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

  "We cannot allow the subversive elements to use such extreme tactics to make their ridiculous demands!" Fir cried. "It is intolerable in an orderly society!"

  "But people know your form of government can't exist without taxes," Kit pointed out. "No one will pay attention to them anyhow so nothing is lost."

  "They can't be permitted to spread their lies!" Fir sniffed. "They take one or two petty things and expand them all out of proportion! They make some small incident seem to be important!"

  "Surely people have better sense than to fall for those crude tactics," Kit said. "Just let them have their say and let people laugh them down and your problem solves itself."

  "They will get converts to their causes if we do that!" Fir cried. "You don't understand these things at all!"

  "Unfortunately, we do," Tab answered. "I'll need full access to computers. We'll solve this and prove Maorp has nothing to do with it then we'll go away and your secrets will be safe."

  "But everyone knows Maorp is behind it!" Fir protested. "What secrets?"

  "We've learned that what everyone knows is generally not the case on any of five thousand worlds," Kit replied. "If you didn't have secrets you wouldn't care what they said and you'd give them all the publicity they wanted. No other argument makes any sense.

  "The computer, please?"

  Fir seemed exasperated with them, but took them to a computer terminal with access to all the records.

  "I'll supply a dataform expert to help you," Fir suggested.

  "It won't be necessary," Tab replied. "I can get what I need."

  "But there are classification codes no one can get past!" Fir insisted. "You will certainly need a, er, guide to help you."

  "Most of what I need won't be classified," Tab dismissed with a wave. "The reason things like this happen is you don't know how to read the evidence at hand. If I run into any problems I'll call you."

  Fir left with a smirk, being sure they couldn't get anything out of the computers that were his pride, then Tab located the input/output terminals and plugged himself into them. The system was fairly sophisticated and it took most of an hour to find how to extract everything in it. Kit was linked with him so read the information as Tab input it.

  "Pretty much what I was thinking," Tab said as he replaced the leads into the sockets under his arm and "grew" the flesh back over them. "We have to determine where she is and if she's part of it."

  "We'll locate her through the property records," Kit suggested. "I'd say she wasn't in the car when it turned into the Lost Markt Canyon Road. I recorded the map on the wall at processing. It'll be somewhere along the route. She was put into another vehicle and is ... where?

  "There's a Wit Irr Xam who's head of the New View Society which Gan is secretary of. When you crosslist memberships and leaderships the AL is a creature of the NVS. I don't know why security hasn't discovered that fact."

  "Because nobody's pushed the right buttons yet," Tab replied. "I see that Xam has a large estate along the Iron Canyon Road. It's isolated and close to Lost Markt Canyon Road. Better than fifty-fifty she's there. How will we handle it?"

  "By being as arrogant and self-promoting as they are," Kit suggested. "We can rent a car and go to call on Wit Irr Xam."

  They rented a car and headed along the roads. The cars were designed with enough automation to where they wouldn't disobey traffic rules and were easy to handle. Engage a starter switch and steer. There was a brake pedal. This car was as overly-supplied with useless luxuries as was the government car.

  They drove into the Xam estate, showing an armed guard at the gate the green tags with the government's official seal on them. The guard didn't know what to do so called the house.

  Tab said to tell Xam the diplomats from the Maitan Empire were there to discuss an important matter with him. That so puzzled the people at the house they let them in. They drove to the front of the house and parked across from the large carved doors. Several assorted servants came to meet them, though no one seemed to have any idea of what they should say or do.

  Tab declared they wished to speak with Wit Irr Xam on a matter that had been brought before the emperor. They were then led to a large room with terrible tasteless furniture, ornate rugs, cases of obviously unread books, music systems playing insipid dead tunes that reminded Kit of the dirges on Klooster, television sets running with no one in the room and servants peeking out of doors at them. An old man stood as they came in and introduced himself as Xam. Tab introduced himself and Kit. "We came because the emperor was asked to intervene in the Princess Tar thing," Kit explained. "We think this has gone far enough. Please call her in so we may return her to the palace and get away from this ridiculous excuse for a society."

