Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (187 page)

"There are six
main land masses with a lot of islands in various areas. More than
two thirds of the planet is water – halogen salt water – while the
two large continents we're most concerned with are those on the
equatorial belt.

“
The
present money's based on empire standard switched from the money of
the old hegemony of worlds that was here before Maita contacted the
Eacherons. I can supply all the papers, script or whatever you may
need.

"Ain't I
getting good at this detective crud?"

"You have the
language – make it idiomatic in the vein of Klormedt," TR said.
"You can be from a town called Misd. T Six can give you the
intimate details about the place. It read a native from there (The
ships had floaters with helmets to record the language, customs and
any other things the user of the headgear knew. The stored
information could then be programmed into Tab, Kit or anyone else
in Maita’s crew. It was immediately thereafter usable by the
recipient), so you can appear knowledgeable.

"Common names
for these people are, for Tab, Klist Mar and for Kit, Jarj Fel.
You'll appear on the continent called Sendedt at the port town of
Koosd. There's a trench forty kilometers offshore where T Six can
wait. It's over two kilometers deep there so this should be a safe
way for T Six to be close if needed."

"Got it all
figured out, have you?" Tab asked.

"SOMEbody has
to think of these things!" TR shot back.

"Stick it in
your moder!" Tab snapped.

"Okay! While
you're aboard!" TR replied.

"I thought you
were supposed to be heading out to save the universe?" Kit
said.

"The OMniverse!
Sheesh! You clowns never listen!" TR snapped sarcastically.

"Eh? What?" Kit
shot back.

"Will you
mechanical morons stuff it with the cutesies for a minute?" T6
inserted. "If you save the omniverse we'll save these people. All
this childish sniping won't solve anyone's problems!

"Now, do you
want to snipe at one another or do something worthwhile?"

"I vote to
snipe!" TR said quickly.

"Me, too!" Kit
put in.

"Vote to snipe!
Carried!" Tab added.

"Seeing as
you're all aboard TR anyhow, why not experiment with landing in a
black hole?" T6 asked. "I can handle this bit here by myself."

"Hmmm. That
sounds like an interesting sort of experiment," Tab replied. "Maybe
we could come in at a sharp angle to reduce the bump at
contact?"

They kept the
chatter up while they shifted to T6 for the trip to Grandish. TR
soon left for Tlorg.

"Well, it looks
like this could be an interesting one," Kit said. "What do you see
as a persona for each of us?"

"Z (The Terran
member of Maita's crew and a close friend of the robots) and I
handled a thing once where I was an obnoxious inventor and he was
an arrogant sort of businessman – well, not arrogant with the
workers, but definitely with the bosses. I swore a lot. T Six has
the records of that.

"We can be that
type of team. It'll get us into the major parts of the business
community here and will give us an inside shot at meeting the kinds
of people we'll have to meet – and should lead us to the ones
causing the trouble. We can see what the deal is, then work our way
in. We can modify the personalities if we think something else
might work better."

There was a
short pause while T6 programmed the experiences of Z and Tab into
Kit, then Kit nodded and said, "Might as well get started. Let's
go!"

Pleasant Place

The floaters
carried the two robots from the sea into the forest just to the
north of the little town called Koosd. They were programmed with
the language and customs of the people and were modified to where
there was virtually no way anyone could detect they weren't born
and raised right there on the world of Grandish. They were carrying
papers that would show them to be from the nearest continent,
Klormedt. Even the town Misd had been imprinted in detail on their
memories including names and descriptions – perfect photographs, in
fact – of everyone the three people the probe had used from that
town had known.

It was less
than two hours until dawn, which had been shown by long experience
to be the best time to arrive in any new place. They would wait
until the early light to enter the town with stories of their
travels.

The floaters
were emptied of money, luggage and other possibly necessary
impedimenta, then returned to T6, who was forty four kilometers
offshore in more than two kilometers of water where it rested
comfortably on the bottom. No one on this world could find it there
even if they had any small inkling of its existence.

