by Moulton, CD
[ After dark I can use a laser on the rear of one compound and Z can take another. We can use a separate floater to disable the alarms and can lead the natives out and to the mountains where you can protect them with floaters. You can give them floater protection all the way. If we can get them inside of caves or a solid safe place we can protect every one of them. ]
"Right! You take Lee and I'll take Gar. That's the first attack, but there won't be any fighting before morning. The missing slaves'll be one more indication that they're at each other's throats. The installations, the psiltripium, the food supply and now the slaves! I'll go after Gae and you go after Sic after we finish with this here. We have to be fast and accurate and we have to finish it in very short time or there may be trouble.
"Maita, check through the computer records of all of them. If they have some plague or hidden nuclears planted around we have to know about it and we have to protect this world.
"Let's get this show on the road! Positions, everyone! Lights! Cameras! Action!
"Be careful, little guy."
[ I will. You too, Z. ]
They loaded the floaters with what they would need and waited, then set out soon after complete darkness. The two small moons gave very little light, but the special floaters had excellent night vision screens. Z went through the trees among the upper branches where there would be no effective alarm sensors. He stopped behind the blank compound wall, a smooth plastic structure more than five meters in height, after moving around it as far as he dared to see where guards and entrances were located. The secondary floaters moved silently to make a bridge for the alarm beams and to locate a place on the wall where there were no internal sensors, then he used a pencil laser to cut a hole large enough for the natives to move through. He had the language crystal inserted in his earlobe socket when he slipped silently into the compound. The place was sealed from outside and there were no guards inside. He very carefully awakened some of the beings and explained he was there to free them. He spoke their language flawlessly. It took convincing, but he got some to believe him, then they helped to get the others out. It took more than twice as long as he planned, but they were able to move silently away. They were starting to go into the forest when Z stopped and looked back at the hole in the wall. He thought about it for a few seconds, grinned, and went back to replace the section melted out. He used the floater to recast around the spot and finish it to look like the wall hadn't been disturbed in any way, then returned to the people near the mountains. He found the caves Maita had located earlier with floaters and got the people inside, then saw Thing coming in the distance, leading its troops. When everyone was safely inside they went where Maita had defense floaters deployed in case the Immins came looking for their slaves. There was no way any Immin or sensor device could approach that area without being detected in plenty of time for defense.
"I had a little trouble convincing them to come. I guess to them I look too much like their tormentors. You had to come farther so I guess it wasn't so hard?"
[ I was so different they were ready to believe me. I had an idea that took a few minutes though. I put the plug back in the wall and sealed it in to look like the compound wall had never been breached. I figured a little mystery wouldn't hurt anything. They'll have to wonder how the natives got out through a solid wall! ]
"Great minds think alike! I did the same thing. I'm going after Gae's slaves. I'll be on a different place altogether from Sic's so don't get in any trouble. We have this at a point where we can slag those ships and all the Immins around them so DON'T take chances!"
[ I'll be very careful, Z. You do the same. ]
They separated, Thing to the mainland and east while Z went to the shoreline and west. They were a little more than five hundred kilometers apart. Dawn was breaking when Z returned to Maita. Thing was asleep in the pilot's chair so Z picked it up and slid in under it. One eye came through the tentacles to look at him and he felt a warm glow, then slept until nearly noon.
Maita said not much was happening except everyone was breaking out their weapons. It looked like a purely defensive posture for all of them.
*There are a lot of nasty messages flying back and forth. The natives are staying in the caves for now. The Immins are accusing and threatening one another. I'll send floaters to start a – oooh nooo!*
[ What's the matter?! Maita! Send to me! I didn't like the sound of that AT ALL! ]
*I'll put it on the speakers. It's my fault! Holy novas! You'd think I would know by now! I don't ever learn any more than those Immins do! I should have left defined orders! Great skidding asteroids!*
"...in ships on planet DS three oh four one C! This is the Guild Trader ship 'Iconoclast' in orbit!
"I repeat! Immin ships on planet DS three oh four one C! Reply immediately!"
