Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (32 page)

[ I think we'll
take a standard flight to Tltle. You can have records ready for us
there. I think there's a good chance that's the base for our
crooks. ]

"I agree,
though I hadn't thought about it. Narmel was supposedly from Tltle,
although the other vacation worlds were mentioned. The whole thing
might work from there. We'll go stir up some problems for dear
Narmel right there at home!"

They
communicated for awhile longer, tuned out after agreeing they'd
contact Maita to tell T6 where to come, then went to the
reservations desk and booked passage to Tltle. They went back to
the hotel to get their baggage and gear for the flight, which would
leave in four hours, and to clean up. They would arrive on Tltle on
the following "day" in the early afternoon.

Ship days were
Maitan Empire Galactic Standard, of course. They would be on Tltle
in nineteen hours from takeoff.

They packed
their belongings, checked out, made reservations with the Dream
Hotel on Tltle, and headed for the port.

The
assassination attempt came while they were waiting for their
flight.

Deadly
Adversary

Thing's floater
hovered overhead with the rim iris expanded to carry the luggage,
such as it was, and had the mass shield on low to keep the things
from falling off.

While floaters
were rare and far too expensive for most people there were other
airborne devices for people to use, so there were perhaps twenty
people in the terminal above the ground level traffic. Z was under
and to one side of Thing as they approached the check-in.

The problem the
Zurn who shot at them had was that Z knew the methods of organized
crime lords on Terra a few decades before he was taken from Earth
by the Pweetoos and, though Thing thought he was being melodramatic
and extreme, it went along with him in programming the floater,
instructing it to detect the few who carried energy weapons by the
emanations of their power packs and was watching them all through
its sensors. When it suddenly threw full shields for Thing and
knocked Z to the floor before diving full at the Zurn it took them
all completely by surprise.

Thing was a
very fast thinker, and the shields weren't anti-vibratory so,
though it could see nothing through the shield, it announced
through the speakers as the Zurn snapped a shot at where Z had been
standing, [ Do not move! If you try that again, I will burn you to
a cinder where you stand! ]

Z had rolled to
the side as he hit the floor. The shot hit a Varstern woman full
and hit a Feach woman close to her on the hip.

Z sprang to his
feet and charged head first into the powerful reptilian being,
knocking it off its feet. He brought his booted heel hard onto the
hand holding the heat laser and scooped up the gun as it skittered
away.

"Control!" Z
said loudly to the floater. "Call security! Call medical! Damage
report!"

The floater's
call system replied as it dropped the shield, "Security and medical
paged and en route. No damage to this unit or to its passenger or
property. The Varstern female has no life signs. The Feach female
has sustained heat damage of serious, but not fatal, degree.
Immediately inject Varstern female with solution R four nine twenty
one J, and cover area of burn with salve S forty four.

"Here is
medical and security. VWPA contacted and en route. Identification
of progenitor underway. Apply respiratory aid A twenty one hyphen R
to Varsten female immediately and continue until med-emergency team
arrives.

"This unit will
keep progenitor under close guard until proper authorities are on
hand."

Thing swung
from the floater with a dermal injector gun, which it pressed
against the woman's shoulder. It handed the tube of salve to the
medical officer who ran up, as Z said the floater had already
prescribed.

The floater
instructed the officer how to revive the woman on instructions from
the medical computers on the floater. A Feach (Which Z had
described as "a nine foot tyrannosaurus rex" at times) and a Vendan
(Which Z had described as looking like a Wooky from the classic
Earth movie, "Star Wars") had the Zurn held between them. The Zurn
was a powerful being, but was certainly no match for the Feach and
was slightly more than a match for the Vendan. He had better sense
than to resist. The mood of his captors was such he could be
literally torn in half if he gave them any excuse whatever, and he
knew it.

The peoples of
the empire are almost totally non-violent. That doesn't mean they
aren't CAPABLE of great violence when aroused by such an act. Had
the Zurn shot directly at Z and harmed no one else they would
probably have identified the Zurn for the port security police and
not done anything else. The fact the Zurn was so uncaring he would
allow the shot to hit an innocent bystander aroused everyone around
to a seething fury. Such things simply weren't done among civilized
beings.

The only thing
that saved the Varstern woman's life was the fact the floater
carried the medical supplies and was programmed in the proper
methods of their use for most of the empire's beings. In less than
three more minutes the death would've been irreversible.

This was a
major break, in a way. The Varstern woman had been clinically dead,
so the Zurn would be convicted of wanton murder. The ability of
modern medical arts to return such cases to life didn't alter the
fact he killed the woman in a wantonly careless manner. In the eyes
of the law, she was dead. The Zurn killed her. The Zurn acted
irresponsibly and without proper care or concern for others. This
was wanton murder. It was a capital crime. It ended right there.
The fact that forty seven seconds later the Varstern woman was
returned to life didn't alter the fact she had been dead or that
the Zurn had been the agent of her death.

A capital crime
perpetrator could be put on the probe without consent. This was a
break of major proportions if he knew anything, though Z seriously
doubted he did. That wasn't the way these organized crime figures
worked three hundred years ago on Earth and it wasn't likely it was
the way they worked here.

Thing went to
the counter with the luggage and asked that they hold it there.
They would be delayed from this flight, but would transfer to the
next. The clerk robot who witnessed the preceding events wouldn't
need further proof the delay was unavoidable from their personal
standpoints. Their seats could be given to a standby passenger.

The Feach kept
its grip on the Zurn until they placed him in the seat of the
accused. He then gave first testimony to the judge machine and
left. The next witness was Thing's floater by request of the other
witnesses. A machine is an incorruptible witness. All that was
necessary was that the others confirmed what it said. They must
testify the machine's testimony wasn't changed from their angle of
observation, nor had they seen, heard, smelled, tasted, nor felt
anything that would change the testimony.

