Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (36 page)

"This place is
set up to watch everyone at all times. I wonder if maybe this isn't
a big blackmail stage."

[ How would
they do that? What would they get from – I see. The cop at VWPA.
The commissioners to give them permits. Whatever they use to keep
the empire from getting any hint of the schemes. People to work in
certain parts of their businesses. ]

"You got it,
Pal!" Z agreed heartily.

They went into
their suite and the floater showed there were no less than four
various "bugs" in the main room, alone, and two in each of the
other rooms. They would use that to their own best advantage.

The floater
printed messages in English on its screen for them telling where
each spy device was located and which type it was. A small sensor
device in Z's toilet kit told them two separate servos were in the
room to place some of the devices. Each of them had secondary
visual circuits as well as acceptor antennae, so they could be
minutely controlled. They gave a complete visual to the
controller.

"Trace where
they go somehow," Z instructed the floater. "The control type means
a close room. We've already noted the place seems set up for
constant surveillance of all patrons. They'll probably have a room
on every floor at close to a midpoint for their recorders. We might
have to arrange some malfunctions or something later. We'd best
know where the crap is."

[ Leave a
floater with a magneto-type eraser handy so we can erase everything
they have in the recorders as soon as we find what we need from
this place. That should put a crimp in their blackmail business.
]

They brought a
small portable fastcom set – which showed they were vastly wealthy
– with power pack when they came from T6 to the Sea Foam. They had
a standard encoder attached. It was a good one, but could be
figured in time, though they didn't want to make it too easy. The
syndicate would have to intercept the input pulses and the sender
pulses. The device was carefully shielded from where the board
could be viewed.

Again, don't
make it too easy or it would become obvious.

The printout
could be viewed, but would be in code. It would be necessary to
interpret the words through finding the code on the output
sequencer.

Thing sent a
message describing where they were and how to reach them. It would
be the logical thing to send and would speed the decoding process.
It would give the decoder device the names and numbers of the
hotel.

T6 simply sent
"received and understood." That would aid in the decoding, too. It
was a very standard phrase.

The two then
went to a restaurant for dinner and returned to the rooms, where
they sent a great many messages about the places they had seen, the
game at Marmum's, the crooked setup at the clubs, and about Narmel.
They mentioned they were followed by a Bentan – as anticipated –
and there were a few more Zurn than they at first thought were
involved. They described various of the ways the crooked games were
being run, showing an intimate knowledge of the devices. They also
sent rows of figures of estimated "takes" from each of the
operations and of each individual part of the scheme. All of this
would be recorded and decoded when the syndicate found the key
sequence (Pi times the date Maitan divided by the date on Tltle. It
would be something the mathematics machines could find in a few
hours if they had enough to work with. They were being given plenty
to work with).

They then went
to various clubs, where they were never allowed to bet more than
the stated house limits. They still won half a million credits
before the night was over, which they donated to University.

They sent more
messages, then slept, after sending all the information and
descriptions of the afternoon and evening's work.

The following
day they took a boat trip on an impulse and left the Bentan who was
following them standing on the dock. He hadn't seen what they were
doing until too late, tried to jump aboard without a ticket, and
was removed by the local police.

Z stood at the
rail and grinned at him as the boat moved out into the harbor. He
ran along the dock, rented a small boat, and followed the cruise
for the entire day. When the boat unloaded that evening, Z and
Thing were standing on the dock waiting for it to come in. The
Bentan was staring wide-eyed at them as he almost rammed the dock
while returning his rented boat.

The cruise boat
stopped at various islands and the two simply went toward the boat
minutes before it sailed, waited until the Bentan climbed into his
little boat, and strolled back off again. They were back at the
hotel before noon. The Bentan followed a cruise boat full of
tourists.

Z wondered what
his report would be like. Would he tell the bosses about it? Did he
dare NOT to tell, seeing they were on the dock when he got back and
there were probably others who saw them there?

They spent the
afternoon mostly on T6. As they had expected, a Krome in Port
Authority garb – such as was worn on Tltle, which was very little –
came to try to discover why they had taken a commercial flight from
Sentah, then their ship shows up on Tltle a day later. He tried to
make it appear it was merely simple everyday idle curiosity. T6
reported his badge was a fake and he wasn't registered at the port.
They knew they had Narmel and company very confused about that.

Narmel came
back in a small fast ship registered in his name and noted T6
wasn't at the pad on Sentah when he left there. He was notified
when it showed up here.

It was known
the emperor's ship was intelligent and as widely rumored that
TRD-60 was intelligent, as were Theron and Searcher. Normal had
checked the automatic empire directory, which showed TR was on some
planet called Friml and T Six didn't look at all like the emperor's
ship.

[ A friend
borrowed the ship on Sentah and returned it to us here. We have
borrowed ships from friends. It is a rather common practice among
our little group. ]

"But no one got
off the ship here!" the Krome cried. "Where is he?"

"She," Z
corrected. "I think she owns a little place here. She certainly got
off the ship. I don't think you'll find it came in on a beam. It
sure as hell didn't land itself. It's not Theron, you know!

"Maybe she has
a, uh, FRIEND here who doesn't bother to note her comings and
goings? Such things can be, er, ARRANGED, if you know what I mean.
That sort of deal goes on all the time in these sorts of places.
You know that perfectly well!"

"The law says
the port authority must check all people in and out!" he said
haughtily.

