by Moulton, CD
"There's an interference scanner that will come by in a few seconds so make one pulse and don't communicate further," T6 sent. "Kit is being held and they may have a way to detect coms between any of us. Kit is here."
There was a picture map of the area with a light at one spot. There wouldn't be any further communication for awhile.
Tab sat back to think, then got up and headed for the door.
"Shield stasis fields and inertial fields," Tab cautioned as he went to the door. "Nobody comes aboard you. Nobody but Kit or me."
"How in the hell can I shield stasis or inertial fields?" TR asked exasperatedly.
"Oh, try the same way they do," Tab answered. "Closed moebus repulse looped carrier fields."
"I will be damned!" TR replied. "I think maybe I can construct ... moebus? The field will have to twist on itself and will.... Oh, this is good! I think maybe I can ... this is fascinating!"
Tab went out grinning to himself. TR would see what he had seen. This time they were one up on Thing! Finally!
* *
Kit looked out through the narrow window and wondered what would be his best chance. He could probably walk right through that wall, but then he wouldn't have a chance of finding out who or what was behind this. He could possibly learn something if he stayed in and kept quiet. They wouldn't be able to find anything about him.
Had they managed to get aboard T6? If so, had they discovered anything?
Probably not. The important equipment aboard was mostly in the programings so they couldn't get to it in a stasis field.
How had they been able to move about inside of that field? It didn't make any sense! It was Jornians and Zurn, though only the Jornians would know this was a crooked operation. The Zurn wouldn't go along with it if they knew. It would stop immediately when medical supplies were taken.
Why must a race with the good abilities and potentials of the Jornians go through this stage? They had so much to offer.
Should he have contacted Maita before coming here and told it about the ability of the Jornians to move about inside a stasis field? Thing may be able to figure out how it was done in time. If the Jornians found the principle in years of research hing could find it in days. If it were an accidental discovery maybe even Thing couldn't figure it out.
Kit thought: Here I am locked in a cell and I'm thinking about what Thing can do! I can't even dare to try to contact T6. This is ridiculous! I'll give it one more day, then I'll have to do something. They don't want to hurt anyone for a change so I've got that going for me. Maybe they figure so long as no one's killed the empire will stay out of it. They think in weird ways.
There was some sort of pattern or password or something and he didn't know it so was grabbed. Maybe they'd try to sell T6, too, but there was no way anyone other than he or Tab could get that ship to do anything at all.
Could they destroy its intelligence? Kit sincerely hoped that was the one impossibility that had been put in by Maita. He would self-destruct if anything happened to T6.
Concentrate on the problem at hand. They had this contraband stored here. One ship had come that Kit knew of to buy a load. It left with the gincha. Maybe T6 could trace the chits and would know where the stuff was taken and what kind of prices they were getting for stuff. They would need to find the entire route the goods followed to be able to end the scheme. It would have to come at one time, not in pieces.
He heard a ship come in and looked out the little air vent.
It was TR! Would they grab Tab now?
That question was answered after a few more minutes. Two Jornians with hand phase shifter beamers led another Jornian in and told him to sit. They asked Kit if he wanted anything, were told no, and left.
"Hi, I'm Loahr," the Jornian said. "I take it that's your ship on the pads?
"I landed next to you. I hope I can make a deal for some of that nav stuff! I know just where to move it fast! You after ... you're a Kheth. What would you be after?"
So it was Tab in disguise and he wasn't worried about being held. That was good.
"I'm called Giam," Kit replied. "I happened to see the planet was occupied. There were three ships sitting out there as plain as day so I called in and got a ridiculous story about some kind of special permitted operation. I landed anyway and ended up in here.
"What do you mean about nav equipment? This is an empire restricted planet! They can't use it as a transfer station!"
"Wow! Are you dense!" Tab cried.
This was for the obvious bugs his internals detected around the room. He was certain Kit had detected them, too, so Kit was communicating in that manner that he had gotten himself into a position where he couldn't act as a crook or buyer so had acted like a Kheth would act. Outraged at any sign of illegal dealings of any sort. Tab would know Kit had figured out too late he shouldn't have come as a Kheth. The Kheth didn't get involved in such dealings. Ever.
"Dense?" Kit replied coldly. "Do you feel that anyone with personal honor is dense?
"I see! This is all stolen goods, isn't it? That's why it's on a restricted planet!
"Well, you can rest assured the emperor will find it on the yearly scan! It won't last! That IS, after all, what the scan is FOR!"
"Yearly scan?" Tab asked.
"Why, certainly," Kit replied. "All closed and restricted worlds are scanned once every year for abuses such as this ever since those Immins were using Tabori over a hundred years ago. Emperor Maita has decreed that the same sort of criminal activity will not be allowed to flourish ever again in this galaxy. You know how he is about that sort of thing and it gives Fleet something to do while keeping this sort of thing from thriving. I'd think the scan is due here quite soon. I'm fairly sure it's nearly a year since the last one.
"It will be most interesting to see what the emperor decrees will be done with the lot of you! Nav equipment isn't so terribly bad. You won't be executed. If it were medical or critical foodstuffs or such I'll bet he'd fry the bunch of you!"
