by Moulton, CD
"Kit, I think maybe we may be starting to get somewhere."
"Why would Mort call us in if he's in it?" Kit asked.
"Two things: because why would Mort etc and we're supposed to have gotten Khronkhyte operatives, who would be awed by all these big stars," Tab said. "It would be a great cover. He would say HE'S the one who called empire to get help!"
Tar came to the door with Pli Knar, who was disheveled and had scraps of garbage on his sleeves and on his shoes. They stopped at the door until Tab nodded at them.
Tar brought Pli Knar in and left. Kit and Tab asked Pli some questions about the people who had disappeared, but refrained from asking him about the things they really wanted to know until T6 could give them information to base questions on. He was a very quiet type despite what Ahl had suggested. He didn't volunteer anything and seemed to take everything as some kind of joke. When they asked him all they could in general and he was leaving he stopped at the door and turned, brushing his sleeves with a rag.
"It's all some ridiculous publicity stunt, you know," he said. "You two are far too professional to be a scripter who asks all the wrong questions about pictures and a set designer who is very obviously incompetent in that job. I have to work out my own sets and ideas. That's what I'm doing right now.
"Mort has hired a couple of detectives so you can make some headline news with famous stars disappearing. The funding for the rest of the work will pour in, then our little strays will come trotting in with a story that they were taking a private little trip – and didn't even know there was a fuss!
"You should be actors. Let me know if you want an agent. I'm good and you could make a lot more PLAYing detectives than BEing them.
"I'll keep my mouth shut about you. Hell, I stand to make a bank from this project! I can use the publicity!"
He went on out and Tab grinned and shook his head.
"I'd say he ain't our clever culprit!" Kit said. "He doesn't pull his punches at all, does he?"
"Either that or he's as good an actor as he says we would be," Tab replied. "Where the hell is Sar Vell? Surely they've found him by now. I.... Oh, crap!"
The two both bolted out of the room and went along the hall to find Gore on the second floor stairs, coming down.
"I was just coming to tell you," he informed them. "It seems likely that Sar Vell is our next disappearance! All of us have been looking for him for over an hour. He's not in the castle and he's not in a ship. He's disappeared!"
"Call everyone to the common meeting hall!" Tab shouted. "All of you! Fast! This may be our little break!"
"Have you seen something?" Kit asked.
"Oh, yes! I've seen something major if it all checks out," Tab replied. "So have you! Think about it!"
They went back to the hall to wait for the others to arrive. Tab pushed T6 to get certain information fast. T6 was working the fastcom with the computers on Khronk and sending information as it came in. The people were rounded up pretty quickly and Kit had them bring chairs from the surrounding rooms. There were thirteen of them now, plus the two robots.
Tab had to waste some time until T6 found what he was sure it would find for him.
"I want each of you to stand and to give an exact account of what happened since our last little meeting here," Tab lectured. "I want to know where you've been and who you were with. I want not one minute to be unaccounted for! Is that clear?
"Klo Vort!"
She stood, looked around and stated, "I left with my buddy, Tham Lee, and Kor and Birr Morn. We went to game room four where we played Star Fleet with Sim Sim, Lot Xam and Khop Thu until perhaps twenty minutes ago when Tar asked us to help search for Sar Vell. Tham and I went to the third floor along with the Morn twins and searched it. Sar wasn't there. We were called here."
"Anyone out of sight in that party at any time for even a few seconds?"
"We stayed pretty close together," Birr Morn answered. "I don't think anyone left the game room and we sure as hell weren't going to stray away from each other if somebody else was missing!"
"Good," Tab said. "You said Nhop Thu didn't go on the search with you?"
"He came with Gore, Lae and me," Tar Shat replied. "I stayed with Gore and Lae the entire time. We searched the second floor along with Nhop, Sam and Luh."
"Sam and Luh, were you in the sight of anyone else before the search?" Tab asked.
"We were in the study den with Let and Ahl except when they came to talk with you," Sam said. "You can see the door to your, er, office from there. We didn't get out of each other's sight."
