by Moulton, CD
Z had forgotten Maita was listening to everything said on T6.
This was a ship after his own heart. It was going to be great fun when TR and T6 ganged up on Maita!
Captured!
When they returned to their hotel after the former session two Zurn and a Bentan were waiting inside of their room and jumped them with a powerful anesthetic before they could react. Thing was riding on Z's shoulder then, too, and its floater was locked outside. As it lacked any specific orders it reported to T6, who sent several armed floaters to surround the room on each side, above and below. There were drapes across the windows, but the floaters could "image" the beings inside to some extent with infra-red scanners. T6 determined to wait a short while before blasting into the room.
When Z came to he found Thing was in a steel cage-like device and he was tied securely in a chair. He was a bit groggy and had a vicious headache, so knew they had tried some kind of hypnotic drug on him. Maita had built a device into all of its crewmembers long ago to neutralize the chemicals, but the Zurn couldn't know that. He acted very groggy and confused and waited. He signaled with the tooth for T6 to stand by, but not to interfere. Yet.
Thing couldn't do much in its cage and couldn't communicate to any extent with anyone but Z, who knew its signals from the years of being together. Z sent a strong feeling of being in control and saw Thing relax a bit. The little empath would be as worried about him as he was about it. He quietly and carefully studied the room and the Zurn. He decided on a plan. He finally felt he had some idea of the setup. He groaned and struggled against the ropes, even though they were obviously proof against escape. That would be the reaction of a drugged person.
"Stop struggling!" A Zurn demanded. He relaxed.
"What is your true name. Where are you from?" the Zurn asked.
"Ehhhh ... Karnisheer Nottingthorp Braithewaite Killingarten Needfreshin Eisenhower Churchill the Fourth, from Plamaita," Z mumbled.
"Great Gorn!" another of the Zurn cried. "Do all Maitans have names that long?!"
"...And from my mother's side, Flobish Carter Nixon Khadafy Khomeini Rock and Roll Heavy Metal," Z continued. "My grandname is Needfrumptian Glosheimer Darwin Eisenhower Truman Capote Joe Jackie Onasis Smith, and my...."
"Stop!" the questioner cried. "What are you called by your boss?"
"Stupid. Sometimes idiotic jerkoff."
"What are you called by your friends? Damn! That stuff works too good!"
"No."
"No what?" the Zurn asked.
"No, I'm not called damn that stuff works too good."
He could see Thing's tentacle tips vibrating with its silent laughter. It was a good thing it couldn't make sounds without the floater. He sent it an empathic picture of the Zurn in a very vulgar sexually explicit situation – which Thing wouldn't understand. It would know what Z was saying, though.
"What ... are ... you ... generally ... called ... by ... those ... with ... who you work?" the Zurn asked through its sharp teeth.
"Whom."
"You are called Whom?" the Zurn asked.
"No. I am called With. It is 'with whom you work' not 'with who.' Mama always insisted one must use the language properly. Only a being without breeding and edu...."
"Shut up!" the Zurn yelled. Z remained silent.
"Who do you work for?" the questioner asked.
Z remained silent.
"Answer me!" the Zurn shouted.
"You said to shut up!"
The Zurn began to break things. It threw a vase against the wall and swept the items from the desk onto the floor. Another of them came to take his place.
"Calm down, Kloot!" he demanded sharply. "It's the damned drug causing it. Everything you say is taken very literally. You have to phrase everything exactly or you get the wrong response.
"With, you will answer my questions with a 'yes' or 'no.'
"Do you work for another Maitan?"
"No."
"Is it a Jornian?"
"No."
"This gets us nowhere, Harp!" Kloot snapped. "Who is your boss and what race is he?"
Z didn't reply.
"He can't answer that with a yes or no," Harp said. "With, you may now answer other than with a yes or no.
"Who is your boss?"
"Camphor Ated Jell is the manager, but not the boss. Peeky is the boss.”
"And what race is he?" Kloot asked.
Z didn't reply, but looked confused.
"Uh, tell us why you can't answer," Harp said.
"Because my boss isn't a he."
