Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (46 page)

Wordt came in
the smaller door and looked around, then went to the ship to check
something. Z assumed he was making sure it had full power and
supplies in case he would have to leave suddenly.

Z came out,
went through the small door toward the shed and closed it. The
floater came down, but there was no communication with the
outside.

He went to the
side door and was reaching to open it when he thought better. He
waved the floater close and typed for it to use detectors of
whatever type it had to see if anyone was in the shed.

After a few
seconds the screens displayed, "Sonics indicate heartbeat of one
organic being on other side of door."

Z nodded and
quietly stepped back and behind the boxes again as the floater went
against the wall behind some equipment. They waited awhile and the
door opened, letting Wordt in again. He was carrying a box under
one arm and a satchel in the other. He went out and aboard the ship
with the items, was there a few seconds, and came back to the shed
door again. Z waited while the process was repeated, waited more,
called the floater over to determine Wordt had left the shed, then
went aboard the ship, carrying a hand scanner. The lights were on
inside the ship. He didn't need the hand torch or the larger light
on the floater to locate the boxes and the satchel. He used the
hand scanner to record all of it without taking time to read any of
it, himself. He had the crystal for the Jornian language in the
second socket, so could have, but didn't want to take any time that
wasn't absolutely necessary. (There were sockets in each of his
earlobes wired directly to his brain. By placing a crystal
containing the language and customs of a people in the sockets he
had the full use of that language. The wiring was to his speech
centers and, though there were languages he simply wasn't designed
to use, he generally could read, write, and speak a language
immediately upon placing the information crystal.)

He finished,
scanned everything he could in the ship, noted everything was on
standby, then went out and to the shed. The floater immediately
spent more than six minutes sending T6 all the information from the
scanners and a complete report of all they had seen and done.

"The ship's on
standby, the doors aren't going to open to let it out of there, and
you've found one hell of a lot of information that's in a code that
may be unbreakable," T6 said. "I'm going to input all of it into a
special computer Maita put aboard for just such things.

"Wordt's back
at the house and is coding a number into the comphone. I imagine
he's going to try to contact Eed."

"Be Eed! Handle
it! Keep him here!" Z quickly printed.

T6 carried the
whole conversation on Z's earphone for him:

Wordt: "What
happened? Why haven't you gotten here?"

T6 (In Eed's
voice): "Don't use the coms! I have trouble with this thing and may
have to walk. Two hours. Don't use the coms."

Wordt: "I'll
send an autocar. Half an hour."

He broke
connection and T6 said Wordt was going to the garage area.

"Now he's
programming a car," T6 reported. "He has a problem in that he
didn't find Eed's exact location. He's thinking. Now he's figured
how far a two hour walk would be. He'll have to program in some
kind of ID for the car to respond to, but I suppose they have
something.

"Now the car's
going out. We have until that car returns to say no one was on the
road in double or whatever distance was programmed in for
error."

"How close are
they to putting Eed on the probe?" Z asked.

"They won't be
to Sentah for another three and three quarter hours, then they have
to appear before the judge, then go to the probe station – four and
a half to five hours."

"When he finds
he can't get that ship out of here we're in for trouble. Can you
detect what kind of weapons he has in the house? The floater can
handle what's out here."

"There's power
for ... what is he doing? Z! He's gotten into a car and is heading
out the gate. He took a laser rifle from a case and is checking it
as he goes."

"Maybe he
expects Eed to be followed. He.... Ahha! Eed knows too much. A
delay might mean anything! Wordt has to wonder if the big bosses
want more changes on the board of directors than he knows about! He
plans to get rid of Eed. This is a break!

"T Six! Make
some kind of thing that'll look like Eed riding the autocar. If he
shoots it we can claim it's conspiracy due to former knowledge. We
can claim attempted murder. We don't have to wait for Eed to grab
him. We can put him on the probe ourselves – and we damned well
will! I'm tired of bureaucratic delays!"

"Gotcha! He's
gone for awhile. See what's in that house."

"Yo!" Z agreed
and headed for the house on the floater. He was using vocals since
Wordt headed for the garage. There was no one to read the sensors
if they located him.

There were
several places in the house where Eed could have been disposed of.
It was plain it was Wordt's intention to get rid of him all
along.

"He either
figured Eed knew dangerously too much – he may have thought Eed was
going to try to kill HIM, either under orders or on his own, or
there's a general purge going on and it's everyone for himself," Z
reported.

"Maita thinks
the top bosses are probably consolidating their positions by
eliminating anyone they can't fully trust. Thing says we've scared
the top bosses by putting people on the probe. They want to
eliminate anyone who knows anything BEFORE they go on the probe.
The information has to come to dead stop BEFORE the top bosses are
identified."

"I agree with
Thing, but it may be a combination of reasons. The important thing
is they broke their solid front. We can now use the probe as a
wedge to split them further. They'll beg for the chance to rat on
each other."

"One thing's
beginning to worry me 'way beyond tolerance."

"What's
that?"

"I understood
everything you said then! This is terrible! TR and Tab warned me
you would corrupt me! Thing never lets up telling me you've even
corrupted Maita!"

"Stick it in
your focus coils!"

They relaxed a
bit with the game until T6 reported Wordt had lasered the autocar
with Eed aboard. He must have hit the powerpack, because it
exploded. There isn't anything left to identify it or its
passenger.

"I stopped the
autocar and used it," T6 explained. "I figured it would have some
kind of locator device. Wordt knew where it was before it was in
sight. I suppose it broadcasts a sonic or something. Wordt's on his
way home again."

