Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition Page 26

  "No, that would make it too dangerous to innocent bystanders.

  "Maybe if we could make them think ... we'd have to stay away from places where we would endanger people, Thing. I think we can get this working just right with only a little adjustment."

  [ I don't have even a minor conception of what you are talking about! I doubt you do! Just tell me what to do, then I will do it. ]

  "We'll have to fight them in one of two ways. Either through the police, which means bringing in empire agents and giving the judge machines conspiracy law or by establishing a rival gang.

  "Back in the bad old days on Earth the rival gangs had regular wars with each other. The trouble with that was a lot of innocent bystanders got gunned down in the crossfire."

  *We'll do parts of both things. I was about to say we might have to forego my restrictions on the use of the probe in this case, but there's certainly logic in the way you present the case for conspiracy laws. It truly IS the final responsibility of the highest person in the organization who gives orders for someone to be killed. It's their act of premeditated murder. The fact it was accomplished by proxy means nothing. Next you can pretend to be agents of some much stronger boss who wishes to establish his own syndicate. Killing you would simply bring down who knows how many in an army that has one purpose. To crush opposition. Better to share than to have nothing! Maybe you can work something out that would save anyone from being endangered who's not directly involved.*

  "I was going to suggest the second part," T6 said. "I can stay in communication in some form they can be made to discover. It'll be by fastcom, so they can't track where the signal originates. I can be given the results of all you do in a breakable code. You'll send from the hotel room. They can hear you through the taps they've already put there. If you use one of the standard encoders they can break it in short time."

  [ I agree to that. We can have the floater there at all times to tell us when and if anyone near is carrying weapons and to remain in positions where long range attempts on our lives are basically impractical. T Six has placed the multi-faceted weapons system on the floater. I feel a lot safer, so far as the innocent bystanders are concerned. Through all this scheme we have to consider the bystanders first and our little project second. Okay? ]

  *Definitely!*

  "Yes. Certainly," T6 said.

  "It goes without saying. Once we establish all of that, we can arrange to be captured in some fashion or other for questioning," Z said. "I could bet the big boss would want to be somewhere he could observe the questioning, even if he doesn't do it, himself. We can have a tracer floater in range that can be called at any time by Thing, Thing's floater, or maybe even through my internal recorder."

  "I can have tracers close, but undetectable," T6 agreed. "I don't have the medbox yet, but I'll take you to Maita. It'll want to change cartridges on the recorder anyhow. It can put a switch somewhere."

  *I'll put an organic switch under a tooth. You can work a code with your tongue. I'll change the cartridge, but we have one small problem with this. That recorder will broadcast radio, so they can detect it.*

  [ I don't think so, Maita. The only radio the floater detected around here is machine to servo. Everything else is direct wire, light pulse, gravitics, and monopolar induction. You will simply have to use something of a much shorter wavelength than the servo machines use – or longer. It will have to be something that has penetrating power, though. It will have to get out of buildings most of the time. Broadcast range won't be such a big problem, but resistance to interference will. ]

  *I'll make it tracer-type burst broadcast on a fine frequency separation and put it among the frequencies the machines use. That will make it virtually impossible to find. I have millions of frequencies registered for the hotels and casino servos and those things. We can insert it on a standard channel.*

  "Good idea," Z agreed. "It's mostly a matter of finding something that's not in use."

  "Aren't all frequencies handled through assignment?" T6 asked. "The empire machines do the assigning. Put the frequency into the bureaucratic machines a year or so ago to something that could be anywhere. It'll then not be assigned to anyone else and the scanners won't question it. You can put coded bursts into a background babble. All the unassigned frequencies are scanned to prevent problems, aren't they?"

  *Done. Building Maintenance Innovators is a company owned by the empire, anyhow. I have several hundred frequencies already registered. I'll simply pull one servo out of use and use that frequency. The machines will ignore it. It also points out that if we can do it others can. I'll have all the in-use frequencies scanned for content periodically.*

  "Yeah," Z said. "It did occur to me any company owned by these crooks could've been doing that for years. Maybe that's how our rooms are entered so easy. They might use the hotel servos so if they're found in a room they can be passed off as some machine that was checking wiring or plumbing or something."

  [ That would mean secondary broadcasting visual scanners on them to allow what they find to be seen and recorded. They should be easy to find. We can set a trap for that right away. Just so we'll know. Maita, call the hotel and have us transferred to somewhere else. We know Narmel has something to do with the Sea Foam Palace. It's not far. Put a passive sensor in our luggage or something. ]

  *Yo! Good idea! T Six can bring you two out here and we'll do the rest of it. I wish I had time to change Z enough to where he would pass for a Jornian or even a Zurn, but we'll have to work with what we have. You'll find a lot of Kheth at the Sea Foam Palace. You know you can generally trust them, but bear in mind that generally isn't always.*

  They went to Maita, where the cartridge was changed in the recorder in Z's chest when the radio pulse transmitter was added. He could push a molar with his tongue at a certain angle to call a sensor floater and another to send a trace beam. He could push one on the other side to signal distress.

  T6 soon took them back to the pad at Port City where they took the shuttle to the Sea Foam Palace. They entered the lobby and looked around at the setup. There were fancy tapestries on all the walls. It was likely there were doors behind some of them for quick, unexpected exits.

  [ It's tasteless and overdone, so I can see Narmel's influence before we even go in the front door. You can bet the food will be substandard. Let's eat at a good restaurant somewhere. There's an air of decay and sleaze around anything he's connected with, though that may only be a psychological connection in my own mind due to knowledge. I already don't like the place. ]

  The elevators were automatic, as were the baggage servos, but the floater detected several watching and listening sensors in the elevator. It detected them in the halls, in the lobby, and everywhere else. Thing and Z used Terran English. They knew no one would understand that, in any case.

  "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 f
orce 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!*