Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (99 page)

"By being as
arrogant and self-promoting as they are," Kit suggested. "We can
rent a car and go to call on Wit Irr Xam."

They rented a
car and headed along the roads. The cars were designed with enough
automation to where they wouldn't disobey traffic rules and were
easy to handle. Engage a starter switch and steer. There was a
brake pedal. This car was as overly-supplied with useless luxuries
as was the government car.

They drove into
the Xam estate, showing an armed guard at the gate the green tags
with the government's official seal on them. The guard didn't know
what to do so called the house.

Tab said to
tell Xam the diplomats from the Maitan Empire were there to discuss
an important matter with him. That so puzzled the people at the
house they let them in. They drove to the front of the house and
parked across from the large carved doors. Several assorted
servants came to meet them, though no one seemed to have any idea
of what they should say or do.

Tab declared
they wished to speak with Wit Irr Xam on a matter that had been
brought before the emperor. They were then led to a large room with
terrible tasteless furniture, ornate rugs, cases of obviously
unread books, music systems playing insipid dead tunes that
reminded Kit of the dirges on Klooster, television sets running
with no one in the room and servants peeking out of doors at them.
An old man stood as they came in and introduced himself as Xam. Tab
introduced himself and Kit. "We came because the emperor was asked
to intervene in the Princess Tar thing," Kit explained. "We think
this has gone far enough. Please call her in so we may return her
to the palace and get away from this ridiculous excuse for a
society."

"I don't know
what you're talking about," Xam said. "Please have a seat and we'll
discuss this."

"Those are the
very same words that Nate character used when he tried the same
lie," Kit said. "Isn't it obvious that we KNOW she was brought
here? You're the nominal leader of both the New View Society and
the Antitax League. You want to cause a cutoff of funds to Maorp
and feel this is the best way to do that.

"Does the
princess know she has to die to make it work?"

Xam studied him
a moment, then turned to Tab.

"Is your friend
always so impetuous and blunt?" he asked.

If he wanted to
play that game Tab was willing. "Xam seems to be confused as to how
we determine our facts, Kit," he confided, ignoring the existence
of the object of the words as Xam had. "Do you think he really
believes we don't know?"

Kit almost
grinned as he said to Xam, "Really? Did you tell her she has to die
or this thing won't work at all? That there has to be a body?"

"What is he
talking about?" Xam asked Tab.

"Do you think
he told her? I don't," Tab said to Kit.

"Well, we
should really be on our way," Kit said to Xam. "Or have you already
produced the body? We can be the ones who find it for you!"

"Stop this!"
Xam demanded of Tab.

"Stop this!"
Tab demanded of Kit.

"Stop this!"
Kit demanded of Xam.

Xam sat there
with his mouth open, staring from one to the other of them.

"Oh, look!" Tab
cried. "He's going to recognize your existence! Does that mean I
don't exist to him now?"

"Get out of my
house!" Xam spat. "I won't stand for this! Get out!"

"I suppose you
could call the police in," Tab suggested conversationally. "Of
course, as we're working directly for the government of Gloeb we'll
demand a thorough search of this house and grounds. It would be a
lot smarter to produce the princess. Why go through a silly
scenario that can only end one way?"

Xam had pushed
a button on his desk and now two armed guards ran into the
room.

"Bad move," Kit
said. "Now we have you. If you do anything at all to us the empire
will come here and squash you like the bug you are. We have tracer
devices following us, you know. This is as much as admitting you
have Tar so call her or bring us her body. We've spent most of a
full day on this and our time is too valuable for us to sit around
playing your silly games."

Tab looked at
the guards and ordered, "Bring Princess Tar here! NOW!"

One guard stood
looking at Xam and the other moved his rifle between Tab and
Kit.

"You're not
going to use that thing," Kit said. "Quit waving it around like
that. We don't care about your stupid politics here. We were called
to locate and return the princess. We'll stop at Maorp on our way
back out and teach them how to be self-sufficient. Better – they
have more of the things you need than you do the things they need.
Our real investigation will be into why they're kept so subservient
and dependent on Gloeb when with very little effort it can be the
other way around."

