Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition Page 71

  "Isn't this a government vehicle?" Kit asked of the driver (Though they certainly had enough technology to make the things automatic).

  "Why, yes," he answered. "Why do you ask?"

  "Aren't you on a tax system?" Tab asked.

  "Certainly!" the driver answered. "How else could government run?"

  "We ask because of the extreme ostentation of such things as this plush interior, the useless music system and the totally unnecessary air conditioning," Kit replied. "All of that crap's expensive and serves no purpose. It's monies spent simply because they're there. I can readily deduce exactly how your system is supposed to be representative and that your politicians are absolutely corrupt. It's even expected of them. There are hundreds of more logical forms of governing that seem to work better on thousands of worlds in the empire."

  "Yeah. What can you do?" the driver asked resignedly. "Everybody knows you have to be a liar and a thief to even be considered for a political job. It's always been like that and I guess it always will be. That's politics for you!"

  "Didn't you hear me?" Kit asked. "I just said such a system is actually very rare! It's something you've encouraged to happen to yourselves!"

  The driver shrugged. Tab grinned at Kit.

  "Go into the main hall over there," the driver instructed. "There's a guard who'll take you over to receiving and processing."

  "What receiving and processing?" Kit rejoined in surprise. "We came here at YOUR request."

  "Got to follow the forms, you know," the driver said. "Look, I'd like to chat, but it's time for my break and I don't get paid no extra if I work through it."

  "Work!" Kit exclaimed. "What the hell work is...?"

  Tab grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the hall, waving at the driver, who shrugged again and drove away.

  "He's working harder than most government employees," Tab said. "He's actually driving that silly thing."

  "But he's useless at best!" Kit declared. "It would probably cost less than ten percent of his yearly salary to convert the car to automatic! He's worse than useless, he's a negative draw factor to the economy."

  "Well, that's the way it's always been with politics," Tab replied. "I guess it'll never change! What are you gonna do?

  "Here's our guard."

  The guard was armed and moved very stiffly without speaking. He led them to a door marked "Processing A – All persons are required by law to declare all possessions being introduced into the country. Failure to declare is AGAINST THE LAW and violators will be prosecuted. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED – Welcome."

  "You're kidding me!" Kit cried, reading the lettering. "Welcome?"

  Tab laughed and went on inside to see a row of twelve long tables, each with four people sitting around them. They were drinking something hot from plastic cups, eating various sweetcakes and chatting among themselves. The two empire representatives were totally ignored. There was a sign on each of the tables that said, "Next Counter, Please – closed."

  "Oh, hell!" Tab remarked happily. "The car driver SAID it was break time! That poor guard had to bring us the whole fifteen meters here on his break! No wonder he wouldn't talk to us! How could we be so inconsiderate?"

  Kit started giggling, which made those at the nearest table look up. "We'll be with you in just a moment," a woman announced officiously. "You can put your things on the table and sit over there." She pointed to a hard bench by the wall.

  Tab sent a short sentence to Kit on the internals, saying he was going to have some fun with these people. Something was most definitely, as Z would say, up! This was extreme even for the type of system. It was carefully designed to give someone time to do something.

  They wandered around the room, reading the union signs, the warnings, hundreds of irrelevant rules and regulations and maps of the city and the world until the woman took the sign from the table and tapped it loudly. Tab and Kit ignored her.

  "I have one question," Kit said. "We're the only ones here and there isn't any evidence any other ships have come in in the past day or so. What are all these people for?"

  "They're voters," Tab explained. "They'll keep right on voting for the one who made and gave them the jobs."

  The woman tapped more loudly and Tab turned to wave at her, then turned back to continue reading the colorful poster on the wall about the regulations concerning the bringing in of pets and the fines and restrictions – and "YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!"

  "If you don't mind, my time is valuable!" she snapped. "Shall we get you through processing? Where is the property you wish to declare?"

  "Diplomats don't declare any of the kinds of property we might have," Tab replied. "I don't think you need expect more ships or processees today so why the hurry?"

