tossed her body to the side,
entered the cabin, searched it thoroughly, then went back to the
floater and to the seaport town. Z was staying at the inn there.
Kurk marched into the room, pushed a surprised Z to one side of the
bed, climbed in and went to sleep. In the morning he was going to
have to explain his actions to Z – not an easy thing.

They then were
going to have to find the portal. Had he acted too hastily? COULD
they close that portal if they found it?

He didn't think
of Zaft again. His mind was unclouded by any doubts concerning his
actions. He knew he had been right. He slept quickly and easily,
the sleep of the innocent.

*

Z knew from the
time they decided the portal must be kept from the Tlorgian side
that Zaft was the one who was doing this. That was obvious enough
to all of them. His instinct was to wait until Maita created the
black hole, then he could trick her into using the hidden portal to
escape his wrath. That would settle that! There really wasn't any
way around it. Definitely Zaft must be eliminated as the source of
this and many future problems. (God, how he hated that word! The
Pweetoos had "eliminated" several whole worlds who opposed them,
three hundred years ago!)

The trouble was
it wasn't in his nature to do something like that. He would have to
work himself up into a rage, then he would feel guilty for
centuries afterward. He knew it wasn't logical to waste ten seconds
feeling any compassion for something like her, but that was how he
was. He still felt guilt about the total destruction of the
Pweetoos, but not so much anymore. They were insects (Which was
itself an illogical argument. There was an insectoid race who were
as fine as any people in the empire) driven by an instinct to
conquer everything in their path.

He felt guilty about the Immins, who were mammals, but who
had every bad trait of the Pweetoos plus more, who had caused much
more misery and pain to more worlds than all the others combined.
He felt guilty about that insane machine (
Tristar
) even!

That was the
way he was. He was tossing around in bed, thinking of all the
terrible things he had done, dreading how he would have to steel
himself to this distasteful job, knowing he would have more
senseless guilt for it and not getting any rest. It was a little
past dawn when Kurk came marching into the room, pushed him
unceremoniously to the side of the bed and climbed in. The big
demon was soon asleep.

Kurk had been
working all night, hadn't had any sleep for more than two days and
nights and was probably exhausted. It was a good thing he didn't
have this kind of thing hanging over him or he might also find it
impossible to rest. He really was working hard to help the people
and needed the rest – besides, it was an excuse to put off any
action for awhile on Z's part. There was no immediate danger now.
Maita would have made the neutron mass so there would be no use of
the portal. There were probably years ahead to work something
out.

So
procrastinate awhile longer. Nothing will be hurt by waiting. Maybe
something will come up.

After an hour
or so Z got up to go get breakfast. He looked at the sleeping
Pluton laying there and grinned to himself. Even a Feach looked
somehow vulnerable when sleeping, but this Pluton looked almost as
fierce and dangerous as when it was looking right at you with those
glowing greenish eyes!

So why did he
feel protective of him?

Because he was
a friend. Because they were going to be close friends for a long
time.

Z sighed
heavily, then went downstairs to the dining room where he told the
several other guests stories of wizards. He started a joke session
soon when one of them said she had seen the Pluton going upstairs
earlier. It had scared ten centimeters from her growth!

"Yeah," Z
replied. "Do you have any idea how much room Kurk takes up in a
bed? There wasn't any sense in trying to sleep. He just pushes you
out onto the floor!"

"Hah! My beds
are plenty big enough!" the proprietor, Fak, exclaimed, puffing out
his chest and trying to look indignant. "Even for a Pluton!"

"Oh, I agree!"
Z replied. "But not big enough for a Pluton AND a wizard! Not when
the Pluton will either shove you out on the floor or crush you in
his sleep!"

A woman giggled
and said, "Can you picture someone that big feeling amorous in his
sleep? One big hug and there wouldn't be enough of you left to....
Hee hee!"

"Hah!" the
proprietor cried. "If that Pluton got to feeling amorous with me
I'd be so far from that bed it'd take a fast ship ten days to get
me back here!"

