Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (93 page)

Very easy,
actually. All directions were read facing away from the center of
the city, which was a large building which housed the queen and her
brood.

Kit went out to
find the car. He punched F7 and felt a smooth surge of power as the
car sped along. The walkways were on a level below where the cars
moved. The cars were computer-controlled and sped along in complete
safety.

The commerce
building was exactly like all the others. Kit looked over the
control board and punched for the car to wait, then went inside
where he saw a line of desks with signs. He found furnishings,
which would do for part of what he wanted, agriculture was another,
engineering supplies and equipment was another.

This wouldn't
work for him! It was much too compartmentalized!

He was looking
around in bewilderment when he heard a buzz. He looked to see a
clerk waving to him. It was at an information desk.

"Many are
confused when first they come here," the translator explained. "We
are not the kind of people you have dealt with before and you find
us far too regimented to understand. I am placed here to help you.
I have learned how to randomize thought.

"You probably
see there are many different people to see for buying or selling
what, to you, are many things, but we tend to specialization in all
things.

"Please feel
free to ask anything. I will try to answer your questions and
arrange for you to meet with all of the necessary emissaries at one
time."

"Thank you,"
Kit replied. "I am called Tongz. I am a seller of equipment of many
different descriptions, from agricultural to engineering to
weaponry to transportation.

"It's general
equipment, but I have contacts under which I can agent specialized
items. I even sell spaceships and electronic equipment, as well as
new monopolar navigational and gravitics and fastcom equipment.

"You can see
how I am completely confused."

He had thrown
in the weaponry to see if there was a special reaction. He couldn't
read any expression on these people, but a button was pushed for
each thing he mentioned, including weaponry.

"If you will
please go to conference room B, six representatives will meet with
you there soon," the clerk instructed. "The halls are lettered from
your left to your right. The first is A-B and the second is C-D.
The numbers are lowest here at center. Take that hall and you will
find the room is the sixth door on your right.

"Feel free to
move about as you please here. If we can be of any service do not
hesitate to ask. It is our function to serve you."

Kit thanked the
clerk and went to the hall.

What was going
on? These were very open and friendly people who obviously had
nothing whatever to hide!

Compartmentalized. That was the word. These would know nothing of
the military branch. That was another department – another
specialty.

He entered door
B6 along with several of the Rrnslth, who spoke little among
themselves. They seated themselves around a large round table and
invited him to sit wherever he was comfortable. There were seats
designed for the anatomy of the Bentans so he took one. They all
looked expectantly at him.

He went through
the spiel T6 had prepared for him. Anything they wanted from the
list could be supplied at the prices quoted. He gave careful
specifications to those who asked about them. It seemed each would
ask a series of questions, excuse itself and leave the room. Soon
only Kit and one Rrnslth were there. He didn't know what to say so
he asked if he had missed something.

"You mentioned
weaponry as you entered and I am the weaponry procurement expert,"
the translator said.

"Oh, I see!"
Kit replied. "Yes, I have access to any form of weaponry, but I
only mentioned it in listing products at the desk. I didn't think
your people have any need of weaponry out here. It's a very
peaceful place it seems to me."

"We do not
directly need weapons, but we have friends who are not so
fortunate," it replied. "If your weapons are of certain types I
refer you to another who knows about such things. If they are
merely police small arms I deal with the subject."

"I have the
larger military weapons, mainly," Kit said. "Shields. Phase
shifters. Laser cannons. Disruptor beams. Big stuff. It's major
military hardware, not civil police weapons."

"I will give
you an address and an appointment with Jorpt," it replied. "You
will be contacted about the other things should we have use for any
of it.

"I am to ask if
you plan to buy anything?"

"Yes," Kit
said. "I plan to move cargo in both directions. I was planning to
ask information about a list of companies that deal in exportable
items."

"There are no
companies here, but information will give you a list of those
persons to contact. Here is Jorpt's address. Would this evening at
nightmeal be convenient?"

Kit took the
address and thanked the Rrnslth, went to the information desk to
get a list of exports and contacts, then got into the car and
punched for the hotel.

Tonight at
nightmeal! Jorpt was most definitely NOT a Rrnslth name!

*

Tab went to the
information center, found the method of moving about the city and
where the best hotels for Bentans were, though he was immediately
assured that the Rrnslth weren't in any way interested in baubles
or luxury items.

Tab said he may
be able to tranship from Glrvcch to the people in the arm who did
want luxuries. He was referred to N-Out-N Industries, who were the
only transhippers on the planet at the time. T8C6.

He punched T8
on the car and sat back.

Immin females
wanted all the more barbaric trappings of power and that meant
jewels and special rare animal pelts and such, all of which TR
could produce in good quantity and in little time. It had already
produced a nice tray of blood diamonds and burgundy rubies and
opals and was building some of the finer pelts. They would be
indistinguishable from the real thing.

Tab had an idea
and instructed TR to add one little item to the pelts.

N-Out-N was
operated by Bentans almost exclusively. They employed several
Rrnslth for their special abilities. Tab gave the name Lipcz and
was soon shown in to a Bentan called Morp, who talked awhile about
generalities and about how business stunk out here. "There aren't
any people who want the range of stuff we carry," he complained.
"We can move all the cheap junk we can get in, but it's simply not
worth the trouble to get it out here. There's a market for the
really expensive garbage, but we can't afford to buy on chance. It
leaves us in a lousy spot. Luckily, these people here buy and sell
enough to keep us going and we have a couple of off-world contacts
we do the major brokering for."

"We may be in
luck then," Tab said. "Those people who like the expensive stuff
might make us both a nice little profit. Could you move twelve
perfect blood diamonds and some other really good stones? Nargreq
hides, perfectly cured? Stuff like that?"