  "Oh, come!" she scolded. "I'm sure you have shaving supplies and colognes and such items! They are required inspection items."

  "In case it slipped past your notice I'm an amphibian and Kit here is a reptile," Tab said in a friendly voice. "As we neither one grow hair we don't shave. We don't sweat so we wouldn't need colognes and such. We'll purchase dental cleansers and that sort of thing here."

  "Well," she said, looking around her for help, "Just present your identification papers for verification and any cash you may be carrying in from offworld."

  "Identification is automatic anywhere in the empire so we don't carry that sort of thing," Tab informed her. "We've never been here before so how would we have any money to declare? Our funds are in standard empire credits and are handled through the bank machines. We'll each get a few thousand lotz for operating capital after we get through all this rigamarole."

  She was totally lost now. She didn't know what to do – so she did what any bureaucrat would do: She told them to go to the next table!

  At the next table the man who was handling it was smarter. He did the alternative thing a bureaucrat will do: he called the supervisor. The supervisor resented being disturbed and let it be known. She had piles of reports that MUST be in by deadline and wasn't paid to handle these things that were the job of the person who was PAID to do that job.

  "Just give them temporary passes and send them into processing two."

  Bureaucratic rule one again. Pass any problem along to someone else.

  Processing two had never seen a temporary pass before so had to send someone all the way back to processing one – a good three meters away – to find out what was going on. After it was determined that no one in the place had any idea whatever about what was going on the two were asked to fill out medical forms. That caused a bit of a problem as they weren't subject to many of the diseases that affected mammals. They were passed on to the next person who said to list the diseases they WERE subject to and to indicate whether they had ever had any of them, whether they received treatment for them, what that treatment was and whether they were declared free of contamination by a registered health official and/or agency and who that official and/ or agency was. Tab listed every disease he could think of (With the help of T6's computer banks) and said he hadn't ever had any of them. It took hours and hundreds of pages. Kit was told they were going to out-bureaucrat the bureaucrats on the internals so Kit listed the same ones and put "no" after each of them.

  The woman's eyes literally bugged out when she was handed the ten or twelve kilos of paper.

  "Were we supposed to list any we were exposed to but didn't suffer from separately?" Tab asked innocently.

  "Oh, hell!" Kit exclaimed. "They said to do that on the forms for mammals so we were certainly supposed to do it! How stupid of us! Here, give us that back and we'll add them."

  The woman knew she was going to have to enter every single item on those lists into her computer and looked physically sick – but she was a bureaucrat all the way! This work would at least guarantee her job for a few twelthyears! Nobody was going to file a complaint against someone if they might inherit the work she was doing!

  "You must list any of those which could affect anyone here," she said.

&nbs
p; "Oh, none of them would affect anyone here except maybe the Foomishgibble plague or the Imlithofangle Hinges – but we would have been dead in minutes if we were exposed to THAT!" Tab said.

  The woman sighed and smiled tightly so Tab continued, "Unless we are immune carriers."

  "Then everyone in this whole end of the city would be dead by now!" Kit admonished happily. "As long as we've been around them filling out these things? Even if we're carriers of something as simple and common as Frenchtnmrgerbbt Yentermiddenfroshinmuddle Kooshish they'd all have it by now!"

  "Oh, that wouldn't show up for hours yet," Tab replied, waving the idea off with a careless shrug. "There's that Heegheehackfoof thing."

  The woman had a sick and tight little smile on her face. She said, "Ha, ha! And we'd all be dead to show it!"

  "Well, you'd all die all right," Kit said. "The symptoms from that wouldn't show up for three or four days. I don't ... THINK ... I've ever been exposed to that one.

  "What's the next step?"

  The woman told them to wait and went into an office where a man rushed out to stare at them. They conferred animatedly for a moment, the supervisor snapped his fingers, smiled at her and gave her instructions. He went back into the office as she came to them.

  She gave them each green tags with their names written on them.

