Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (80 page)

During the
second testing two pockets of extreme plague were uncovered, one
the capital. Mi Yinn found herself forced to decree regional
suspensions of the constitution, but few objected. It was better
than dying!

There was no
need to establish the threatened quarantine areas as peer pressure
made those who would claim religious or other excuses think
carefully, then decide it wouldn't be worth it. The quarantine area
would hold those who refused testing so one might very well not
have the plague when he went in, but would have it the following
day. The chances were about fifty-fifty and those were terrible
odds. The chances rose to ninety nine percent by the end of the
first tenday.

Enn spent much
time studying the constitution, then the book of explanation Sop
sent to him. He quickly noted the definition of "fair" on the note
leaf and groaned. He agreed with the principle, but this would
throw the entire criminal justice system out of kilter!

Then again,
"fair" was the basic reason the people had overwhelmingly, almost
unanimously ratified the document! If it were to be called a
"justice" system there must be an honest attempt at true
justice.

Enn considered
calling in his legal advisors, then decided his hands were tied in
the matter. They were operating under this constitution and ANY
attack on it would be considered betrayal. Though it was much
against his nature to do things that way he decided he would wait.
In ninety days it would become Hal's problem automatically, but....
Well. It would be only fair (Ha!) for him to warn Hal.

He got Hal on
the com and asked if he had read the clause.

"Yes, I did,"
Hal answered. "I can foresee that this will be the biggest fight
the new government will have – the wealthy and powerful trying to
save their position virtually above the law and the average and in
particular the poor fighting for equal rights and fairness. This
system we have now is a legacy of the old gods, passed down through
the churches. It's pure favoritism traded to the wealthy in
exchange for luxury for the leaders of the churches."

"Have you
thought of a way to handle this?" Enn asked.

"Oh, I already
have all that arranged. The printed definition – with which I fully
agree, by the way – was made by one Sop Lett, writer and explainer
of the constitution. Guess who is to be National Attorney and who's
shoulder this load is going to fall squarely on?"

Enn laughed
shortly. "I don't for one second doubt he asked for the job. You
know, I'll bet that slippery con-man will find a way to slip out of
even this!"

"Believe me,
I'm counting on it! The success of this thing will lay very much on
his being able to enforce that one word. That word is what the
Constitution is about!"

They chatted a
moment, then Enn hung up.

Another legacy
of the old churches, he thought. We have to feel each step we take
now. Where can we turn for help but to our own selves after the old
gods have so abandoned us?

Maybe we can
choose our own paths. We may be wrong, but our suffering will be
ours, not those brought on us by some outside agency.

How I'd love
the right to turn this job over to another! To trade places with
one of the fishermen on Tekif!

None would be
so foolish as to accept that trade!

He went to the
council room puzzling over what could possibly motivate those
idiots who would actually seek the job of National Chairman and
decided the Mentan had been quite right. Politicians weren't really
sane. They should be disqualified by dint of the fact they would
seek the job!

* *

Mi Yinn sat
suddenly at the table and put her head in her hands.

Okay. She was
pushing too hard. Ten more short minutes and she'd be in total
physical and nervous collapse.

She went to bed
and set the alarm for two hours. She would have to get by on that.
Hal saw her pass his room and saw her stagger so he waited until
she was asleep, then went in to turn off the alarm. It was more
than seventeen hours later when she awakened. She of course knew
immediately what had happened, but couldn't become angered. He did
that because he knew she was flirting with disaster. She felt well
for the first time since she was named health officer.

What the
hells! If anything important came up they would've come for me.
They didn't, so it didn't!

She got up
humming, took a long shower, then went out to the kitchen where Jak
Tall and Sop Lett were arguing about something to do with politics.
Hal was definitely elected as chairman, Enn Far was to be vice
chairman for this first term.

She smiled. How
Enn would love to tell them to stick it and go fishing! It hadn't
yet sunk in to Hal that this was real. Maybe it never would. Hal
was that way.

How she loved
him!

She hadn't
cared for Sop Lett at first, but held her peace because he was such
an important part of this. She slowly learned he wasn't what he at
first appeared and warmed to him considerably since the cure,
though she felt he feared her for some reason. He tended to sound
like a sexist wallowbeast, but was really not. He talked one way
and acted another. That constitution was all the proof anyone could
ask and that little fairness thing would someday cause a lot of
people to rethink their haste in endorsing the document – if they
were the wealthy, that is. That one little word would take all
their perks away from them.

Good! It was
about time!

The second
twenty-day test was due, starting tomorrow – today! Well, that
could be handled without her! She was being called constantly from
all over the world to accept awards and honors, but she had
politely refused them all, saying she wasn't the one who deserved
the awards. It was Hal and Jak and the crew. All she had done was
to implement the program after THEY discovered the definitive cure
for the plague. Even the fishermen and farmers had more actual
impact on the project than some bureaucrat administrator like Mi
Yinn!

Sop went on
worldwide TV to say it was true Hal and Jak had developed the two
steps, but she put them together and came up with the cure from
them. She also designed the program that was completely successful
in Klarstenland and was being copied elsewhere and she had the
fortitude to act without procrastination when she was named
National Health Officer. Her modesty was misplaced!

Now all she
could do was to wait it out. In fifty seven days her husband would
be sworn in as the first elected Chairman of Klarstenland. The
entire country had seen he was the most truly concerned, brilliant
man alive and he would govern much more honestly and fairly than
anyone else they could think of.

There's that
word again! That one word can bring my whole ship of dreams
crashing in on the reef of reality. This fairness is a radical
idea. It might not be something the world is ready to accept. It's
being dangled before the poor and being promised to them and they
won't ever let it go again.

