Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (190 page)

There was a
long hall ahead then without any sensors. The end, perhaps a sixth
of a kilometer inside of the mountain, had a large double steel
door across it. Tab noted it, then nodded to Kit. They went
carefully along the hall, checking each room off to either side as
they went. One room was a sleeping room with two men inside
sleeping. There were various labs, which were minutely
photographically recorded, one of which had a woman seated at a
microscope making notes and line drawings on a large pad. That one
wasn't so carefully photographed. There comes a point when doing a
thing would be foolish.

There were far
too many sensors of too many types around the steel doors and time
was running out so they retreated to the skiff and were back on the
lake as the dawn broke over the mountains. They didn't break stride
in their rowing until they were into Flint Creek. By silent consent
they were going to move out of range of the facility before they
stopped to discuss what they found or what to do about it. Tab was
formulating a plan based on what they'd learned as they moved, as
was Kit.

They stopped a
few hundred meters past the swamp they'd explored on their way in.
A com floater came for them to directly input all the information
they'd gathered in the facilities. T6 and TR would sort through the
whole thing in an attempt to find something they could work with.
They were still without a real starting point and knew it.

Tab and Kit
decided to go back to Lope's farm where they would report they
found the stream, but that they couldn't find exactly where the
stuff in the creek was coming from, though it was coming from one
creek. With that psy influence working so strongly close to the
pumping station no one else was about to go in there anytime
soon.

Lope was a bit
concerned about the young swimming in the creek, but Tab said
nothing seemed to be very badly affected by whatever it was
upstream or even in the swamps, though they hadn't seen any fish or
water life in the one creek the stuff was coming from so it was
probably so diluted by this distance it was reasonably safe so long
as no one directly drank a lot of the water from Flint Creek.

Tab and Kit
headed back along the road to Koosd with Veen's hand cart, which he
hadn't come to claim yet. They would set something in motion on
their arrival to allow them to go back to the lake or to stay in
Koosd or to move on away to where they could go back to T6. Their
options MUST stay open until they had some idea of how to
proceed.

"There didn't
seem to be anything of offworld manufacture in those labs," Kit
said as they walked toward the town. "On the other hand this isn't
nearly the level of technology this world has evolved to. It's
years in their future except for the contact with the hegemony and
with the empire. I don't know how to figure it. I don't know what
it is we're going to be able to do short of simply going in there
and cleaning it up and that could do as much damage as interference
by anyone else. We don't even have a clue as to who might be behind
it. We don't have a reasonable case to make that there is anything
illegal there, only that it's unregistered. We don't know if who's
doing it is native or not, even!"

"We don't have
a clue as to what IT is, either," Tab pointed out dryly. "This is a
strange one. Maybe T Six or TR or Maita will come up with
something."

"With Maita
trying to save the omniverse itself it's going to be up to us,
mostly," Kit replied. "I know Maita can separate millions of
operations at once, but this is still our own little project.

"Why did you
program all that experience you had with Z into me? You certainly
had some idea such methods might be needed here at the time."

"I was under
the impression there was a far different kind of interference at
work here," Tab answered. "If the trouble's economic that kind of
thing can make a big difference. It can keep the fact of
otherworlder interference out of the whole thing or can make it
appear the Grandish solved the problem themselves, which is always
better. We have to do that in any case. The danger of contact is
the feeling of impotence a race can get from meeting a technology
they can't hope to win against in any kind of competition. If they
meet it and actually defeat it they never feel inferiority again.
They've already proven themselves. We still can make this appear to
be home-solved, whatever it is. We're going to stay Grandish. The
psychology of these people will work in our favor."

They came into
the town and went directly to Veen's with the cart. They took rooms
for the night, then sat around to talk with the townspeople. They
spent the night in the room feigning sleep until an hour before
dawn when a small floater came to tell them there was no evidence
any of the materials being used in the labs was of offworld
manufacture. There were two good spy floaters watching the place
from a distance. They noted no evidence of activity at the office/
sleeping quarters site. The doors were never unlocked. No one came
out of the lab facility at anytime, either.

"Then there
were no more than the three we saw?" Kit asked.

"Unless there
was someone behind those locked steel doors," Tab pointed out.
"This makes less and less sense. Is there any way to find out
anything about the equipment there? I mean, about where it came
from and if there are any ... uh-oh!

"The equipment
might be from here, but those complicated hormones and the other
specialty chemicals definitely were NOT manufactured on Grandish!
Can you possibly trace any of that, T Six?"

"We've tried,"
T6 responded. "The problem there is that a case one meter cubed
could hold enough of all of that sort of thing to handle these
kinds of experiments for centuries. The only limitation would be
that some are so unstable they have to be kept in stasis or frozen.
Freezing breaks some of them down.

"In other
words, enough could be smuggled in from just about anywhere in
pockets to set this up. It does tell us that otherworlders of some
kind are involved, though. This isn't going to be easy. I'd like to
get Z or Thing to give us some weird ideas. They're a lot closer to
how other organics would think."

"I have an
beginnng idea of a place to start," Tab suggested. "It would be
about what Z would recommend we try. We'll have to go to A Port to
insinuate ourselves into the criminal elements in the local bars
and so forth. If the stuff's being smuggled in we can find out
who's bringing it. They have to make contact in some way or
another. I'll also want a complete listing of all comings and
goings. That lab was put together about four years ago, so from
four and a half years ago until today. Someone came in about the
time this started and hasn't left yet. That means someone tampered
with the port computer or the overstay would've set off any number
of alarms. I can find that. We can work back from that point.