Xam waved at
the guards, who went back out. "All I want is to quit paying so
much to subsidize that worthless project!" he said hotly. "I
haven't harmed anyone. I simply can't afford that sort of thing!
There's no return on it!"

"In the first
place you pay very little or no taxes now," Kit replied. "You're
making a great deal of money from those who can ill afford it.
You're the useless subsidy on this world. You and those like
you.

"No harm?
You're deliberately trying to start a war! Just get the princess
here and we'll be gone."

"Oh, that
wouldn't harm anyone except a few of the lower class welfare
recipients," Xam said offhandedly. "World would be better off
without 'em! Need something to control the population among those
common types. Breed like rodents. Always causing trouble. Don't
understand the value of things! Better off without 'em in the first
place! Just a tax drain that produces nothing."

The guards came
in with the princess between them. The family resemblance with Xam
was striking. "We missed that!" Kit sent to Tab on the
internals.

"There was no
family line on the princess," Tab agreed. "She's supposedly
selected at the death of her predecessor by lottery and raised to
be the princess. Her previous existence is erased at that
point."

"Your
daughter?" Tab asked.

"Niece," she
replied. "We feel it's now time that something was done to bring
real progress to Gloeb. That necessitates certain strong measures –
including reducing certain sectors of the populace and cutting
ourselves off from Maorp."

Tab grinned at
her. "And did Uncle Wit bother to tell you it couldn't happen if
you were alive?" he asked. "They’ll have to present a positively
identifiable body. Everything from your retinal prints to your
dental records are on record."

She stared at
Tab, then turned to Xam, who wouldn't look at her.

"Shall we go,
Princess Tar?" Kit asked. "We were telling Uncle Half-Wit here how
we can solve the Maorp problem for you. We'll present this as a
conspiracy between Gan Trot Jo, who obviously is your main agent to
Xam here. You owe him nothing whatever so you can say you were
working in the interests of your people to expose this dastardly
plot. The reports are on file as to how you were abducted so no one
will take their word for anything.

"Of course,
you're going to be watched very closely for the rest of your life.
If anything like this ever comes up again we'll see that certain
recordings we've made in this room are suddenly found. Is that
clear enough or do you want me to describe how the people will
literally tear you limb from limb when they see and hear your
statements in this room?"

No one had
another word to say as they led her to the car and headed for the
palace.

* * *

As they left
Maorp Kit sat shaking his head. "It still doesn't make sense!" he
said. “I understand why we had to do it this way. Your
transmissions made that plain enough. Now Maorp will be
self-sufficient in less than one year and will be in economic
control in less than two. It'll be quite an upheaval. Princess Tar
will be forced to spend the rest of her insensitive life fighting
for the people she most despises. Jo, Xam and six others will be
executed in a few days. The system is intact. We haven't changed
anything there.

"How did you
know that the people on Maorp would be so much more sensible? How
did you know they were that different from their relatives on
Gloeb?"

"Because
they're pioneers," Tab replied. "It isn't our job to change
societies in that way. If we jump in and start dictating to them we
end up running their bureaucracies. We don't have the facilities
and it's against empire policy to demand use of the machines. We
would get involved in a way we couldn't extricate ourselves from
and all progress these people might eventually make would cease. We
did the indirect thing. We'll let Maorp hold it together for a
little time. They'll progress a bit more, no doubt. Maybe they can
change direction, but a people have societal inertia. It's more
likely that as things become easier and more structured on Maorp
the disease of Gloeb will spread back there and it'll be the same
thing again."

"But
Earth progressed to Mars Colony and the cure spread back to Earth,"
Kit argued. "They're overcoming their history."

"That's because
Mars was the cure for the disease there," T6 interjected. "Maorp
isn't a cure, it's only symptomatic relief. If you want to keep the
comparison going perhaps a certain mild immunity will build while
the symptoms are being suppressed and they'll make real
progress.