"Then what race is SHE?" Kloot demanded.
Z looked like he was going to cry.
"Why can't you answer?" Harp asked.
"Because I don't know how!" Z wailed, tears rolling down his face. "I want to tell you, but I don't know what it's sex is or even if it has any! We just call it Peeky, and it doesn't...."
"It's all right," Harp soothed. "You are doing very well and we're proud of you. It is no longer important what sex it is. We will just say 'it' instead of 'he' or 'she.' Is that better?"
Z looked almost worshipful as he said, "Oh, thank you!"
"That stuff is too powerful," a third Zurn said. "We'll never get any sense out of him! This is another screwed damned mess-up!"
"It's a matter of asking the proper questions," Kloot said. "With, do you know what race your boss is? Do you know, uh, IT's world of origin?"
"Yes."
The Zurns all looked at him expectantly for a moment and he could see Thing almost rolling around the cage. He was having a fair amount of trouble not laughing out loud himself.
"What the hell!" Kloot exploded.
"Calm down," Harp said. "With, tell us what race your boss is from and which world of origin."
"It is a Goddonlyknows from Summbackwater World in the Scuzz system!" Z answered triumphantly, knowing the English words had no phonetic translation into Maitan, which they were speaking.
"Uhh, tell us what it looks like," Harp suggested. "We are not familiar with the species or the world."
"It look like a Feach crossed with a Zulian," Z said, knowing the combination would be something nothing nor no one could possibly imagine.
"Er, I, uh, see," Kloot mumbled. "Uh, how is your organization run? What is the form of organization of the company or group, as closely as you can describe it?"
"Well, Seethru Blauz, the boss, tells us what to do, and we do it," Z said happily.
"Unh!" Kloot exploded, and Harp stepped in quickly. "Has the organization been in business for very long?"
"More than a thousand years on the home world and ever since the vacation worlds were established here."
"I see," Kloot said. "What is the function of the Mentan? How did you ever get one into the organization?"
"It keeps everybody honest. It makes Peeky, which is what we call the boss for short, not do stupid things. It can make us all be careful we don't do anything to make the customers go away. It stops us from hurting anyone. It won't let us take more than a being can afford because we depend on repeat business.
"It is my friend. We are all to take orders from Tec, even if Peeky doesn't say the same thing, because it is so smart. It can bankrupt any gaming business in only a few days all by itself with its mathematical genius. That way Peeky doesn't have to send its armies out to stop people from trying to horn in on its businesses. It has a kind of vision where it can see little things I can't see even with an optical microscope! It can see the...."
"Armies!?!" the fourth Zurn yelled. "What the hell?! Armies?"
"Peeky has an army of Klatch for on the ground and a space fleet that's bigger than the empire's," Z explained seriously. "The emperor has asked for our help a couple of times. Peeky says the most important thing any business can do is to take care of its own people, which may mean sending the army to help them if someone does something stupid to hurt any of us. Tec's floater can call the army if it thinks Tec is in any deadly danger. Tec can stop the army if Peeky calls it, but no one
can stop it if Tec calls it.
"The Klatch are insects, and nothing can stop them, you know. Peeky says they're the best goddamned fucking soldiers in the universe, but they give it the rolling creeps. I remember once when we were on this..."
"Never mind!" Harp said. "How many Mentans does this Peeky own?"
"YOU can't call it Peeky!" Z said, shocked. "Only the family can call it Peeky! You can't call it Peeky! You aren't family!"
"I'm sorry!" Harp cried. "How many Mentans are in Seethru Blauz's, er, employ?"
"Nobody owns anybody!" Z said, showing growing agitation. "How can anybody own a Mentan? They're each one smarter than any other whole race all added together! That's insane! Nobody can own a Mentan! They can't even own anybody else even if they're not a Mentan!"
"Be calm," the third Zurn said. "That is not what Harp meant. We Zurn feel that everyone in a family owns everyone else in that family. It is a family thing. You said you were all part of Pee ... Seethru Blauz's family."
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Z cried. "I didn't understand! Please do forgive me! I'm sorry! I didn't understand!"