In the other
glove the rich and powerful will never give up their special
position above the law! It's all Sop's doing!

She walked over
to sit next to Jak Tall to ask Sop what he intended to do about the
mess he had caused the government before it was even seated.

"We've solved
that!" Jak replied brightly. "It's only a matter of whether Sop's
method will be used or mine."

"I would think
Hal would have the problem. He'll be chairman."

"He outsmarted
me," Sop complained lightly. "He will appoint me as National First
Attorney so it will be my future responsibility to handle that
problem. It is, after all, a LEGAL problem!

"I have a
little something in my glove!"

"I say there're
far more poor and average people than rich and powerful so tell
them to stick it!" Jak suggested. "Hal's chairman, but he has to do
what the constitution says. The rich have their own armies, but the
point must be made those armies consist of the very people they
would try to fight. There's no way they'll ever again take this
government away from the majority. That tyranny's a legacy of the
old churches, the old gods. It's all dead."

"That was then
and this is now," Sop agreed. "We have a new world and a new
system. The old gods are dead and the old world is dead. We have
defeated the plague and that is symbolic of defeating the old
ways."

"I guess I'd
have to agree," Mi replied, "but remember, the plague could come
back even now! Symbolically, so could the old tyranny. The virus
could mutate or a mutant religion could arise. That's what Enn
meant by maintaining constant vigilance, but it IS scary. We have
to learn how to act after the old world and after the old gods.

"You know, I
think there's an even chance we'll make it!"

Flight of the
Maita

Book 22

The T-K
Casebook

11 shorts

© 1987 by C. D.
Moulton

Tab and Kit set
out to learn the detective business.

Critic
comment

Moulton sets
out to combine detective fiction with science fiction. Some are
fair, but I don’t like the idea, personally. All-in-all, better
than average, if just – KL

Rtng: ***

Contents

Hello, I’m Tab!

First Case

Second Case

Third Case

Fourth Case

Fifth Case

Sixth Case

Seventh Case

Eighth Case

Ninth Case

Tenth Case

Eleventh Case

See You Later!

The T– K
Casebook

Hello, I’m Tab!

Tab went to the
dome of his ship (And part of himself. He was a robot) to watch T6
come to rest on the next pad.

TRD-60 (Tab's
“other half” as well as his spcaeship), affectionately called TR,
carried the landing on internal screens, but somehow Tab wanted to
directly see the ship come aground.

T6 was another
intelligent spaceship and had the robot, Kit, aboard. Kit was to T6
what Tab was to TR. They were both friends and partners and a
strange schizophrenic single being, though each had its own
distinct personality.

Maita, a
spaceship, intelligence and, through a strange set of
circumstances, emperor of the Maitan Empire (Most organic beings
didn't know their emperor was a machine, though "emperor" was only
a title. The empire was now little more than a galaxy-wide trading
guild), had built Tab/TR to teach it something about organic
thought processes. It had failed at that, but Maita, Thing ( Mentan
empath. Small squarish, rubbery, stalked eyes, tentacles), Z
(Terran, mammalian, bipedal, K-form male), Tab/TR, and now Kit/T6
were all fast friends and adventurers. Each had its own strange
sense of humor and a deep affection one for the others. It was a
new thing with Kit/T6, but it would soon grow to the proportions it
had reached among the rest of them.

Tab had run the
Tabori R. DeSixtee Detective Agency on the planet called Perfect 3
(Hah!) for over a century and now would take on a partner. As soon
as a case came up that would fit into what they wanted the training
would begin. T6 was fitted with all the new equipment TR/Tab and
Maita were always designing as well as the TTH14 drive only Maita
and TR ever had before. The TTH14 drive shunted the ship into and
through a dimensional planal any ship without immense computing
capacities and independent intelligence couldn't hope to control.
In TTH14 one could cross the entire Milky Way galaxy in hours,
though the destination wasn't practical to figure very closely.

Yet.

The last part
of any journey was spent in the normal TTH4 drive, then down to STL
drive to planetfall. It could be a distinct advantage to be able to
arrive in a distant place where it was, so far as was known,
impossible for you to be for many hours yet.

Kit was made in
the form of a Kheth, a being from a reptilian society. He was of
the general form (K-form) of many bipedal races such as amphibian
Swaz (Which Tab was designed to be indistinguishable from),
mammalian Terrans, Maitans, Bentans and so forth. He was just over
two meters tall, had a very thin waist and was very muscular. He
had no hair, of course, but had a fleshy crest across the head. He
was a light tan-brown. Tab was shorter and thicker in the waist,
had semi-webbed fingers and toes, dual-lidded eyes and a narrow fin
down his back.

TR or Maita
could modify Tab to resemble other races. Now the same would be
true of Kit. Maita could modify Z a good bit in the medical
machine, but Thing couldn't be modified to any extent whatever.

Kit and Tab
were indistinguishable from the beings they were designed to mimic.
They could eat, drink and carry out all the normal functions of
those beings. The food and drink was dropped directly onto
mini-elementizer grids that broke anything down to its constituent
elements, which could be stored, vented off in the cases of gases
or excreted when such processes were necessary.

Tab had even
taken lovers at various times and had functioned exceptionally in
those areas, though he couldn't father a child. The pleasure
response Maita programmed had been modified several times, as he
was a machine and was capable of wearing almost any normal being to
exhaustion. Z often made jokes about a horny machine, but they made
what seemed to be merciless jokes about one another on any subject.
It was really a display of affection, though often observers
thought they would come to blows. They all had a strong sense of
fun.