by Moulton, CD
"How long?"
*Perhaps in two hundred years or perhaps next year. Perhaps in a thousand years. Even that's a very short time to a machine like TAR One. The traders are taking on Krofpth hands so the race will become known throughout the galaxy in a few years. TAR One was a bit closer to true intelligence than I'd thought. It may have freed the Krofpth in another few hundred years itself.*
"Then there's not a lot to do here?"
[ No. We can go anytime. What do you have in mind, Z? You've spent some time with that particular list. ]
"I was checking with Library earlier about certain types of things. Maita? Could we spend a short time on Verdure? Do you know where to find it?"
*Certainly, Z. I noticed you've received several pictures and have even sent some. The process is really quite easy. Thing, Verdure is a planet with a wide volcanic section. It has little animal life, but is crowded all over with lush plants. The volcanism keeps the carbon dioxide level fairly high so animals aren't necessary to the biosphere. There are many types of insect-like animals, but nothing higher. The plants are highly evolved. There are many orchid-like plants and some spectacular bromeliad types. I think Z will find this a hard place to explore.*
"Most of what I'll be looking for are arboreal epiphytes. The planet has huge areas of cloud forests and rain forests. I can take a floater and stay up fairly high among the trees and around the rock outcroppings. This is just too good a chance to pass up!"
[ It sounds interesting. ]
*Insect bites can be deadly there. They'll tend to inject foreign chemical compounds so I'll insist you wear protective garments I'll supply. There are types that can chew right into very hard wood to inject a digestive juice that can dissolve rock. That means the garments will be restrictive.*
[ I'll stay aboard to catalogue my collection of sea plants and animals and Z can explore in restrictive clothes. ]
"Fair enough!"
They found the world. The only easy landing was on still-hot lava near one of the volcanoes, but that didn't bother Maita. It sat on a level area and dispatched Z on one floater with another floater to act as a carrier for the samples. Z needed only very small pieces of an individual plant, but still had thousands of samples in a short while. He would work steadily during all daylight hours and would return exhausted at night, sleep, eat and clean up. That lasted for four days, then he asked Maita to move to the next continent.
"I could find ten times as many things as I've found already! I can't believe the variety! The valley down there had one small tree where I got sixty eight separate species of plants!
"Look at the colors in this! It looks like a rhipsalis, but I can't be sure how I'll catalogue it yet."
Maita and Thing both enjoyed his excitement.
[ Z, there isn't room on your island for half of this! ]
"I know! Maita, that long narrow island to the northeast of mine. We aren't using it. I can plant these things around on the trees that're already there. It's in a really wet zone so they should thrive. There's certainly enough altitude and cloud forests. Will there be any real problems growing them, do you think?
"I notice I have to use oxygen a lot from the floater. There won't be the cee oh two on EC they have here. Will that hurt them, do you think?"
*I see no objection to using the long island. They'll grow slower there, but should do well. You're noting locations where you find them and the floater's sending conditions so there shouldn't be any problem. Thing has collected a few varieties of insects for you that these plants will need but that shouldn't be dangerous in any way. They may be pests in that they fly into your ears and eyes, but they're necessary. None of them bite or sting and none of them are seriously poisonous in other ways. My scans show a fair number of plants here that will form viable intergeneric hybrids, much as Earth orchids do, so you can hybridize them if you like. The seeds are as fine as those of the plants on Earth so you'll need chemical cultures. I don't want to import the symbiotic fungi from here. They produce substances that could damage or kill some of the plants we have on EC now.*
Z's excitement grew, Thing was using the time on Maita to its advantage and was even doing a bit of exploring on its own, but was staying close while Z would go halfway across the continent.
Twice in the fourteen days they were there Z had returned with insect bites. Both times they could have proven fatal without the medical boxes for treatment.
"We DO have the boxes and I don't care! I haven't enjoyed anything like this for centuries!"
*Just so the floater's programmed to get you back here fast anytime you get bit. No override! No gathering one more sample!*
"Fair enough! Did you see that viney one? I would have said there wasn't any black orchid anywhere, but it's pure black! It's like a vanilla vine with a big black brasso flower!"
[ What's a brasso flower? ]
"Brassocattleya. Big well-shaped flowers with good texture and a big lip. That gold dot on either side of the lip's like a beacon in space! I found some true blues too. We haven't found many blues before in the bigger flowers.
"I love the smells, too!
"Maita, if you went off and left me here I'd die happy! I've got to come back after I've done everything I can with the ones I've collected."
*You can come back anytime you like. I like this place, too. No one knows where I am and I'm not being bothered with a lot of details my servos can handle better. It'll take you fifty years to plant and catalogue all of these!*
Z said he knew it and went out again on the last day. He came in late and asked Maita if it was sure there was nothing higher than insect life on the world.
*Native life, yes. Why do you ask?*
"Because I was being watched. I got some views on the floater's cameras, I think. I wasn't sure so I figured I'd wait until I was in and we could go over the video thing together."
