Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition

by Moulton, CD

  "Sorry," Kit said with a grin. "If we'd known anyone was here we'd have made some noise."

  The girl giggled, one of the boys stammered a bit and the other laughed. Tab and Kit rowed on past them.

  "I hope those kids know something about birth control!" Kit said when they were out of hearing. "Lope will have a fit if he finds out about that! That one kid was obviously his!"

  Tab read out the cultural customs of the people and grinned at Kit. "They know very well when they're in fertile period," he replied. "It's all right so long as you don't get caught at it. She'd be considered a bit of a little tramp if they were caught – or more than a little bit with two at once. The boys would probably get a stern lecture and no dessert for a week. In a month everyone would forget about it. They're only semi-monogamous."

  "Yeah, I see," Kit agreed. "They'll only have kids by their chosen mate, but recreational sex is okay with whoever appeals to you. That'll be accepted until they get some serious venereal disease, then it'll have to change."

  They went on upstream until they were certain they wouldn't encounter anyone else, then pulled onto a little sand spit that stuck out into the creek to contact T6.

  "Yo, Boss?" it answered.

  "Send a few floaters," Kit said. "Maybe as many as eight. There's a lake a few kilometers above our present position with a number of smaller creeks leading into it out of the nearer foothills. One or more of those creeks has something very fishy going on upstream. Analyze the water as you go.

  "This is what it is here and what it was at Lope's farm a couple of kilometers back."

  He sent the analytical information.

  "What do you think is going on?" Tab asked.

  "From this, not mining or refining. Maybe it's some kind of laboratory dump," T6 replied.

  "Laboratory dump?" Kit asked.

  "Yeah," T6 said. "Like that meristem cloning project Z does with his orchids or maybe cloning of something. Maybe even genetic engineering of a primitive type. Note there are several very complicated hormones in that goo. I'd have to get a lot closer to the source to determine what else deteriorated before it got here. Lots of those things are unstable as all hell."

  "CHON, potassium, sulfur, iron, copper, selenium," Tab said, dropping some of the water onto his elementizer grid. "Chelated phosphorus salts, calcium, sodium. It's all there. It could be any kind of experimental thing, though. Plant or animal or something else entirely. The hormones are too sparse for me to detect with internals."

  "The spy floaters are out and on their way," T6 reported. "We'll know soon enough, I suppose. I'm sending carrier floaters for you two, too.

  "To you two, too. Too true, you two. It'll do! Toodle-oo!"

  "Sometimes I think you work too hard, T Six," Kit replied. "If you didn't spend ninety percent of your time resting I'd be tempted to suggest relaxation."

  They pushed the skiff out into the stream to begin rowing again. They should be able to reach Milk Lake before it began getting too dark so would let the personal carrier floaters stay out of sight as long as possible. Both of them wanted to explore some of the local plants and animals as they went upstream.

  Flint Creek was actually a smaller river that flowed fairly swiftly and was quite deep. The water was a light brownish color, but not dirty. It was a clear light brown from the tannic acid leached from the leaves of the swamp trees to either side. It would be a delight if it weren't for the problem with the contaminants coming in from Milk Lake. There was no evidence of any damage to the plants growing along the banks – they were far too healthy, as a matter of fact.

  The places where the creek would back up into small swamp areas were as lush as the vegetation on the shores, but were much more spread out.

  The two took water from several of the places, but found that the same general analysis held for all of it. The same odd compounds in those flood plain areas meant there had been little substantial change in the chemistry in as much as a year. The way the trees were reacting said three years or more.

  "Does that mean whatever is causing this is stable?" Kit asked. "I mean, it's stayed virtually the same for three years, minimum?"

  "Yes," Tab replied. "Probably nearer four years. It would take almost a year for the plants to react this strongly. I still can't picture what this is about. We were sent here because there seemed to be some kind of cultural interference, not to find some toxic waste dump!