"Buh, buh, but there are...! I've got to get out of here!" Tab cried. "I didn't know anything about any scans! Fleet? Oh, great Glorch! How do I get involved in this kind of thing! Why doesn't anything ever go right for me!"
Tab sat with his head in his hands to hide the smirk. Kit had come up with the perfect thing here. To suggest there would be Fleet in the area and that restricted planets would be scanned would panic the Jornians – if they fell for it.
Their first hijacking was almost a year ago so they'd think their time was running out.
His sonic detectors located two sets of feet running along the hall toward them.
*
Kit was seated on one side of the desk and Tab on the other. A Jornian who introduced himself as Wahlk was across it asking the questions. He was acting as though this were a typical session with businessmen.
"I can't find any records of you, Giam," he accused. "I don't know anything about you."
"I don't have any of the kinds of records you'd know to look for!" Kit snapped. "I don't deal with criminals! If you'll look in the records of normal citizens conducting normal business in a normal way I assure you that you'll find me!"
"You assume far too much," Wahlk replied carefully. "Loahr, I find some about you. You are a smalltime dealer who moves around on the fringes of legality. We are not involved with such things.
"I am going to ask you once to leave this world. We don't want your type here! If you are not away within one hour we will turn you over to Fleet when they come through in ten days on the yearly scan! Do I make myself QUITE CLEAR?"
Tab wondered what was going on, but decided to go along so he stood, knocking over the chair, made an obscene gesture at Wahlk and stalked out. One of the guards came along and signed for him to come into the adjoining room.
"Wahlk just wants to get rid of that character," he explained. "He'll give him a story and show him some very official looking papers signed by the emperor himself. You check out okay so we can deal when this Giam idio
t has left. You may have to move your ship for a few hours until he goes.
"Wahlk wants to know how you found the stasis resistor field?"
Tab grinned and went to the table where another Jornian was listening to what was being said in the other room.
"...can assure you, Giam. These are authentic! You see the emperor's personal seal here," Wahlk was saying. "The purpose of the place is to attract crooks. Big time criminals. We aren't after little nothings like that Loahr person. We get them by the hundred after the word gets out about this place among his type, which we spread through the old rim world sections. His ship will be followed everywhere, of course, but he's small meteors to what we're after.
"You are requested not to let anyone know about this place. If there's any suspicion of what the emperor is doing here it won't work. The ones we're trying to locate, to catch in the act as it were, will stay away in armies. You do see that, don't you?
"I'm sorry we had to detain an honest citizen, but we must appear to be what we aren't and that's the way real gangsters would act. It may be necessary for us to say we've killed you if Loahr bothers us again. That is what real gangsters would do without thinking about it. You would, in point of fact, have been disposed of as soon as you landed and this situation would never be taking place. That is really the type of criminal we are here to locate and arrest."
"I can certainly see your point!" Kit replied. "You can be sure your secret's safe with me. I won't give you away. I promise I don't even know any crooks, but I know how words spread so I won't say anything to anyone. I hope the empire gets every one of the low stinking scum who would engage in this sort of sordid activity! Leeches who prey on honest people don't have the right to exist in this empire! I'm all for putting every last one of those crooks on the probe and executing every last one of them who engage in this obscene behavior! I can guarantee you I won't do anything that could in any way interfere with getting rid of those crooked kinds of refuse! I swear it! I will do anything I can to aid in eliminating that galactic refuse from the face of the N plane!"
"Oh, ha, ha, no!" Wahlk replied. "We need no oaths! I know the Kheth are honest as a race and I can see you're a credit to the race.
"I'm afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave quickly, though. There's a ship from an important place coming. We must be sure we catch this one! Hah!"
Tab said, "I'd better get into orbit before that fool sees my ship here. I'll be back as soon as he's gone."
"Land on the pads to the north," the Jornian at the table said casually. "There's a big freighter due here soon. There's no rush, you know. Wahlk wanted me to tell you we know all about the scanner ships. It's arranged so there'll be a slight equipment failure as it scans this area. Nothing else is anywhere on the planet so it won't be worth rescanning."
Tab went out, got aboard TR and they lifted off. There was a tracer on the underside TR sent a cleaner servo out to retrieve. They paced T6 for a distance after it lifted off, then contacted Kit.
"Good show!" Tab said. "I'm going back. You get Fleet ready out here. Contact Maita now and I'll listen in."
"Right!" T6 replied. "I was scared down there. Really scared. If they would've done anything to Kit I was going to flatten that whole place and answer to Maita later.
"Maita says Thing has a message for you."
[ TR, T Six, you can negate a stasis or inertia field with a double looped moebus reversal field. I saw that back when we were making the device for Fleet to use on the Tlessarian brain. That is the simplest method. I will send a diagram after this on how to construct the antenna. You can also induce field resistance inversion, but it isn't so stable. Stand by for diagrams. ]
"I've already made and used the field," TR sent. "Why didn't you tell us about it before this? It would've come in handy to have it as standard equipment."
[ I didn't foresee any particular practical use for it at the time. ]
So Thing had been years ahead of this even before they knew it may be needed!
