Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (82 page)

"Can we see a
model? Some blueprints? Some proof it will work? Anything?" the
agent asked. "Has it been tried? Can you show us something other
than a lot of claims?"

"Tried?" Kit
snapped in disbelief. "TRIED? Damn it, this is from the Library
records! It was TRIED for centuries! It WORKED the hell for
centuries! OF COURSE I have a model! I'm not stupid, damn it!"

"I see," the
broker said. "Can I see the use patent? Is it complete and for how
long?"

"Here! I
already SAID it was for ten years, minimum! Are you deaf or just
stupid? Damn!" Kit spat and threw the patent and the descriptive
fastcom readout onto the desk. The patent was complete and was
renewable every ten years for ten renewals.

"Here's the
cost of production, the cost of use and the cost to the consumer,"
Kit snarled. "I ain't damned stupid! It's all done, damn it! Just
get off your fat ass and SELL the damned stuff so I can get
started!"

"My word!" the
broker cried, reading through the reports and computations. "This
IS worth billions! Can you really produce them for that figure?
That's all it costs to keep them running? They don't use any fuel
except the storage cells? Why hasn't this been done before?"

"Yes, yes,
yes!" Kit said. "It HAS been done before! How the HELL do you think
I GOT the stuff? DAMN! Don't anybody here have any damned SENSE?
Are you all deaf? You didn't hear me say it was from Library? How
the hell do you think it got there if it hadn't been used?
Cripes!"

"I meant why
hasn't anyone ever found this in Library before now?" he replied.
"This kind of thing is public property anywhere in the empire."

Kit took on a
hard look and tone of someone lecturing a small and slightly
retarded child: "I rather would think it's been done a thousand
times before in the empire," he said. "I also rather think I'M the
first one here to have the common sense to LOOK for it from HERE!
It took me almost a year of looking through all the stuff in
Library to find this. That cost me a lot of credits. The bills from
EFC are right there. That's why I'm out of money. That's why I must
sell stock.

"Will you get
off you FAT ASSES and do something?"

The broker
jumped up and went to confer with his supervisor, who called the
head office, who said the stock would be placed on sale, but it
wouldn't be pushed hard until a place was found for production and
a working model was shown that could be placed on display for
potential investors.

"Well, I can
have a place ready and the model at, say, midday on the day
following tomorrow? It will be at home. Southport. I'll meet your
committee at the port and take them right to the prospective
plant."

It was
arranged.

Neep Tide
marched back to the hotel where he grunted at Frah Lore, who was in
the elevator with him and the other passengers. Lore tried to start
a conversation about seeing him leaving the records offices, but he
grunted and pushed out of the elevator on 3. Lore got off on the
same floor.

*

A similar day
was passed by Tab except that he was pleasant and people were
pleasant to him. He set up his agreement for production and headed
back to Majority City. Both Kit and Tab had the same idea about the
meeting with the broker and representatives. That wasn't so
surprising, as both had the same previous experiences programmed in
or lived through. The communications system made it even easier to
do things that would keep them at about dead even in the
competition. To work, the schemes must be timed to suddenly
conflict with one another soon after the big companies tried to buy
in.

Tab met a
company broker representative, a sales representative with
recording equipment, video and audio crap and two "major potential
investors" from major automobile companies who "happened" to come
along for a relaxing time away from their offices.

"I am Don
Darl," the broker said. "This is the rep, Ginj Fee, and Jehr Nill
and Pond Kard, two people who may wish to invest if this is
anything like it's purported to be.

"Shall we get
this started?"

Tab led them to
the model of the NBPP-PCV-CW, as he had named it. They were excited
at the sleek clean lines and the roominess inside. They were soon
en route to the large structure Tab had rented the day before.
Production could begin as soon as funding was guaranteed and parts
were ordered.

"This is called
NBPP hyphen PC hyphen CW, meaning a word we can't pronounce – a
name of the inventor, really – that started with the N sound, B for
Beamed, P for Power and P for Principle, then the PCV is for
personal conveyance vehicle, then CW for cargo wagon.

"The rear where
Fee, Nill and Kard are seated has fold-down seats. They fold to
leave a large area to carry things. It'll mostly come in handy for
families or small commercial deliveries. The motive power is simple
gravity. The principle is to take gravity, amplify it like we do on
the spaceships, but then to reverse its field with a gravitic
resonator. The car stays about twenty centimeters above the surface
so you needn't stay only on paved roads. You have no tires to wear
or anything else. Nothing touches the road. It pushes liquids aside
so I don't recommend going over water, ha-ha!

"The gravitics
are beamed from the rear to move you forward. As the lower units
neutralize weight and friction it doesn't take much to move you. If
you're standing within a meter or so of the rear grid when the car
starts out you can feel the push. If a full-power start is made it
could knock a person down, but it's a square of the distance thing
so it's not dangerous.

"That rear
propulsion is where the B comes from. There are no moving parts so
nothing ever wears out in the drive train. The doors can be made in
magnetic repulsor fields, but that's an unnecessary expense. Hinges
won't wear out for many years if the owner lubricates once a
year.

"We're here. We
traveled at a sustained velocity of two hundred kilometers per
local hour, the maximum allowed speed on the freeway. I think
you'll have to agree it was the quietest and smoothest ride you've
ever taken at even half the speed! A gravitic field is very pliable
so small obstacles aren't projected to the vehicle itself. The
luxury model will have a double field so will be able to move over
ridges in the path that're much larger than any vehicle with tires
could navigate – and the passengers will feel absolutely
nothing!

"Hovercraft are
almost as comfortable to ride, but are very expensive to maintain
and to fuel. They are loud, while this is entirely silent, as you
have noted.

"The air can be
vented through the reactive part of the field to heat it or through
the expansion vanes to cool it so air-conditioning or heating is
automatic.