"It's, uh, all forgiven and forgotten," Harp assured him. "How many Mentans are in the family?"
"Just one. Tec is the only Mentan, besides Thing, the one who's such a friend of the emperor who isn't on Menta. Tec and Thing are very close. They're the reason the emperor lets us help him sometimes and why he helps us sometimes. Peeky knows the emperor."
"But isn't what you do illegal?!" Kloot asked.
"Illegal?" Z asked, shocked again. "Certainly not! We have all the vacation worlds in the empire! You're the only ones who're illegal, so Peeky says we're to tell you to go away so it won't have to do something about you. It doesn't like violence and all that blood."
"Have you ever met the emperor?" the fourth Zurn asked.
"Well, yes. I don't know which one he was, though. There were a lot of different races there and he was one of them. Tec rode around on his shoulder for awhile and they talked. It knows which one he was.
"I was with this girl, so I didn't pay much attention. She had these really nice ... but you're reptiles. you wouldn't know about knockers."
"Er? Knockers?" Kloot asked. "Are they a physical feature of mammals?"
"Wooo boy, are they!" Z responded, rolling his eyes.
"We're wasting our time here!" Kloot said. "Let's just kill them and get out!"
He was reaching for his laser as Z keyed the tooth. There were crashes as the door fell in and a floater came into the window. Everyone was hit with wide range stunner beams. Z blacked out again. He awakened aboard T6, who brought them to Maita.
*I've just run a check on the servo frequencies and find that a company known as Hotel and Restaurant Robotic Engineering has servos in most hotels with split-frequency signals – which means the servos can come into the rooms with visuals of everything and can broadcast back and can be finely controlled from anywhere on the floor. The company is based on good ol' Sentah. It is owned by Time and Motion Control, which is owned by Clarbon Ventures, which is the Netdel branch of New Innovations in Mechanicals on Bypass, which is owned by a board of six Jornians on Sentah. They seem to have missed putting something in that chain on Frim. Does that tell you anything, Z?*
"It tells me the problem on Sentah where the directing is done is itself controlled by a single person stationed on Frim," Z replied cynically. "This pattern is exactly like the old gangs on Earth except they ran prostitution along with loan sharking and gambling. Prostitution isn't illegal on empire worlds so long as the prostitutes choose the, er, profession of their own free will, so that's the ... uh oh! Oh shit! Here we go again!"
[ Say what? ]
"Where did you pick that one up!?!" Z exclaimed.
[ When we were on Earth! I've been saving it! ]
Thing was on Z's shoulder, they were all aboard Maita for a planning session after T6 had rescued the two.
"I don't like that 'Uh oh!'" T6 accused. "I managed to let Harp escape. He was pretending to still be stunned as I carried the others aboard one by one. He 'escaped' when he wasn't being watched. He can report on the whole mess if those sensors in there missed anything. I'm taking the other three to the judge machine now. I'm sure we can get them on the probe – Kloot, at least. The machines can show he was attempting murder and Thing will give evidence the Zurn were there under orders. I'll tell you when Thing's testimony's needed and can have you there.
"Now, what was the 'Uh oh', Z?"
"The organized crime syndicates on Earth were into selling drugs. Illegal ones. The Zurn had illegal hypnotics. It's likely they deal in addictives. Their clientele is the one who're generally easily caught in those traps."
*I'll get some Feach onto that aspect. They can find what and how much is being used on these worlds. I think it will take a certain amount of time to go through the judging process. I'm sure Narmel will disappear before we get to him. Harp's insurance of that! We'll follow him with the floater. T Six has already put a tracer on his ship. I've located who and where Neel is and am working on Eed. That may be an alias. What now?*
[ We'll have to start working on the companies that own the companies and so on. We'll find who's really doing all of this by a lot of working up to it. Maybe Z will have to be disguised and I'll have to handle things on this end. T Six can use floaters to get a lot of the information for us and you can trace the empire records. ]
"I'll go to Netdel and to Clarbon," Z said. "We'll want to know very closely how and where every phase of the operation is so we can hit it all at once. If we try to pick it to pieces it goes underground and regroups. What we've done so far is to get them running. They'll become more and more secretive, which will mean they'll begin to use more and more machines as spy devices when they feel they can't trust living beings not to give them away.