  "You can go," she said, not getting too close. “Through that right yellow door you will find the, uh, welcoming committee for diplomats."

  "We may be carrying a plague that could wipe out their race so go to rule one? Pass us on?" Kit asked in disbelief.

  "Yup!" T6 replied on the internals. "I wonder if they told the welcoming bunch you could be contagious?"

  "But why not just make us leave?" Kit asked.

  "Because we're bigshot empire diplomats," Tab answered. "They don't know what to do so they pass us on to the next guy and hope they don't all die in three days."

  There was only one welcomer. He was ill at ease and there were many unoccupied desks.

  "I'm, uh, Gan Trot Jo," he introduced. "Call me Gan. I'm afraid you took longer in, uh, processing than we had, uh, thought and everyone has gone home but, uh, me."

  Tab put an arm across Gan's shoulders and was afraid for a moment he would faint.

  "I'm Tab and this is Kit," Tab said “Don't worry about the plagues. The empire wouldn't allow us move a centimeter if there was any possibility whatever we carried anything. We only said that to point out to those people what kind of risks their jobs carry. Yours too, obviously! We're here at your request, you know. Emperor Maita sent us about a Princess Tar?"

  "Oh, yes!" Gan cried. "Great Lords! You were supposed to be passed immediately through! Time is of the essence! Didn't you tell them we were expecting you on the Princess Tar case?"

  "They didn't ask," Tab said innocently. "One doesn't ever volunteer anything to bureaucrats. It confuses them."

  "I'm surrounded by rank incompetents!" Gan shouted. "How much time has been wasted by all of this?"

  "Well, we arrived a little over six hours ago," Kit said. "It was during the morning break, I think. Everybody refused to talk to us until the break was over.

  "Why do you have those forty eight people in processing section one when you only need one?"

  Gan stared at Kit a moment, then turned back to Tab. "Do you have any ideas about the case?" he asked.

  "Well," Tab replied. "We don't know anything except that she disappeared and you suspect foul play. Are you sure she isn't waiting in some line somewhere?"

  "Some line? Waiting?" Gan asked.

  "We think that she will probably have to fill out any number of forms and such if she's Princess Tar and is supposed to preside over congressional debate," Kit reasoned. "Maybe she put her name on the wrong line on a form or something and is now being held on suspicion of sabotage?"

  "I don't like you!" Gan snapped. "That isn't funny! You aren't here to criticize how we do things!"

  "I'm not!" Kit cried. "You aren't doing anything for me to criticize! Nothing!"

  "Oh. Perhaps I misunderstood you," Gan said apologetically. "I'm under the greatest pressure and tend to overreact. I was under the impression you found fault in how we accomplish our goals here."

  "You aren't accomplishing anything," Kit replied. "I meant it literally when I said you are doing nothing; therefore, I can't very well criticize how you're doing it.

  "Why would you be under pressure? It's not your responsibility to find Princess Tar. You're just a bureaucrat and can blame it on your subordinates who detained us so long."

  "I can see you're not going to be any help in this mess," Gan complained formally. "I hope Tab will prove a different case."

  "Kit is perhaps the finest investigator in the galaxy," Tab said. "He resents all this idiocy you people seem to accept as normal form. I'm used to it so merely find it amusing.

  "Who is to brief us on the Princess Tar case?"

  "I am!" Gan said. "I just don't think it will do any good! I had hoped the empire would have some sensibility to a dangerous predicament!"

  "The empire sent us to investigate," Kit pointed out. "We have the best record of any agency in the galaxy. In the time we've wasted with your little obstructions we could've probably solved the thing and been back at Empire Center. The trail is now six hours older than there's any reason whatever for it to be and is therefore multiplied in difficulty for us. Your silly excuses don't make sense because I personally explained exactly who we were and why we were here while we were still in orbit. Throw the blame around as you will, that's the fact! You can stand around playing ego games or you can brief us on the case.

