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

by Moulton, CD

  I was outside very quickly and raced for the gate and the people there. A lot of laser beams followed me, but they weren't very effective at this range, though I could easily shield those smaller weapons. I had the one major advantage that the robots weren't under the brain's control at any distance from the house, so they would stay there.

  I could say one thing for certain. My woman of the rock, as I was beginning to think of her, was willing to be the leader of these who were fighting the robots. She was right in front of the gate again, so I went up to her and asked her name.

  "I'm Liht," I said. "Don't let's get that started again. The starker ain't been in no position to make no golems for tha past coupl'a hours."

  She grinned with bad teeth and said, "I'm Gorta, and I know yer Liht. We done got them golems all a-runnin' now!"

  "That's sure!" I agreed. "I think they's all inside the house now. I think maybe the starker'll give 'em stronger lightnin'r somethin'. Maybe there're more of 'em in Stormlee, but I think maybe not.

  "Got ta keep an eye out."

  "Open this here gate'n we'll clean that there place right out now!" Gorta yelled, and the people cheered.

  "I'm Liht 'n I'm gonna handle that starker all by myself!" I shouted back. "I got tha right! Noobish were my friend! I done started this, 'n I'm gonna finish it! I got the right!

  "What is is what is!

  "I'll say one thing though. I ain't outta there by dawnlight, git everbody in Stormlee 'n tear Overlook House right down 'til you find the starker'n dump tha stinkbeatle over that there cliff whar he ain't gonna never bother nobody agin!"

  They cheered again when Gorta said she couldn't fight words with that. I was the one who found there were golems in the first place.

  She said half the people would stay there and half would go into Stormlee to try to find more golems. I suggested a few go on along the cliff road to see if there were golems farther along. I said it would be logical for the starker to have some guards up that way.

  Gorta took six men and went that way while the rest split up for the gate or Stormlee.

  I strolled around the grounds at some distance from the house that should keep me free from laser damage. I had no illusions about whether or not I was observed every step of the way, but I was sure the robots would stay close to the house.

  It's a good thing I'm used to being wrong. It's also a good thing I can sense the energy from the robots, because there was one waiting near the tree where I came over the wall.

  I wish Maita hadn't put in that random idiotic move circuit at times. I knew these were at least partially programmable robots from the fact they had come after I destroyed the antenna system. Now there was a programmed robot waiting for me to walk right up to it so it could laser my head off!

  No one could see here from the front or from anywhere else, so I was going to give the brain something to think about.

  No I wasn't! It had programmed the robot and sent it out here. There was no direct communication now. If I destroyed this unit and it didn't report at a given time or something I would find myself in worse trouble.

  I had another idea about that!

  I walked with my head constantly turned back toward the house, waiting for the right moment to fire at it where I would have a reasonable chance of hitting a fatal spot. I kept a shield up.

  I couldn't understand why it didn't fire as I moved closer and closer. I kept a shield up and ready.

  Finally, I was where I wanted to be and turned to fire. The robot was scanning me carefully, but was hesitating.

  I shot it in one of those eyes and it spun and fell. I went close and fired into an ear. Sparks flew, it jerked, then was still. There was a strong smell of ozone and a spot on the side began to glow a cherry red.

  I dove away as a small explosion blew out one side of it. I'd caused a dead short of the powerpack and it had heated until it blew.

  Why hadn't it fired?

  Because of the radium on the ear, stupid! It was confused, had been programmed to kill anything that moved – except its fellow robots and the brain. I had been identified as one of the robots by that radium.

  The brain was capable of stupid mistakes too! – Or was it?

  The brain couldn't physically reach the robots to add another identity feature, so it had to protect all the robots of its own. The problem was unsolvable from a distance and it had decided ... to...!

  I got the hell away from there. I was certainly identified now. The others were observing me while I got this one, who was only a decoy. A trap I had fallen right into. I was SUPPOSED to destroy that one so the others could get a complete fix on me.

  Well, that could work both ways. I was going to really give that brain something to think about.

  I went around until I was out of direct sight of the house behind some rocks and changed my patterns of energy discharge, then went out the other side to approach the house as close as my calculations indicated would be safe. I wanted them to scan me thoroughly. I repeated the process at two other spots, then went back to the original rock and came out as the original one who went in, then strolled back toward the tree.

  Now the brain would have information suggesting there were several of me to work against. Its problems were now multiplied by three at least – and it would have to worry about how the others got inside the walls and to those hiding spots. It would feel there was a large gap somewhere in its defense sensors.

  I saw a robot go to look behind the rock and waited.

  It simply checked around and went back to the house. As it came toward the door I felt the radio transmissions, then it was suddenly blasted to slag by three separate robots.

  Uh-oh! I had been more than stupid again. The brain now knew I could disguise myself in various ways and wasn't going to take any chances.

