Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (48 page)

"You will take
a crap in the stream? Why?"

Z was
flabbergasted. He had mused about the machine having intelligence
before sleeping last night. This as much as proved it!

"I meant I'll
bathe in the stream after taking a morning crap elsewhere. I'm
surprised you would note the lapse in the language form."

"T Six
anticipated that and forty two other likely statements you would
make and programmed the answer," the floater explained.

"Anticipated
it? How!?"

"When T Six
programmed the book, 'I, Robot' into the reader it felt you would
consider the fiction and would logically – to you – think about
intelligence in machines. I was to await the language and to answer
with those responses designed to startle you.

"Gotcha!"

"I take it that
was programmed, too? The 'Gotcha?'"

"Yes. I am now
to say, 'Take what? Where?' and to tell you to knock it off with
the idioms."

"Knock what
off? Of where?"

"I am to ignore
answers to programmed illogicalities."

They soon
landed by the stream, where Z was surprised at how stiff he was. He
swam in a small hole for a few minutes to loosen his muscles,
jogged for a few minutes, then climbed back aboard the floater to
eat the delicious sandwiches, which were amaranth bread and
fillings from several worlds. Maita had installed the atomic
architect in T6. Now it could exactly duplicate anything in its
records.

Maita had
indulged the tastes in foods of all those who had been crewmembers.
Z tended to be the gourmet among them. Maita often pointed out it
was as easy to synthesize Nemeedian Gold Wine as it is to
synthesize tea, so why not the wine? It was also possible to remove
extra calories and other poisons as the foods were produced so it
didn't make him fat or end him in a medbox. They once figured what
a typical meal Z and Thing shared would cost in a restaurant IF it
were possible for one restaurant to have all of the ingredients.
The figure in Maitan credits was more than most large businesses
earn in a year.

Z shook his
head. When there was nothing to do his thoughts often strayed
around into unexpected paths. He knew he should be making some kind
of plan for when he arrived, but knew nothing whatever about what
he might find.

The floater
stopped to inform him their destination was around the next bend
and to say it would be following his orders exactly from this point
onward. It was programmed to react to emergency situations only,
now.

"Well, I'll
want you to compute the best course of action for you to take when
I'm not aboard and have given you no orders," Z instructed. "I want
you prepared to take independent action if this backfires in any
way – 'Backfires' means that things happen opposite to what I
planned. It happens to me a lot. That's why you'll find it fun to
work with me!

"Send a small
visual sensor to a point that'll allow me to see what's on the
other side of the hill. Make it something that's hard to detect.
Also, trace anything they're using so we can counter it."

"There are many
sensors in the ground and on the hills around here. They are
generally unsophisticated. I will counter them as we go. It is
possible there are passives such as direct visual devices that I
cannot detect. I am trying to compute where they would be logically
and am avoiding likely places."

"Good! We'll
communicate with the holoscreen and keyboard once we leave this
protected spot. They may have sonics detectors."

The screen
showed two Ternz ships of the shortened needle type side-by-side
against a dug-out bank. There was a camouflage screen across
overhead. No one was visible around the ships or anywhere else in
the little dell. Z assumed they were asleep or were doing something
inside.

"Are there
caves?"

"None that I
can find. This is very sandy soil. It wouldn't make caves. It is
always possible they have fused some of the soil into walls, making
small cave-like chambers, but I cannot find any."

Z watched the
place for awhile, but nothing much seemed to be happening. He asked
for the general layout of the area to be put on the screen. The
floater had sent out very small passive sensors to map every inch
inside of the dell.

"We'll go
around and come in through this little cleft," Z decided, then
changed his mind. "No, we won't. That's a little too convenient.
We'll go across to the right about a third of the way and come in
from the rear of the ships. If I can see a way to cross from the
hill to the ship I can be pretty sure they won't have
sensors
under
there. I
can do all kinds of neat things from there. I'll want to grab one
of them after I find a way to disable the ships. We can then go
straight back to T Six at altitude and fast. I want to know who's
boss of all this and where to find him.

"Let's go
around, okay?"

The floater
went outside of the ring of hills and came across in a little
depression, then down to a spot where the floater would be hidden.
Z slipped off the seat and carefully looked over to the ships.
Nothing was moving.

The pods held
the ships about a meter above the sand. He could get under and stay
hidden. The ships both had atmosphere control vanes.

He saluted the
floater, then dodged under the nearest ship. There was absolute
silence. Nothing moved as he crawled forward toward the port, which
was open. There was nothing moving inside, so far as he could
see.

Z sat to think
a moment, shook his head, went to the rear of the ship and dodged
over to the other. He repeated the crawling to find this ship's
outer portal open, but the airlock inner door was closed. He could
hear a slight scraping and thumping inside.

He could figure
both of them were in this ship. The other one was open. He could
get inside and could probably deprogram its navigational computers
so it would refuse to move. That would disable it as well as could
be hoped.

He went back to
the rear of the ship again to dodge back to the other ship. He
crawled forward, carefully scanned the area with his eyes, listened
to hear nothing, then slipped around and up the ramp. He moved to
the side to look back at the other ship for a minute. In case they
had some trap here, he wanted to know it!

No one came.
Nothing happened. He looked around the room. It was pretty standard
as an entrance with a closed door rearward, a short hall with a
closed door at the end and a closed door forward.

The rearward
door would be to the engines, the one on the end would be to the
bunk room, the one forward would be to the salon and pilot's
quarters.

The pilot's
quarters were where Wordt put the files in the ship across the
sand. Z knew the layout of this one would be the same. Maybe Bast,
if that was who had brought this ship here, had some files of his
own in there.

Z carefully
pushed the door opened and slid inside. He closed the door again
and hit the light switch.