Tab sat on a
log to wait while Kit explored among the closer trees. When the sun
was rising enough for it to be logical they had been walking along
the road for a few kilometers they moved out toward the town. They
passed neat farms as they neared the town, which also seemed to be
exceptionally clean. There were people working near the farmhouses
who would wave a greeting as they passed.

The first place
they located upon entering the town, also something learned through
experience, was the local inn for a dawnmeal. Small towns on most
worlds always had such a place where the local gossip would bring
them up to date on what was important to the natives. Uncommon
occurrences would also be the subject under discussion. The simple
fact that strangers might bring excess comment would tell them much
about the place and the people's temperament. Being robots they
could eavesdrop on conversations that were being held at quite a
distance.

The inn in
Koosd is near the center of the town where there is a square park
area with small businesses around the fringe. That's also common
form on many worlds. There's a tavern of sorts to one side, but it
wouldn't open until after the noonmeal. There's a general hardware,
clothing and smithy store on the other side and a food store to the
left. The schoolhouse is across on a little side street from the
food store and there is – unusual for such small towns on most
worlds at this stage of development – a library next to the
schoolhouse. There's a large meeting hall on the remaining side of
the little park. Streets lead out in the four directions.

There are
mountains about fifteen kilometers away to the East, the ocean and
docks are to the west and forests are to the north. The Wu river
empties into the sea at a little port town called Blesd, twenty
three kilometers north. To the south are inlets and bays filled
with those rampant mangrove-like plants that seem to cover such
tropical areas on many planets with large concentrations of halogen
salts in their major seas.

The farms raise
grains and/or grazing animals for the most part, but there are
always fresh fruits and vegetables in great variety in the food
market.

The two robots
entered the cozy inn, called simply "Veen's Place," and sat at a
counter to order gaf, a beverage high in a caffeine-like substance.
The beverage would be in taste somewhat like coffee with a taste
like chocolate with a touch of mint and would be a mild
stimulant.

There were
fruit-filled sweetcakes, eggs cooked in a variety of ways, fruit
juices, fruit pies and various types of melon on the menu. The eggs
were served with various breads or fried ko roots, which were much
like potatoes or oormf root.

"Four eggs –
scrambled, klie toast – light. Gaf with soft cream, ko and a big
slice of yellow-green melon," Tab ordered. "It's a beautiful day
for traveling!

"I'm called
Mar, Klist Mar, late of Misd, in the nation of Klormedt. This is
Fel, Jarj Fel, of the same place.

"This is as
nice a town as we've found! It's about perfect!"

"Veen, Aars
Veen," the proprietor introduced himself. "My serving girl is
Barst. Du Barst.

"I was once on
Klormedt when I was but a lad. I was even in Misd. It was a nice
enough place as I remember, but was having something of a problem
with the thorny-suckers. There was a place by the docks, Kope's or
something such, that served the best waterclaw salad and
strikershell chowder I ever tasted!"

"You mean
Kolep's?" Kit asked. "Brown roof tiles with white window boards and
that fishnet hanging all over the verandah?

"They're famous
all over Klormedt. It's nice to know they're appreciated even so
far as this! I'll tell Nince about it next time I'm there!"

"Kolep Nince!
That's it!" Veen cried. "Fifty dorbeks for her recipe for the
chowder! A hundred!"

"She wouldn't
sell for a hundred thousand," Tab said. "The thorny-suckers are an
annual problem. You must have been there in Fourmonth or Fivemonth.
Hot that time of year."

"Yes, it was
that, but it's as hot here in Four and Fivemonth," Veen agreed.
"Have you traveled far?"

"If Fel will
give his order I'll have it prepared while you talk of travels,"
Barst said. "When someone comes in who's been in any of the many
places Veen has he can talk for days!"

"I'll have the
same except sigdbread toast – medium," Kit replied. "Maybe
redmellon if it's not too sweet yet."

