Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (4 page)

"How will we
spot them?"

"We'll work
something out for that. Floaters with energy sensors were used when
they made the robots react in ... flat pulse rates – not like the
emotional state it was projecting.

"It's sure to
have learned. I want to talk with ... the probes! Let me read any
of the probes of anyone who was present at an assassination!"

There were two.
I found what I wanted.

"You see? Hedda
identified the assassin before the murder! Luft stood right beside
the assassin after that one and identified it! Neither knew. Both
were robots who were made in the image of Flimts."

"You mean the
ones that gave them the creeps?" TR asked. "How do you figure?"

"What's the
most important thing you do in making a believable disguise for me?
What's the hardest thing for you to duplicate, but the one thing
that's of vital importance? What's the one thing that, say, a blind
man will be able to find us with immediately?"

"Odor! They
didn't have the subliminal smells of Flimts! No racial odor!

"You suggested
one way to find the robot servos already. Blind people. We have a
way to start!"

"Teams. A blind
person and one who can see. The blind says when the person is or
isn't a Flimt and the other one identifies it for the police.

"We know the
people I talked with are all right. No machine could fool the
probe."

"You do!" TR
shot back. "Don't get smug on me now! That will always come back to
smack you in the puss!"

"But the one
we're after has never been on the probe itself, so it flatly CAN'T!
Maita designed me with a specific circuit to fool the probe, which
it also built.

"I have to talk
with Gorg and Hedda right away. They both have experiences even if
they don't know it."

TR called and
asked the two to please come to the ship while I prepared what I
was going to say to them. They came together a few minutes later,
and I invited them in to sit in the com/med room.

"I called you
back because the machines have shown something of what's happening
here," I began, then shocked them with, "You both identified who
and what the assassins are. That's what I meant when I said the
probe could find things you didn't know were in your minds. This is
something you never suspected in your wildest fantasies, I
guarantee. It's worse than a nightmare for me, too.

"You, Hedda,
identified one assassin before the murder took place, and you,
Gorg, stood beside the other."

"The one who I
felt was some kind of dangerous pervert or something?" Gorg
asked.

I nodded.

"Then it WAS
the one I thought was creepy?" Hedda asked.

"Yes. What I
say to you here mustn't get out of this room if we're to stop this
and expose the real culprit.

"Don't doubt
that. If there's any tiny hint as to what we're doing we'll fail.
What we're up against can learn and change so fast we can't have
time to react.

"The reason you
reacted as you did was because the person – or thing – that caused
the reaction looked, moved, talked, and acted like a Flimt, but
didn't smell like a Flimt. It didn't smell like anything you could
identify through former contact. That's what your subconscious
minds told you. You interpreted that as feeling they were 'creeps'
or `perverts.' You didn't know why you felt that way. It was
because of something that was NOT there, not because something
was.

"I have every
reason to believe they were robots, and the plan is to destroy the
worlds in your group out here.

"The emperor
has experience with these robots. He thought they were all
destroyed. It seems they aren't easy to be rid of.

"We must have a
way to locate where these robots are. There aren't many – probably
not more than one on any base except Flimt itself, and very few
here. It simply isn't possible for those robots to be made so
carefully and correctly in mass production.

"There will be
other ways to find them, but we'll have to act immediately – before
more are manufactured.

"How many
people are there in this city who were blind from birth?"

The question
shook them, but Gorg said, "Only a few. We can do something about
most of the blindness."

"I want teams
using those blind people, along with a sighted person. I'll teach
them how to find the robots among us.

"The sighted
people must take the probe if simply because no machine can fool
it. It isn't likely it would make a mech ... oh, yes it is! All of
them will have to take the probe, but only to determine they aren't
machines. The story will be they're taking the probe to show if
they're part of any assassination plans.

"I'll teach
them how to find the robots, but we must have a way to follow the
robots without them ever knowing they've been discovered. We can't
strike until we have them all or we'll only alert the one behind
it. It mustn't get out of this room that we're looking for anything
to do with smells. I can't say that enough! If the brain behind
this knows we're seeking a scent or absence of one it'll find a
way. If it adds the proper scent to the robots we won't have any
way to locate them."

We discussed
things for awhile and came up with a plan. I'd already decided TR
would have microfloaters to follow any we discovered, and Hedda
suggested we have the IDs of the robots, which everyone carried,
tagged and followed on their grid system. They'd be aware of no
change whatever, because the cards always broadcast everyone's
location in case of emergency. Such things were common in
non-criminal psychologies.

It was agreed
the blind and "companions" would be brought to TR as soon as
reasonably possible. They would be gathered and told as little as
possible except their world needed them and no one else would
do.

I hoped this
wouldn't be as difficult as I imagined it must be, but I wasn't
going to kid myself.

Seeking Robots

TR and I took
the people aboard one at the time to run a quick probe on each. It
was only to determine they weren't machines, so only wasted a few
seconds for each one.

We had sixteen
blind people and thirty two sighted ones by the time we were
finished. We all met in the com/med room, where I explained what
was needed as carefully and completely as I could. The pair, one
blind and one sighted, were to mingle in any areas where an
assassin would be likely to go in government buildings or other
places where a robot may be placed. The blind one was to note when
it wasn't really a Flimt they were smelling or when they talked to
someone who aroused the suspicions of the partner. It was
altogether possible the robots had no smell at all. That would be
too easy for the blind to miss unless they were talking directly to
them, so it would be arranged that anyone who gave the partner "the
creeps" would be talked with. There would be two others assigned to
each of these pairs to follow any who were found.

