Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (202 page)

"What's that?"
Kit asked.

"It said I was
the one called Fel," Tab replied. "I passed it over, but it could
see immediately that we're very close to being one entity. That's a
little scary in its own way. We can be glad it isn't interested in
such things to any real extent."

"That could be
trouble on a personal level," Kit said. "We'd better break this up.
In the morning we can make some kind of excuse to get away. I want
to see what we can find about some areas where the fungus doesn't
grow except in small poor patches if at all. Maybe we can find
another controlling influence there."

They removed
the link, then Kit went back to his own room to feign sleep until
morning. The next day Kit took Tab to introduce him to Veen and the
people in Koosd. They kept joking with one another so soon the
people joined in. This was the first alien any of the people had
ever seen from close up (So far as they were aware) so Tab was
quite a rare novelty. He was able to put the Grandish at ease
quickly, then to almost as quickly inspire a real liking. One of
the people he met was Kaer Peld, who kept saying he reminded her so
much of someone she knew.

It wasn't
possible for them to get away for exploring so they stayed the
night at Veen's, then went back to the glass plant early the
following morning where they were shown the first results of the
attempt to reproduce the art of the Parf. It was close, but before
Kit could say anything the engineers said these would be melted
down. Close simply wasn't good enough.

"We have
another batch in the ovens now," Lee Djin, the line boss, said. "I
think we can double-fire them. That should bring out the colors
better and will soften the lines around the base and edges. Those
are very hard things to mold."

"Maybe we can
add a section to cut and polish the rougher spots," Kit
suggested.

"I've already
got a cutting wheel set up," she replied. "We can polish on it,
too. I want to get as much done as we can before that. Cutting
takes time. If we have to cut we have to up the price.

"What's my
margin to work with?"

"Thirty dorbeks
per unit is what I've already offered," Tab replied, getting a
surprised look from Djin. "I admit that's negotiable. I'll go 'way
higher if this quality can be guaranteed."

"Ha! THIS
quality will be melted down!" Djin replied quickly. "These are
experimental. They simply aren't good enough to ever get past the
gate!"

"If you're
serious I'll go eighty dorbeks per unit as a base bargaining
offer!" Tab exclaimed, feigning surprise. "These are already so
close I can't see much difference between them and the models!

"That's purely
a lie, of course. The signature of the Parf is unmistakable, but
I'm serious about the price. I can open a market for that quality
for any quantity you can produce."

Djin grinned.
"We'll limit the quantity long before we'll even discuss limiting
the quality," she said. "Fel made it very plain to you, I hope,
that our intention is to establish an empire-wide reputation as the
very best glass makers in the galaxy."

Tab looked at
Kit, who insisted they would stop not one tenth of a millimeter
short of THAT goal!

"It's not my
place to say so, but we can take extra time at sixty dorbeks to
produce the very best quality," Kit continued. "We appreciate the
offer of eighty, but we wish to produce quality goods at a
reasonable price. We're in business to make a profit, but that's
but one of several considerations."

"I think your
plant here is going to prove to be much too small – and soon!" Tab
replied.

Pride

Tab returned to
A Port with the first shipment of glasswares two days later. They
were better even than he had hoped – and he knew from the very
first they would be good. The pride of the Grandish race was in
those pieces. They had much to be proud of.

The connection
with Kit had shown him both of the robots saw this race in the same
light. They were an exceptional people who would fit well into the
empire, but who would be much like the Zeenans in their
interactions. They would like and enjoy other diverse races, would
welcome them, would have things to offer as well as things to learn
and would never be psychologically harmed by the meetings, though
they would tend to stay away from very many contacts. They would
prove themselves before the contacts were made. That was what this
glassware thing was really about. Kit had seen the artistry in the
people even before he had used the glasswares thing that was as
much as thrown at them by events.

Kit was going
to work out better than even Maita hoped when it constructed him,
too.