Barst nodded,
wrote the order down and went into the back room. The two robots
talked about several towns along the coast and about the lushness
of the forest along the Blesd-Koosd road. That lushness was noted
even from low orbit, which was why TR suggested this place in
particular. It may have no connection, but they had to start
somewhere and this was the only obviously different place.

"Yes. Something
in Flint Creek seems to be fertilizing the forest along there,"
Veen agreed. "If we could find what it is we could probably raise a
lot more crops out near the Mountainfeet Hills. The soil's barely
marginal there."

"Oh?" Kit
asked. "Do you mean the forest there wasn't always so lush?"

"Well, it's
always been thick and fast," Veen said. "It's only the past three
years it's gotten like it is now. All of a sudden there seems to be
double or better growth in there.

"Sedge Lope –
that farm by the creek about four kilometers out – was going to use
the creek for irrigation, but somebody told him it maybe wasn't a
good idea until we found out what was doing it. Some fertilizers
can go into the plants and make you right sick. I remember when
that copper stuff they used to get rid of puffy rot got on the
redfruit how it made a lot of us get the sticker sores. Like to
have never got shed of them, then some physician from Glarsted did
a study and we found it was that all along."

"Has anybody
gone up the creek to see if maybe something it's running through is
doing it?" Tab asked. "Maybe somebody's mining gold or something
and dumping the tailings in the creek. I heard once a whole river
was poisoned in Hasbd – that's an area of Klormedt – when they were
mining lead or zinc ore or something. Killed some children or
something. Big stink."

"Lope and his
kid went up about twenty five kilometers to Milk Lake, but they
said the lake was the same so whatever it is could be coming from
any number of streams up there or even from the lake itself," Veen
replied. "That's the trouble with farming. The people don't have
the time to spend looking for such. It's a matter of saying you can
spend four days on a thing and that's the limit. Got to not spend
more or you could lose your whole crop."

"Well, we've
got time!" Kit exclaimed. "Mar! Let's borrow or buy a canoe and do
some water exploring. It'll be great fun and can serve a good
purpose at the same time."

"If it won't
take us past the halfmonth next we can manage it," Tab replied. "It
might even show us more of this country over here. Maybe this will
be the area we decide to stay so it would be better if we knew for
fact that there wasn't going to be any poisonous water in a few
years from something like that.

"Okay. We'll do
it!"

"Are you going
to relocate here?" Barst asked, bringing the steaming gaf and the
egg course. The melon would be served when the main course was
finished. The robots can eat, drink and do everything else a normal
organic being does. The food (Or whatever) drops on built-in
elementizer grids that break it down into its elements which can
then be stored until it's convenient to dump them. Some, such as
oxygen and nitrogen, are vented off. The elementizers serve another
purpose when there's no one else around to note, too. Whatever's
dropped onto the elementizer grids can be instantly and exactly
analyzed.

They finished
their meal, talked with Veen, Barst and a couple of customers, went
over to the general store for supplies, the food store for staples,
then headed, pulling a small cart Veen lent them for the supplies,
for the farm of Sedge Lope. They had notes from Veen about the
project for Fel and Mar so Lope was to lend them the skiff if it
wasn't inconvenient. Veen would come for his hand cart if he needed
it before the two returned.

Lope was a
slow-talking, slow-moving man, but the type who's also sure in his
actions so doesn't often make mistakes or have to do things over.
He showed the two robots the area around the creek and how quickly
those effects reduced as you moved away from the water only a few
meters. Kit surreptitiously dropped some of the water into his
mouth, then used the internals to report to Tab that there were
concentrations of nitrates and phosphates far above what would
naturally occur as well as potassium and iron ions in more than
normal amounts.

In fact, all
the trace elements, plus a couple that could, over a period of
several years, cause some troubles if people drank the water
directly, though they weren't the kinds of things plants would
absorb.

"Does anyone
raise grazers or any other food animals directly along the creek?"
Tab asked.