Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (98 page)

"Oh, none of
them would affect anyone here except maybe the Foomishgibble plague
or the Imlithofangle Hinges – but we would have been dead in
minutes if we were exposed to THAT!" Tab said.

The woman
sighed and smiled tightly so Tab continued, "Unless we are immune
carriers."

"Then everyone
in this whole end of the city would be dead by now!" Kit admonished
happily. "As long as we've been around them filling out these
things? Even if we're carriers of something as simple and common as
Frenchtnmrgerbbt Yentermiddenfroshinmuddle Kooshish they'd all have
it by now!"

"Oh, that
wouldn't show up for hours yet," Tab replied, waving the idea off
with a careless shrug. "There's that Heegheehackfoof thing."

The woman had a
sick and tight little smile on her face. She said, "Ha, ha! And
we'd all be dead to show it!"

"Well, you'd
all die all right," Kit said. "The symptoms from that wouldn't show
up for three or four days. I don't ... THINK ... I've ever been
exposed to that one.

"What's the
next step?"

The woman told
them to wait and went into an office where a man rushed out to
stare at them. They conferred animatedly for a moment, the
supervisor snapped his fingers, smiled at her and gave her
instructions. He went back into the office as she came to them.

She gave them
each green tags with their names written on them.

"You can go,"
she said, not getting too close. “Through that right yellow door
you will find the, uh, welcoming committee for diplomats."

"We may be
carrying a plague that could wipe out their race so go to rule one?
Pass us on?" Kit asked in disbelief.

"Yup!" T6
replied on the internals. "I wonder if they told the welcoming
bunch you could be contagious?"

"But why not
just make us leave?" Kit asked.

"Because we're
bigshot empire diplomats," Tab answered. "They don't know what to
do so they pass us on to the next guy and hope they don't all die
in three days."

There was only
one welcomer. He was ill at ease and there were many unoccupied
desks.

"I'm, uh, Gan
Trot Jo," he introduced. "Call me Gan. I'm afraid you took longer
in, uh, processing than we had, uh, thought and everyone has gone
home but, uh, me."

Tab put an arm
across Gan's shoulders and was afraid for a moment he would
faint.

"I'm Tab and
this is Kit," Tab said “Don't worry about the plagues. The empire
wouldn't allow us move a centimeter if there was any possibility
whatever we carried anything. We only said that to point out to
those people what kind of risks their jobs carry. Yours too,
obviously! We're here at your request, you know. Emperor Maita sent
us about a Princess Tar?"

"Oh, yes!" Gan
cried. "Great Lords! You were supposed to be passed immediately
through! Time is of the essence! Didn't you tell them we were
expecting you on the Princess Tar case?"

"They didn't
ask," Tab said innocently. "One doesn't ever volunteer anything to
bureaucrats. It confuses them."

"I'm surrounded
by rank incompetents!" Gan shouted. "How much time has been wasted
by all of this?"

"Well, we
arrived a little over six hours ago," Kit said. "It was during the
morning break, I think. Everybody refused to talk to us until the
break was over.

"Why do you
have those forty eight people in processing section one when you
only need one?"

Gan stared at
Kit a moment, then turned back to Tab. "Do you have any ideas about
the case?" he asked.

"Well," Tab
replied. "We don't know anything except that she disappeared and
you suspect foul play. Are you sure she isn't waiting in some line
somewhere?"

"Some line?
Waiting?" Gan asked.

"We think that
she will probably have to fill out any number of forms and such if
she's Princess Tar and is supposed to preside over congressional
debate," Kit reasoned. "Maybe she put her name on the wrong line on
a form or something and is now being held on suspicion of
sabotage?"

"I don't like
you!" Gan snapped. "That isn't funny! You aren't here to criticize
how we do things!"

"I'm not!" Kit
cried. "You aren't doing anything for me to criticize!
Nothing!"

"Oh. Perhaps I
misunderstood you," Gan said apologetically. "I'm under the
greatest pressure and tend to overreact. I was under the impression
you found fault in how we accomplish our goals here."