  "Quite frankly, I don't care one way or the other anymore. I'm six hours past caring if you people find a way to make war on one another. I don't think you're a viable race.

  "Now you can express your total outrage that I would say such horrible things to you and thus delay briefing us that much longer!"

  Gan stared open-mouthed at him, colored, started to say something twice, swallowed hard, ran a hand through his hair and started again.

  "I assure you I am not stalling!" he protested. "I instructed processing to send you through immediately. It's not my fault if they don't follow orders! I resent the implication I am being an obstructionist in this! I am doing everything I can to expedite this matter!"

  "Then stop giving stupid speeches and brief us!" Tab snapped. "All these silly words are a delaying tactic and are transparent. You figure very much in all this. We WILL learn how!"

  "I ... I... You?!" Gan stammered. "You accuse ME? I ... I've never!"

  "And you never will!" Kit agreed, smirking. "We'll find our facts elsewhere. You can rest assured we'll get back to you.

  "Come on, Tab. I'm beginning to see what's happening here, I think. This is a very amateurish sort of setup."

  "I know," Tab said. "The minute that driver said we had to go through processing I knew we were to be delayed here as much as possible so I played along. As the saying goes, Gan, I've offered you the blade you so wanted and now you've stabbed yourself with it. The blade was six hours of deliberately wasted time. As Kit said, you knew full well who we were before we came aground and you knew exactly what we were here for. I'll make a personal wager with you: I'll find what your part is in this and will find the Princess Tar or her body before six more hours. Ten thousand lotz!"

  "I don't know what you're talking about!" Gan shouted.

  "You know something?" Kit shot back, "I'll bet I've heard that statement from a hundred people and not one of them were being honest when they made it."

  The two robots left Gan's office and took a taxi vehicle that was waiting on the street. Tab said to take them to the palace of Princess Tar. The driver argued that no one would get in there, to which Kit replied they were expected, which gained them immediate respect. Apparently the general public had no idea the princess wasn't in the palace.

  The palace had instructions at the gate to send them right in. They met with a Fi
r Well Nate, who was a small nervous man in the security department. "Where have you been?" he cried. "I was told you'd arrive this morning!"

  "We did," Tab said. "That's all unimportant now. Tell us all you can about the abduction and we'll want information about various people.

  "I understand you have computer records on everyone?"

  "Yes, but they aren't as complete as we'd like," he answered.

  "We won't be looking for the things you might think," Kit argued. "When, where and how was Princess Tar abducted? Who was there?"

  "She was kidnapped yesterday morning as she shopped for her things," he reported as though reading it. TR sent that this turkey was a lousy actor and couldn't deliver a line convincingly with six hours more to rehearse. He was trying to sound natural, but it was NOT working. Tab and Kit both hid grins.

  "The new garments for the opening of congress, you know," he continued. "It was on the sidewalk just outside of Gloeb's Best Furnishings on Main Street and Jo Avenue. There were two serving girls, Hip Li Kellig and Qu Zanti Flim, and the security guard, Carpet Kale Wop. She was leaving the store, had entered the vehicle that was to bring her back to the palace when a man in a hood shoved the driver, Lieutenant Wop, aside, and knocked him unconscious. He then jumped aboard the car and sealed the rear doors before Princess Tar could get out or her girls could get in and sped off northward along Main. The car was observed turning east on Tik Boulevard and was seen again out near the Lost Canyon Road.

  "The car was found abandoned in Lost Markt Canyon three hours later."

  "Have you heard from her abductors at all?" Kit asked.

  "We've heard from two organizations who claim to have her," Fir answered. "The Maorp Freedom League and the Antitax League."

  "What were the demands?" Tab asked.

  "Typical things," Fir replied. "MFL wants taxes against them stopped and AL wants all taxes against everyone dropped. Both claim Tar won't be harmed and they only want publicity, but neither case is tolerable." He was sounding natural now.

  "So? Why not give them a little publicity?" Kit asked. "Surely whoever has her would let her go then."