  "I don't know what you're talking about," Xam said. "Please have a seat and we'll discuss this."

  "Those are the very same words that Nate character used when he tried the same lie," Kit said. "Isn't it obvious that we KNOW she was brought here? You're the nominal leader of both the New View Society and the Antitax League. You want to cause a cutoff of funds to Maorp and feel this is the best way to do that.

  "Does the princess know she has to die to make it work?"

  Xam studied him a moment, then turned to Tab.

  "Is your friend always so impetuous and blunt?" he asked.

  If he wanted to play that game Tab was willing. "Xam seems to be confused as to how we determine our facts, Kit," he confided, ignoring the existence of the object of the words as Xam had. "Do you think he really believes we don't know?"

  Kit almost grinned as he said to Xam, "Really? Did you tell her she has to die or this thing won't work at all? That there has to be a body?"

  "What is he talking about?" Xam asked Tab.

  "Do you think he told her? I don't," Tab said to Kit.

  "Well, we should really be on our way," Kit said to Xam. "Or have you already produced the body? We can be the ones who find it for you!"

  "Stop this!" Xam demanded of Tab.

  "Stop this!" Tab demanded of Kit.

  "Stop this!" Kit demanded of Xam.

  Xam sat there with his mouth open, staring from one to the other of them.

  "Oh, look!" Tab cried. "He's going to recognize your existence! Does that mean I don't exist to him now?"

  "Get out of my house!" Xam spat. "I won't stand for this! Get out!"

  "I suppose you could call the police in," Tab suggested conversationally. "Of course, as we're working directly for the government of Gloeb we'll demand a thorough search of this house and grounds. It would be a lot smarter to produce the princess. Why go through a silly scenario that can only end one way?"

  Xam had pushed a button on his desk and now two armed guards ran into the room.

  "Bad move," Kit said. "Now we have you. If you do anything at all to us the empire will come here and squash you like the bug you are. We have tracer devices following us, you know. This is as much as admitting you have Tar so call her or bring us her body. We've spent most of a full day on this and our time is too valuable for us to sit around playing your silly games."

  Tab looked at the guards and ordered, "Bring Princess Tar here! NOW!"

  One guard stood looking at Xam and the other moved his rifle between Tab and Kit.

  "You're not going to use that thing," Kit said. "Quit waving it around like that. We don't care about your stupid politics here. We were called to locate and return the princess. We'll stop at Maorp on our way back out and teach them how to be self-sufficient. Better – they have more of the things you need than you do the things they need. Our real investigation will be into why they're kept so subservient and dependent on Gloeb when with very little effort it can be the other way around."

  Xam waved at the guards, who went back out. "All I want is to quit paying so much to subsidize that worthless project!" he said hotly. "I haven't harmed anyone. I simply can't afford that sort of thing! There's no return on it!"

  "In the first place you pay very little or no tax
es now," Kit replied. "You're making a great deal of money from those who can ill afford it. You're the useless subsidy on this world. You and those like you.

  "No harm? You're deliberately trying to start a war! Just get the princess here and we'll be gone."

  "Oh, that wouldn't harm anyone except a few of the lower class welfare recipients," Xam said offhandedly. "World would be better off without 'em! Need something to control the population among those common types. Breed like rodents. Always causing trouble. Don't understand the value of things! Better off without 'em in the first place! Just a tax drain that produces nothing."

  The guards came in with the princess between them. The family resemblance with Xam was striking. "We missed that!" Kit sent to Tab on the internals.

  "There was no family line on the princess," Tab agreed. "She's supposedly selected at the death of her predecessor by lottery and raised to be the princess. Her previous existence is erased at that point."

  "Your daughter?" Tab asked.