"T Six, I'm
sending the floater to repair the power leads to that motor. I want
to see where he goes. If we have to wait for the probe reading it's
another small delay. We can take your visual recordings of his
shooting the autocar to the judge machine at any time. If he knows
a place but not a name we might come out way ahead. It'll also
serve not to alert anyone else. If the big boss is able to break
the chain before we get to him he can start the whole thing all
over again some other place and some other time and will learn how
to avoid getting caught so easily. Be sure there's a good tracer on
the ship."

"Suits me. Fix
it and get back here fast. I've got an IDmode tracer unit on the
floater. It knows how to put it on his ship. He'll be back in less
than a quarter hour."

Z moved as fast
as he could, and had the floater do all it could, then went up the
mountains and headed back to T6. He didn't have much time left when
he finished the things he felt must be done at the estate. T6 told
him to brace himself soon after he started for Northport. The
atmosphere shields went up and he headed for space on the floater
at its highest speed. He met T6 above atmosphere and felt the shift
into TTH mode before he was able to dismount from the floater in
T6's hold.

"He's in one
hell of a hurry and the damned tracer isn't strong enough if he
gets too far from a relay out of relspace. This is going to be
tricky as all get out! I can always find where he is when he comes
out of TTH, but I'm afraid the important things'll happen before we
could reach him. I want to be within ten minutes of him at all
times.

"I'm gonna try
something stupid, but I'm afraid I'll lose him, otherwise."

There was a
spinning jerk and Z was thrown to the floor.

"Sorry! I went
into TTH fourteen for a thirty fourth of a second, which ... should
.... Hmm. Damn! I lost him! I should be right on his ass!"

"Let him catch
up. TTH fourteen is more likely to take you too far than not far
enough."

There was a
pause, then T6 said they had passed so far ahead that Wordt was
barely detectable at all. It dropped into TTH1, calculated the
time, and went back into TTH4.

"Great
galloping galaxies!" T6 cried. "It's a good thing we don't actually
exist in relation to him in this plane!"

"What
happened?"

"We are
occupying the same space as friend Wordt. If he had dropped out of
TTH as we went into it we would have made one hell of a flash! Now
I have to be certain we don't both shift modes at the same time
when I drop out again."

"Drop into one
and back into four. We should be close behind him then."

There was a
spinning sensation and T6 said they were close enough.

"It's scary!
Any change of plane at that point and it was all over for both of
us! I was scared because he couldn't detect me there and I don't
know where he's going – and we're in almost constant dropout loci.
It's plain blind luck we didn't shift at the same time. I was ready
to cruise like that and let him drop out, then try to find our way
back to him fast. The last thing I ever expected to happen was my
math was THAT nearly perfect! I thought natural variation would
make a miss inevitable!"

They waited for
another nine hours before Wordt dropped into N space. Z was saying
he had to take the blame for that particular miscalculation. It
would've been quicker to wait for the probe of Eed.

Maita reported
Eed had definitely implicated all six of the board of directors.
Hoed and Lang apparently committed suicide before they reached
them. Bast was missing. He was off-planet.

*That leaves
Bast and Wordt the likely heads of the whole deal here. You can
grab friend Wordt as soon as you see where he makes landfall.*

"Oh, bull crap,
Maita! I don't believe it! These things aren't run by committee.
There's at least one layer above the board of directors. There has
to be! Think! Wordt was working to get rid of two of the board
through Eed, then he was going to get rid of Eed. There has to be
someone pulling their strings!"

There was a
silence for a moment. *Thing says it agrees with Z about a lot of
this. What do you think, Thing? Are you there?*

[ Yes, Maita. I
think Z is right. It wouldn't make much sense for him to have been
right except for that single point. I'm sure Eed had some feeling
there's a higher boss giving orders. How is your project coming,
Maita? ]

*Quite
satisfactorily. Eed thinks there's only one boss above the board.
He has heard a name, but it means nothing to him. He simply
wondered about it.*

"What's the
name?" T6 asked. "We might run across it or it may appear in
Wordt's files – if we can ever decode them."

[ I have looked
at the code and think it has a triple base, one of which is
variable. That means a second code to instigate the variable
aspect. Program that in, T Six. ]

"Gotcha!" T6
replied. "What's the name? Do you have anything else? A world?"

*The name is
Moodad. That's all we have. Grab Wordt as soon as possible and
maybe we'll discover something more from him.*

There was
nothing else to do until they were in a position to grab Wordt.
They decided since they had wasted this much time they may as well
see where he was going and who he met.

They came into
N space near Serphum, a rather pastoral little agricultural world
where peoples of several races had established an easy life for
themselves. All they asked was to be left alone. There were quite a
few such worlds in the empire. Their right to choose how they
wished to live was respected. Z was becoming angered more and more
that these gangster types would use such a world, but T6 calmed him
down.

"He's making
groundfall a thousand kilometers from anyone. He's not causing any
problems. So far, I haven't seen where these people do so much to
actually harm anyone except each other."

"They live in
luxury by preying on those who're weak and who can't afford it.
They force these people into lives of crime. They take a race of
people such as the Zurn and use them, and you say they only hurt
each other?

"Listen, T Six.
I'm not someone who bleeds for people who commit crimes except in
rare cases where it's not a matter of their own choice. These
people use blackmail for some offense that would seem silly to you
or me, they trick them into getting too deeply into debt to ever be
able to extract themselves, they prey on a young and impatient
race, and they turn all of those people into criminals.

"It's true many
of them would be criminals, in any case, but it's just as true some
of them wouldn't.

"The funds
they're getting are going for establishing a very few in the
deepest luxury. Those are the funds that're supposed to be going to
University and Hospital, in case that tiny little detail slipped
your mind.

"I know there
are probably thousands of unwilling prostitutes on the vacation
worlds who were forced into that life by these few slimeballs.
Don't try to convince me only those who wish to register of their
own free will are prostitutes. You and I both know that's not
true.