Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (37 page)

"Great Gorn!"
another of the Zurn cried. "Do all Maitans have names that
long?!"

"...And from my
mother's side, Flobish Carter Nixon Khadafy Khomeini Rock and Roll
Heavy Metal," Z continued. "My grandname is Needfrumptian
Glosheimer Darwin Eisenhower Truman Capote Joe Jackie Onasis Smith,
and my...."

"Stop!" the
questioner cried. "What are you called by your boss?"

"Stupid.
Sometimes idiotic jerkoff."

"What are you
called by your friends? Damn! That stuff works too good!"

"No."

"No what?" the
Zurn asked.

"No, I'm not
called damn that stuff works too good."

He could see
Thing's tentacle tips vibrating with its silent laughter. It was a
good thing it couldn't make sounds without the floater. He sent it
an empathic picture of the Zurn in a very vulgar sexually explicit
situation – which Thing wouldn't understand. It would know what Z
was saying, though.

"What ... are
... you ... generally ... called ... by ... those ... with ... who
you work?" the Zurn asked through its sharp teeth.

"Whom."

"You are called
Whom?" the Zurn asked.

"No. I am
called With. It is 'with whom you work' not 'with who.' Mama always
insisted one must use the language properly. Only a being without
breeding and edu...."

"Shut up!" the
Zurn yelled. Z remained silent.

"Who do you
work for?" the questioner asked.

Z remained
silent.

"Answer me!"
the Zurn shouted.

"You said to
shut up!"

The Zurn began
to break things. It threw a vase against the wall and swept the
items from the desk onto the floor. Another of them came to take
his place.

"Calm down,
Kloot!" he demanded sharply. "It's the damned drug causing it.
Everything you say is taken very literally. You have to phrase
everything exactly or you get the wrong response.

"With, you will
answer my questions with a 'yes' or 'no.'

"Do you work
for another Maitan?"

"No."

"Is it a
Jornian?"

"No."

"This gets us
nowhere, Harp!" Kloot snapped. "Who is your boss and what race is
he?"

Z didn't
reply.

"He can't
answer that with a yes or no," Harp said. "With, you may now answer
other than with a yes or no.

"Who is your
boss?"

"Camphor Ated
Jell is the manager, but not the boss. Peeky is the boss.”

"And what race
is he?" Kloot asked.

Z didn't reply,
but looked confused.

"Uh, tell us
why you can't answer," Harp said.

"Because my
boss isn't a he."

"Then what race
is SHE?" Kloot demanded.

Z looked like
he was going to cry.

"Why can't you
answer?" Harp asked.

"Because I
don't know how!" Z wailed, tears rolling down his face. "I want to
tell you, but I don't know what it's sex is or even if it has any!
We just call it Peeky, and it doesn't...."

"It's all
right," Harp soothed. "You are doing very well and we're proud of
you. It is no longer important what sex it is. We will just say
'it' instead of 'he' or 'she.' Is that better?"

Z looked almost
worshipful as he said, "Oh, thank you!"

"That stuff is
too powerful," a third Zurn said. "We'll never get any sense out of
him! This is another screwed damned mess-up!"

"It's a matter
of asking the proper questions," Kloot said. "With, do you know
what race your boss is? Do you know, uh, IT's world of origin?"

"Yes."

The Zurns all
looked at him expectantly for a moment and he could see Thing
almost rolling around the cage. He was having a fair amount of
trouble not laughing out loud himself.

"What the
hell!" Kloot exploded.

"Calm down,"
Harp said. "With, tell us what race your boss is from and which
world of origin."

"It is a
Goddonlyknows from Summbackwater World in the Scuzz system!" Z
answered triumphantly, knowing the English words had no phonetic
translation into Maitan, which they were speaking.

"Uhh, tell us
what it looks like," Harp suggested. "We are not familiar with the
species or the world."

"It look like a
Feach crossed with a Zulian," Z said, knowing the combination would
be something nothing nor no one could possibly imagine.

"Er, I, uh,
see," Kloot mumbled. "Uh, how is your organization run? What is the
form of organization of the company or group, as closely as you can
describe it?"