  Now it was down to only six robots – seven with the one it had undoubtably repaired from the earlier encounter in the basement. It couldn't and probably wouldn't continue to blast them itself because of suspicion it could possibly be me instead. There was an advantage in that it couldn't allow communication with any of the remainder of its robots to be broken for one moment.

  It would get all the more paranoid now. It would have to be more and more suspicious of everything from this point onward. This could be for the better in the long run. It could give me the one little edge to bring me out on top of this mess.

  I still had one very large problem: Those robots would stay in or very near the house and the brain would have only one robot down there with it until the lower staircase was rebuilt, which I didn't think would be very long. That was a matter of welding a few sheets of plate steel to some I-beam stock.

  I had to find a passage into that basement, but I couldn't go through the house. It was time to come up with another plan of attack altogether. If I could change tactics it would serve to confuse the brain as to the number of me out here and could make it spread its defenses thinner to counter whatever move I might make.

  I wasn't about to get cocky again, though. I'd done enough of that.

  Advantages

  There are generally a number of ways to approach most problems, but none of them are any good if you can't think of them. I've said many times and have heard all of our little group say that clever is never a good substitute for intelligent.

  I'm not clever, and didn't have any reason to think I'm very intelligent at that particular moment. I was being so clever I gave far too much to that machine, who was cunning and clever at one and the same time. It had to know I'm a machine by now, which eliminated the possibility I'm native to this world, which means Tlesson or the empire.

  While I evaded the fatal traps, I fell headlong into the ones that could prove fatal later, both for me and for a lot of these people here. If it wasn't too late already I had to change my approach to this situation and begin using a little of the normal intelligence Maita built and programmed into me. I would have to stop doing things that were to the advantage of the brain. A
ll it would take would be a little thought before I let my penchant for being stupid act too fast.

  First I would have to find a way to get to the brain. I had already closed off several avenues of attack by letting the brain know I could fake various sensor illusions. I couldn't take on the reactions and identity patterns of one of its own because it wouldn't for one single second abandon its contact with any of them. It would know. I couldn't approach through the house. It would be far too well-watched. I couldn't call the floater and use it to come from above because it knew I had that ability and would be waiting. I couldn't come in and blast the thing and the house away because that was far too dangerous to the people here.

  My advantages were mostly that the brain was very temporarily confined to the house and had little direct protection.

  I sat on the rocks just outside of the wall to think. In a very short time now that brain would have a new antenna system in place and would no longer be confined to such a small area. If there were other robots still outside it could communicate with them.

  I looked downward when my audial sensors picked up a scraping sound to see the plastic shield around the wire below move very slightly. Either the brain was trying to push it out of the way or it was withdrawing the antenna wire.

  I decided on a course and used the light beam communication to tell the floater to come in at the surface of the water and to pick me up. It then took me to the tube where I could see the wire was being drawn back, so I hooked a fiberoptic visual bead pickup onto it and waited until I could see faint light slowly approaching as it was drawn in. I let it go to a few centimeters inside the edge of the tube and held it, pulling it off of the wire where it had been attached with resin from the gumtree by the wall. If there was a trace it would appear to be a natural substance on the wire. That brain would almost certainly scan every millimeter of that wire. (I do think of SOME things!)

  The light in the cavern was infra-red and was easy for me to use. The brain had the robot slowly pulling the antenna wire in onto a coil. I could only see a rounded cylinder I would estimate to be four meters high, was extended too far either way to see any end, and had a piece of a hatch in the extreme side in my view.

  I had no way to move the bead and it was far enough inside of the tube to where the view was restricted far too much, but I could do nothing about that now. The filament was too fine to push along.

  The robot pulled the last of the wire into the cavern, then approached the tube with a fiberoptic filament of its own, so I could be sure my own method would be used to see why the wire hadn't acted as planned.

  I pulled my optic fiber out, measuring the thickness of the wall of stone (four meters) as it came back, then removed the shield and dropped it into the sea. I found a small loose piece of rock and held it to shield me from the "eye" as it came out and began dropping. When I was sure it was safe I reached to bend the fiber so it would fall into the hole I'd pushed the antenna wire into. The bead moved a short distance into the hole, then withdrew.

  I steered it into the hole twice more, then it withdrew into the tube.

  I waited. There was a scratching sound, then the antenna wire again appeared, this time with a rigid piece of wire that would hold it from going into the hole below.

  I could see the bead a ways back into the tube riding on the stiff wire, so I waited until it was extended about a meter straight out from the tube then moved a visible beam along in front of it and on along the cliff face. It would appear to the fiberoptic lens to be a sweeping beam randomly moving along the cliff.

  The wire paused, then began creeping slowly outward again.

  I waited until it was a short distance past where the beam had gone before, then moved the beam along. It sliced the end of the wire off four centimeters in front of the lens.

  There was a short pause, then the wire began coming out of the tube rapidly. The brain was going to try to get past the rigid piece before the beam returned so it would drop inside of the range of the sweep, where it would be safe.

