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

came up with a plan. I'd already decided TR
would have microfloaters to follow any we discovered, and Hedda
suggested we have the IDs of the robots, which everyone carried,
tagged and followed on their grid system. They'd be aware of no
change whatever, because the cards always broadcast everyone's
location in case of emergency. Such things were common in
non-criminal psychologies.
    It was agreed
the blind and "companions" would be brought to TR as soon as
reasonably possible. They would be gathered and told as little as
possible except their world needed them and no one else would
do.
    I hoped this
wouldn't be as difficult as I imagined it must be, but I wasn't
going to kid myself.
     
    Seeking Robots
    TR and I took
the people aboard one at the time to run a quick probe on each. It
was only to determine they weren't machines, so only wasted a few
seconds for each one.
    We had sixteen
blind people and thirty two sighted ones by the time we were
finished. We all met in the com/med room, where I explained what
was needed as carefully and completely as I could. The pair, one
blind and one sighted, were to mingle in any areas where an
assassin would be likely to go in government buildings or other
places where a robot may be placed. The blind one was to note when
it wasn't really a Flimt they were smelling or when they talked to
someone who aroused the suspicions of the partner. It was
altogether possible the robots had no smell at all. That would be
too easy for the blind to miss unless they were talking directly to
them, so it would be arranged that anyone who gave the partner "the
creeps" would be talked with. There would be two others assigned to
each of these pairs to follow any who were found.
    We took two
sets to the larger moon trading station, two sets to the transfer
station, one to the satellite, and so forth. Most would stay near
the spaceport and in the capital city. Others would be found and
recruited in all other cities where there were certain types of
facilities.
    I had no real
hope of finding the brain robot behind this, but I could stop the
assassinations. Once the spotters were all in place a lot could be
done, though I carefully stressed that these were robots and were
the creation of the military brain. They would be heavily defended
and armed. Anyone who played hero would probably end up dead and
the whole thing might fail as a direct result.
    As we headed
back to Flimt, TR said, "Boss?"
    "Yo, TR?"
    "We've
overlooked something that may be awfully important. That thing may
be installing a TTH drive moder right now! If that happens we'll
never be free of it. If it can go anywhere it wants in the galaxy
we can't hope to ever find it. It won't have a traceable fastcom
unit.
    "We'll have to
find the ship its on and put a tracer direct."
    I thought a
moment, then suggested TR use its trace to locate every moder in
the system. We would then keep checks on all of them. TR could
build a set to handle it after we accounted for every one
around.
    We were lucky
there were no installation or repair depots in the system, so all
ships there would have to go through normal trader customs and
dispatch machines. Private ships would also use the customs
machines, so we would have complete checks. If there was one
in-system and not on the beacon we'd know right where it was.
    Moders can be
traced, but you have to know which one you're looking for. If that
thing had one not on the machines we'd know to follow it. If it was
on a hijacked ship or some other way on a registered ship we'd
still know all that were in the system now, when we knew the brain
was here. Every single one of them would be traced until this was
solved.
    I had an idea
then and told TR I wanted full particulars on any ships that
arrived from the halfyear ago to a year ago. I extended it to a
year and a half ago, because it needed time to build those
robots.
    I sorted
through all the data and came up with three that fit the particular
profile I was looking for.