  "I don't doubt there's a connection. Whatever this is coming from shows a technology these people didn't attain on their own. I can't begin to figure what it even MIGHT be! They're a century from needing to clone plants and like diversity too much for it to be useful. They have the sense to control population so it's not likely they'd ever go for a largescale project of the type. This is far too much and too longterm for simple research."

  "There's only one branch that's feeding this stuff into the lake," T6 reported. "It'll be right here (It showed a map on the internal circuits that the robots could 'see' clearly). There're perhaps two kilometers of lakeshore with one creek, a large one, coming in here. That'll be the first one on your right as you enter from the bottom of the lake – don't say it, smartass – where Flint Creek flows out. You go up this way past a small creek, almost a ditch, then into the big one. The second branch to your left is the one pouring the stuff into the lake. I won't investigate further until you're at least in Milk Lake. I don't have any idea what kind of sentry devices might be in use."

  "Why do they call it Milk Lake?" Kit asked.

  "Because there are always clouds around the peak over to the northeast, which reflect from where you enter the lake, making it appear to be very white," T6 replied. "Either that or it was discovered coming from the western approach where a creek runs through a lot of limestone clay. If it was during the rainy season the clay would turn the entire end of the lake a milky white."

  "So who really cares?" Tab asked. "Maybe whoever named it was waxing poetic."

  "Maybe they should wax your ass!" T6 shot back.

  "I'd say they must have been waning poetic to come up with that one," Kit threw in. "Waxing poetic? Shee! Where do you get these stupid expressions – as if I didn't know!"

  "Yup! From good ol' Z!" T6 agreed. "If you're interested in little details that have little direct bearing on yourselves – or on anything else – TR claims that Maita really WASN'T joking about the entire omniverse being in jeopardy. It still is. The math would scare excrement from even you! Maybe you should hurry this up so you can finish before the omniverse comes to an end."

  "Are you serious?" Kit asked. "How long before whatever it is would spread to here?"

  "I'm, excuse the expression, dead serious," T6 replied. "It will be like turning out a light if it does happen. The omniverse is a point. Everything adds up to zero. You both already know that. From what I can understand about this the planes would all interface at once or something cancelling each other out. Thing worked it out. It says it's no joke."

  Kit looked toward Tab, who shrugged. If the Mentan determines that a fact checks mathematically it checks mathematically. Period.

  "You mean it'll be as though none of this ever existed?" Kit asked.

  "It doesn't really exist, anyhow," T6 pointed out. "Thing says that's what's so fascinating about the math."

  "What the hell are we doing worrying about Maita's damned problems?" Tab asked. "We have problems of our own. Where is this stuff coming from? What is it? What does it have to do with cultural interference?

  "I don't see how it affects us that the omniverse might end now or later. It equally as well might not."

  "Maybe I like to bitch," T6 said. "And yes, that's also one of Z's expressions.

  "Go on to the lake. I'll do a reducing analysis of the lake and on down Flint Creek to the ocean. I can keep the floaters under water all the way so it's no problem. You two can work as well in the dark as in the daylight so maybe you can detect the sentry equipment in use before you bumble into it."

  Tab ref
used to start the sniping again. It would take up too much time they could put to better use. They entered Milk Lake at sunset to see a magnificent color show on the clouds hovering against the peaks on the far end of the lake. There were golds and yellows with red above and dark purples below.

  Both robots had strong senses of beauty. They reacted just about the same as Z or their other organic friends would. The difference was mostly that they could record the magnificent scene to play back later to themselves or through the displays on their ships for Z to react to himself.

  It was dark when they entered the side creek from which the effluent poured into upper Milk Lake and began to make their way carefully along it toward the smaller creek where the stuff came into that one. The night did help them to locate sentry beams because they were on infra-red reception anyhow and could drop in filters to enable them to "see" longer or shorter wavelengths that would ordinarily be invisible to organic beings. Kit pointed to a microwave beam at one point so they were able to move around it. At another point there were beamed low infra-red detectors so the two made certain they weren't broadcasting anything on those wavelengths. There were sonic detectors at another point, but they could avoid problems with those, too.