"And you went to your ship?" Tab asked Knar.
"My ship? No!" Knar said. "Whatever gave you ... I was in the kitchens. I wanted to work out a way for that ridiculous scene in the kitchen, Terror At Cape Castle, you know. Bloody bit in the kitchen when Marq hacks Thor up and grinds him in the disposal. Didn't have disposals back then. A scriptwriter should have seen that!"
"Is that what you were doing with Sar Vell's body in there?" Tab asked conversationally. "Grinding him up in the disposal? Is that how you got rid of the others?"
"What?" Knar asked, looking startled. "No, of course not. I don't think you could actually get a whole body dispo ... ME?"
"Let's face a few facts," Kit said, receiving the same things from T6 Tab was getting. "You're the only one here who wasn't with anyone all the time. You and Vell, who merely went to his room to get some contracts. You're the only one without an alibi."
"Then I must be innocent!" he cried. "Don't you read the crap you work on? The guilty party is almost always the one with the unbreakable alibi. This is obscene! Surely you aren't serious!"
"Oh, yes," Tab said. "We're very serious. Let's face a few of those facts Cam mentioned, shall we?
"First, you came to Mort Bhar with a scheme to make a series of horror period pictures which you had partial possession of the rights to. You made a deal whereunder you would get a great deal of money for those rights. Then your lawyers, not having been aware that you were desperately in need of immediate cash, let the contract be signed that deferred any monies to you until the pictures were finished and distributed.
"We checked all your finances. You're deeply in debt and your agency is no help, as it is. You said you could use the publicity from the events here to increase demand for the pictures.
"I think we'll find it was really your idea to come here to Drove. You were going to try to get defections of the top stars here so your commissions on the prepayments THEY would get but that YOU wouldn't could help to tide you over until at least one of the pictures started paying off.
"I think we'll find Kral Khap was in it with you. He was to get Kly May to disappear somehow, the publicity would increase demand for the pictures and you could then get some advance from Mort. It was a good idea. It would've worked and everyone would've come out ahead, but for the tiny fact that the first big star you approached with your defection scam threatened to break your neck for you if you made any such suggestions again.
"That wasn't terribly bad if you could get the publicity stunt going.
"What happened then? Did Khap go too far? Was Kly May going to expose the whole thing?
"I don't think that's likely, really. She had sense enough to know how well a publicity stunt of that type can work so would have gone along with it.
"What happened? Did Suh Plee find something in her search for Kly? Did you have to get rid of her? Jorn? What did he find out by those cliffs? I know a part of it, but you'll have to tell us what happened with Kly and Kral."
He decided to take a chance, so continued, "The hidden passage to Kly's rooms opens out through the tower base toward the cliffs and pads. Jorn found the evidence you drug the bodies out there and dumped them over the cliff so you dumped him over the cliff. It's as simple as that. The passage is full of evidence you were using it. This isn't your first trip here. You've read about the place and arranged the trip. Ahl knew that, as did others. I suppose the passage was meant only to smuggle K
ly and Kral out to a ship where they would leave. You told me what the plan was when you said that 'Mort' would have the strays reappear on the scene with a story about having taken off on a side vacation and not knowing there had been 'all the fuss' about it. It didn't work out quite that way, did it?"
Pli lounged back in his chair, applauded and grinned at them. "Very good!" he said. "You write a good script. Work it up and I'll add it to the series."
"It won't work," Kit said. "You can give it up. You've been caught."
"Well, if it weren't for a few little things you've left out your story MIGHT find a few of those who would very much like to see me, shall we say, removed? as takers," Pli replied confidently. "I don't know of any hidden passage to Kly's room or anywhere else. There are no bodies and the whole bunch will show up after this is all over and I'm certainly not in need of funds! There's no motive whatever!"
"You are in due debt to Khronk Federal Bank for three million credits and to Banker's Group for two," Kit said. "You are living in a mortgaged palace, driving mortgaged vehicles and have had your credit cards rescinded for nonpayment. There WERE no bodies to be found where Kly, Kral, Suh or Jorn were concerned because you disposed of them over the cliff, but you damned well didn't dispose of Sar Vell! His body's in the vegetable cooler. THAT'S what you were doing in the kitchen. There's no disposal in Terror At Cape Castle – do you think we wouldn't have even read the plays before we came here?