[ Great gulping black holes, Maita! They'll be shot down! They don't guess at the strength of these Immins here! ]
"Who are you two all of a sudden? Batman and Robin? Maita, they know to shield, surely!"
*They were told not to make contact, damnit! Oh hell! This is impossible!*
The speakers came on again.
"Immin ships on planet DS three oh four one C! This is Guild Trader ship 'Iconoclast' in orbit! Your attack on an unarmed vessel spells your doom! Your use of nuclear devices makes you outlaw in the entire galaxy! There is a fleet of sixty trader ships coming here. You will be offered one – and only one – chance to surrender unconditionally and that chance is now. We have contacted Empire Center. The fleet is en route.
"Surrender now, outlaws, or we will gleefully turn you to vapor! Reply now Immins! This is your last chance! This is your only chance! You have exactly thirty seconds!"
*They've contacted the empire and the traders guild. That's true, but they weren't supposed to...*
Another voice came on the speakers.
"This is the Zeenan, Captain Zorz, aboard the Guild Trader 'Iconoclast' in orbit, Immins. No one need tell you what Zeenans think of Immins. Our captain is from the world, Newlitch, which you very nearly poisoned free of intelligence. There are also four ships deployed around the planet with Acnian captains. You will need no introduction to the Acnians, either! We are under empire orders to locate you, but not to contact you. I tell you this because Captain Harp has become suddenly ill and has taken to sick bay, leaving me in charge. It seems his door locks jammed and he can't get out of there to rescind my orders. Zeena is not a member of the empire and does not bow to their decrees except as we wish. I now choose to ignore that decree not to contact or to act against you.
"We have scanned and see you have native population among you. You will release them at once. Should it eventuate that you have harmed those people in any way you are beyond hope. I say that as a Zeenan. You know what a Zeenan's word means.
"Surrender now! If you attack us we will retaliate finally and totally! THAT, too, is the word of a Zeenan!"
[ Maita! Call that ship and tell them to back off! This can't happen! It must not be allowed! ]
"Hell, no!" Z yelled. "Let me talk to Zorz!"
*I have them on a secure beam. You can say what you wish, but I'll give empire orders if I must. Thing is right.*
"So is Zorz! Zeena isn't a member!" Z said. "Zorz? This is the Terran, Z. I'm here with the emperor and Thing. We found this nest and have removed the natives from the compounds during the night. Just be damned sure you only slag what's inside of those colonies! Don't damage anything outside of the compounds."
[ Zorz! This is Thing! Withdraw! They'll use nuclears here! Withdraw! ]
*This is Maita, Zorz. I will agree I can't make decrees to the Zeenans, but please consider what Thing stated. It's of gravest concern to me and I'm sure that Z didn't stop to think of the nuclear problems.*
"I didn't, Zorz!" Z agreed. "Be careful!"
"Emperor?" Zorz asked. "I know you have never made any decrees aimed at Zeena, but I will defy you. I won't do anything to cause them to use nuclears, but I will never
allow any of those ships to lift, either!"
"Zorz!" Z called. "How good are your shields? Can you shield fusion?"
"Easily," Zorz replied. "What do you suggest?"
[ Yes! Provoke them! Make them fire their missiles at you in space where you can explode them harmlessly. ]
"Our instruments tell us there are two on the way!" Zorz said.
"Get them as far from atmosphere as you can," Z instructed. "I doubt they have very many of them."
*Each ship has four. All the rest were on the psiltripium world.*
[ You have six to go. ]
"Both of those were from the colony on the western point of the continent," Zorz said. "I take it they have no more?"
*Right.*
"Fine!" Zorz said.
[ What's going on? ]
*Zorz! Wait!*
"There is no more colony on the western point of the continent as of this moment!" Zorz replied. "I wish to say the new focused neutron beam macro-miner operates somewhat better than projected, vaporizing EVERYTHING for a depth of one quarter kilometer when finely focused."
