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

by Moulton, CD

  "T Six, check through all the records of this world. See if there's anything suspicious along those lines. Check with EC, too. University will have registration of that kind of thing if it's done legally, but we know it's not registered there or that would have been found before we came.

  "TR can handle that from orbit. It can contact Maita for information. All the equipment needed for this type of research had to be shipped in so maybe we can find who's getting it. Work backward from there. Any lines of research any of us can come up with, go with it. We don't have anything at all to go on yet. A dead end is one less thing to worry about."

  T6 didn't answer, but they knew it received the tight beam and would act on the request. They would wait until they were in a much safer place to hold any two-way conversations.

  The rest of the way around the lake didn't show much. The other creeks had been checked with scanning floaters. Nothing to investigate there. That would at least limit the problem to a small area – they hoped.

  It was more than an hour until sunset when they returned to the mouth of the creek where the facility, whatever it was, was located. They stopped to record all their ideas and findings on a small com floater while they waited for deeper darkness. When it was fully dark they again paddled up the creek, followed the branch, avoided all the sensors and came to the little path. They pulled the skiff above the water behind some low shrubs, then carefully made their way to the knoll where they believed the pumping station was located.

  The entrance was behind the hill among a pile of rocks. The internal sensors built into the two traced the pipeline into the stream.

  Inside the hill was only the station. There were several pumps with pipes coming from various directions to mix together in a large tank, there were various chemicals being added there to neutralize the more dangerous substances, then the mixture was pumped out into the stream.

  Tab hooked the direct shielded line to Kit so they could communicate without being detected. "They seems to have some little concern about pollution, at least!" he remarked.

  "Direct dangerous pollution would be checked with a lot of public pressure behind it so that doesn't mean a whole lot," Kit returned. "If they tried a little harder they could eliminate what little danger there is. This doesn't look like there's anything that would have to be brought from offworld being used. Maybe the equipment in the lab or whatever was brought in, though.

  "Shall we try to get inside?"

  "I think we have no choice," Tab replied. "It's going to be a matter of finding the entrance. I don't know where to look so it's a matter of searching until we find it. I'll go south, you go north. If you find it come back and wait here. We go in together. Nobody does anything alone until we know what's happening here. Remember Maita's warning!"

  "Fair enough," Kit said. "We'll have to avoid sensors and detectors so let's record all we find. We can hook up when we meet back again. We might need the information later, even those in the wrong direction."

  They disconnected the line, went outside and moved apart. Tab found the main entrance an hour and a half later, then returned to the station to await Kit, who, it turned out, had also found an entrance. They hooked together again to report.

  "Do you think it's two separate facilities or one big one?" Kit asked. "It could be an emergency escape, too. If it's illegal they'd want a back door. Make an internal map, we'll check it.... It's two separate things. We have about six more hours of darkness so we'll have to get out of here in five. Two hours for each facility and a half hour for moving around."

  "Yours is closer if we go over that ledge," Tab said. "Keep a lookout for sensors. Let's move!"

  They headed over the ledge, dropped on the far side and made the entrance in about six minutes. They watched it for a few minutes, then moved to get inside. It was locked from the outside with a simple padlock-type mechanism so was no trouble for the robots to open. They went inside to find offices filled with files. There was a map on the wall that showed the place to have ten sleeping rooms along a hall behind the room they were in. Kit signaled to hook up the com line again.

  "This is general offices and quarters," Kit said. "We can record everything we think has any significance to study closer later. There aren't any computers to access so it'll all be written down if they even keep records here. I'd give it fifty-fifty odds unless they're actual scientists. Then they would keep careful records, regardless.

  "Well, maybe whatever is behind this can stop them from keeping records. We'll even have to wait on that! We have to be fast. I'll take all those over there and you take this side. I estimate three quarters of an hour if all we do is record."

  Tab agreed, then they set to work. It took them a few minutes more than they planned, but they still had plenty of time when they finished. They headed for the second entrance across the mountain. There was a path of sorts through a small artificial cut in the mountain, but there were several types of sensors in it. Tab offered the com lead again.

  "We can't handle all the sensors at once," he warned. "We can climb over those rocks if there aren't any pressure switches under them. I think there would be. Too obvious a path if you want to get around the cut."

  Kit agreed. They went back a short distance, found a rocky area they could manipulate their way across and did so. They arrived at the second entrance with only an hour and couple of minutes to use. The inside of this entrance was slower going as the lock was on the inside here and was of a deadbolt type. It was easy enough for a robot to open, but they reasoned that, as the other one was locked from the outside, the one who locked it must be here so they were far more open to discovery in this facility.

  There were sensors of various kinds around the entrance, but they were spaced in such a manner anyone who knew about some of them wouldn't know about the others and would be caught. The ability of the robots to "see" the sensor beams made it fairly easy to avoid any of them.