"Well, Seethru
Blauz, the boss, tells us what to do, and we do it," Z said
happily.

"Unh!" Kloot
exploded, and Harp stepped in quickly. "Has the organization been
in business for very long?"

"More than a
thousand years on the home world and ever since the vacation worlds
were established here."

"I see," Kloot
said. "What is the function of the Mentan? How did you ever get one
into the organization?"

"It keeps
everybody honest. It makes Peeky, which is what we call the boss
for short, not do stupid things. It can make us all be careful we
don't do anything to make the customers go away. It stops us from
hurting anyone. It won't let us take more than a being can afford
because we depend on repeat business.

"It is my
friend. We are all to take orders from Tec, even if Peeky doesn't
say the same thing, because it is so smart. It can bankrupt any
gaming business in only a few days all by itself with its
mathematical genius. That way Peeky doesn't have to send its armies
out to stop people from trying to horn in on its businesses. It has
a kind of vision where it can see little things I can't see even
with an optical microscope! It can see the...."

"
Armies
!?!" the
fourth Zurn yelled. "What the hell?!
Armies
?"

"Peeky has an
army of Klatch for on the ground and a space fleet that's bigger
than the empire's," Z explained seriously. "The emperor has asked
for our help a couple of times. Peeky says the most important thing
any business can do is to take care of its own people, which may
mean sending the army to help them if someone does something stupid
to hurt any of us. Tec's floater can call the army if it thinks Tec
is in any deadly danger. Tec can stop the army if Peeky calls it,
but no one can stop it if Tec calls it.

"The Klatch are
insects, and nothing can stop them, you know. Peeky says they're
the best goddamned fucking soldiers in the universe, but they give
it the rolling creeps. I remember once when we were on this..."

"Never mind!"
Harp said. "How many Mentans does this Peeky own?"

"YOU can't call
it Peeky!" Z said, shocked. "Only the family can call it Peeky! You
can't call it Peeky! You aren't family!"

"I'm sorry!"
Harp cried. "How many Mentans are in Seethru Blauz's, er,
employ?"

"Nobody owns
anybody!" Z said, showing growing agitation. "How can anybody own a
Mentan? They're each one smarter than any other whole race all
added together! That's insane! Nobody can own a Mentan! They can't
even own anybody else even if they're not a Mentan!"

"Be calm," the
third Zurn said. "That is not what Harp meant. We Zurn feel that
everyone in a family owns everyone else in that family. It is a
family thing. You said you were all part of Pee ... Seethru Blauz's
family."

"Oh, I'm so
sorry!" Z cried. "I didn't understand! Please do forgive me! I'm
sorry! I didn't understand!"

"It's, uh, all
forgiven and forgotten," Harp assured him. "How many Mentans are in
the family?"

"Just one. Tec
is the only Mentan, besides Thing, the one who's such a friend of
the emperor who isn't on Menta. Tec and Thing are very close.
They're the reason the emperor lets us help him sometimes and why
he helps us sometimes. Peeky knows the emperor."

"But isn't what
you do illegal?!" Kloot asked.

"Illegal?" Z
asked, shocked again. "Certainly not! We have all the vacation
worlds in the empire! You're the only ones who're illegal, so Peeky
says we're to tell you to go away so it won't have to do something
about you. It doesn't like violence and all that blood."

"Have you ever
met the emperor?" the fourth Zurn asked.

"Well, yes. I
don't know which one he was, though. There were a lot of different
races there and he was one of them. Tec rode around on his shoulder
for awhile and they talked. It knows which one he was.

"I was with
this girl, so I didn't pay much attention. She had these really
nice ... but you're reptiles. you wouldn't know about
knockers."

"Er? Knockers?"
Kloot asked. "Are they a physical feature of mammals?"

"Wooo boy, are
they!" Z responded, rolling his eyes.

"We're wasting
our time here!" Kloot said. "Let's just kill them and get out!"

He was reaching
for his laser as Z keyed the tooth. There were crashes as the door
fell in and a floater came into the window. Everyone was hit with
wide range stunner beams. Z blacked out again. He awakened aboard
T6, who brought them to Maita.