[ How will you control it for mining? It will vaporize your ore. That is far too much energy for a localized point of contact to survive. ]
"At a time like this you talk about MINING!?" Z yelled. "You’re out of your ever-lovin' MINDS!"
*They expand the focus and it only penetrates a few feet at a time. I would think perhaps they could rheostat the power input to where you can control the vapor point quite finely, burning away much of what isn't wanted and leaving your ore. Maybe it could even purify it.*
"Are you all crazy?!" Z cried.
Zorz laughed and said, "Well, we have to pass the time some way while we try to bait them into firing at us. We can change power input and output and focus. It's Zeenan. It's the finest available anywhere.
"We're getting lock-ons from two ships, both on a large island near the equator and perhaps two thirds of the way going from east to west off the continent where the others are located."
[ That's where we are. Close. Be sure you tight-focus properly. It's sorta important to us. The natives are perhaps a kilometer past us to the west. I will order a Zeenan in the name of the empire to NOT endanger those people. ]
"Fair enough! Shield energy weapons if we get all of either place's missiles!" Zorz replied. "Comp says two from one and one from the other. I'll get the one that shot both as soon as we lead their bombs away.
"My mate's tail! What was that?!"
*Cobalt wrapped. Planet cracker. Are you damaged?*
"No. Not seriously. Going in after that ... cute! Clever!" Zorz said. "They tried to sucker us. When we approached they fired the other one from the second base. We'll shield better this time!"
They waited until Maita made a grunting sound.
*I should have pulled that floater back farther! That beam is something else!*
"Emperor, the other base now has a large shield around it," Zorz reported. "What do you suggest?"
*What kind of shield?*
"Basic energy reflector, I'd say," Zorz replied. "Very reflective."
*That, if it's.... I see. Okay. We don't need to worry about the nuclears if I do this right. I can use the floater, get below that canopy ... like ... that! Now I find the antenn.... I can't control the floater in there! Damn!*
[ What were you planning? ]
*Grounding the antennae to the ships with the tug floater.*
"What'll that do?" Z asked.
"It'll charge the metal of the ship with energy. Ionizational input energy," Zorz answered. "I see. Ionize all the oxygen into ozone."
[ And all flammables ignite! The air will burn out fast and they have to drop the shield! ]
*But they can't drop the shield. The short circuit will freeze the circuit. It'll burn out, but after a certain time. It's an energy shield. Those ozone fires can't get rid of their heat. It'll be trapped inside the shield.*
"You have the views of the ship before the shield?" Z asked.
*Certainly.*
[ I see. Program a floater. ]
"Yup!" Z said. "Give it a picture and get it inside."
"Here come other traders," Zorz said. "I'll have them stand off in case they try to drop the shield and run."
Z sat back in the pilot's chair to wait. Thing climbed from his shoulder to his lap. There was nothing more to do so they waited for almost an hour.
*Okay. It worked. Much better than I thought.*
[ They had gone inside the ship? ]
"From what we can see it's sealed tight," Zorz said. "They retreated inside and were preparing to make a run for it. We haven't found any indication there were others here. Do you have other information?"
*That was all of them.*
"We will head for the psiltripium world, then. We'll want to use this beam the way it was designed to be used!" Zorz said.
They traded good fortunes, then Z and Thing went to tell the natives they could safely go home. The still burning Immin ship was lifted with a servo as pilot and dropped into the sun, taking its two missiles with it.
[ I guess we'll never be absolutely sure we're free of Immins, will we, Maita? ]
*Only when we've been to every world in the galaxy.*
"I hate to ask," Z said. "But what about those ships that left Maita thousands of years ago headed out of this galaxy? Were there Immins aboard?"
[ You make me sick! Why did you have to bring that up? You're disgusting! ]
*It doesn't matter, Thing. There were no Immins aboard those colony ships. Ironically, the Maitans would never place those of another race in the danger of such an untried thing.*
"I guess that's one bit of good news!" Z sighed. "Where to next?"
[ Anywhere where we KNOW there are no Immins! ]
Fart?!
"We were doing so great!" Z said. "Why do things have to turn so sour?"