"You aren't
accomplishing anything," Kit replied. "I meant it literally when I
said you are doing nothing; therefore, I can't very well criticize
how you're doing it.

"Why would you
be under pressure? It's not your responsibility to find Princess
Tar. You're just a bureaucrat and can blame it on your subordinates
who detained us so long."

"I can see
you're not going to be any help in this mess," Gan complained
formally. "I hope Tab will prove a different case."

"Kit is perhaps
the finest investigator in the galaxy," Tab said. "He resents all
this idiocy you people seem to accept as normal form. I'm used to
it so merely find it amusing.

"Who is to
brief us on the Princess Tar case?"

"I am!" Gan
said. "I just don't think it will do any good! I had hoped the
empire would have some sensibility to a dangerous predicament!"

"The empire
sent us to investigate," Kit pointed out. "We have the best record
of any agency in the galaxy. In the time we've wasted with your
little obstructions we could've probably solved the thing and been
back at Empire Center. The trail is now six hours older than
there's any reason whatever for it to be and is therefore
multiplied in difficulty for us. Your silly excuses don't make
sense because I personally explained exactly who we were and why we
were here while we were still in orbit. Throw the blame around as
you will, that's the fact! You can stand around playing ego games
or you can brief us on the case.

"Quite frankly,
I don't care one way or the other anymore. I'm six hours past
caring if you people find a way to make war on one another. I don't
think you're a viable race.

"Now you can
express your total outrage that I would say such horrible things to
you and thus delay briefing us that much longer!"

Gan stared
open-mouthed at him, colored, started to say something twice,
swallowed hard, ran a hand through his hair and started again.

"I assure you I
am not stalling!" he protested. "I instructed processing to send
you through immediately. It's not my fault if they don't follow
orders! I resent the implication I am being an obstructionist in
this! I am doing everything I can to expedite this matter!"

"Then stop
giving stupid speeches and brief us!" Tab snapped. "All these silly
words are a delaying tactic and are transparent. You figure very
much in all this. We WILL learn how!"

"I ... I...
You?!" Gan stammered. "You accuse ME? I ... I've never!"

"And you never
will!" Kit agreed, smirking. "We'll find our facts elsewhere. You
can rest assured we'll get back to you.

"Come on, Tab.
I'm beginning to see what's happening here, I think. This is a very
amateurish sort of setup."

"I know," Tab
said. "The minute that driver said we had to go through processing
I knew we were to be delayed here as much as possible so I played
along. As the saying goes, Gan, I've offered you the blade you so
wanted and now you've stabbed yourself with it. The blade was six
hours of deliberately wasted time. As Kit said, you knew full well
who we were before we came aground and you knew exactly what we
were here for. I'll make a personal wager with you: I'll find what
your part is in this and will find the Princess Tar or her body
before six more hours. Ten thousand lotz!"

"I don't know
what you're talking about!" Gan shouted.

"You know
something?" Kit shot back, "I'll bet I've heard that statement from
a hundred people and not one of them were being honest when they
made it."

The two robots
left Gan's office and took a taxi vehicle that was waiting on the
street. Tab said to take them to the palace of Princess Tar. The
driver argued that no one would get in there, to which Kit replied
they were expected, which gained them immediate respect. Apparently
the general public had no idea the princess wasn't in the
palace.

The palace had
instructions at the gate to send them right in. They met with a Fir
Well Nate, who was a small nervous man in the security department.
"Where have you been?" he cried. "I was told you'd arrive this
morning!"

"We did," Tab
said. "That's all unimportant now. Tell us all you can about the
abduction and we'll want information about various people.

"I understand
you have computer records on everyone?"

"Yes, but they
aren't as complete as we'd like," he answered.

"We won't be
looking for the things you might think," Kit argued. "When, where
and how was Princess Tar abducted? Who was there?"

"She was
kidnapped yesterday morning as she shopped for her things," he
reported as though reading it. TR sent that this turkey was a lousy
actor and couldn't deliver a line convincingly with six hours more
to rehearse. He was trying to sound natural, but it was NOT
working. Tab and Kit both hid grins.

