by Moulton, CD
"Come to Leen, E two nineteen minus three E twenty six five thirty two," T6 instructed. "We'll stay out of sight until you get here and can go in together."
"So it's Kronner Lomm Spatt?" Tab asked. "I had her on the top of the most likely lists. About number ... eight. I guess we should've taken this according to the most likely on down and we would've found her the first day."
"And if it hadn't been her we'd take most of a year to finish our search," TR pointed out. "We'll be there in two hours. Do all the passive scans you can. Send floaters only if they can elude detection. We have to know the general area and every detail of the immediate grounds.
"Is it underground? In some kind of vault? Still in the ship? What happened to the ship? Are the crew all right?"
"How about if you answer one or two of those questions for yourself after you get here?" T6 replied. "I have two spy floaters with passives moving through on velocity so they shouldn't be detected. There're some weapon systems down there, but nothing spectacular. They don't have power for large ones except on one ship, which I assume is the pirate craft. I'll have the floaters drop tracers on all the ships down there just in case. We can't go in there until we can prove this is the stuff, you know. We can't enter private property on a private world without probable cause and a warrant and you know what a judge machine would do with our new detectors. We can put this case as a precedent for them by recording everything, but it's not allowable evidence without that proof.
"What do we do?"
"Maybe Jornians?" Tab said. "We have to find out what kinds of beings frequent her place. She's a Leen mammal so.... It will have to be a race who wouldn't flinch at coldblooded murder, but who appreciate art. Terrans?"
"Not likely way out here," Kit replied. "It'd have to be someone with the wealth to travel the galaxy for a purpose having nothing whatever to do with art or psiltripium. You can wager she won't want anyone to know about any of this.
"Why would who be on Leen and why would they seek out Kronner Lomm Spatt?"
"She owns a number of companies in this area of space," TR pointed out. "Business?"
"Well, we could go to her main offices on Leen and seem to be interested in making some deals that would mean meeting with her. According to these records she entertains at her place there almost exclusively. She's quite the social show-off so we'll have to be VIP's from another part of the galaxy," Tab said. "TR and T Six can handle the input into the galactic news for her to check on. Business, wealth and huge social importance somewhere. Maybe with social importance that's growing in the area of influence? Maybe something that could reach galaxy-wide proportions in a rather short time?"
"Her type would want to be first to introduce somebody like that into the social system here," TR agreed. "I have an idea! We might as well have some fun here! You two go into the shops for modification while T Six and I plan this. We can use difference and surprise to our advantage. Whatever you do will seem possibly normal.
"Remember the last case? The different set of logic?"
"I'm not going to be turned into a weird unclassifiable!" Kit retorted.
"Oh yes you are!" T6 replied happily. "It'll be fun!"
Tab shook his head in a very organic-seeming fashion and went into the shop hold. When he emerged TR was linked to T6 in orbit above Leen. The ships were both putting on their own disguises.
"Come into T Six pilot's dome and I'll explain what we came up with," TR said to Tab. "I think you'll really enjoy this!"
"What the hell am I supposed to be?" Tab asked as he came from the modification shop. Kit was asking T6 the same thing.
"You are a Wahtziht," TR answered. "You are an unclassifiable conglomeration of all kinds of different things!"
Tab closely viewed himself through TR's optical sensors. He was about the same size and shape he was as a Swaz, but had faceted eyes, long sharp carnivoran teeth, a bit of a trunk for a nose and large fan-like ears. He had long bushy red hair on either side of a scaled crest with tubular antennae rising a third of a meter above his head. He was powerfully built, with the fin of the Swaz somewhat larger. The curly red hair extended to a point at his waist in front and back and his legs ended like his arms with webbing between the digits. From the knees down and the elbows outward the skin was scaled. He had sharp talons for nails.
"This is an impossible being!" Tab cried as Kit came into the hold, looking like an identical twin.
"I know it!" T6 said happily. "You know it! Kit knows it! Kronner Lomm Spatt does NOT know it! You are both fabulously artistic, which is why you're rising so fast in social circles all over the empire. You're here to open accounts with four different kinds of companies belonging to Lomm.
"They use the middle name in polite society here.
"You have a very different system of logic from these local people so must say and do totally outrageous things. You don't take offense at anything unless you decide it's a good idea to do so, then it can be the most innocent thing."
"You are compulsively sexual," TR continued. "Tab will like that. You want to mate with about every kind of being you come across. The Leen are known to be hedonistic so it'll make for some interesting times.
"One of the major things you wish to establish trade in is psiltripium, which Houhziht, your home world, has a great amount of. Hopefully, Lomm will want to show you some of the artistic possibilities of the medium."
"Kit is Puddih Dover and Tab is Ohnem Nau," T6 said. "Kit is called Curly for short and Tab is Mo. I got that from Z!"
"Sheee! How would you get Curly from Puddih Dover?" Kit asked.