  They came to a path that led from the water around a small hill, but decided to first locate the point where the material was entering the creek before exploring anything on the land.

  It was coming through a large pipe that came from behind a little knoll. Actually, the pipe came from under the knoll.

  The two used direct lightbeam communication through a fine fiberoptic connection then to avoid any chance of detection.

  "I'd say the entrance is somewhere on that hill," Kit suggested. "There's not much room for a laboratory in there, though."

  "That's probably just a storage and pumping station," Tab replied. "The labs will be in those mountains behind and to the left. Underground is perfect for that kind of work – assuming it's genetic manipulation or cloning – because everything's so easy to control. Temperature, light, filtration. It's a lot easier to control sterility in a completely closed system, too. I'm hoping we can find a safe way into the pumping stations and that there's another entrance to the labs through a tunnel or something there.

  "A pumping station won't be too well guarded, I'd say.

  "First we have to find who's doing what and why, then we have to make a plan. Until we know more we're just pushing a rope up a hill."

  "We're what?" Kit asked.

  "It's one of Z's expressions," Tab answered. "It means we're expending a lot of effort for no appreciable gains."

  "Shee! Do you realize just how much that Terran has influenced the way we think, talk and act?" Kit asked. "Him and Thing. They're the reason we exist, I guess."

  "We don't exist," Tab replied. "Thing proved it.

  "We seem to be finding every reason in the galaxy to stall on this and that's not like us at all! We always set a goal and go directly for it, now we're discussing idioms and platitudes? I wonder why? I wonder what really IS going on here?"

  "We're constantly off on some tangent, it's true," Kit agreed. "Do you think maybe we're susceptible to some sort of psychic influence?"

  "Let's retreat back a ways," Tab replied. "It occurred to me that Lope came up as far as the lake, but didn't even try to find which creek the stuff was coming from. That wouldn't have taken much time. He could easily see the vegetation from near the mouth of this one and toward the end of the lake is like an arrow pointing to this creek. That didn't even occur to US! Why did he turn around and go home? I don't know about any psychic force affecting robots, but I do know something's a lot more wrong than we thought!"

  They turned around, started back down the creek and came to the first of the sentries from this end. They were as careful to avoid those beams and sensors going out as they were when coming in. They kept the communication link in place as they went.

  "It occurs to me the fact that they're using mechanical sensors is a very telling thing, but I'm not sure what it's telling us," Kit noted. "Except that force, psychic or not, can only send, not receive. That could be very important."

  They made their way into the lake and across to the far side above where vegetation was affected. The floater from T6 came to report it hadn't found anything of particular significance on its trip to the sea as Tab and Kit sent full reports back to the ship.

  "TR's returning and is in orbit," T6 reported. "We won't communicate much. These who're doing this are alien to Grandish so they’ll have the equipment to intercept us except on fastcom, which isn't practical this close. We'll update in coded pulse from time to time. If we need any help TR will be close at hand. It seems something of an enigma as to how robots could be reached in such a way as you seem to be. On the other side of that page, look at what happened to Maita and the guys at eight plazsis (Lightyears) from EC (Tristar). That was amplified psychic force of unbelievable power. We can be sure there isn't any machine here designed as a gestalt amplifier, but that doesn't mean that something on the order doesn't exist. Maybe whoever's using the planet found some such principle and is using it to keep the project, whatever it is, safe."

  "We can't overlook anything," Tab replied. "Listen, T Six. Get in touch with TR and have it contact Maita. They developed some sort of shield on EC that may help us here. I know there's still a grid/circuit on Thing that can activate the thing, as well as one embedded in Z's skull that's activated through putting a crystal of some sort in a secondary circuit on the information implant. Maita can tell us how to program defense."