  The ability to make a microscopic examination of the floor also saved them in two places where there were pressure switches below the floor. The slight distortion in the flatness of the apparently smooth surface of the poured concrete floor caused microscopic cracks in a very distinctive pattern every time a floor flexed even the fraction of a millimeter necessary.

  There was a long hall ahead then without any sensors. The end, perhaps a sixth of a kilometer inside of the mountain, had a large double steel door across it. Tab noted it, then nodded to Kit. They went carefully along the hall, checking each room off to either side as they went. One room was a sleeping room with two men inside sleeping. There were various labs, which were minutely photographically recorded, one of which had a woman seated at a microscope making notes and line drawings on a large pad. That one wasn't so carefully photographed. There comes a point when doing a thing would be foolish.

  There were far too many sensors of too many types around the steel doors and time was running out so they retreated to the skiff and were back on the lake as the dawn broke over the mountains. They didn't break stride in their rowing until they were into Flint Creek. By silent consent they were going to move out of range of the facility before they stopped to discuss what they found or what to do about it. Tab was formulating a plan based on what they'd learned as they moved, as was Kit.

  They stopped a few hundred meters past the swamp they'd explored on their way in. A com floater came for them to directly input all the information they'd gathered in the facilities. T6 and TR would sort through the whole thing in an attempt to find something they could work with. They were still without a real starting point and knew it.

  Tab and Kit decided to go back to Lope's farm where they would report they found the stream, but that they couldn't find exactly where the stuff in the creek was coming from, though it was coming from one creek. With that psy influence working so strongly close to the pumping station no one else was about to go in there anytime soon.

  Lope was a bit concerned about the young swimming in the creek, but Tab said no
thing seemed to be very badly affected by whatever it was upstream or even in the swamps, though they hadn't seen any fish or water life in the one creek the stuff was coming from so it was probably so diluted by this distance it was reasonably safe so long as no one directly drank a lot of the water from Flint Creek.

  Tab and Kit headed back along the road to Koosd with Veen's hand cart, which he hadn't come to claim yet. They would set something in motion on their arrival to allow them to go back to the lake or to stay in Koosd or to move on away to where they could go back to T6. Their options MUST stay open until they had some idea of how to proceed.

  "There didn't seem to be anything of offworld manufacture in those labs," Kit said as they walked toward the town. "On the other hand this isn't nearly the level of technology this world has evolved to. It's years in their future except for the contact with the hegemony and with the empire. I don't know how to figure it. I don't know what it is we're going to be able to do short of simply going in there and cleaning it up and that could do as much damage as interference by anyone else. We don't even have a clue as to who might be behind it. We don't have a reasonable case to make that there is anything illegal there, only that it's unregistered. We don't know if who's doing it is native or not, even!"

  "We don't have a clue as to what IT is, either," Tab pointed out dryly. "This is a strange one. Maybe T Six or TR or Maita will come up with something."

  "With Maita trying to save the omniverse itself it's going to be up to us, mostly," Kit replied. "I know Maita can separate millions of operations at once, but this is still our own little project.

  "Why did you program all that experience you had with Z into me? You certainly had some idea such methods might be needed here at the time."

  "I was under the impression there was a far different kind of interference at work here," Tab answered. "If the trouble's economic that kind of thing can make a big difference. It can keep the fact of otherworlder interference out of the whole thing or can make it appear the Grandish solved the problem themselves, which is always better. We have to do that in any case. The danger of contact is the feeling of impotence a race can get from meeting a technology they can't hope to win against in any kind of competition. If they meet it and actually defeat it they never feel inferiority again. They've already proven themselves. We still can make this appear to be home-solved, whatever it is. We're going to stay Grandish. The psychology of these people will work in our favor."

  They came into the town and went directly to Veen's with the cart. They took rooms for the night, then sat around to talk with the townspeople. They spent the night in the room feigning sleep until an hour before dawn when a small floater came to tell them there was no evidence any of the materials being used in the labs was of offworld manufacture. There were two good spy floaters watching the place from a distance. They noted no evidence of activity at the office/ sleeping quarters site. The doors were never unlocked. No one came out of the lab facility at anytime, either.

  "Then there were no more than the three we saw?" Kit asked.

  "Unless there was someone behind those locked steel doors," Tab pointed out. "This makes less and less sense. Is there any way to find out anything about the equipment there? I mean, about where it came from and if there are any ... uh-oh!

  "The equipment might be from here, but those complicated hormones and the other specialty chemicals definitely were NOT manufactured on Grandish! Can you possibly trace any of that, T Six?"

  "We've tried," T6 responded. "The problem there is that a case one meter cubed could hold enough of all of that sort of thing to handle these kinds of experiments for centuries. The only limitation would be that some are so unstable they have to be kept in stasis or frozen. Freezing breaks some of them down.

  "In other words, enough could be smuggled in from just about anywhere in pockets to set this up. It does tell us that otherworlders of some kind are involved, though. This isn't going to be easy. I'd like to get Z or Thing to give us some weird ideas. They're a lot closer to how other organics would think."