"Why, it's totally logical to YOU!" TR replied. "You've been programmed with the talents of Tous and Uars, two Parf, long dead, who were friends of Maita and who had the probe used on themselves to help Maita in a study of the mind of the artist. Tous did the painting in Z's bedroom and the sculpture and mosaic on his terrace. Uars did the painting of Maita and the Zulians in Maita's pilot's dome. You can see the amazing talents at your disposal, though there is little or no hope you could duplicate any of the quality of their work you will have the ability for all the mechanics and can do more than ninety percent of the artists known.
"You have an appointment with Clarp Hopp of Leen Consolidated Industries."
"The news recorders will show you and your race to be among the fastest rising peoples in social circles in the galaxy as well as some of the wealthiest. You've kept a low profile until ready for expansion, which is now.
"Leen Consolidated makes gravity focus units for spaceships and gravitic amplifiers for fastcom communications. They also deal in exceptional art importation. You also grow a product much like gincha. It's called coffee and is from Z's Earth. Z transplanted it to EC and now it's grown on several planets so we can actually supply it in commercial quantity. Many mammalian races will like it. It contains a mild stimulant and the poisons are easily extracted before export.
"That's three separate products so you should get to see Lomm very quickly – if only because of the social thing.
"Questions?"
"We'll react to situations," Tab agreed. "I'm as ready as I ever will be. Did Maita tell you how to adjust me for the horny bit?"
"Yeah!" TR replied. "You're supposed to be obsessive about sex so I figured I'd better reinforce it. It should be a novelty to Kit. I don't think he's ever had the need to use those abilities. T Six made him horny, too."
They went to the Leen Consolidated office where they were totally incomprehensible to Clarp Hopp, who only understood there was a lot of business to be done here and a lot of money could change hands. Obviously, the Wahtziht had psiltripium and other things the business wanted to get their hands on. That coffee stuff could be as big as gincha!
. . . .
These were easily the strangest beings Clarp had ever seen. He quickly checked the records to find they operated under a strange logic. The logic system was valid if different according to the empire. The people were rising socially and were generally qui
te wealthy. There was a side notation that these people were unselectively sexual? What the hell did that mean?
Clarp looked at the two strange beings. Their general form was much like a very powerfully built Leen in some ways and they certainly exhibited a magnetic sexuality for some reason. They were certainly mammalian in those respects visible to him!
The two seemed to notice where he was looking and seemed to be responding to HIM! The Leen were rarely homosexual and Clarp not at all. He was at a complete loss as to what to do. He edged to the door where he suddenly slipped out and had his secretary contact Kronner Lomm Spatt. SHE would certainly appreciate their sexuality! He knew that well enough! He was able to get them out of the office before he was actually raped or anything. His secretary was looking dreamily at them and simply accepted that Mo character's invitation to come with them to their ship! She hadn't even asked if she could take the time off! Better her than him!
How in HELL did they get Mo from a name like Ohnem Nau?
. . . .
Kit had the opportunity to try out his various parts finding that everything worked superbly well and he could understand Tab's great liking for the sex thing.
Nute, the secretary, had called a friend for him and was ready to call some more. It seemed they weren't used to such stamina in their males. Now they were in a flittercraft heading for Lomm's place. It should prove interesting if nothing else.
They were being followed shortly by TR and T6. They supposedly had programmed their ships to come to them whenever they called – which brought the company representatives here into a frenzy. They'd never heard of a ship that could be programmed to handle itself except for a few insystem drones and Theron, the emperor's ship and a couple of ships that were always with the emperor's crew! That technology was priceless!
They were greeted at the estate house by a Bentan female who Kit immediately moved to seduce, but they were called along to a large room where Lomm was reclining on a bench-like couch covered in simulated furs. She was being deliberately sensuous so Clarp or possibly Nute had reported on them.
It must have been Clarp. She wouldn't send the Bentan woman out if she'd talked with Nute!
It wasn't long before she did call several other women she knew over. If she couldn't tell they were machines after so much more than any organic male could have stood she wasn't too smart in Tab's estimation.
. . .
Later Kit decided he wanted to paint the room with her on the couch there and had T6 send a floater with canvas and paints and an easel. Tab said she should be done in clay so had TR send supplies for that. They both said it would be a perfect time to discuss their business. Lomm was exhausted and ready to lay around for awhile. They talked to her and flattered her. She would ask them the most personal of questions and they would simply answer her. It was true they were different. They had no inhibitions whatever about telling her they were surprised that Clarp didn't bed them – he had definitely stared at them in an inviting manner. She tried to explain that males didn't often bed each other in her society, something they seemed incapable of understanding. She had bluntly asked them if they shared a bed and they seemed surprised at the question. They were raised together and were closest friends. Closest friends didn't have sexual relations together because it always led to problems later on in life.
The work was magnificent! The news reports were right when they suggested these people were sometimes as good as the Parf artists! She must compare this work with the Parf things in the special vault – but there couldn't be any actual comparison. The psiltripium would place them in totally different categories.