"You were right. We're detectives. When we pull Vell's body out you have no way out.
"I'd still like to know what went wrong with Kly. That was such a waste!"
"I don't have to listen to this!" Pli cried. "Even if you are detectives you have no authority here! This is a travesty! This is nothing more than made-up stories! This is intolerable!"
"Oh, we're empire detectives and we have full authority from Emperor Maita at all times and in all places," Tab countered. "You might as well tell us. Your only hope is that we're wrong about where Vell's body is and we won't find it. If it's there you'll go on the probe when convicted of a capital crime."
Pli didn't give a millimeter, even when Kit dragged Vell's body from the vegetable bin and when Tab showed him the blood in the passageway. They found the passageway with their sonics, but couldn't find an entrance into any of the rooms. Kit was afraid the case would be damaged, but Tab went to the tower base, found the entrance, came up the stairs in the wall and opened the hidden door into Kly's rooms. It had to be operated from inside the passageway. The robot servants used the passages in normal times.
The pictures were released beginning almost a year later and many commented on how realistic the castle seemed and how well the actors in all of them were able to project such an air of sinister fear. The films were all shot in Castle Drove. The final one was called "The Castle Drove Legend" – and was what Tab and Kit wrote up as a script about the murders. “We might as well see if we really could do it!" Tab quipped.
*I don't ever let anything from the probe be known to anyone except for the innocence or guilt.* Maita spoke through Thing's floater while Tab, Kit, Z and Thing strolled around the terrace.
[ But you're going to make an exception so you might as well get on with it. ]
*You know me too well, but I'm only going to tell one thing. I think Tab and Kit have a right to know. They asked the question of Pli, but never got an answer. What went wrong was that Kly and Kral had a fight after which she refused to go along with Pli's plan without a hell of a big bonus – in advance. Kral saw his fee going down the drain, hit her and she rolled down those steep stone stairs. They were at the top of the hidden passageway at the time. Pli didn't know anything about it until Kral showed him the body during the search. Pli decided that since she was dead already she might as well disappear for good. The publicity stunt would work even better!*
[ So what? He still killed the others. Why? ]
*All Tab asked was what went wrong with Kly!*
"Maita, I have ten seconds before I run amok!" T6 demanded. "What the hell happened? Why the other murders?"
*That one was an accident, not murder. You see, no one intended to kill anyone at that point so....*
"Maita! Tell us!" TR inserted.
*Well, Pli and Kral drug Kly's body to the cliff and threw it over, then Kral simply told Pli he was going to pay big money for this little secret. Up until the time the body was thrown over the cliff no one could be held responsible, but since that was done Kral could claim Pli had killed her and dumped the body. He would be exonerated, of course, but it would all come out and he would be ruined. Kral made the mistake of discussing that on the cliff edge where they wouldn't be overheard so he ended up with a knife in his gut and getting pushed over himself. Suh Plee had discussed the stunt with Kly and knew she was going to try some blackmail so she had to go. Jorn found blood on the cliff top and almost caught Pli killing Kral so he went. Vell was added later because Pli was now an experienced murderer and he hated Vell's guts. Ahl was to be next. It seems hard to stop once you get started.*
"I think Pli was right about one thing," Tab said.
[ What's that? ]
"It did make a great script!" Tab replied. "I wonder if Mort Bhar would have bought it if he hadn't been there."
"Too far out," Kit protested. "No one would waste time making any such picture. It's not believable. Those things don't happen. I designed the sets. That was what sold it!"
"I think the whole bunch of you need help," Z said. "Pass the wine and some of that amaranth bread. You claim you had to put up with that bunch of overdone hams? What the hell do I have to put up with?" That started it. It went on until ... it's still going on.