"'I don't go
for that kind of crap!'" Z quoted the popular joke. "Actually, I
think if Kurk decided to get amorous with you – or any of us for
that matter – we wouldn't be virgins in the morning!"

They all
laughed at that. The woman said she'd heard only a part of that
joke, the punch line, so would someone please tell it to her?

"It seems a
trapper went into Black Forest way out toward Sundown Mountains
where there haven't ever been any women," Z said. "He laid out his
trap lines, built a cabin, dug a well and was settled in pretty
well after about a hundred days. He was a normal sort of guy so he
began to feel he could use a little diversion with one of the
opposite sex. There was nothing for two hundred kilometers except
for a little inn and supply store, run by friend Fak, here.

"He came into
the little store, bought some flour and sugar and some morningbrew,
had a short bit of beer and asked Fak if there were any
'professional girls' around.

"'Not for six
hard days journey,' Fak replied, 'But we have the serving
boy....'

"'I don't go
for that kind of sex!' the fellow yelled, then stomped out of the
inn.

"He went back
to his cabin for another fifty days and was feeling a very urgent
need for relief when he came again into Fak's Inn for supplies. He
got the supplies, then had a beer. He said, 'I don't suppose there
are any girls around yet?' to which Fak replied, 'No, but we still
have the serving boy!'

"'I don't go
for that crap!' the fellow yelled and again stomped out of the
place.

"Thirty days
later it was becoming too much so when the fellow came back into
the inn for supplies he got Fak aside to ask, 'Look, Fak. If I, er,
you know, with the serving boy, how many will ever know about
it?'

“‘
Just
the five of us,' Fak replied.

"'FIVE?!' the
fellow exploded. 'Why FIVE?'

"'Well now,'
Fak replied. "'There's you and me and the boy. That's three.'

"'But why five,
then?' the fellow asked.

"'There's the
two guys who hold the boy down,' Fak answered. "'He don't go for
that crap, either!'"

They all
laughed at the old joke, then Fak told one on the Wizard Boss. They
joked and laughed for awhile, then many of them went to their jobs.
Z strolled around the town talking to people and learning what he
could about them. When he returned to the inn for lunch and went up
to his room Kurk awakened and explained what he had done at the
witch's cabin. Z was shocked, then he was relieved. Kurk was
completely logical and wasn't cluttered up with guilts and doubts.
He did what needed doing, it was the right thing to do and that was
that. Now they would still have to find that portal even though it
wouldn't be open with Zaft dead. They would have to get rid of the
devices that directed the energy to open it or someone else might
use it.

As distasteful
as it was Z went with Kurk in the clamshell floater to the cabin.
They used all the sensors on the floater, but there wasn't anything
to detect. The portal wasn't in use so there wasn't anything to
find. They came to the cabin to find Zaft's body laying beside the
path to the door where Kurk had tossed her.

"Couldn't you
at least have buried her?" Z asked.

"You want to
bury her I won't object," Kurk replied. "Ask me personally I don't
think she's worth the time or bother.

"Do you think
there's any way we can locate that portal short of looking at every
square inch of this valley?"

"We can narrow
it down some. It would have to be big enough for a Prlnth to come
through. That means about two meters across. The placement of the
control devices can be moved closer to hold a minimum opening. To
avoid.... That's it! There was a constant energy drain through that
portal!"

"In other words
it's cold nearby?"

"Very! This is
a subtropical area so we can find a patch of frozen plants and
we've found our portal!"

"How big would
that circle be?"

Z thought for a
minute, then shook his head. "I wish I knew. I don't know how wide
an area the draw would be from."

[ Frost of a
low enough temperature to kill most local flora would be in a
circle approximately seven meters across. We're back! Maita made
the neutron mass! ] came from the floater.

"There's
nothing that size in the valley. I scanned the whole thing."

"Then it's in a
cave or something. We have to find it."

*I'll scan with
the floater while you two search that cabin for whatever is there
to be found. I won't ask why Zaft's body is laying over there.*