  "Niece," she replied. "We feel it's now time that something was done to bring real progress to Gloeb. That necessitates certain strong measures – including reducing certain sectors of the populace and cutting ourselves off from Maorp."

  Tab grinned at her. "And did Uncle Wit bother to tell you it couldn't happen if you were alive?" he asked. "They’ll have to present a positively identifiable body. Everything from your retinal prints to your dental records are on record."

  She stared at Tab, then turned to Xam, who wouldn't look at her.

  "Shall we go, Princess Tar?" Kit asked. "We were telling Uncle Half-Wit here how we can solve the Maorp problem for you. We'll present this as a conspiracy between Gan Trot Jo, who obviously is your main agent to Xam here. You owe him nothing whatever so you can say you were working in the interests of your people to expose this dastardly plot. The reports are on file as to how you were abducted so no one will take their word for anything.

  "Of course, you're going to be watched very closely for the rest of your life. If anything like this ever comes up again we'll see that certain recordings we've made in this room are suddenly found. Is that clear enough or do you want me to describe how the people will literally tear you limb from limb when they see and hear your statements in this room?"

  No one had another word to say as they led her to the car and headed for the palace.

  * * *

  As they left Maorp Kit sat shaking his head. "It still doesn't make sense!" he said. “I understand why we had to do it this way. Your transmissions made that plain enough. Now Maorp will be self-sufficient in less than one year and will be in economic control in less than two. It'll be quite an upheaval. Princess Tar will be forced to spend the rest of her insensitive life fighting for the people she most despises. Jo, Xam and six others will be executed in a few days. The system is intact. We haven't changed anything there.

  "How did you know that the people on Maorp would be so much more sensible? How did you know they were that different from their relatives on Gloeb?"

  "Because they're pioneers," Tab replied. "It isn't our job to change societies in that way. If we jump in and start dictating to them we end up running their bureaucracies. We don't have the facilities and it's against empire policy to demand use of the machines. We would get involved in a way we couldn't extricate ourselves from and all progress these people might eventually make would cease. We did the indirect thing. We'll let Maorp hold it together for a little time. They'll progress a bit more, no doubt. Maybe they can change direction, but a people have societal inertia. It's more likely that as things become easier and more structured on Maorp the disease of Gloeb will spread back there and it'll be the same thing again."

  "But Earth progressed to Mars Colony and the cure spread back to Earth," Kit argued. "They're overcoming their history."

  "That's because Mars was the cure for the disease there," T6 interjected. "Maorp isn't a cure, it's only symptomatic relief. If you want to keep the comparison going perhaps a certain mild immunity will build while the symptoms are being suppressed and they'll make real progress.

  "Earth had one vital thing that Gloeb doesn't have: Earth is a Maitan colony. It had its own disease of fixed societal inertia, but it had the immunity of the Maitan stock at the same time. It was a hard battle, but the hardiness of the Maitan race came through for them. This culture has to build its own immunity. I don't think it can.

  "I've been wrong before. We can hope I'm wrong again.

  "We're home! I never thought I'd be glad to see Perfect Three in my scopes!"

  "I dunno," Tab said. "I kind of like the place."

  "Do you realize you've been gone nine whole days?" TR asked over the speakers. "You sure waste time!"

  "Hey!" Tab suddenly cried. "I never collected my ten thousand lotz from Gan! Now he's been executed and I'll never get it!"

  "I don't know what you're talking about!" TR snapped.

  Tab and Kit started giggling at that, then T6 joined in.

  Have you ever heard a spaceship laugh?

  Eighth Case

  "Kit, you and T Six will go to Avaran Three while Tab and I go to Neuten two," TRD-60 instructed the robot detectives and the other intelligent ship. "Kile was killed coming from Avaran to Neuten. There was simply no way it could have been done that I can find."

  They were trying to find even a starting place in this thing. They were called by the Inktan, Letuz. It was to be a simple business trip, then her partner was murdered in a deadly old-fashioned way while seated in the midst of thirty six assorted peoples and while Letuz was sitting in the seat by his side. He had been stabbed through the heart. No one saw or heard anything.