"It's about
time you got here!" Wordt greeted, pointing the heat laser right at
his stomach. "Liahr, I presume? We've been following you since you
arrived across the hill there. Your floater, VWPA issue, I take
it?, found all our little protectors except a very simple thing.
One little string that rang a bell.

"We have a very
old-fashioned periscope to watch you.

"Now you're
going to answer some questions. If we like your answers you might
even stay alive!"

A
Few Answers

Z looked at the
two Jornians for a moment, then grinned. There was no way he could
contact the floater from in here. He would have to stall.

He could use
simple devices too. One such was that the floater would keep very
close watch on this place. All he would have to do would be to let
it know the Jornians were on this ship. It would instantly compute
odds and would contact T6.

"I never saw
either of you – I take it you are Bast? – except in one place where
I saw Wordt, here," Z replied. "He didn't see me.

"So, how did
you find out who I am?"

"We'll ask the
questions!" Bast snapped. "You've complicated a very simple and
profitable business! Somebody's going to pay for that!"

"Please don't
allow Bast's bombasts (Snicker) to bother you, Liahr," Wordt said.
"We will accomplish far more without these unprofitable threats. We
have an operative working in the VWPA who has reported that some
strange empire bureaucrat was making an investigation on its own
and had recruited you. It’s now working to expose our little
venture for personal advancement with the empire police – who
apparently won't allow it onto the force because it's such an
unusual lifeform. It worked with a Maitan called With on Sentah,
but that officer was recalled to some world called Snojahb or
something such. The Mentan remained and has been working on its own
with the VWPA. It is our good fortune it chose a certain chief
inspector as its aide."

Thing!
Z
thought.
Little guy, you're learning! I'll never live down that
'snow job' thing, though
.

Z thought a
moment, but he must know more of what Thing had said. He looked
expectantly at Wordt.

"This won't get
us anywhere!" Bast said. "This guy called the fleet down on our
heads at Netdel! I don't know what the hell Eed's told them!

"Just
what kind of things
did
Eed tell
you?"

"You have to
admit that Eed was far too stupid to be where he was," Z answered
conversationally. "Have the Zurn tell tourists there was some kind
of plague at Rock House? Someone was bound to call Hospital! That
would be as much as automatic."

"Was that
records idiot you?" Wordt asked. "Eed sent the one transmission
over the system that told me he was coming to Long Toe. He told me
about some idiot who was trying to make a name for himself by
throwing the whole sector into a plague panic."

"Oh, everyone
knows about Nurk," Z said, grinning again. "It was sheer luck he
answered the comcall. He's a lousy government test bureaucrat, you
know. There's no way to get rid of him, but this time he may have
gone too far. He had a Fleet ship take him and the Feach to Netdel,
you know. That will get back to the emperor and he'll be stationed
on Drove or something. If Maita gets mad enough he'll find himself
exiled on some backwater world like this one."

"Who the hell
cares!?!" Bast shouted. "He wasn't a damned VWPA operative! That's
all we wanted to know! Just answer the damned questions!"

"Are you in a
big hurry to go anywhere?" Z asked. "You can't leave this planet
without being detected. The satellite will see to that little
detail."

"Yes," Wordt
agreed. "We have planned to stay here awhile, so relax, Bast.
There's no reason to make this unpleasant. Liahr isn't in a hurry –
I'm in no hurry – you aren't going anywhere – relax!

"Liahr, you
were called a Kappin. I've heard of Slentayll and its three races.
You're new in the empire, so why are you with the VWPA?"

"Because we're
used to investigative procedures on Slentayll. The Kappins are.
Mammals seem to have an inordinate love of crime and the chase. The
emperor thinks we can learn from other races and vice versa. The
vacation worlds draw all kinds. It's a good area for us to teach
and to learn."

"I can't
believe you're discussing some crazy empire scheme to train cops!"
Bast cried. "We have to know what they've learned from Eed!"

"The only item
we learned from Eed we didn't already know was one name," Z
answered, deciding to take a chance. "Your big boss. Moodad."

It was like he
had hit them both in the gut. Wordt actually dropped the laser, but
Z figured the odds and just sat there. He had less than a
fifty-fifty chance of reaching it.

Wordt recovered
first, reached down to pick up the pistol and laid it on the
console beside him.

"I don't think
I'll need this. You seem to have better sense than to try anything.
I can move very quickly.

"You may have
put us in a completely untenable position here – or Eed did.

"What did he
tell you about Moodad?"

"Nothing. All I
know is what the report said. Moodad. Eed, as I said, gave us the
name. That's all I know about."

"I see," Wordt
said. "And our reaction told you the rest. There's nothing to lose
now on that path. I'm going to ask some very specific questions of
you. I think you can realize the position you're in, so please
don't make this any harder than it already is.

"Tell me what
you know of our operation."

"First let me
say I'm far from the only one who knows about Moodad,. I simply
read a report. That report is open to all investigators – and to
Emperor Maita if he wants to look through it.

"We know pretty
much how these things work. I can be called a specialist because we
have the gangsters and criminal syndicates on Slentayll and have
had them for centuries. They're popular in or fiction literature.
Action things.

"You run the
gambling, what you'll call 'protection,' loan sharking, forced
prostitution and probably illegal drugs, at a minimum. The easiest
part to find is the gambling because, to do it right, you must
control casino gambling, not just the little games. A casino is a
very visible place.

"Your victims
in the loan business are the next visible part – and gave you away
there – then the prostitution. The drugs were there all along, but
the increase is automatically noted. It's very simple and very
predictable. If you stayed small you could get away with it, but
you never do.

"The Zurn were
a mistake in that the emperor then considers you have deliberately
attempted to improperly manipulate an emerging culture. He gets
furious about that sort of thing."