"We could move
it, yes, but we couldn't take a chance on deposits," Morp answered.
"They fail to pick up one item and we're over the line and broke.
You're talking about primary deposits in the millions!"

"No deposits
necessary," Tab replied. "If you can move the stuff in a short
enough time I'll wait around. I'll sell it cheap. I don't want to
take it back."

"Oh?" Morp
asked.

"Let's say I
don't have too huge an investment in it so I can sell for a price
no one is likely to be able to better," Tab said dryly. "It would
be a great pity if I have to cut the stones any smaller and the
hides are, uh, identifiable, shall we say, by someone else who may
feel he has an interest in them."

"If we were in
any situation other than the one we're in I'd have Empire Police on
your ass so fast you wouldn't know what hit you," Morp said
smoothly. "We need a break. Twenty percent and we give you a
for-cash buyer. We won't ask any questions and you won't volunteer
anymore information. Fair enough?"

"I really don't
care one way or another," Tab replied. "All sales cash does it for
me."

Morp
snapped on the com and said, "Zayz. Loud." They sat back to wait
for less than two minutes. A male and female Bentan came into the
room to be introduced. Loud, the male, presented him a standard
contract which they filled out at twenty percent, then Morp and
Loud left the room.

"They don't
want to know who my contacts are or anything else about all of
this," Zayz said. "I wouldn't deal any other way.

"What exactly
do you have and what's your price?"

"Twelve two
hundred ten MGS gemweight blood diamonds, perfect grade, twelve
matched two hundred MGS gemweight burgundy rubies, ditto grade. I
have one hundred forty four perfect Travittian Nargreq hides ditto
grade.

"I want one
million per diamond, four million for the twelve rubies and one
million and a half for the hides. I'd like to make a single sale
and be gone. The contract says you add commission to the price.
That's still less than half the standard value."

"Seventeen
point five million credits, plus a flat four," Zayz said. "I get
overage above the twenty percent and I handle all cash and
merchandise. I can't guarantee I can move it all – not at one sale,
but I'll damned well try! If I can do this one this company will be
financially safe for a few years, at least! I'd like to go to bed
tonight knowing we would meet the salaries of our workers for the
tenday, for a change!"

"That's good
enough for me," Tab said. "How much time do you need?"

"I'll try to
finalize in ... fifty hours," she said. "Speak to no one about any
of this."

Tab nodded and
gave her the address and comcode for himself at the hotel as well
as the channel TR had set to use here so she could call him at the
ship if necessary. He went to the hotel to wait.

If there were
Immins here – and he was sure of it now. They would be the only
ones who would be looking for these items – they would be put in a
real bind unless they had a tremendous amount of cash stored with
themselves from a hundred years ago. They wouldn't be able to
resist Kit's weapon's deal and they wouldn't be able to resist
these symbols of ostentation. Quite a lot would be learned in the
next few hours about the strength of the Immin forces out here.

Tab went back
to TR where he contacted T6 and Kit.

"How did they
hide?" Kit asked. "I didn't get the references that Syntar and
Leilanta mentioned at Plamaita."

"There was the
chamber on Searcher," TR replied. "You know about that?"

"You mean they
put a whole army in stasis?!" T6 asked. "Great colliding
galaxies!"

"They use
fusion reactors so it would be easy to maintain automatically," Tab
explained. "A hundred years is nothing. To them, it would be like
blinking. Put the whole ship and contents into the field on an
asteroid near some explored system there wouldn't be any reason for
anyone to go to again. What we have to know is if there was one
ship or several of them. If there were two or more we can get them
to fighting each other the same way we did before."

Kit
hadn't directly been involved with any of the Immin wars, having
not been built yet, but had all the information in the memory banks
on T6.

They waited.
Finally Tab got a comcall at the hotel to contact Zayz
immediately.

"I have the
cash," she informed him. "Bring the stuff off of your ship and
deliver it to me at the company. Have it all loose. We're going to
check every piece very carefully!"

"For tracers
and such, I'll bet!" Tab said to TR. "Maybe I know a trick or two
myself!"

* *

Kit put down
the com and grinned. He was to meet with the same Bentan who met
with him for nightmeal two days ago, Foest. There was a deposit
ready for some very heavy weapons. The arms were to be delivered at
a specific time to a small moon in a close uninhabited system and
left there. The remainder of the cash would be delivered as soon as
the arms were unloaded, then the ship was to leave the system. If
any tracers or detectors were found Kit could fastcom his last
goodbyes to whoever might be interested. They would have a crew
check every single item with detector scanners.

As there would
be no delivery it didn't much matter. This had determined as much
as it could. The object was to estimate the number of Immins
through the number of weapons, matched to the psychology of the
race.

There were four
ships. The new-style shields were ordered for three full sized
battle cruisers and for one smaller ship. That would be the command
ship. The numbers of other arms were figured closely so there would
be between two hundred and two hundred fifty of them. The things
they didn't order showed they were fairly well supplied
already.

Kit made up his
mind and went to meet Foest.

"You hold the
deposit," he suggested. "There'll be a delay of a couple of days in
delivering the stuff. For two reasons: There's some kind of plague
that attacks mammals of certain types or something on Trav ... on
the world where I stored the stuff. Causes the skin to break out in
blisters, then to rot and fall off after a few days and the person
dies in horrible pain. That's one reason.

"The other is
my carrier was called by Hospital to carry serum to fight the
virus. I wish they had the sense to immunize everyone like they do
us.... Well! The ship was almost at Hospital when the plague got
started and was scheduled to go to Tra ... to the planet where the
plague is anyhow so was the natural choice. I have that serum
aboard my ship at all times, but not enough for all of that! It
spreads like crazy! Trouble is, symptoms don't show up for a couple
of days so one person can spread the stuff over several
planets."