"Earth had one
vital thing that Gloeb doesn't have: Earth is a Maitan colony. It
had its own disease of fixed societal inertia, but it had the
immunity of the Maitan stock at the same time. It was a hard
battle, but the hardiness of the Maitan race came through for them.
This culture has to build its own immunity. I don't think it
can.

"I've been
wrong before. We can hope I'm wrong again.

"We're home! I
never thought I'd be glad to see Perfect Three in my scopes!"

"I dunno," Tab
said. "I kind of like the place."

"Do you realize
you've been gone nine whole days?" TR asked over the speakers. "You
sure waste time!"

"Hey!" Tab
suddenly cried. "I never collected my ten thousand lotz from Gan!
Now he's been executed and I'll never get it!"

"I don't know
what you're talking about!" TR snapped.

Tab and Kit
started giggling at that, then T6 joined in.

Have you ever
heard a spaceship laugh?

Eighth Case

"Kit, you and T
Six will go to Avaran Three while Tab and I go to Neuten two,"
TRD-60 instructed the robot detectives and the other intelligent
ship. "Kile was killed coming from Avaran to Neuten. There was
simply no way it could have been done that I can find."

They were
trying to find even a starting place in this thing. They were
called by the Inktan, Letuz. It was to be a simple business trip,
then her partner was murdered in a deadly old-fashioned way while
seated in the midst of thirty six assorted peoples and while Letuz
was sitting in the seat by his side. He had been stabbed through
the heart. No one saw or heard anything.

No one knew him
except Letuz so far as they could determine. No one had motive,
personal or political or anything else, which made it obvious that
Letuz had to be the killer.

That was the
logic of everyone concerned so she demanded the probe be used on
her and had been totally exonerated. There is simply no way an
organic can fool the probe.

That left them
with all thirty two passengers and six crewmembers as suspects.

The ship
returned to Avaran so Kit would interview the crew and would check
on anyone who was in any way connected to Kile there or on Ternz or
Inkta, the two other places Kile had already been on his route. Tab
would interview passengers on Neuten and trace any who left to get
a statement and would go to Zuni and Harce, the last two worlds on
Kile's route.

"Meet back at
Neuten?" Kit asked.

"We'll decide
that after we've seen what we see," T6 replied. "Maybe we can solve
this one logically and fairly soon. There’ll be something obvious
that everyone's overlooked. Murder ain't exactly common on a
spaceship with no way to escape and noplace to hide!"

"Fat chance!"
Tab said. "If they'd kept the ship on Neuten and kept everyone
there until we arrived we could have sorted it out fast. As it is
we may have had all our opportunities removed before we get
started. This one will be all old-fashioned legwork, Kit. We've
used deductive reasoning and luck, but this'll be the kind of thing
most detective work really is. Lots of time and the gathering of
small clues that don't mean anything in themselves, but add up to a
pattern. There will be clues that seem important at the time, but
that end up being meaningless. Either that or it'll be one of those
things that're much too obvious for anyone to see, as T Six
stated.

"Let's get
started, TR!"

The two
detectives left Perfect (Hah!) 3, their base planet and were soon
in TTH14, the fastest drive yet discovered and one only TR, T6 and
Emperor Maita (A spaceship, but that story's been told) could hope
to use as it was necessary for the ship to have complete control
and to have tremendous computing ability along with true
independent intelligence.

The ships were
literally part of the detectives as well as having their own
distinct personalities and were at all times linked to them through
an internal com system. Tab was designed to be indistinguishable
from a Swaz, an amphibian being, while Kit was designed after the
reptilian Kheth. The ships could change them into many different
kinds of peoples when necessary. There were now more than three
thousand worlds in the empire so undercover work had new challenges
added all the time. This was going to be almost a locked room
mystery with an added twist: The room had been a spaceship billions
of kilometers from anything whatever and was even in another
dimensional plane at the time the murder took place! At the moment
the two detectives were transposing into N space several thousand
plazsis (MGS lightyears) apart, they had exactly the same thought:
This was going to be interesting!