  I cut the wire behind the bead and then melted it back to the tube. I wanted it to appear it was a random search-and-remove beam on an automatic response system, so cut the wire every time it extended more than a quarter meter from the tube.

  The stiff wire ended and the wire continued, so I pushed it into the hole below. I barely was able to get out of sight as a second fiberoptic lens bead came along riding the wire. It bent downward and showed the wire falling into the hole. The movement stopped, then began to withdraw.

  I suppressed a chuckle. I could picture that brain swearing much as Z did when mechanical things seemed to be deliberately attempting to thwart him.

  I waited again and soon heard the scratching in the tube. The wire started out with a lens a short ways along it. I couldn't bend the wire into the hole without being seen.

  Not with my hand! I could use the rock I was using to shield myself from view if I was careful. The lens was just outside of the tube and there was a small place behind it where I could use the rock. It would blur there in the pickup, but would still look like the rock face of the cliff.

  I eased the pressure slowly on and the end of the wire went into the hole.

  The wire withdrew a small bit and tension was put on the fiber causing the end of the wire to curl to one side. It then began dropping again.

  Now what?

  I thought fast. If the end of the wire hit something solid this close to the tube it would stop moving, so I carefully directed it with the rock until it came to rest on a rough stone outcrop. I could see the tension increasing on the optic fiber, so I cut it with the rock. It would appear to have broken from tension.

  I could really picture the brain swearing now!

  The wire withdrew. I waited.

  After awhile I felt radio signals coming from above, so the brain had decided to use the robots in the house to put in a system up there. It may or may not return to the tube.

  I almost made another fatal mistake as I climbed back toward the top. I knew full well the brain could move its robots around at will again up there, but didn't stop to think it would most definitely send one to try to find where the cutting beam sweep originated. It was very near me that I suddenly felt the radio return signal where one of the robots was sending information to the brain.

  I had the floater suddenly dive and drop me into the water to then send the beam on a sweep pattern from near the surface of the water to the north of the property. The robot fired a pencil laser at the floater, but it was too far away to be harmed even if it weren't shielded.

  The floater moved the beam to the spot from which it had been fired upon. The robot was barely able to avoid it.

  I felt the robot retreat and began climbing the cliff again. I would leave the floater there to do random sweeps with the beam in case the brain checked again. It would remain shielded and would be in no danger of damage unless far more powerful weapons were used.

  I could now be sure the brain would have those stairs repaired and in use. It had seven robots to work on them again, so I could probably get into the grounds.

  There were no broadcasting sensors operating, but I wasn't going to be stupid again, so I moved along the wall until I was in a field to the east of the house, then studied how I could get inside without being detected.

  No way. I felt I was running out of time again. The people around the area would be attacking the place at dawn when Gorta told them to. I estimated no more than two hours before then.

  The gate had a group of people around it with three of the robots inside, keeping their distance but watching closely. I knew what they were watching for, so I matched my temperature and the rhythms of a normal body here and started to stroll forward toward the people.

  All three robots fixed on me almost immediately and I wondered what was going on, then remembered the radium on my ear.

  Damn! And I said I was going to stop being stupid!

  I passed the people to the side and behind. Fe
w noticed me as I went along the road toward Stormlee until I was out of sight. Maybe this would work out well enough after all. If the brain thought I was going into town it might relax a slight bit.

  Yeah! Right!

  There was a radio source above and to my left. I moved close to the side of the road where I would be behind the rocks and scanned the mountainside to find the source was still beyond my range, so I closed down anything detectable and swiftly began climbing. I kept the source across obstacles from me all the way and soon found myself moving above it, so I made my way around and behind it.

  There was a robot with a visual scanner watching the road and back along to the gate where the people could be seen. I waited until it turned the scanner back along the road toward Stormlee and moved its lens slowly along toward the gate. It was probably me it was looking for. When the range was too short to miss I lasered the robot in the ear orifice. It dropped the scanner and fell heavily, sparks and smoke pouring from the head. There was a sudden pulse of radio, then another from one side.

  I dropped and hid in some large rocks until another robot came running up. It stopped behind some boulders, scanned the fallen golem, then scanned the entire area with its built-in visuals. I was sure it was seeking any trace of me at all, so didn't leak anything. I even shielded so I could be absolutely certain there was no energy radiation of any kind.

  I'm glad I still have the odor detectors in place and they were working, because the robot edged back downward and to one side. I was ready to follow it when I smelled the slightest trace of lubricant, telling me there was some sort of machine to my right.

  The people here had no machines that could be used in these mountains, ergo, it was another robot. The slight breeze was carrying the scent to me.

  I concentrated on sound and smell as well as visuals, and soon saw another robot moving silently along several meters below me. I couldn't miss from there, the other golem was out of sight and downward from me, so I shot this one, then moved away as quickly and silently as I could, circling downward. I got the other one as it came up the mountain to try to get above where I shot the last one. I then shot the scanner the first had been using and headed back toward the road.