Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (41 page)

"You see, we're
here on direct orders of Emperor Maita," Z said. "There's quite a
large organized criminal activity on the vacation worlds. We have
orders to put an end to it.

"By authority
of Emperor Maita, I hereby enjoin you and all of your officers from
mentioning anything about this case to anyone. You aren't to so
much as discuss it among yourselves."

"Oh, stars!"
one of the officers cried. "When I mess up I do it at the worst
possible time! I should have had the sense to check that car!"

"Our orders
weren't plain," Z said. "What's done is done. We should've told you
Narmel would stay in the car. We as much as knew it.

"Can you have
Klaht taken directly to pad eleven C?"

The captain
picked up the com and gave orders. Z said the ship was under the
control of T6 when he wasn't aboard. The arresting officers were to
simply place him in the room it told them to. Their responsibility
ended there. He then said it was a good thing only those three knew
anything about the operation. It was easier to contain loose talk
when there were so few. It was most important no one knew there
were empire agents about or that there was an investigation. If
word of either thing got out the emperor would be furious, and no
one in their right mind wanted Maita to be furious.

They got the
point. There wouldn't be any leaks from that area.

Z headed back
to T6, where he told the officers still waiting outside of the ship
he was delegated to deliver Klaht to Tltle, as he was going there,
anyhow, and was already employed in a police capacity by the court.
The captain looked at him through a VWPA officers scanner and
okayed it. He went aboard and they headed for Tltle.

"What about
Eed?" Z asked when they were in TTH. "How did he give us the slip
so easily?"

"I have the
listings of the ships at the port," T6 replied. "It took a good
while, but I figured it out. It doesn't matter much, because we
know he's headed for Bypass.

"Hoe translates
to zero in Jornian. Goht is eight. Nea is F. It wasn't even a
disguise. Eed simply told Klaht to use the name he used when he
landed. He was going to use the ship on pad oh eight F.

"Maybe he
didn't arrive in that one. Maybe the subterfuge would be that if
they trace him here they'll assume he's still here because the ship
he came in is still here. At best, they'll have to try to trace
which ship he left in."

"He seems to be
smartest when he's not trying. Let's get Klaht in here. We'll stay
as we are, because we'll definitely go to Bypass after Eed. Klaht
seems to know a lot about him, so maybe he can tell us about
someone higher up. It won't hurt to try."

A panel slid
open into a small but comfortable bunk room to reveal Klaht sitting
on the bunk, glaring.

"Come on into
the dome and let's chat," Z said. "Maybe you can save yourself a
lot of trouble by answering a few questions now."

Klaht came to
sit across the console. "What's this all about? You can't take me
off! You're not even a legitimate cop! This is illegal detainment
and imprisonment!"

"I just did,
and I'm an empire agent. We're breaking up the Jornian deal on the
vacation worlds. You have information that can save us a lot of
time. We won't have to wait for the probe before going after Eed
and his bosses on Bypass.

"Do you know
who his bosses are?"

"I don't even
know what you're talking about! You can't put me on any probe! I
haven't done anything!"

"I can have T
Six run the holos of you putting that bomb on Narmel's ship. Murder
is capital. You go on the probe."

"You ain't got
no body or nothin' and I can't be put on the probe for
circumstantial evidence because I can't get a capital sentence on
no circumstantial!" Klaht snarled triumphantly. "I ain't stupid! I
know my rights!"

"Yes,
you
are
stupid!" T6
snapped. "You're being charged with conspiracy to commit murder.
That's capital. You go on the probe. Period."

"There ain't no
such thing!" Klaht cried. "They done told me how tricky you cops
was! You can't fool me! I ain't stupid!"

He
wouldn't budge from that position. They had to take him to the
judge and wait for the results of the probe. He didn't know much
beyond what they already knew, but his results made it legally
plain he
did
murder
Narmel. It was done under direct orders of Eed.

Next stop,
Bypass.

Following the
Trail

*I'm preparing
a great surprise for you. Thing is helping me with it while it
can't be with you. I've only told you about it enough to keep you
curious, but don't ask more. I was able to trace Eed's ship to
Bypass. It's on pad six on Northport – not at Port City. You will
have pad eight, right beside it. I handle all those port machines
there. It's already arranged and natural-appearing. Very few
organic beings are there at this season. I suppose that's why Eed
uses it. You will have to be very careful. While it's true there
are fewer and fewer people who know the higher bosses in these
things, those bosses are better and better protected. Records show
Eed has a large mountain estate that's somewhat isolated by the
fact that access is limited to one small poorly-kept road. The air
approach is too small for any but vertical take-off and landing
craft. It will also be very well-fortified, I am sure. T Six,
prepare the large floater on your way and Z can use it instead of
renting something with a tracer beam built in. It should be fully
shielded and what have you and should have a variety of weapons.
There will be shields for most of them. It can be disguised as one
of those ground skimmers they rent to tourists.*

"I'll go to the
shop and design a few weapons they WON'T have defenses in place
for," Z suggested. "I'm a little tired of all these technological
things. We've used primitive weapons against these things before –
and with success. We hit 'em with the last thing they'd expect.
They’re never ready."

"We'll make
whatever you need," T6 said. "We're on our way, Maita. I'll keep
the channel open."

They made the
trip, but orbited for several hours until the weapons and floater
were prepared before landing on the pad Maita designated. T6 put
microbeams on each ship at the port – there were only four others –
so that, should Eed run again, the trace would already be aboard
and would send location every time the ship came out of Idmode over
the fastcom relay system. Maita could also follow them through the
fastcom unit, itself, but Maita was in the Netdel system at that
time. T6 would soon enough have the tracer system added to its
equipment, but for now they would have to improvise.

