Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition Read online

  He looked sheepish, grinned and held out his right arm for the first injection. His aide and two others at the capitol were also found to have the plague and were treated at the same time. The doctors immediately started the house-to-house campaign across the nation.

  Hal knew finally that he was completely in love with that woman when she made her famous "Two Great Experiments" speech.

  He closed off such thoughts and went back to the book.

  Mi returned at dawnlight the following morning and handed him registration papers that would make them legally husband and wife before she ran off to meet with Jak Tall. She brought an Akee unit for Jak as she had promised, then had to discuss the dangers of too-hasty building of the units, but he assured her his instructions to the doctors and the people helping with the machines would make it quite safe.

  "It's really a simple thing," Jak told Hal when Hal asked the same questions. "If the subject feels heat the machine is to be stopped and reset. About all that would happen in the standard time a person stays in the machine would be a slight burning of the lighter pigment areas not unlike a moderate sunburn."

  Sop was absorbed working on his addendum and dictionary and Hal had seen the books piling up when he passed earlier. Sop had not been in his rooms.

  Hal finished the chapter, then went to talk with Sop, who was feeding the already printed books back through the machine.

  "I had to add a note," Sop explained. "What can I do for you?"

  "I mostly want to know what's going on with this constitution thing. Am I seriously going to be running for the first chairmanship or was that merely Enn Far's way of honoring me for finding 'A' serum?"

  "Yes. You will almost certainly be the first elected chairman. I want you to seriously consider me for the post of first First Attorney of Klarstenland. I claim the complete knowledge of the constitution and of law in general and may claim further you will not find anyone more qualified." He grinned and added, "I am serious about wanting the job."

  "If I'm elected to the post of chairman by some fluke you've got it! I'd need a lot of advice about who to appoint to what post! I don't know very many people."

  "Well, this Mi Yinn character is a bit hard to control, but it would be very difficult to oust her from head of National Health. Politically, it would be a terrible mistake so I guess you are stuck with her. Maybe you should marry her and inform her your wife is not going to work!" Sop suggested, laughing. "She'll probably never have to do anything again and, though the post pays nothing she has earned that post a thousand times over.

  "You know how I generally feel about women holding those jobs, but she is an exception. Besides which she calls me all kinds of terrible names when I say anything about it being her duty to take care of the home."

  "Yeah. I can picture me – or anyone else – telling Mi Yinn whether or not she can work! For such a dirty sexist wallowbeast you made the constitution state women were as equal as anyone," Hal pointed out.

  "I know. The truth is I am scared to death of them!"

  They talked a while before Hal left, thinking, More truths are spoken in jest than in seriousness. It must really be trying to Sop to admit that his true feelings are far from what he pretends they are. He probably really is scared of women.

  Smart man!

  *

  Enn Far stepped from the machine and asked what had happened. Why hadn't it worked?

  "Happened?" Mi asked, looking confused. "Other than your second-stage treatment, nothing happened!"

  "I thought that machine was supposed to make you feel like you're on fire and give you a terrible headache!" Enn protested.

  This was by arrangement with Mi. There were all sorts of wild rumors about the treatment so his was being carried on national television for the express purpose of stopping the fears. Mi laughed and said certain types of microwaves were going through their bodies constantly. They were being generated by the sun and by radio and television transmissions and even the toaster and can opener. "The only one who gets burned up and a headache is the plague virus," Mi said. "You'll get bit of a headache, but it's from the M fourteen. Millions of people can tell you it isn't bad. It will make you tend to be a bit irritated at small things, but this one is a lot milder than the early ones and they weren't too bad."

  One hour later he was again injected and the following morning tested using the electron microscope.

  "This test is the part that takes longest," Mi explained. "We have yet to find anyone who wasn't cured, though."

  She made the examination, then gave him a small plastic disk with his thumb print on one side and his name on the other.

  "This certifies that you are treated and are free of the NSV virus, Enn Far," she announced for the ever-present cameras. "Do not come into physical contact in any way with any person who is not displaying a like tag for the next twenty days. Next!"

  That was it!

  Enn received the statistics datasheets for the preceding day so knew more than half of all tested had the virus. Mi explained the importance of it was more that they could expect quite a number of those who had tested negative today to test positive on the followup twenty days hence. That's why he must get through to the people that contact with anyone who tested negative must not take place. In one afternoon a crew of two hundred six doctors tested more than fifteen hundred people and treated eight hundred forty three of them into the night. The remainder of the city would be tested within two days. This part was organized and this was fast! New M-W units and serum supplies were coming onto the scene hourly. Even the most outlying areas would be tested and treated within eight days maximum.

  Enn decided to address the people each evening on government television to explain how the election processes would work. The seating of the new government would still take place exactly one year from the signing, making Constitution Day a doubly meaningful holiday.

  They were able to keep close to the schedule with the plague as the first vote was taken. Now the time for campaigning would begin. There were several precincts where the Representative to Commons was unopposed or where one person won a majority so the second election wouldn't be needed.

  One other office was confirmed already. Hal Korr was unopposed and Enn Far was chosen as vice chairman on second ballot. Things were shaping very well.

  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 tryin
g 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 st
range 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.