There was still
one little problem to solve here. The fungus would already have
placed this world in an unbreachable quarantine had Tab and Kit and
their ships not been aground. No one could get the products
offworld except those in that group. The ships would see that no
spores were transmitted anywhere – even to thoroughly microwaving
the glass to see that none came out in the packaging, the wares or
even the air moved into and out of the ships while they were on
Grandish. That was another advantage in being a robot. The
decontamination process wouldn't do them any damage. As soon as the
ships were in space they would be opened, then microwaved
completely, then resealed for the trip, but the fungus was still on
Grandish and was still as much of a threat as it ever was.

Tab took the
glassware art to Tltle and Sentah where the potential buyers were
awestruck at the craftsmanship of the Grandish as well as by the
art of the Parf. The items first bought with the intention they
were to be sold in the shops would be used in the hotels instead.
They would be issued in limited quantities of each design, the
price would be much higher than planned, Looph would have exclusive
rights guaranteed by the hotels which would supply the raw blocks
of the materials at whatever cost the Grandish wanted to charge.
The models would then be the sole property of the hotels (Except
for those which Looph wished to keep for her personal memento
collection), would be displayed there and the copies sold at fair
prices for the quality.

"In other
words, there will never be any cheap ones!" Klop Jode Vebth, the
negotiator for the hotels, promised. "Why, any one of these would
bring twenty thousand credits at any respectable auction house on
first bid! This is one place where everyone can get rich –
honestly! If the suggested limits are kept on production, these
items must appreciate in value rapidly among the art
community."

"Why not design
a new game where some of them are prizes?" Tab asked. "You can have
Looph autograph the first ten or so of each issue to be used there.
That should make them at least double in value. If a Parf puts her
mark on a piece it's almost immediately priceless!"

"We can put a
matchfour slot machine in each lobby of each of the hotels that
pays off in a signed piece for four stars!" Jode cried. "They'll be
the biggest draw on the worlds!"

They talked and
argued for several hours, then Tab went to Parf with sixty of the
glass bricks. Looph was delighted with the idea so long as it would
be stipulated one half of all profits from the machines would be
donated to Hospital. That would be paid in addition to the five
percent Hospital already received of all proceeds from the vacation
worlds. The funds were targeted for education and for the emergency
fund. Tab or the emperor were to handle all the models and the
signed copies personally until the problems on Grandish were
settled.

Tab didn't
hesitate to tell Looph about the fungus. The Parf aren't prone to
gossip (Well, one or two maybe, but not Looph!).

That behind him
Tab, connected with TR to find T6 was able to handle things well
enough for the moment so they headed for Kuhlicht to see what
progress Givzoo's group had made.

"Oh, it's
coming along about as well as can be expected, I rather suppose,"
Givzoo reported. "I have the whole crew concentrating on this
solution – which could be a mistake. It's all we have at the moment
and will be slow enough in the development stages even with all of
us on it. If it fails it'll cost us critical time, but there's no
other way."

"I'll ask Maita
to send you some of the best students at University," Tab
suggested. "Maita can see that the psy shields are built into all
of the students he sends. Maybe they can take some of the routine
drudgery work off of your hands to free you for more important
things."

"Before Givzoo
refuses we accept!" Nortich said quickly. "We know there is a
certain danger the fungus will find a way to get by the shields,
but we desperately need help here. Just see that no one comes in
who isn't aware of that danger."

"Done!" Tab
replied. "Can you give an estimate as to when this thing will be
ready?"

"Our problem is
to overcome resistance of the bioengineered bacterium to being
restricted to the rotting wood," Volich said. "It's such a
widespread type of thing it becomes very difficult to draw its
parameters in, if you understand what I'm trying to say."

TR sent a
message to Tab on the internals.