The ship Eed
had taken was a fast little number of a very expensive executive
class ship. There was another of much the same type across the
field T6 said it noticed before Z mentioned it. It was the perfect
type of ship to make a quick getaway in.

"I'd say
there's a good chance Eed has company," Z said. "I wonder, is it
someone at his level or one of his bosses?"

"I'll check the
registration and route...." T6 agreed. "Hmm. From Sentah. It could
be ... it's registered to New Innovations In Mechanicals here on
Bypass, but the records show it's on loan to – gasp! Choke! Gag!
Shock! Surprise! – Hotel and Restaurant Robotic Engineering! I
would never have thought of that! Wow! Do you think those people
from Innovations might possibly know someone from Robotics?

"Crazy,
man!"

"I think you've
lost it," Z shot back. "I didn't know those old expressions were
still in the records.

"Any indication
of who's flying the thing?"

"It's supposed
to be a Jornian citizen by the name of Clewt. Clewt is one of the
six board of directors of all those lovely companies. He's probably
Eed's boss," T Six replied. "Do Earth syndicates have boards of
directors?"

"Not at this
stage," Z answered. "There's just one person or family – and that
family has a head – who's in charge.

"Are those on
the board of directors blood relatives?"

"What the hell
does that mean?" T6 demanded. "I don't have ALL of your stupid
idioms programmed in. There's no record available to me that would
tell if they've shared damned transfusions!"

"Gee! I thought
you knew everything! You can come up with 'Crazy, man!' but don't
know what blood relatives are?

"Are they all
related in a single family situation? Are they genetically of the
same recent lineage, not more than, say, three ancestors
removed?"

"They don't
seem to be second cousins or closer kin, no. I'm not going to get
you into an argument, am I?"

"A battle of
wits?" Z said innocently. "Not right now. I don't believe in
attacking the mentally impaired. It would be too much like kicking
someone solely because they were defenseless. It's against my creed
to attack an unarmed foe."

"Good shot! I
knew you'd come up with a good answer – given sufficient time."

"Time wounds
all heels. Shall we get this show on the road?"

"Now you really
did lose me! I get the 'show on the road' bit, but you can explain
the other part."

"We're speaking
English. Crossreference homophones and reverse the expression."

"Oh! Neat! I
needn't mention it's obviously not one you came up with yourself in
only three hundred years. It was completely out of context."

"But within
wider definitions of the homophones if you're the subject. Look at
the slang meanings of the homonyms."

"Hmmm? You cad!
Get your wagon loaded and away!"

Z knew T6 was
experimenting with the word games they played. He wondered about
bringing homophones and homonyms into it with a machine who had all
words in all languages at its disposal. If it went into
translingual homophones it could leave all of them unable to reply,
though that would be stretching the understood limits of the
game.

Except for
Maita.

And Tab and
TR.

And maybe even
Thing.

"Sheesh! Hell's
fire! That only leaves me to be lost!" he mumbled as he climbed
onto the floater.

He was relaxed
now, which was the main use of the games. It would be to his
benefit to have his mind freed of too many petty distractions that
built up. Those little nags and worries were put aside. They
wouldn't break his concentration at a critical time.

T6 was
going to work out very well with the crew, but Z hadn't ever
doubted it. He had known and liked Rimalt with his strange, subtle,
dry humor and knew of the story of how Rimalt discovered T Six was
independently intelligent (Short story:
Describe
Intelligent
).

There was a map
on the floater's holoscreen that showed Eed's estate as a flashing
point. The floater was two meters across. It differed from the
standard one in that it was half a meter thick instead of only a
few centimeters. It had very large energy capacities and very
powerful gravitics drive units. It also had several built-in grids
that folded out to guide the shields and laser, stunner and other
weapons and tools. It carried six small sensor floaters, along with
a voice-programmed unit to control them as well as full ranges of
sensors aboard. It also had the atmosphere shield that could make
it into a spaceship, but the drive was relatively slow. The
atmosphere would give out in four hours. It was useful as an escape
pod in the near vicinity of a usable planet or to go from ship to
ship in space.

T6 carried two
of them, as did TR. Maita carried several. It could make them in
its shop section as needed in emergencies.

This one looked
from a distance like a groundskimmer craft of the type rented to
tourists who wanted to explore the vacation worlds on their
own.

The estate was
sixty one kilometers from the port across some rough mountainous
areas. It was a large stone castle built as a high wall around a
central area that was about half an acre in area. There were three
personal carriers parked in the central courtyard, all aerial.

There was a
road winding along the valley and through a pass toward Northport.
There were large doors at the castle end of the road, indicating
there were probably land cars inside the castle in some sort of
garage. This wasn't an area where mountbeasts could be pastured.
Conveyance would all be mechanical. That would be a good point,
should they have to follow any who left the place.

Z stayed a
little outside of the pass to one side of the road. It wasn't
likely there were sensors there except for the standard radar type
the floater detected and neutralized. He rose to sit just behind
the radar antenna to look over the situation. He could approach the
place from any number of angles, but that would probably get him
nowhere. He couldn't use the radio here. It could be detected
easily, so he placed a light beam transceiver on the peak above the
port, placed one on the peak across and would leave another one at
the base of the radar installation.

"Look," T6
suggested. "Nobody here ever saw you or had any reason to notice
you on Netdel. You could ride the floater along the road into the
place. You're a tourist out exploring. I'll put a sort of beam
tracer unit on the floater like the ones on the commercial models
here you can turn off when necessary."

"They'll
probably have posted signs. I won't have any reason to pass
them."

"An isolated
place like that? On this kind of world? Signs would attract
attention – the last thing they want. On those rare times anyone
comes they'll have some way prepared to make the situation there
seem normal, I'd think. The fastest way to get rid of unwanted
guests is to welcome them, then be too busy to spend time with
them. If you try to keep them out they get suspicious."