*I've just run
a check on the servo frequencies and find that a company known as
Hotel and Restaurant Robotic Engineering has servos in most hotels
with split-frequency signals – which means the servos can come into
the rooms with visuals of everything and can broadcast back and can
be finely controlled from anywhere on the floor. The company is
based on good ol' Sentah. It is owned by Time and Motion Control,
which is owned by Clarbon Ventures, which is the Netdel branch of
New Innovations in Mechanicals on Bypass, which is owned by a board
of six Jornians on Sentah. They seem to have missed putting
something in that chain on Frim. Does that tell you anything,
Z?*

"It tells me
the problem on Sentah where the directing is done is itself
controlled by a single person stationed on Frim," Z replied
cynically. "This pattern is exactly like the old gangs on Earth
except they ran prostitution along with loan sharking and gambling.
Prostitution isn't illegal on empire worlds so long as the
prostitutes choose the, er, profession of their own free will, so
that's the ... uh oh! Oh shit! Here we go again!"

[ Say what?
]

"Where did you
pick that one up!?!" Z exclaimed.

[ When we were
on Earth! I've been saving it! ]

Thing was on
Z's shoulder, they were all aboard Maita for a planning session
after T6 had rescued the two.

"I don't like
that 'Uh oh!'" T6 accused. "I managed to let Harp escape. He was
pretending to still be stunned as I carried the others aboard one
by one. He 'escaped' when he wasn't being watched. He can report on
the whole mess if those sensors in there missed anything. I'm
taking the other three to the judge machine now. I'm sure we can
get them on the probe – Kloot, at least. The machines can show he
was attempting murder and Thing will give evidence the Zurn were
there under orders. I'll tell you when Thing's testimony's needed
and can have you there.

"Now, what was
the 'Uh oh', Z?"

"The organized
crime syndicates on Earth were into selling drugs. Illegal ones.
The Zurn had illegal hypnotics. It's likely they deal in
addictives. Their clientele is the one who're generally easily
caught in those traps."

*I'll get some
Feach onto that aspect. They can find what and how much is being
used on these worlds. I think it will take a certain amount of time
to go through the judging process. I'm sure Narmel will disappear
before we get to him. Harp's insurance of that! We'll follow him
with the floater. T Six has already put a tracer on his ship. I've
located who and where Neel is and am working on Eed. That may be an
alias. What now?*

[ We'll have to
start working on the companies that own the companies and so on.
We'll find who's really doing all of this by a lot of working up to
it. Maybe Z will have to be disguised and I'll have to handle
things on this end. T Six can use floaters to get a lot of the
information for us and you can trace the empire records. ]

"I'll go to
Netdel and to Clarbon," Z said. "We'll want to know very closely
how and where every phase of the operation is so we can hit it all
at once. If we try to pick it to pieces it goes underground and
regroups. What we've done so far is to get them running. They'll
become more and more secretive, which will mean they'll begin to
use more and more machines as spy devices when they feel they can't
trust living beings not to give them away.

"T Six and
Maita both can detect the use of sensors, where they're
concentrated and, therefore, when we're getting close to some
bigshot! These people depend on violence and fear to stay on top of
the situation. We'll appear more violent and powerful and THEY will
have the fear. Scared hoods make mistakes. Put some kind of record
somewhere they'll eventually think of to make them think the Klatch
and that sort of thing are true."

[ I agree, even
if Z's words don't make much sense. T Six, Z uses idioms that don't
have any real translations. You'll get used to it. You saw what he
did to poor old Kloot and Harp! You have the English translations
of his names and references, so you can see how his odd sense of
humor works. I don't know what that sexual picture he sent meant –
and I don't want to know! I got the idea. You can figure what Z
means from context, most times. ]

"I like Z's
sense of humor," T6 replied. "He has a strong sense of the
ridiculous. Rimalt was like that, but Rimalt wasn't so able to use
it in those situations. He would sometimes get a certain look on
his face and would later tell me what he was thinking at the time.
His sense of humor was what you call dry, while Z tends to be
extroverted and extreme. Rimalt was an introvert.

"I'm sorry. I
do miss him."