They explained what they planned and Tab said there was going to be a very large ship aground soon.
"It may be the main fence," Z sent when they had explained the setup. "This Wahlk jerk fell for the scanner ship bit. He wants to get all of their merchandise off-planet. What he may be able to sell to you is that much less to fool with so don't buy much and get away before the big ship leaves if you possibly can. There has to be some reason that ship's so close. Maybe Wahlk figured he'd have to leave suddenly at some time or other."
"The big ship's landing right now," T6 reported. "Maybe we'd better just grab it and get it over with."
"No! I have an idea!" Tab protested. "Kit, get Fleet here, but don't move until that ship leaves or until I say to move. This is a break, I think."
Tab and TR went back to the planet to watch as the hijacked medical supplies were loaded, then went inside to Wahlk as the navigational equipment was being taken aboard. It was all done with servos and was a fast operation.
"I want a lot of navigational comp hard and software," he told Wahlk. "Do you have, say, six hundred units? I can move that immediately.
"Oh! And here's your tracer. I'm up with you on science so I found it right away. We're going to have to trust each other or we can't deal.
"Six hundred units?" He knew there were five hundred complete units from the loss records.
"I can let one lot of five hundred go at this time and can supply more later – after other promises have been filled," Wahlk said tossing the tracer aside onto a table. "Give me an offer."
"Do you have Zeenan, Mord or Ternz stuff?" Tab asked.
"I wouldn't touch Zeenan," Wahlk said. "There isn't anywhere in the galaxy to hide from them and it's too easy to identify. It's all Ternz, but I'm going to carry Mord later. "Give me an offer."
"Two five each," Tab suggested.
"No way!" Wahlk shot back. "They're worth one point five million per!"
"Not that stuff!" Tab shot back. "Two seven five tops."
"Three and it's done," Wahlk said.
"No. Two seven five tops," Tab replied.
"Two eighty. Not a centime less," Wahlk said.
"Deal," Tab replied. "I can have a ship here in two days for pickup."
"Not here," Wahlk protested. "I've decided not to chance the scanner ships this time. I'll give you the location of the goods when I have the money in hand."
"I'll give you half now and half when I pick the stuff up," Tab agreed. "Run out on me and my, er, sponsor will have you for dinner. Literally. He's one of those larger reptilian races."
"Get the chits and I'll give you the location," Wahlk replied.
Tab had no choice so he went to TR to pick up seventy million in chits. TR complained it couldn't get a tracer onto that ship and they'd find it, anyhow.
Tab said it was okay because Wahlk would tell him where to find it.
He returned with the cartload of ten thousand credit chits and Wahlk gave him a moder-coded block. He wouldn't know where the destination was. The ship would have the block inserted and would automatically go there.
Tab went with Wahlk to have a large mug of hot gincha and they watched the ship leave. All the stuff except some of the larger agricultural equipment was gone.
Tab went to TR and they took off. He placed the moder block into the slot for TR to read and they called Fleet to grab what was left on the planet. The agricultural equipment was enough to convict all of them there. The Zurn would get out of it all right because they would volunteer to take the probe and because they didn't know it was an illegal operation.
TR met T6 above a large rocky world with no atmosphere where they waited until the ship full of contraband came. The fact there was medical equipment aboard allowed use of the probe and Wahlk was shown to be the head of the whole thing. Tab thought there would be someone higher and the ship would lead them to him, but that wasn't the way it turned out. Wahlk had invented a small computer that plugged into the console on a Fleet ship when he was armory
officer. He read about the conic stasis field, then put a lot of people to work on making such a field for him. The field resistance effect was discovered almost accident, which probably saved a good many lives. Without free mobility inside the field he would have dragged the ships into an asteroid or something such to immobilize them and would have had to kill their crews so they couldn't identify him. A good outcome was that T6 invented a detector that could be built into trader ships. It would automatically detect and counter a stasis field. This kind of piracy was finished.
The whole group was again on Z's terrace, where they were discussing the case.
*The trouble with this crap is that now someone will find a counterfield for the counterfield and we are right back where we started.*
"Oh, I'll invent something to make the whole stasis field thing irrelevant," Tab said. "Maybe some way to combine a moebus loop and a rel-resistance field?" He looked at Thing sitting on its floater there and smirked. He would get ahead of it on this one! He could show a diagram that would prove such a field would work!
[ Yes, that works very nicely. I made one out of scrap parts and installed it on my floater here about thirty years ago. See? It's run off the stabilizer circuit. ]
Tab grabbed the floater and dumped Thing off before it could right itself. Thing swung around behind Tab to wrap its tentacles around his head, covering his optics and sonic sensors.
[ Help! I'm being attacked! ]
*You don't need any help. You've got him as much as helpless now!*
This would go on for hours.
Fifth Case
Tab walked down the winding path toward the beach, stopping occasionally to study a particular orchid beside the trail. This was a bed of wide-leaved plants with little sprays of flat pink flowers. There was a large log in the center of the bed. Calanthes.
There were white and pink phalaenopsis and one large plant with many sprays of little yellow and brownish-red flowers. He searched through his memory banks and was able to identify them as Oncidium sphacelatum.