"I have a
suggestion for what it's worth," Tab replied. "I found the fungus
wouldn't grow in swampy areas even though the wood seemed perfect
there. I've put samples of all the wood, the bacteria and
everything else in those swamps as well as samples from anywhere
the fungus does grow into my ship's analytical computers. I think
you know TR's one of the intelligent ships and it input methods to
handle the data. Maybe there's something in that data?

"We're not
really equipped for that kind of work and don't know what it is
we're looking for. I would think you'd know more where to look in
all that information. We simply have no concept of what we're
looking for."

"There's a
restricting agent that works against the fungus spores, I suppose,"
Zantoo answered. "Maybe it's a lack of something brought about by
the particular environment in the swamps."

"Yes. We'll
take any type of input we can get," Volich suggested. "You can
interface the data from your ship's computers to our own. I don't
see...."

"Yes!" Givzoo
suddenly cried. "Get us that information as quickly as you can! Use
the direct interface!

"Nortich!
Acidic tannic retardational enzymes! The wood in a swamp goes
through long periods of acidic deterioration as the wood sours from
the still warm water and the natural tannins! Agents!
Bacteriological, amoebic, phytic.... We can interject corpodia
interwahti latidah goovic incidental bloopich on a glabbinfartergas
dobie gohtahell chain (It sounded like that to Tab, who had input
most of what the libraries had about genetic interjection
processes. Maybe TR could follow it. These scientists were already
beyond what was in the libraries!)."

Tab went out to
TR as Givzoo and Nortich interspersed orders with loud
arguments.

TR reported it
had done an automatic pulse data input into their computers. They
headed back to Grandish after Tab called Maita to send the
students.

"TR, did you
follow what Givzoo was getting so excited about?" Tab asked en
route.

"Oh, sure!
They're going to splice something into something else to try to
stop the fungus," TR replied brightly.

"I had already
figured that much from the yelling at each other!" Tab cried. "I
mean exactly!"

"They lost me
fast," TR said. "Interwandrea latifense is a fungus that grows in
bogs on those kinds of worlds. The varietal names like the
Tesfortii thing and the Grandishii tag identifies the worlds where
it's found. They're either going to inject it into something or
they're going to inject it with something else."

They landed as
soon as TR changed Tab back into Klist Mar, then a floater took him
to the boat he left tied to some trees above the high water line a
good while past. The boat was in good shape and hadn't been
bothered so Tab took it back to land on the jetty nearest the
castle. He walked in as the people there were sitting down for the
nightmeal. Kit greeted him with the joyful news they had actually
sold some of their wares offplanet! There were repeat orders
already that came in from A Port only hours ago! Grandish was going
to be considered for membership in the Maitan Empire Traders
Guild!

"Then it's good
that I've set up a warehouse for us in A Port!" Tab said smugly.
"Do you know there's no cargo allowed off Grandish except our
glasswares? There's a kind of dangerous plant or fungus that could
infect the whole damned galaxy or something. I don't know all the
details, but I haven't been goofing around, you know.

"I met an
alien, a Swaz called Tabori, who's some kind of friend of the
emperor. He's on Grandish because of the fungus infection. I sent
him here."

"I was
wondering how he was contacted," Djin said. "I know none of our
regular salespeople here have contacted him. Heip Low says he's the
famous detective, Tabori R. DeSixtee, and he'll go far out of his
way to help a world he thinks is worthwhile. That ship of his is
intelligent! Did you talk to it?

"We can be
damned glad he thinks Grandish is above average! We haven't let him
down! (This last with great pride.)"

"I wonder about
this disease or whatever," Kit said. "Could it be what's happening
to the farms? That fungus thing?"

"It's
possible," Tab replied. "If it wasn't for the fact our glass can be
heated without damage even it wouldn't be allowed offworld. Almost
nothing is. I told them we would guarantee no damage from that
little bit of heat. Just four hundred Maitan Standard degrees,
which Tabori said is something like our three hundred fifty. We
bake things at a lot more than that with no damage in our own
ovens."