The floater
communicated to the judge that they were agents of the emperor and
requested a judgement of death, which could be changed if the probe
showed there were mitigating circumstances.

That was done
in full secrecy, of course. They didn't want any bystanders to know
they were anything other than two regular if extremely wealthy
tourists who were simply on vacation.

The judge
brought a sentence of death within the hour, then extended the
probe.

Only Thing who
was aboard Z's shoulder at the time and Z noted the floater was
still attached to the judge when the probe was placed. When the
probe was removed the judge announced the probe showed the Zurn had
been acting partly on the volition of another person or persons,
thus the sentence was commuted to exile on the planet Zurn, where
rehabilitative methods could be attempted. If no progress was shown
by probe in one MGS year, the sentence was to be carried out as
originally stated.

The floater had
recorded the entire results of the probe – which didn't violate any
of Maita's rules, because the floater was a machine. The rights of
privacy didn't apply to use of machines only.

The violation
(Maita's rules were constantly violated by the crew whenever the
question was the rights of one individual against the safety of a
large number of other people) would come when Z and Thing studied
those recordings.

There was one
hour and ten minutes before the next flight to Tltle, so Thing and
Z went to the fastcom to use the unbreachable channel to Maita to
report what happened to that point, and the floater reported the
full probe results, which weren't as much as they had hoped. The
Zurn hadn't known who the bosses were, but the one who gave the
orders to assassinate Z and Thing was shown to be the Cordth, Keal.
She would be sentenced for her part, but her part wasn't capital,
so she wouldn't be placed on the probe.

Z called
Marmum to report what had happened and to act totally confused as
to why she would do any such thing. Marmum acted as though he was
thoroughly shocked about the whole thing and said it must have
something to do with Narmel's threats to get even with them for
winning. He said he couldn't
believe
anyone would go to such extremes, that someone who, like
Narmel, had vast sums of money, would actually cheat at
cards
was beyond
compre
hension
! It was
all so con
fus
ing! To even
carry that to an attempt on the
life
of someone because they won at cards was totally beyond his
compre
hen
sion! It was
so con
fus
ing!

Z sympathized
with Marmum, saying he knew how embarrassing it must be that
someone who had actually shared his home with him could be so
dishonest – but one couldn't protect himself from such. You would
think such a wealthy and successful businessman would have to be
honest to stay in business! No businessman in the empire would ever
trust him again if his complicity was to become known!

When Z rung
off, Thing was livid. [ Why do you do things like that? Why not
tell him we known damned well he's part of all this and we're going
to see his ass executed? He HAS to know we aren't that stupid! He
HAS to know we are aware of who he is and of what they're doing.
Why not just tell the scuzzball to start running, for all the good
that'll do? He knows we know! He has to! Nobody could be that
stupid! ]

"No, he doesn't
know. He thinks he has us both completely fooled. He'll play this
'Oh, I didn't have any IDEA!' game and think we're just a couple of
jerks from some backwater hick world who're out of our element in
the big city. That's the way those type think, Thing. I'm counting
on it. We can use the lapses of intelligence to our own very real
advantage."

[ And you're
content to let him think that? To what advantage? Where could that
lead? How? Why? ]

"Because we can
place sensors to see who comes to his place and when. I'd say
Narmel's the boss, or the boss's representative, and there'll be
someone like Marmum on each world where they pull their scams. If
we jump into Marmum's act we won't find out who the local crime
lords are on the other worlds. They'll withdraw to protect
themselves and will out wait us. It's an old game.

"We can be your
everyday bumbling tourists on all the vacation worlds, as it is.
You'd be surprised how gullible these kinds of crooks really are.
They actually believe in good and bad luck. They'll think we're on
some kind of blind lucky streak, while they're in a bad streak.
You'll see. There's no one easier to con than a con. I wish we had
some spy sensors here to put in place at that estate."

[ I'll fastcom
Maita to have T Six put them in, then come to Tltle. They will be
standard passive units with backups. They shouldn't be found. ]

"You talked to
Maita about all that. Did T Six get back?"

[ It had
mistimed and was outside the galaxy. Maita and TR both did that at
first, but T Six should be back in a couple of hours. It can come
here, place the sensors, and then experiment with the drive. I'll
use the fastcom and we can have a snack before our flight. I want
to change our seats and section at the last moment. ]

Z started to
say something, then nodded. "See if the floater can read the
passenger lists when you change. I see you're beginning to see how
these people operate."

[ I've read
some of your Earth novels. I thought that stuff was pure fantasy,
but I am beginning to see they weren't at all – necessarily. I have
to admit your knowing about the attempt to be made on our lives has
changed the way I look at this stuff. I will now act much more like
those detectives in your stupid books. As you often say, 'Whatever
works, do it!' ]

They went to
the fastcom, had gincha and a snack, then went to the check-in as
soon as the boarding was called. Thing called the robot over and
arranged for them to be transferred from section "A," at the front
of the ship to section "D," behind center. The floater was plugged
into the console for a second while the robot was arranging the
seating, then they headed for the gate and on to their seats. The
floater contracted to its minimum diameter and attached itself to
the stays over Thing's seat. It still had the protective directives
in place, so "knew" who were carrying weapons. It would watch
everything happening in the section at all times and would sound
alarms at anything at all suspicious.

When they were
en route Thing had the floater print out the seating arrangements
for the entire ship, when the seats were chosen, and what kind of
being was in a given seat and section. Thing was listed as being
Mentan because food and beverages were served according to type. As
this was the first time a Mentan had ever flown a commercial
carrier it must have presented a very interesting problem for the
computers to make the selections. The ship would have to contact
Library and EC to find what allergic reactions it might
experience.