"T Six and Maita both can detect the use of sensors, where they're concentrated and, therefore, when we're getting close to some bigshot! These people depend on violence and fear to stay on top of the situation. We'll appear more violent and powerful and THEY will have the fear. Scared hoods make mistakes. Put some kind of record somewhere they'll eventually think of to make them think the Klatch and that sort of thing are true."
[ I agree, even if Z's words don't make much sense. T Six, Z uses idioms that don't have any real translations. You'll get used to it. You saw what he did to poor old Kloot and Harp! You have the English translations of his names and references, so you can see how his odd sense of humor works. I don't know what that sexual picture he sent meant – and I don't want to know! I got the idea. You can figure what Z means from context, most times. ]
"I like Z's sense of humor," T6 replied. "He has a strong sense of the ridiculous. Rimalt was like that, but Rimalt wasn't so able to use it in those situations. He would sometimes get a certain look on his face and would later tell me what he was thinking at the time. His sense of humor was what you call dry, while Z tends to be extroverted and extreme. Rimalt was an introvert.
"I'm sorry. I do miss him."
*That's natural. You have very good memories of Rimalt. What you can do is to let me alter Z to an extent – I'll make him a Veen. He was one.... No! How about a Kappin, Z? You enjoyed being Lion (Book fourteen: A Strange Place)! The temperature range will be suitable and you'll be someone they won't know how to figure.*
[ That will have the advantage of being from a new race in the empire, but one no one has ever seen. They can look it up on the Library link and will find exactly whatever he says will fit the facts. He also knows the planet of origin intimately and can talk knowledgeably about all three of the native races there. I think it's a good idea. It has one more advantage in that Z can act like he's there to set up a regular route for people from that world. The Jornians will want to know how susceptible these new ones will be to the gambling urge and maybe to other things. Maybe we can find how they get power over some of these people if they try anything with him. We can check on where they research to lea
rn what will work as blackmail. ]
"I don't know anything about that Kappin reference," T6 said, so the others waited for the few seconds it took Maita to input the entire adventure to it.
"It's also good the recent history is a very violent one," T6 agreed when Maita was finished. "Maybe Lion will look for a job suitable to his talents?"
*That's true. The Zurn are new and are recently violent, so were contacted and used. The Jornians are almost as new and are violent in some aspects. They use the Bentans, who are an old member, but can be violent. The Kromes are used because they have such a rigid social structure they are easily blackmailed into such things. The Jornians can understand that because they are from a society where the females are totally subservient, but for biological reasons, not social. They do not even discuss sexual matters in mixed company. The openness of the Kappin mores will be a major puzzle to them.*
"I'm convinced, already!" Z cried. "I'll go to the medbox! I just wish Thing could be along. I always feel a hell of a lot safer when I know it's sitting there with those neat little things on its floater."
[ A hell of a lot of good they did at the hotel! The damned floater was out in the damned hall! ]
*Are you going to argue, or are we going to get this thing started?*
[ I vote to argue! ]
"Me, too!" Z quipped.
"I vote to argue!" T6 threw in. "That way, we don't have to actually DO anything! It's not so easy to screw up a project you never start!"
*All you do is sit on a pad somewhere, as it is!*
[ Yeah, T Six. Why not race around the system and count meteor fragments or something? ]
"Hmft!" Z snorted. "I can see this will soon degenerate into vulgarity. I'll rest awhile in a medbox! I think you have no more class or taste than this Narmel person!"
*That's a good idea! I can think of a few rather interesting experiments to try while you're in there. I wonder what a cross between a Zulian and a Feach really would look like. I'll make you a Kappin with jaws that work from the sides! That should be interesting.*
Now that they had a plan, such as it was, they could enjoy the repartee. They finally had a reaction from the syndicate they could use against the branches on the vacation worlds at any time while also finding a trail to follow upward to, hopefully, locate the ultimate head of the thing.