  "Consider it done," T6 replied. "I can contact Maita through the fastcom. They can't detect it. We'll have to wait until Maita's free to find it. The omniverse takes a little precedence over a problem here we haven't ... I'm getting through."

  They waited a short while for the contact halfway across the galaxy to explain how to wire a defense against psychic interference with the robots. They would have to go to T6 for the process, but the floaters were standing by so that was no problem. They still had several hours of darkness. Maita ordered them to be extremely careful about psychic abilities whether machine or organic because if there were psychokinetic powers along with it such as telekinesis small bits of their circuitry could be removed, leaving them for all intents and purposes dead.

  *Those powers are nothing to fool with. I know!* Maita sent.

  When the implants and programs were in place they returned to the lake, arriving about half an hour before dawn. The sunrise was almost as spectacular as the sunset the night before.

  "Do you feel any different?" Kit asked.

  "Definitely," Tab replied. "I didn't realize how much my mind was wandering. Play back some of it yourself."

  "I already have!" Kit replied. "We wandered all around the subject! I can't really believe how I felt about things!"

  "Well, we have some real problems here, but maybe we can handle them now," Tab said. "I have a few questions that'll be answered automatically – such as; can that power, whatever it is, detect us? Who knows we're here?"

  "I still think the fact those detectors are there says a lot about whatever it is," Kit insisted. "Maybe they know how to broadcast psychic energy, but not how to receive it. Maybe they can't direct it. What I want to know is how they can experiment or work with it if it's strong enough to affect us. Think what an organic must go through to try to work close to anything like that! How can they keep their minds on what they're doing?"

  "Maybe there's some remote control," Tab replied after a little thought. "It could be that the workers close to it are directed through the thing itself."

  "Mental slavery? Is that what it's about?" Kit asked. "I certainly hope not! There're any number of robots without direct intelligence to do anything any organic can do and more. What would be the point?"

  "Somehow I think it's much deeper than that," Tab answered. "I can't fathom what purpose would be served with organic slaves. They're not efficient, cost effective, trustwo
rthy – everything a programmed robot would be. Slavery simply doesn't make any sense. Once you have enough technology slaves are useless. WORSE than useless! You have to spend so much time and funds maintaining organics that can be eliminated with properly designed and constructed robots.

  "It's something else ... but what? What are we up against here?"

  "One thing's sure. We have to stop it from affecting these people," Kit said. "Another is that if Maita issues a direct warning of that kind we'd better damned well beware! If there's one thing we both know it's that Maita doesn't scare at all easily."

  "I think you'd better study along the lakeshores during the daylight hours," T6 put in. "Wait for darkness to return to that pumping station or whatever. You've shown you can detect their sentry points in the darkness. We can't know if that – whatever it is – can change the positions of all of those sensors at will. Try to come up with some sort of plan, but I doubt we can do much until we know something of the nature of our quarry."

  "How true!" Tab and Kit said at the same time.

  Psy Repulsion

  The lake was still with only a slight breeze. It was more than normally quiet, too. There were occasional birds, but they didn't seem to stay more than a few moments, then flew on. Even the fish seemed to seek the far end of the lake.

  "It seems to be a general thing," Kit noted. "The closer to the stream down there, the closer to the source, the more animal life of most sorts seem to avoid it, but there were insects to within a few meters of the sensors along the branch creek.

  "Insects have no considering mind. They don't have much of a survival instinct, either."

  "It doesn't seem to act much through instinct," Tab replied. "It interferes with the ability to reason through things. It affects perspective and values."

  "We can't view ourselves as examples of anything specific," Kit reasoned. "We're machines. The amazing thing is it affects us at all!"

  "I was judging more on what Lope said and what we've since observed," Tab corrected. "My problem's about what the motive is behind it. It seems to be a straight biological experiment of some kind, but the value of those type things is generally openly shared with other scientific communities. It isn't done on restricted planets, ever, though there may be something native here being used for a base. That's something we have to determine.