We took two
sets to the larger moon trading station, two sets to the transfer
station, one to the satellite, and so forth. Most would stay near
the spaceport and in the capital city. Others would be found and
recruited in all other cities where there were certain types of
facilities.

I had no real
hope of finding the brain robot behind this, but I could stop the
assassinations. Once the spotters were all in place a lot could be
done, though I carefully stressed that these were robots and were
the creation of the military brain. They would be heavily defended
and armed. Anyone who played hero would probably end up dead and
the whole thing might fail as a direct result.

As we headed
back to Flimt, TR said, "Boss?"

"Yo, TR?"

"We've
overlooked something that may be awfully important. That thing may
be installing a TTH drive moder right now! If that happens we'll
never be free of it. If it can go anywhere it wants in the galaxy
we can't hope to ever find it. It won't have a traceable fastcom
unit.

"We'll have to
find the ship its on and put a tracer direct."

I thought a
moment, then suggested TR use its trace to locate every moder in
the system. We would then keep checks on all of them. TR could
build a set to handle it after we accounted for every one
around.

We were lucky
there were no installation or repair depots in the system, so all
ships there would have to go through normal trader customs and
dispatch machines. Private ships would also use the customs
machines, so we would have complete checks. If there was one
in-system and not on the beacon we'd know right where it was.

Moders can be
traced, but you have to know which one you're looking for. If that
thing had one not on the machines we'd know to follow it. If it was
on a hijacked ship or some other way on a registered ship we'd
still know all that were in the system now, when we knew the brain
was here. Every single one of them would be traced until this was
solved.

I had an idea
then and told TR I wanted full particulars on any ships that
arrived from the halfyear ago to a year ago. I extended it to a
year and a half ago, because it needed time to build those
robots.

I sorted
through all the data and came up with three that fit the particular
profile I was looking for. TR didn't interrupt or ask questions, so
it had seen what I was doing.

"NLT six
seventy eight PY from Sentah, GGF seven seventy two PY from Entric,
and PPF oh forty five P/CT at large," I reported. "You see any
others?"

"Let's
eliminate the PY class," TR suggested. "It'll be the private
commercial trader and not the private yacht jobs, I'd say. Hijacked
outsystem.

"The trader'd
be expected to know and use Maitan, while the private yachts would
speak Maitan plus the language of their home planet. It'll be easy
enough to trip this one up.

"I'm going to
make a special sensor and fit you with it. It's the same sort of
thing I use to find the right smell for your disguises, so you'll
be able to do it even better than the blind Flimts. You can detect
the right smell for any known race."

"Good! I'll use
Bentan to greet the people on the Sentahn ship. They speak mostly
Bentan on Sentah. Entric will be using three languages. Native,
Maitan, and Searian from the old hegemony. We'll have to check the
background for registration of the private trader to see where it's
supposed to originate.

"You know what
this means don't you?"

"Yeah. I've put
a tracer on each of them already. If that brain's aboard one of
those ships it has TTH drive now. That's trouble. That thing is
sitting right here in this system right now directing those
robots.

"I wonder what
kind of program they have if the director's suddenly gone?"

"Hopefully, we
can get all of them identified before it knows what's happening.
That's when it'll run – if it doesn't decide to fight here."

"It couldn't
have any larger weapons on any of those ships. I don't detect
antimatter. Remember, it almost got me once with artificially
produced stuff!"

"It doesn't
have the equipment to produce it. The standard types of ships don't
have the shielding to go after it."

"It had
shielding of its own. I sorta doubt it could've installed it on one
of those ships, though. It'd have to carry more power than they're
designed to hold."

I grunted as we
landed on Flimt close to the Sentahn ship. I checked through what
the records said about it, installed Bentan to speak, read through
all my experiences on Sentah, and strolled casually over to the
ship as I reviewed the local records. I took a round-about path to
make it look like I was a normal tourist looking for someone to
talk to.

NLT678-PY:
registered to Khlon Dlort J., Sentahn by birth, and owner of a
small recreational hotel there, came to Flimt one and a quarter
years ago and was still here. He was supposed to be in the process
of negotiating for a number of popular gaming devices manufactured
on Flimt and taking a vacation until they were ready to take
back.

Those devices
were manufactured to specifications on Zeena and on Netdel, both
much closer to Sentah. I supposed that Klhlon Dlort J. was hiding
from someone for some reason. I would have to find out. That's what
a detective does.

I used a
portable caller and was told to come aboard to be greeted by a
typical Bentan who was very surprised to see a Swaz on Flimt.

I explained I
was on assignment for the emperor. "This is an important thing, and
I don't care what you're really doing here. I rather suspect you're
hiding from someone.

"I'll
appreciate it if you'll tell me about it. So long as you aren't
endangering others I have nothing to do with it and don't care.
This is a lot bigger than any one person's personal privacy or I
wouldn't be here."

He studied me
for a few moments, then said, "My great great great grandfather and
grandmother on my mother's side were on Sentah during the
establishment of the vacation worlds. The Kheth Tranz, the Terran
Z, the Zeenan Tom, and the Mentan Thing, were all known to them and
were friends. The Terran gave title of the land there to
grandfather and to the school to grandmother, so I trust you. I
trust anyone with the emperor's credentials.

"I was involved
with some people who were trying to organize a phony scheme to
cheat the customers at the casinos there and have been working with
the Vacation Worlds Policing Agency. We managed to capture many of
the criminals and have imprisoned them. None were capital cases and
none have been placed on the probe, so we don't really know who's
behind it, but the police sent me here to stay out of sight. Those
kind of people will kill me if given any chance. They would never
look for me here.