"I've rented
this warehouse. Most of the interior parts are already
mass-produced and those we must build ourselves are simple windings
and focuses and things that aren't greatly expensive to produce.
The gravitic focus amplifier is the same type of unit used on the
freight floaters at the ports. They've been around for years, which
is why I'm puzzled that no one thought of this before and patented
it. I'm very lucky I was able to find it before that happened!

"Any
questions?"

* *

“
You
rode the damned thing all the hell the way out here!" Kit exploded.
"How can you be so damned stupid? What the hell kind of question is
that?"

"You have to
admit we can't observe the power cells!" Liht Keen said as
snappishly. "If I knew what type they are and what size and how
long they hold up under what conditions I wouldn't be asking! As
for stupid, it's YOU who needs funding! I suggest you don't forget
that!"

"People'll beg
to give me money for a cut in this and we both the hell know it!"
Kit snapped back. "You can see the space the damned cell's in so
you can figure what they draw! I told you where they were! Just
lift the damned lid and look and cut the crap! You have all the
specifications as to the power drain and lengths in your stupid
damned hand! Can you read? Krostef give me strength!"

The "potential
investor" who had come along, Jit Forr, quickly stepped in. "Let's
not argue personalities," he said. "I can see the car is made of
stock parts – and cheap ones, at that.

"This isn't
much of a warehouse. What will you require, other than standard
stock parts?"

"Coils and
repulsor shields," Kit replied. "Six broads sitting at a line bench
can make thirty six per day. I figure on producing thirty damned
six damned cars per damned day to start!"

"You have
projections of only thirty people to do that?" Forr asked. "They
should come in well under projected cost! You said, ummmmmm, nine
hundred fifty credits to produce a vehicle that you will wholesale
for, uhhhhh, twenty eight sixty three? Why that figure?"

"Because the
assholes will pay that odd figure, but would be suspicious if it
were an even twenty seven fifty or something," Kit replied. "You
left off the twenty one centime. If its some strange figure and
change we must have figured it as close as we could. The retailer
will get right at five thou, which will be three thou cheaper than
the only competition here. It won't cost much of damned nothin' to
run and maintain the things so there ain't no damned competition!
National Motors and Strong Automobiles and even little old Import
Cars will be out of business in a year! We can buy all of their
plants for next to nothin' and can use their labor force to top it.
What the hell more could anyone ask?"

Jitt Forr was a
major stockholder in Strong Automobiles as Liht Keen and Hakj Fold
represented the other companies. The big battle was between Strong
and National. Import was siding with National.

*

It was quite
late. Tab laid back on the hotel bed to feign sleep. Jehr Nill and
Pond Kard had grabbed all the stock and he had the cash to begin
production. That would be immediate, as would the advertising
campaign which Kit would "happen" to see about the time Tab
"happened" to see Kit's ads. Kit sent everything to Tab as Tab did
to him so Tab was aware Jitt Forr personally bought all of Kit's
stock. TR, who had been checking on these big buyers with T6, gave
them the information about them: "Jitt Forr is a majority
stockholder in Strong," TR sent. "He apparently always had a man in
each brokerage firm to inform him if anyone comes up with anything
that could be damaging to the company and will make his own on the
side, even if it means bankrupting Strong.

"Jehr Nill is
National and Pond Kard is Import – same story. It's Strong against
both National and Import, who would soon merge. That's the war
we've heard about. I'm waiting for one of them to contact the other
to gloat!"

Tab grinned. In
the morning he would hire an attorney and would make the strangest
will ever seen on this world, as would Kit. This was going to
happen fast. It had to if the enemy were to be kept off balance
enough for success. The wills would accomplish pretty much what
this world needed to put them among the better worlds in the Maitan
Empire. It was time these people saw the bigger picture of life as
part of a galactic culture and not a closed one-world society.

In the morning
Tab hired a foreman and had her hire the other workers. He put out
contracts for standard parts and hired the drive builders' foreman
and showed her what would be needed. She would set it up, working
from the plans and blueprints Tab gave her. Then he went to the
lawyer. TR had done an extensive search for the type of idealist
they would need to carry on what they were going to start. The will
was a big part of the plan for the ideas it would give to
others.

This was to be
phrased exactly and was to be registered on the empire judge
machine so no one could stop the process once it was started.

Then both of
the detectives could relax except for threatened lawsuits and a
vicious advertising campaign, one against the other. The courts
declared the drives weren't even close to being the same so no
patent rights were infringed, which seemed to send Neep Tide into a
fury, added to by the attitude of "screw you!" Frah Lore projected
back at him.

National Motors
merged with Import suddenly and attempted to then bring about a
merger with Strong, but it was far too late for any of them. The
worldwide demonstrations of the AGD and the NBPP caused all
potentional orders on record for standard vehicles to be cancelled
and left the two new companies with a six year order backlog even
if they were able to make production increases of a thousand
percent immediately.

Strong
Automobiles closed their facilities and offered to merge with AGD,
but Neep Tide said they were as damned stupid as he guessed all
along to suggest it – but he would buy all their facilities at one
centime on the credit. When he finally agreed to six point four
centimes the deal was settled. It was barely enough to keep the
stockholders from actual poverty and guaranteed employment for a
good number of the people who would have lost their jobs with a
permanent closing.

The same sort
of thing happened with NBPP and National Import Vehicles. That left
only Tab and Kit to have a huge international fight, which they did
with great glee. Over one hundred forty days they insulted and
complained at each other through the media. Most of the media
people kept trying to interject the fact both companies would never
be able to fill standing orders even if they worked together and
even using all the facilities of the old bankrupt companies. Others
grabbed every opportunity to instigate more and more enmity. That
was planned, too. T– K knew the psychology of these people very
well.