Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition Read Online Free PDF Page A

robot servos already. Blind people. We have a
way to start!"
    "Teams. A blind
person and one who can see. The blind says when the person is or
isn't a Flimt and the other one identifies it for the police.
    "We know the
people I talked with are all right. No machine could fool the
probe."
    "You do!" TR
shot back. "Don't get smug on me now! That will always come back to
smack you in the puss!"
    "But the one
we're after has never been on the probe itself, so it flatly CAN'T!
Maita designed me with a specific circuit to fool the probe, which
it also built.
    "I have to talk
with Gorg and Hedda right away. They both have experiences even if
they don't know it."
    TR called and
asked the two to please come to the ship while I prepared what I
was going to say to them. They came together a few minutes later,
and I invited them in to sit in the com/med room.
    "I called you
back because the machines have shown something of what's happening
here," I began, then shocked them with, "You both identified who
and what the assassins are. That's what I meant when I said the
probe could find things you didn't know were in your minds. This is
something you never suspected in your wildest fantasies, I
guarantee. It's worse than a nightmare for me, too.
    "You, Hedda,
identified one assassin before the murder took place, and you,
Gorg, stood beside the other."
    "The one who I
felt was some kind of dangerous pervert or something?" Gorg
asked.
    I nodded.
    "Then it WAS
the one I thought was creepy?" Hedda asked.
    "Yes. What I
say to you here mustn't get out of this room if we're to stop this
and expose the real culprit.
    "Don't doubt
that. If there's any tiny hint as to what we're doing we'll fail.
What we're up against can learn and change so fast we can't have
time to react.
    "The reason you
reacted as you did was because the person – or thing – that caused
the reaction looked, moved, talked, and acted like a Flimt, but
didn't smell like a Flimt. It didn't smell like anything you could
identify through former contact. That's what your subconscious
minds told you. You interpreted that as feeling they were 'creeps'
or `perverts.' You didn't know why you felt that way. It was
because of something that was NOT there, not because something
was.
    "I have every
reason to believe they were robots, and the plan is to destroy the
worlds in your group out here.
    "The emperor
has experience with these robots. He thought they were all
destroyed. It seems they aren't easy to be rid of.
    "We must have a
way to locate where these robots are. There aren't many – probably
not more than one on any base except Flimt itself, and very few
here. It simply isn't possible for those robots to be made so
carefully and correctly in mass production.
    "There will be
other ways to find them, but we'll have to act immediately – before
more are manufactured.
    "How many
people are there in this city who were blind from birth?"
    The question
shook them, but Gorg said, "Only a few. We can do something about
most of the blindness."
    "I want teams
using those blind people, along with a sighted person. I'll teach
them how to find the robots among us.
    "The sighted
people must take the probe if simply because no machine can fool
it. It isn't likely it would make a mech ... oh, yes it is! All of
them will have to take the probe, but only to determine they aren't
machines. The story will be they're taking the probe to show if
they're part of any assassination plans.
    "I'll teach
them how to find the robots, but we must have a way to follow the
robots without them ever knowing they've been discovered. We can't
strike until we have them all or we'll only alert the one behind
it. It mustn't get out of this room that we're looking for anything
to do with smells. I can't say that enough! If the brain behind
this knows we're seeking a scent or absence of one it'll find a
way. If it adds the proper scent to the robots we won't have any
way to locate them."
    We discussed
things for awhile and