Fourth Case
"It's a long way from most of what we do to what most people think we do," Tab explained. "Ninety percent of it's reading computers or sitting around waiting for someone to do something. If people would learn to keep their mouths shut and to stop when they're ahead we'd never catch most of them."
His fellow robot detective, Kit, replied, "That's certainly true. Remember how I felt after our first couple of cases? I was ready to chuck this stupid business, as Z here would say."
The group was sitting on Z's terrace watching the green sun rise. The red one was behind them just at the peak of the gently sloping mountain that was most of Z's island. They had come to Empire Center for Z's three hundredth (Give or take a couple) birthday. Everyone else had gone back to their own worlds the day before except the Maitan girl, Owanda, who had taken quickly to the Terran, Z. The Terrans were of original Maitan stock and hadn't diverged very much so they got along very well – for mammals.
Now there was only Z, Kit (In his original design now, that of a Kheth), Tab (In his original design of a Swaz), the tug floater from Maita with Thing sitting on it and Owanda.
Maita is a spaceship. It is independently intelligent and, through a long process of strange events, has become emperor of a galaxy-wide empire. The people for the most part don't know the emperor is a machine. Some wouldn't accept that fact among the six thousand seven hundred twenty two worlds now members of the Maitan Empire. The empire functions mainly as a huge trading guild so a machine is far the best and most efficient ruler, though Maita could be as stubborn as any organic.
Both Z and Thing, the small squarish rubbery tentacled being from the most intelligent race known in the galaxy, the Mentans, who was riding the special floater, were kept in a state of virtual immortality by Maita and the group often adventured together. They constantly played together, childish kinds of things that were really great fun for all of them. They had been together for the entire three hundred years (Minus the twenty four that was Z's actual age when he was abducted from Earth) and were very close.
Tab was manufactured by Maita, along with his spaceship, TRD-60, who was in fact part of him. Kit was also manufactured by Maita to be part and companion to his own ship, T6. T6 and TR were intelligent in their own rights. TR had been manufactured that way while T6 accidentally
became independent and aware through what amounted to "It’s good enough for government work" repairs. The Inktan government maintenance shop had used parts designed for other things and had taken other shortcuts that resulted in T6's intelligence back when it was used by Inktan professor, Rimalt.
As ships handle all such things, it had registered itself as Rimalt's property and a great friendship quickly grew between them. When Rimalt died (He refused the curse of life extension offered by Maita) Maita made Kit as companion to T6 and as partner in Tab's detective business. Kit was very recent and had only handled a few cases so far with Tab, but was learning.
All of the information about their business – or any other – could be programmed in, but actual experience resulted in an undefinable sharpening of skills that could NOT be programmed.
Thing came to drop off the floater onto Kit's shoulder. It was an empath and couldn't directly vocalize so Maita had designed a system through which it could speak through speakers on any of the ships or through speakers on the floaters. Maita and the robots and their ships could speak through the same speakers so devised a system from the first where it used a soft bell tone to announce its speech (*) while Thing used a middle "C" tuning fork sound ( [ – ] ) to announce its speech. TR and T6 had distinct enough intonation that they didn't need anything else. From the first, Maita and Thing spoke in the form of machines, using neither inflection nor paragraphing in their speech. They now used inflections, but the old habit of not using paragraphing persisted. Everyone was now used to it so it presented no major problems.
Thing settled on Kit's shoulder and spoke through the floater. [ Do you two detectives think you can figure Z's exact age in Maitan Empire Standard years? ]
"Sure," Tab said. "If we can be given a date to start and a date he was abducted."
"I was born May sixteenth, nineteen sixty one on Earth and was abducted September nine, nineteen eighty five," Z informed them. "That abduction was on Prime nine, seven fifteen twenty seven MGS."
"Well, an Earth year is point nine eight three Maitan Galactic Standard years so you were twenty three point ... nine one six four MGS years old when you were abducted," Tab figured. "It is now Medate eleven, seven eighteen oh oh. There was the three year adjustment one hundred eighty one years ago so your ... three hundredth birthday would fall on ... Medate nine, seven eighteen oh oh! That's when the party started!"