He had noted the time on the floater clock so they ran the pictures for that time. There was definitely someone or something moving along the branches below, watching Z.
[ It has some intelligence to watch you like that. What do you think it is, Maita? ]
*The closeups blur through all the foliage. I've sent several floaters to the area to go below the canopy. They're small and should be hardly noticeable.*
They waited until the night-sighted floaters returned. They were all passive recorders so any beings wouldn't be disturbed.
[ What are they?! ]
They found the "people" moving into special holes in the tree trunks. The beings were somewhat like monkeys and were a purplish-green. They had compound eyes around the bases of wide feathery antennae.
"The trees grow niches for them to.... Maita I don’t ... they're plants! They're symbiotes of some sort!"
*I've sent a floater to get a small careful sample of one of them. They aren't moving at all so must use light just as the trees do. That's chlorophyll that colors them. They also seem to actually attach to the tree. The mouth extends into a tube. I've never seen anything like this!*
[ I think they aren't symbiotes in any strict sense. They're parts of the trees. ]
"But what's their purpose?"
*We may discover that in the morning. Please don't leave the ship again until we know, Z. I don't want to damage this world in any way.*
"I have enough samples for now. Like you say, it'll take at least fifty years for me to handle all of them. I've put the samples in stasis. I need some sleep!"
They waited in the morning until past midday, then Maita said they were leaving pretty soon, but there was probably no danger to anything if they returned. They could use sterility procedures to eliminate dangers.
[ Let me tell you what I think and you can tell me where I'm wrong. ]
*Fair enough. I think you're very well familiar with part of it.*
"Thing? But what...? Does it have anything to do with multiple sexes, then?"
[ I think so. I think there are three sexes and those beings are one of them. The female s
eed is produced on the tree itself, as is the pollen. The moving beings are the third sex. They take the seed, which isn't viable alone, and the pollen, which is of two kinds, one of which they produce and one of which is produced by male trees. The seeds won't grow without all three sexes. ]
*It's something like that, but more complicated. I'll show you what the floaters found and explain as I show it. First, let me say the sample showed a partial animal tissue. Muscle tissue.*
The holovid screen came alive to show one of the creatures stepping back from its niche in the tree at the base of a limb. It withdrew a tube into the "mouth" socket.
*The tree feeds them with sap, which is stored in the tissues of the carrier stage, as I call our mobiles. The carrier's body processes the foods in the sap, feeding the animal tissue both oxygen and foods. It directly converts the carbon dioxide so can live as long as there's food. It probably can remain dormant for a year or so if the food supply is too low.*
The creature went to another and placed its antenna against the antenna of that one. They stood very still for quite awhile.
*I'll fast-forward now. They stayed like that for most of an hour. I think they communicate very completely by that method. I think they have more than rudimentary intelligence.*
The creature moved along the limb, seemingly inspecting new buds and picking something off now and then to drop it. Some of the dropped items flew away.
*They're apparently keeping dangerous pests away and are looking for damage. Note how they seek light areas and will stop in direct sunlight for a few moments. Now look at this.*
The scan left that particular carrier and homed on one who was quite a distance below, climbing down the trunk of the tree. It was ten meters below the lowest branches and had twenty or more to go to reach the forest floor. It could move quite rapidly downward. The creature reached the ground where it immediately set off toward a small patch of sunlight.
*A tree has fallen there and has left a small area of open soil. Note there's another carrier already there. It's from another tree. Only about one tree in five is a female and only the females produce the carriers.*
The carrier in the scanner met with the other. They found a bright beam of sunlight and stood in it while they touched antennae.
*This took about ten minutes. I'll fast-forward again.*
The carriers separated, inspected the ground carefully, one staying on one end of the oblong space and one on the other. They each seemed to find the proper spot and began to dig. They worked steadily for awhile in the loose soil, climbed into the holes they had made and covered themselves over.
[ Then they're the seeds? ]
*Partly. There are two types of 'male' trees. The 'female' produces and nurtures the carriers, possibly for centuries. They then mate them with two of the 'males' growing with their branches intertwined. That makes for sixteen possible combinations. They apparently 'know' which type of male the seeds will become or if it's 'female' so they dispatch the type to fill the hole left when a tree dies. The one that died there was a type of male that was shared by our tree and the one the other carrier came from. You notice the carrier from our tree went to the far end of the area and the one from the other tree came closer to our tree. Diversity.*
[ How many billions of years did it take for such a system to evolve, I wonder!? What a magnificent thing! Maita, you simply must restrict this world. You CANNOT allow anyone to come here and screw this up. ]
*I've placed this world under restriction so only accredited researchers from University may come here and have made some very stringent laws regarding what they can or can't do. This is an intelligence we haven't a hope of understanding, but we can learn from them. There are more than a hundred chromosomes in those cells I took samples of. I took samples of the surrounding trees, too. It's a complicated system of genetics. I checked Z's plants, but they don't have any structures of the same type. I've sent floaters out to sample other types of trees and plants, too. There are evolutionary stages that amaze me! I'll input it all into Library and into University directly. We're on our way home! There's no possible way a trip could end on a more wonderful note!*
[ Yes. Things were shaky for awhile, but this discovery alone makes a thousand trips worthwhile! ]
"I'll certainly go along with that! Now, Maita! What else? You've been ready to go home for a bit, but have been staying around to please me. What's up?"