[ How the hell
would you know what the authority requires? They also require that
all personnel on the facility staff are registered with the
computers of the ships using that facility. Your badge number
doesn't exist and there are no Kromes on duty this shift. You are
either a cop or the opposite. We don't much care which. It's none
of your damned business. Go tell your boss or captain or whatever
that we're not quite so easy to fool. It's none of their damned
business, either. We answer to no one, most certainly not to
unauthorized off duty phony port cops! ]

"We know
something about what's going on here," Z explained. "Narmel doesn't
know diddly about what WE are doing! Tell him we said he has a big
mouth and would be smart to learn when to keep it closed! If he
worked for us we'd have closed it for him when he used Eed's name.
Permanent! If either of us made a slip like that, you could be sure
we'd, shall we say, have an accident. A fatal accident!

"This is the
sloppiest operation I've had the displeasure to see in a long time.
There're going to have to be some changes made here. Some very big
changes. This is a ludicrous excuse for a business venture!

"Go away!"

[ We learned a
long time ago it's safer and easier to use the empire's rules in
our own favor. Your bunch of idiots will bring the whole place down
on all our heads! They're a bunch of inept amateur clowns! They
couldn't even stop me from walking into their joints and
bankrupting every damned one of them in ten days or less! This is
the sloppiest mess imaginable. It sits here like a damned beacon,
broadcasting who you are and what you're doing. Real smart! ]

"Oh, they could
stop you!" the Krome sneered. "Like you say, permanent!"

"If they let
you survive making stupid threats in their name, let them know if
anything happens to either Tec or myself steps will be taken," Z
replied pleasantly. "Those steps will fall on every one of their
stupid heads!

"Clear
enough?

"I think I told
you to leave this ship. In approximately ten seconds I'm going to
report someone impersonating a Port Authority Security Officer to
the empire overseer. This ship, like all others in the class, has
fully recorded everything about you. I think Crummin is the prison
planet out here?"

The Krome got
out. Fast.

[ That's a
challenge they can't ignore. I wonder if we'll get a reaction.
]

"It's one they
don't dare test, either. Maybe we can jolt them into doing
something, now. We have all our sensors ready. We have a sort of
plan forming. We have to make them do something that'll give us
legitimate excuse to put Narmel on the probe. I'm sure that'll lead
directly to Eed, then we'll know pretty closely where the rest of
this leads.

"I want Neel on
the probe, too. I think we can use the fact he's a law officer and
has signed away his refusal rights if substantial charges of
misfeasance or malfeasance are brought against him. That's a
standard part of the process. If you get the job you take the oath
and sign the waiver.

"We really do
have to force Narmel into making the first move, though. We can't
instigate it, ourselves. That's entrapment. Maita draws the line
short of that.

"We're going to
have to avoid situations where an assassin will hurt bystanders
again from this point onward. They'll get desperate when none of
their little plans to get rid of us work. We also have to make it
definite to them that doing us any real or permanent damage will
result in a war they can't win. The dangerous period is from now
since we gave that challenge until we convince them violence
against us is deadly to them. That'll mean hoping they've had time
to decode what we've sent, so far.

"T Six, we're
going to the hotel. We have to get some answers from you that make
it seem some really powerful people are fast becoming impatient
with us. People we're afraid of. We have to sometimes seem to be in
charge and other times to be answering to someone really powerful.
Keep them confused and off balance. We have to make this time as
short as possible. I don't want people getting hurt. I'd rather do
it like Maita wanted to than that.

"We'll try to
end it all at once. Picking at the fringes won't handle things.
They'll stay a step ahead of that."

"I read you,"
T6 said. "Maybe we can scare hell out of them. They should've had
time to decode the fastcom by now, so we can try. I've got a spy
floater following the Krome."

[ They will
think we have some superior here on Tltle. It's a female. There's
no way we'd lend a Zeenan F-class ship to anyone. Ships can't land
themselves. That means there was someone aboard who has the power
to actually buy someone at Port Authority. If that doesn't scare
them I don't see what will. A Port Authority recording officer is
checked by machine and the machine reports deviations to the
emperor, directly. Everyone knows that. ]

"Yeah," T6
said. "Talk about power! NO ONE would dare to mess with the
emperor's little setups. Everyone knows the old fart is a stickler
for details. He only screws up in big things!"

*Stick it in
your focus coils!*

Z had forgotten
Maita was listening to everything said on T6.

This was a ship
after his own heart. It was going to be great fun when TR and T6
ganged up on Maita!

Captured!

When they
returned to their hotel after the former session two Zurn and a
Bentan were waiting inside of their room and jumped them with a
powerful anesthetic before they could react. Thing was riding on
Z's shoulder then, too, and its floater was locked outside. As it
lacked any specific orders it reported to T6, who sent several
armed floaters to surround the room on each side, above and below.
There were drapes across the windows, but the floaters could
"image" the beings inside to some extent with infra-red scanners.
T6 determined to wait a short while before blasting into the
room.

When Z came to
he found Thing was in a steel cage-like device and he was tied
securely in a chair. He was a bit groggy and had a vicious
headache, so knew they had tried some kind of hypnotic drug on him.
Maita had built a device into all of its crewmembers long ago to
neutralize the chemicals, but the Zurn couldn't know that. He acted
very groggy and confused and waited. He signaled with the tooth for
T6 to stand by, but not to interfere. Yet.

Thing couldn't
do much in its cage and couldn't communicate to any extent with
anyone but Z, who knew its signals from the years of being
together. Z sent a strong feeling of being in control and saw Thing
relax a bit. The little empath would be as worried about him as he
was about it. He quietly and carefully studied the room and the
Zurn. He decided on a plan. He finally felt he had some idea of the
setup. He groaned and struggled against the ropes, even though they
were obviously proof against escape. That would be the reaction of
a drugged person.

"Stop
struggling!" A Zurn demanded. He relaxed.

"What is your
true name. Where are you from?" the Zurn asked.

"Ehhhh ...
Karnisheer Nottingthorp Braithewaite Killingarten Needfreshin
Eisenhower Churchill the Fourth, from Plamaita," Z mumbled.