[ We live charmed lives as it is. We've never had more than half as much bad luck as would be normal. How many times have we bragged that most of the things we've accomplished was due to your phenomenal luck? Besides, that turned out well. We saved a world from slavery and put a stop to the spread of the Immins. Again. ]
*Z's afraid that if he doesn't bitch now and then his luck will desert him.*
"I also am known to react badly when we're forced to do things like that! Good old pacifist, Steve Zutec, as much as orders Zorz to wipe out several thousand people! It's my psyche and I'll feel guilty if I want to!"
Thing, who was in a ball on his lap, sprung to the top of Z's head and leaned over to stare into his eyes.
[ He doesn't feel fevered, Maita. I think this time he really has gone nutzo on us! ]
*He went nutzo two hundred years ago. I tried to keep it a secret. In the first place, I don't consider Immins as people. They're just galactic refuse – or hopefully WERE! In the second place, Zorz was going to defy me and wipe out the colonies anyhow. In the third place, you were able to make him think about those nuclear bombs and to make him slow down enough to protect the natives. In the fourth place.... I lost my train of thought.*
[ You're both nutzo! I'm trapped on a spaceship that's gone nutzo with the only other passenger also nutzo! ]
Thing climbed back to roll up in Z's lap.
[ Another way of expressing it would be to say we're back to normal! ]
"Normal's a relative term, and I doubt that any of your relatives are normal, either. That's enough time to spend grieving for Immins. Where to next, fearless leader?"
*We're meeting with Fleet and a number of the trader ships on Fart. We'll decide how to make it a permanent part of the regular trader reporting and cataloguing to input information about any possible Immin or other outlaw colonies anywhere in the galaxy. I think we can then return to continue our spiral search pattern. Tab and Kit are on the fastcom again.*
They exchanged some information with the two robot detectives and Thing got into an argument with their ships, TRD-60 and T6, about some scienti
fic innovations they were making. Thing won easily, of course. No two supercomputers in the galaxy could hope to outthink it in theoretical matters or abstract thought.
The meeting with Fleet and the traders resulted in a plan where the Fleet ships would take certain sectors and the traders others. They would scan each planetary system in those sectors for the energy fields Immin ships would necessarily be emitting along with any "holes" in the energy scan that would indicate a shield.
They could drop into N space in the system and scan it in less than half an hour from two points, one on either side of the primary.
Maita explained how to modify equipment they all carried to handle the job and suggested they add a small computer to make the systems automatic and permanent parts of the ships.
They were to make no contact with any suspect worlds, but were to immediately report to the Acnian ship, "Nerstine-il", the leader of this segment of Fleet. It would be the job of that ship to investigate any reports.
The search would begin on galactic plane and move entirely around the galactic dome for a "depth" of three thousand plazsis. Inside of that there was little likelihood of finding anything. Maita would launch longterm seeker satellites to roam through the entire galactic bubble inside of three thousand plazsis. Permanently. They would automatically report.
Then they were again on their way.
*Next is a pleasant world that was called TaHoot. That translates into `world of the....'*
"FART?!" Z suddenly exclaimed. “You said that world was called FART?!"
*What?*
"It just hit me! I'm slipping! How could something like that get by me? That world was called FART!"
[ Heee! Look at the word in Terran English, Maita! And the world we're going to now is called Hoot! ]
*How vulgar. The word means 'World of the Hoot' in the old language. If those beings still exist I'm sure Z will embarrass us all with his inability to control his mouth.*
[ Why? ]
*You're getting as bad! Because they look like owls, a bird Z knew on Earth. He called them Hoot Owls. They aren't like the Parf. They're much more like the Woost. Remember how Z acted with the Singee? (A race that looked like large frogs and had names like Ploop and Blurp. Z had made a fool of himself by bursting into laughter every time he heard a new name. Thing had "explained" that Z was reacting to the sulfur oxides in their air and had gotten him away and into another room. The Singee were now well-known in the empire as intelligent and honest.) THAT I can do without!*