"The new
garments for the opening of congress, you know," he continued. "It
was on the sidewalk just outside of Gloeb's Best Furnishings on
Main Street and Jo Avenue. There were two serving girls, Hip Li
Kellig and Qu Zanti Flim, and the security guard, Carpet Kale Wop.
She was leaving the store, had entered the vehicle that was to
bring her back to the palace when a man in a hood shoved the
driver, Lieutenant Wop, aside, and knocked him unconscious. He then
jumped aboard the car and sealed the rear doors before Princess Tar
could get out or her girls could get in and sped off northward
along Main. The car was observed turning east on Tik Boulevard and
was seen again out near the Lost Canyon Road.

"The car was
found abandoned in Lost Markt Canyon three hours later."

"Have you heard
from her abductors at all?" Kit asked.

"We've heard
from two organizations who claim to have her," Fir answered. "The
Maorp Freedom League and the Antitax League."

"What were the
demands?" Tab asked.

"Typical
things," Fir replied. "MFL wants taxes against them stopped and AL
wants all taxes against everyone dropped. Both claim Tar won't be
harmed and they only want publicity, but neither case is
tolerable." He was sounding natural now.

"So? Why not
give them a little publicity?" Kit asked. "Surely whoever has her
would let her go then."

"We cannot
allow the subversive elements to use such extreme tactics to make
their ridiculous demands!" Fir cried. "It is intolerable in an
orderly society!"

"But people
know your form of government can't exist without taxes," Kit
pointed out. "No one will pay attention to them anyhow so nothing
is lost."

"They can't be
permitted to spread their lies!" Fir sniffed. "They take one or two
petty things and expand them all out of proportion! They make some
small incident seem to be important!"

"Surely people
have better sense than to fall for those crude tactics," Kit said.
"Just let them have their say and let people laugh them down and
your problem solves itself."

"They will get
converts to their causes if we do that!" Fir cried. "You don't
understand these things at all!"

"Unfortunately,
we do," Tab answered. "I'll need full access to computers. We'll
solve this and prove Maorp has nothing to do with it then we'll go
away and your secrets will be safe."

"But everyone
knows Maorp is behind it!" Fir protested. "What secrets?"

"We've learned
that what everyone knows is generally not the case on any of five
thousand worlds," Kit replied. "If you didn't have secrets you
wouldn't care what they said and you'd give them all the publicity
they wanted. No other argument makes any sense.

"The computer,
please?"

Fir seemed
exasperated with them, but took them to a computer terminal with
access to all the records.

"I'll supply a
dataform expert to help you," Fir suggested.

"It won't be
necessary," Tab replied. "I can get what I need."

"But there are
classification codes no one can get past!" Fir insisted. "You will
certainly need a, er, guide to help you."

"Most of what I
need won't be classified," Tab dismissed with a wave. "The reason
things like this happen is you don't know how to read the evidence
at hand. If I run into any problems I'll call you."

Fir left with a
smirk, being sure they couldn't get anything out of the computers
that were his pride, then Tab located the input/output terminals
and plugged himself into them. The system was fairly sophisticated
and it took most of an hour to find how to extract everything in
it. Kit was linked with him so read the information as Tab input
it.

"Pretty much
what I was thinking," Tab said as he replaced the leads into the
sockets under his arm and "grew" the flesh back over them. "We have
to determine where she is and if she's part of it."

"We'll locate
her through the property records," Kit suggested. "I'd say she
wasn't in the car when it turned into the Lost Markt Canyon Road. I
recorded the map on the wall at processing. It'll be somewhere
along the route. She was put into another vehicle and is ...
where?

"There's a Wit
Irr Xam who's head of the New View Society which Gan is secretary
of. When you crosslist memberships and leaderships the AL is a
creature of the NVS. I don't know why security hasn't discovered
that fact."

"Because
nobody's pushed the right buttons yet," Tab replied. "I see that
Xam has a large estate along the Iron Canyon Road. It's isolated
and close to Lost Markt Canyon Road. Better than fifty-fifty she's
there. How will we handle it?"