  "I have an beginnng idea of a place to start," Tab suggested. "It would be about what Z would recommend we try. We'll have to go to A Port to insinuate ourselves into the criminal elements in the local bars and so forth. If the stuff's being smuggled in we can find out who's bringing it. They have to make contact in some way or another. I'll also want a complete listing of all comings and goings. That lab was put together about four years ago, so from four and a half years ago until today. Someone came in about the time this started and hasn't left yet. That means someone tampered with the port computer or the overstay would've set off any number of alarms. I can find that. We can work back from that point.

  "We'll make our departure today with a promise to return. We can make it appear we're going to travel some more, but we hope to finally settle here to start a business. Have the tug floater ready to take us to A Port before noon."

  "Will do," T6 replied.

  They went to dawnmeal where they joked and told stories of travel to the local people. They later said they were planning to travel a distance farther along the coast road, but planned to return to Koosd, perhaps to establish a business there. They would also try to find if anyone else knew anything about the pollution in Flint Creek. It had to be coming from SOMEwhere!

  They left before noon walking along the coast road. It was more than an hour before they were to a place where the floater could pick them up with no watchers. That was the trouble with being so popular with the local people. Some went along with them to keep them company for a distance.

  Aboard T6 they moved out of sight of land under the ocean before leaving the world to meet TR waiting in orbit for a long conference before deciding on a plan.

  "Let's face the facts," TR said. "There's some kind of weird experiment in progress down there. It probably involves genetic micro-manipulation, cloning or that field of biology as well as a psy talent of sorts. Thepsy ability could be either machine manufactured or biologically produced."

  "Machine?" Kit asked.

  "Review Maita's experiences when EC was found (Tristar)," Tab answered. "You'll see that machines can be given psy powers. Strong ones."

  There was a pause while T6 input the information to Kit, who showed surprise. When that was completed they returned to their discussion.

  "I think we'll have to separate awhile, then get together again later," Tab suggested. "If Kit can take T Six to Grandish as an outworlder seeking trade of some sort he can access the computers at A Port to find who's on Grandish illegally. He can also try to locate some clues as to who's smuggling chemicals into the world. He can listen to the gossip, too.

  "I'll establish myself as some kind of supplier. Probably specialty glasswares, seeing there was a lot of glass used at those labs, glass that was produced right here. If needed we can arrange something to break a lot of glass at those labs.

  "That might be a good idea in any case. It'll slow down whatever they're doing at worst and force them to come to me for supplies at best.

  "I can also listen to the local gossip. That's a big part of this kind of investigation.

  "My identification will serve. It's not likely I'll meet anyone from Koosd at A Port."

  "I'll come in as either a Jornian or a Bentan," Kit said. "Either one might be involved in illegal things so I can be somewhat disreputable, but with a clear empire record. I doubt these people will want anyone who might even possibly be watched by empire agents for any reason. I can be periodically wealthy, down on my luck for the moment, but possessing a Zeenan P class ship worth millions of credits.

  "T Six, you ARE a Zeenan ship so give out P class ID for this."

  "Be a Bentan, not a Jornian," TR suggested. "There are Jornians involved in the thing Maita's doing so there might be some empire-wide investigations of Jornians soon – investigations that wouldn't miss such a disreputable character as you plan to be.

  "Tab, you can be a purveyor of specialty glass produ
cts. The area where the laboratory’s located sometimes has minor planet tremors so I'll cause a small one with a locus quite close to the labs. I can time it to break the most glass.

  "On Klormedt they produce heat resistant glass and tempered glass, both of which those labs might want in quantity. There's more than a little distance between A Port and Koosd, as you've noticed. That'll mean they have to use more than the local modes of travel, which means we might get more clues than we'd hoped for.

  "A side note here, the glass produced here has some amazing qualities. You might consider that as a business in Koosd when you return.

  "I can have floaters out to detect where and what they use. T Six can direct its floaters out of A Port while I can handle mine from orbit. This is still mostly a guessing game until we know what's going on here and why. I can't see what advantage anyone could gain from using this kind of thing – for anything! If it were pure science they wouldn't be trying to hide it here. It doesn't make any sense. I'm still open for any suggestions anyone might have."

  "We've both noted many times that this doesn't make any damned sense," Kit agreed. "Could it be that someone wants to produce a slave race?

  "That seems purely stupid to me with robotics so much advanced."

  "No others are nearly as advanced as we are, which would be the last thing they'd want, anyhow," Tab said. "Robots can be designed for almost any purpose, are produced cheaply and can be bought anywhere. They generally come with longterm guarantees and organics might get sick and you'd have to pay to take care of them."

  "Which could be the problem," T6 pointed out. "How do you take over a world if anyone there can get as many robots as you have? That's certainly no way to get power and control! If you could control all the people on a world with this psy stuff you could be the sort of king the Immins always.... Oh, no!"