She did have two small Parf works, legitimate ones. The technique seemed as good, though. The colors and textures were beautifully used and blended. She asked Mo if he had ever used any of the psiltripium in his work and he seemed puzzled. He didn't seem to understand it COULD be used. Curly began to argue that maybe the difference in refraction would give some startling results. Mo argued he didn't care to carry around a palette that weighed half a ton! Curly decided it wouldn't take that much to accomplish the refraction level he wanted and he could picture colored water sculptures if there were any soluble psiltripium compounds that wouldn't come out of solution from weight.
These people had never heard of the Lirnian work! Lomm's plan with the art was to keep it for her own personal viewing and to leave it to her son, who was just past puberty and who came up with the idea of pirating the stuff. He could leave the art in the vault and it would always be the family's security in the future. It was worth literally billions of credits now and would only grow as the individual artists grew old and died.
One thing was certain. She could do something right now that may establish the art forms using the psiltripium for all time. If these superior artists used it she could tie up the trade in the form through her own company and could slowly dribble the things in her vaults into the markets. If anyone identified one work in a large group as Lirnian she could claim she had no least idea of how it got there. They couldn't prove anything at all! One painting in a gallery of paintings of the same quality ... how could she possibly know?
Lomm smiled and looked at the finished work. It was good! It was better than good! This was true art! This was as good as any Parf work!
She had food brought. They agreed during the posing to allow her company to handle products from Wahtziht for everywhere except on the South Galactic Sphere. So that was where they were from!
This was far too good to be true! If they would produce art using psiltripium she would handle it all!
"Let me show you a couple of little things," she told them as they were being seated to eat. They were both looking at her in a very specific way, but that would have to wait until certain contracts were signed and delivered. "I'll bring out the art, two little things a friend who owns a gallery gave me. My secretary is instructed to bring in the contracts to sign, then we'll find other amusement," she said and went to her vault while the secretary got signatures on the contracts. When Lomm returned the secretary was on the couch with both of them, but the contracts had been signed so she wouldn't object. Together they were certainly much more than she could hope to handle! Either of them was more than she could handle by herself!
"Look!" she called, but was ignored.
What were they doing? She didn't even know that was possible! She waited a moment, then Mo looked up to see her and grinned an invitation, saw what she was holding and stopped.
"This is a small water-filled sculpture with dye and a small bit of psiltripium fluoride in it and this is a representative painting," she said as Mo came to stare in awe at the beautiful things. "It's what I was talking about for the art."
Curly came to stare in as much awe at the little painting of a sunset that actually seemed to have a hot glowing golden sun. The psiltripium in the magentas and reds on the undersides of the clouds made the light seem real and moving. The light was a part of the painting itself to the eye, not something reflected by it.
She moved the little painting slowly into a darker shadow she made with her body. It looked as though the sun were actually setting it was so real!
Lomm was as hypnotized by the amazing painting and sculpture as everyone else. She slowly came back to the present reality to hear Mo saying something about the empire.
"What’s that?" she asked. "I was lost in the painting, I'm afraid. This is what you can produce using psiltripium. I think you should experiment in the medium."
"I was saying that, by the authority vested in me as personal agent of Emperor Maita, I arrest you and all on this property on a charge of piracy and theft," Mo was saying! What was all of this?
"If you can't produce the crew of that ship out there alive and in good condition you will be charged with their murders and the bunch of you will be executed. Your possession of these items is proof of your complicity. If you have in your employ the persons who pirated that ship it is conspiracy and the bunch of you will go on the probe.
Maita won't tolerate piracy. You should have found a way to do this that wouldn't have been brought to his personal attention. Piracy was sure to do that!"
At the words about the probe Lomm went cold inside. That would expose her young son as the originator and leader in this!
*
"They weren't supposed to allow any distress calls out," Tab reported to Maita. "The ship was to enter TTH and never come out again. The captain saw them approaching and saw the stun antennae so made the call before they were hit. The Leen ship wasn't on galactic channels and didn't know until they were back at Lomm's place they were reported. They'd killed the crew. All they could do was to hide out and hope there was never any trace to Leen in their lifetimes.
"A kid was behind the whole thing, but the probe showed him to be inherently criminal, enforced with a too permissive raising. He was exiled along with Lomm and the people at the company and estate who knew about this to a rather unpleasant planet where no one would be allowed to go in or out for one hundred years.
"The crew of the pirate ship, the only one who was left was executed. He killed off the others in an attempt to cover his own tracks.
"The Lirnians have their property back. The reward was donated to Hospital in the name of Wahtziht, which is purportedly a world out there where you're exploring.
"Kit and I thoroughly enjoy being oversexed unclassifiables who're ready and willing to jump any other race. Please direct TR and T Six to leave us as we are!"
There was the two minute pause before Maita's answer.
*I hereby direct TR and T6 to immediately return you to your original designed states and to tune your sexuality down to more normal levels! Other than that I have to say you've done a good job!*
"Come on, Maita! Just a few days vacation somewhere before the reverse modification?" Kit begged.
"A vacation on Islipona!" Tab added.
Well, Maita felt they did deserve some little reward. *Two days from landfall on Islipona. No more.*
The two robots did what Z called the "High Five."