  No one knew him except Letuz so far as they could determine. No one had motive, personal or political or anything else, which made it obvious that Letuz had to be the killer.

  That was the logic of everyone concerned so she demanded the probe be used on her and had been totally exonerated. There is simply no way an organic can fool the probe.

  That left them with all thirty two passengers and six crewmembers as suspects.

  The ship returned to Avaran so Kit would interview the crew and would check on anyone who was in any way connected to Kile there or on Ternz or Inkta, the two other places Kile had already been on his route. Tab would interview passengers on Neuten and trace any who left to get a statement and would go to Zuni and Harce, the last two worlds on Kile's route.

  "Meet back at Neuten?" Kit asked.

  "We'll decide that after we've seen what we see," T6 replied. "Maybe we can solve this one logically and fairly soon. There’ll be something obvious that everyone's overlooked. Murder ain't exactly common on a spaceship with no way to escape and noplace to hide!"

  "Fat chance!" Tab said. "If they'd kept the ship on Neuten and kept everyone there until we arrived we could have sorted it out fast. As it is we may have had all our opportunities removed before we get started. This one will be all old-fashioned legwork, Kit. We've used deductive reasoning and luck, but this'll be the kind of thing most detective work really is. Lots of time and the gathering of small clues that don't mean anything in themselves, but add up to a pattern. There will be clues that seem important at the time, but that end up being meaningless. Either that or it'll be one of those things that're much too obvious for anyone to see, as T Six stated.

  "Let's get started, TR!"

  The two detectives left Perfect (Hah!) 3, their base planet and were soon in TTH14, the fastest drive yet discovered and one only TR, T6 and Emperor Maita (A spaceship, but that story's been told) could hope to use as it was necessary for the ship to have complete control and to have tremendous computing ability along with true independent intelligence.

  The ships were literally part of the detectives as well as having their own distinct personalities and were at all times linked to them through an internal com system. Tab was designed to be indistinguishable from a Swaz, an amphibian being, while Kit was designed after the reptilian Kheth. The shi
ps could change them into many different kinds of peoples when necessary. There were now more than three thousand worlds in the empire so undercover work had new challenges added all the time. This was going to be almost a locked room mystery with an added twist: The room had been a spaceship billions of kilometers from anything whatever and was even in another dimensional plane at the time the murder took place! At the moment the two detectives were transposing into N space several thousand plazsis (MGS lightyears) apart, they had exactly the same thought: This was going to be interesting!

  . . . .

  Kit came in and was instructed to land next to the Avaran-Neuten ship. It had offloaded its passengers and wouldn't take on the next group for eighteen more hours. The crew was aboard so he could interview them before they took leave. Avaran was an empire world so everything was arranged through the machines at the port in milliseconds.

  Kit entered the ship where he was greeted by a Kloven female who said the crew was in the lounge waiting for him. The crew were Klovens, who were reptilian and not far different from the Kheth.

  "We'll get the introductions out of the way, then we'll see what we can learn about this incident," Kit said. "I'm Kit, a Kheth."

  "I'm Koolish, Captain of this ship," one female said. "This is Zarton, my nav expert and his mate, Mirish, our com officer. This is my lifemate, Lahst. He's passenger officer.

  "The trips only take six hours each way so don't carry other crew except maintenance. We have all the standard automatics and servos, of course. Maintenance stays in their quarters until we are padded."

  "I see," Kit said. "First, had anyone heard anything whatever about the victim, no matter what context, before the flight or during the loading?"

  They all shook their heads. "He was just a passenger – nothing out of the ordinary," Lahst said. "We get a few Inktans. They have trade with both Avaran and Neuten and on along the line so they're generally on every second or third trip. I know Carzo and Emandette. They're usually on the route this one and his mate took over."