*Nothing, really. Tab and TR and Kit and T Six are on EC and I want to see how they've fared on their little expedition. They've had several cases and I want to know how successful Kit's turned out to be.*
[ You certainly don't have an ego problem! What if he turned out to be a flop like Z here? ]
*You can't blame me for Z! He's an organic, just like you! It's not my fault if you're both badly flawed!*
"Us? Flawed? This we get from a machine that admits it can't hold a train of thought?"
They would play the game all the way to EC.
It was great adventure, excitement and usually fun to go exploring.
But it was also nice to go home again.
Good Things
Z came from the long island to his patio on the large floater. He had been home for more than thirty days and hadn't even gotten a noticeable start on planting all the things he'd gathered – though those he planted on the first day were rooting firmly and seemed to be doing well.
Thing was sitting at a comp console on the patio cataloguing its undersea gardens. Naurs, a Parf artist, was painting the scene from the terrace. She was an artist of such quality the scene she painted was more real-looking than the view itself. Klafe and Siera, two visiting Krofpth, were strolling along the path from the beach toward the domicile behind several of the Tendd and Joe's People children who had been taking care of Z's plants here on his island. They stepped into the transmat portal and were gone almost simultaneously as Tab and Kit stepped out from it.
No one spoke, just enjoying the magnificence of the setting of the green sun behind the mountain peak behind them. The red one was rising directly along the path to the sea. It was enough to bring tears to the most insensitive person's eyes. It even deeply affected the robots with its beauty.
Z stowed the floater in the little side cave and went to stand between the two robots until the light mixture began to lose its quality as the green sun no longer struck there. Naurs folded her materials into the case, smiled and nodded and presented the Krofpth with small sketches of themselves – signed. They were priceless. Having seen those sketches there would be no doubt of identification of even very different races who would say all Krofpth looked alike. She stepped into the transmat and was gone to Maita's guest "hotel" in the caves.
The two Vendans, direct descendants of Ape, stepped from the transmat portal. The guests had now all arrived. This was a party to introduce the Vendans to the Krofpth, who would take them to Varnith to see the original world and meet those of the same race separated two hundred sixty two thousand years ago. Maita would supply food and drink for all of them. Tab and Kit would eat so there would be no suspicion about them. Only Maita, Z and Thing (And the Zulians, but that's another story) knew the two were robots.
The event went well, everyone had a good time and the Vendans and Krofpth got along as the crew fully expected. A true mutual admiration society. It was a strange chemistry, the Vendans being large hairy mammals and the Krofpth much smaller reptiles. These things did happen, though.
Finally everyone was gone except for the crew. They sat around the terrace, Tab and Kit were on the marble lip around the pool while Z sat in a comfortable chair with Thing on his lap. The floater was patiently hovering overhead.
"I wish the Krofpth had been found years ago," Z said. "I like them."
"They seem like a good people," Tab agreed. "I think TAR One will prove a very positive leader out there. Sort of a second Maita."
*Better designed and programmed for the job than I am. I think we did a lot toward removing that phony sense
of guilt from the Krofpth. The best thing we did was to find Ape's ancestors.*
[ I think the best thing we did was to find those trees on Verdure! That's got to easily be the most fascinating thing we've ever found! ]
"I'll agree with Thing there," Kit said. "I can't get enough of studying that world. It's amazing."
"That whole world is, well, next to finding the Zulians, probably the greatest discovery we've ever made," Z said.
*The Zulians don't figure in these discussions. Neither does Parf. It's on a par with those two events, though. It's certainly among the top five.*
TRD-60 and T6 were there through the floater with Maita. T6 interrupted the discussion.
"Guys?" it announced. "I'm getting the strangest report and request! Some traders say that they've found something Maita should hear about, but that we detectives maybe should check out first.
"This is crazy!"
*So report already!*
[ It said the detectives should check it out first! Sheesh! You never listen! ]
"I'll go to T Six," Kit suggested. "I can run out there. If it's anything, I'll call whoever I need. I suppose it's one of those things I can handle myself, though. They usually are and I'm getting better at being a detective. I'm sure I'll be able to handle it by myself!"
But he was wrong.
Flight of the Maita
Book 24
How Odd!
© 1988 by C. D. Moulton
The crew are called to a world where there seems to be outside influence.
Critic comment
Very nicely done. I like the first part better than the second. My wife likes the second more than the first.
KL Rtng: ***½
Contents
Outside Interference
The Talebearer
Strange Cargo
Royalty in a Trap
Jornian Alchemists
The Mission of Kit and Tab
Explanations
Saj Saved
Finding the Camp