"We'll make our
departure today with a promise to return. We can make it appear
we're going to travel some more, but we hope to finally settle here
to start a business. Have the tug floater ready to take us to A
Port before noon."

"Will do," T6
replied.

They went to
dawnmeal where they joked and told stories of travel to the local
people. They later said they were planning to travel a distance
farther along the coast road, but planned to return to Koosd,
perhaps to establish a business there. They would also try to find
if anyone else knew anything about the pollution in Flint Creek. It
had to be coming from SOMEwhere!

They left
before noon walking along the coast road. It was more than an hour
before they were to a place where the floater could pick them up
with no watchers. That was the trouble with being so popular with
the local people. Some went along with them to keep them company
for a distance.

Aboard T6 they
moved out of sight of land under the ocean before leaving the world
to meet TR waiting in orbit for a long conference before deciding
on a plan.

"Let's face the
facts," TR said. "There's some kind of weird experiment in progress
down there. It probably involves genetic micro-manipulation,
cloning or that field of biology as well as a psy talent of sorts.
Thepsy ability could be either machine manufactured or biologically
produced."

"Machine?" Kit
asked.

"Review Maita's experiences when EC was found
(
Tristar
)," Tab answered. "You'll see that machines can be given
psy powers. Strong ones."

There was a
pause while T6 input the information to Kit, who showed surprise.
When that was completed they returned to their discussion.

"I think we'll
have to separate awhile, then get together again later," Tab
suggested. "If Kit can take T Six to Grandish as an outworlder
seeking trade of some sort he can access the computers at A Port to
find who's on Grandish illegally. He can also try to locate some
clues as to who's smuggling chemicals into the world. He can listen
to the gossip, too.

"I'll establish
myself as some kind of supplier. Probably specialty glasswares,
seeing there was a lot of glass used at those labs, glass that was
produced right here. If needed we can arrange something to break a
lot of glass at those labs.

"That might be
a good idea in any case. It'll slow down whatever they're doing at
worst and force them to come to me for supplies at best.

"I can also
listen to the local gossip. That's a big part of this kind of
investigation.

"My
identification will serve. It's not likely I'll meet anyone from
Koosd at A Port."

"I'll come in
as either a Jornian or a Bentan," Kit said. "Either one might be
involved in illegal things so I can be somewhat disreputable, but
with a clear empire record. I doubt these people will want anyone
who might even possibly be watched by empire agents for any reason.
I can be periodically wealthy, down on my luck for the moment, but
possessing a Zeenan P class ship worth millions of credits.

"T Six, you ARE
a Zeenan ship so give out P class ID for this."

"Be a Bentan,
not a Jornian," TR suggested. "There are Jornians involved in the
thing Maita's doing so there might be some empire-wide
investigations of Jornians soon – investigations that wouldn't miss
such a disreputable character as you plan to be.

"Tab, you can
be a purveyor of specialty glass products. The area where the
laboratory’s located sometimes has minor planet tremors so I'll
cause a small one with a locus quite close to the labs. I can time
it to break the most glass.

"On Klormedt
they produce heat resistant glass and tempered glass, both of which
those labs might want in quantity. There's more than a little
distance between A Port and Koosd, as you've noticed. That'll mean
they have to use more than the local modes of travel, which means
we might get more clues than we'd hoped for.

"A side note
here, the glass produced here has some amazing qualities. You might
consider that as a business in Koosd when you return.

"I can have
floaters out to detect where and what they use. T Six can direct
its floaters out of A Port while I can handle mine from orbit. This
is still mostly a guessing game until we know what's going on here
and why. I can't see what advantage anyone could gain from using
this kind of thing – for anything! If it were pure science they
wouldn't be trying to hide it here. It doesn't make any sense. I'm
still open for any suggestions anyone might have."

"We've both
noted many times that this doesn't make any damned sense," Kit
agreed. "Could it be that someone wants to produce a slave
race?

"That seems
purely stupid to me with robotics so much advanced."

"No others are
nearly as advanced as we are, which would be the last thing they'd
want, anyhow," Tab said. "Robots can be designed for almost any
purpose, are produced cheaply and can be bought anywhere. They
generally come with longterm guarantees and organics might get sick
and you'd have to pay to take care of them."

"Which could be
the problem," T6 pointed out. "How do you take over a world if
anyone there can get as many robots as you have? That's certainly
no way to get power and control! If you could control all the
people on a world with this psy stuff you could be the sort of king
the Immins always.... Oh, no!"

"I don't think
it's Immins," TR said. "There simply aren't any. They're extinct.
None have been seen anywhere in the galaxy for more than sixty
years. If an Immin had come here among the Eacherons there would be
one very loud and long emergency message to Maita and Fleet. Their
experiences with Immins would make that definite.

"No. It's
something else. There's something we're overlooking here."

"That's
something we do more than our share of! Overlook the more obvious
things!" Tab exclaimed. "Could it be someone doing some other field
of research who stumbled onto this? Someone who isn't quite
balanced?

"T Six is right
about one thing. Robots are no way to gain control of anything when
anyone can have them. It's altogether possible this is a
machine-produced psy. Maybe they're trying to find a genetic basis
for resistance to it."

"We're going
into this mess sensor-blind," TR agreed. "We have to find out
what's going on before we can plan anything. These suppositions are
simply a waste of time. Let's get on with it.

"T Six and Kit
will do their part. Tab and I will do ours. If you meet in A Port
you'll be strangers. Remember that!"

"We won't be
likely to forget," Kit replied. "No other form of
communications?"

"Right," Tab
replied. "We don't know who they are so we don't what they can or
can't detect. Everything will be handled on board TR or T Six and
they can work out something to let us know what we have to know
about what the other one's doing."