by Moulton, CD
Djin and the engineer came panting up to join them. The floater went on, "Emperor Maita has personally requested that you accompany me to the world Kuhlicht where our biological team has been working. There has been some kind of take-over by the fungus it seems and you two and myself are the only others who have had any close encounters with the thing – except for Lope and his son, but we can't ask them to come offworld.
"Will you aid us in this? We don't even know what we're up against. I must warn you this is a mortal danger. To all of us."
"Of course we'll come!" Tab replied. "Will we need to bring anything?"
"No. Everything we might need is here – except we have no vague idea what that may be," TR answered. "The conveyance floater's almost there. Simply stand on it near the center and don't fear the speed. There's a shield around the passengers, though you won't see it. You will be in A Port in less than ten minutes."
"Whoa!" Kit exploded. "But ... A Port is more than two hundred fifty kilometers!"
"Two hundred sixty four and a half exactly," TR replied. "This floater will remain at the glass plant until our return. I'll have a colleague come here to take the information and maps so be sure people know they're to continue that. We've already found more than seventy of the fungoids from the people’s maps."
The large floater came close and Kit and Tab climbed nervously aboard, though they were clearly intending to be brave about this new technology. It shot away and was out of sight of the plant almost immediately.
"The thing really has taken over?" Tab asked.
"Maita had little spy devices all around there," TR replied. "Givzoo, then Nortich began acting ever so slightly out of character so they came to the shielded sec building to find out what was happening. There are small pieces missing from them. Nothing critical yet, but it's got to be the telekinesis bit. Zantoo is unconscious on the lab floor as are the four students. Volich is out of the labs and we have floaters looking for her. She hasn't made the last two regular reports."
"What can we do?" Kit asked. "If it's using TK we're in as much danger as the organics!"
"We're to go into high orbit over Kuhlicht," TR replied. "We'll make plans as we go. Maita can't come now, but there'll be two Fleet destroyers waiting for us. If we can't do anything else we'll have to sterilize the whole planet."
"No!" Kit exclaimed. "Not with those people still there! The fungus can't get offworld in any case!"
"I can see the basic problem," Tab said. "It could make the servos here do what it wanted so it could fly a ship – a ship full of spores."
"Maita's more afraid it will simply TK the spores to other worlds," TR replied. "A spore is a very small thing."
"Would it have that much power?" Kit asked.
"Not yet, but it's learning damned fast," TR answered. "Considering the mass of a spore it wouldn't take much power to send one to any number of worlds."
They arrived at the port, flew directly into the cargo hold on TR and were leaving atmosphere as the doors closed. TR kept them open long enough to completely evacuate the ship, then did a microwave wash before closing them securely.
"TR, put one of those psy detector units on a small spy floater along with one of the devices you put in our brains," Tab suggested. "You'll have to figure how to translate and transmit both ways."
"Sheeesh!" TR exploded. "How in hell am I supposed to do that?"
"I do it," Tab said quietly. "You know every circuit in me. If you have to make a duplicate, so be it. Leave out independent intelligence. Whatever machine we send in there may be destroyed in seconds."
"What are you planning?" Kit asked.
"For the moment I want to talk to that thing. This way it can't attack me," Tab replied. "TR, put a small disruptor and a small molecular phase shifter on the floater. It already knows how to defense a small cutting laser so that won't be needed. Put a projectile device on it, too. One like Thing has on its floater. Explosive powder.
"You know its exact location in the lab so be ready with the big guns to destroy that part of the buildings if we have to. Maybe microwaves to cook the thing. I'll want to be able to examine the body if it comes to that. We can't leave it to chance it may have found a way to move itself out of there."
"Maita's turned over all the spy channels to me," TR replied. "Here's a picture of the fungus."
The main screen lit up to show a fungus much like the one that had spored on Grandish.
"Uh-oh!" Kit said. "It's spored!"
"No, it's found a way to fool the spy," Tab replied. "It wants us to think it's spored so we'll leave it alone."
"How do you fig ... AH!" TR exclaimed.
"Yes," Tab said dryly. "There should be two big ones and one smaller one, not one big one. It also took the one on Grandish four years to get that size, not less than one. We can't believe the spy cameras. We're blind except for the little floater you're going to send in there, TR."
"It'll be ready," TR replied. "It'll be complicated and easy to screw up, you know."
"It'll have to do," Tab agreed as they all "felt" the change back into N space from the planal drive. "There's Fleet. I'll contact them now with instructions to focus something horrible on that lab building, then to wait."
They made their plans, then TR sent the special spy floater down toward the labs where it was attacked as soon as it was detected. TR was able to bring it back, but only barely.
"It attacked immediately!" Tab cried. "I'd think it would try to use anything that came near it! This doesn't make any sense!"
"It might to a fungus," Kit said dryly. "What can we do, TR? We have to show some kind of superiority over that thing or we're beat here."
"I'll try to recast this brain," TR answered. "It removed several small bits of wiring in response circuitry. My problem's going to be making something it can't take pieces out of so easily."
"Could you maybe make everything too big for it to take the important parts out of?" Tab asked.
"No," TR replied. "We have to use miniaturized parts simply because of lapse time in the computing circuitry. There isn't any tolerance. Reaction has to be more immediate than you could believe."
"Then make some of those things too massive," Kit suggested. "Is the electrical response of psiltripium good enough?"
"Hey! You're getting pretty good at this!" TR answered. "I have psiltripium aboard in the focus for the gravitics grids and for the beacons! We can get more on EC. I'd think the inertial effects of psiltripium would slow that psy force enough – and then some!" (Psiltripium is the heaviest element ever discovered. It has some strange properties other than the fact it has almost as much mass as neutron mass. It is more than six hundred times the mass of the common metal, lead.)
"We can see how it responds to a thin shielding of psiltripium," Tab suggested. "I wouldn't think it would be possible for a psy force to move anything through it. You could use silver, lead and gold to manufacture the device. Their mass would guarantee stability – but do we have enough power to send a floater into the gravity well of that planet carrying several tons of the stuff?"
"Sure!" TR replied brightly. "I'll use the shield for the focus for the gravitic drive on the floater. That should effectively cancel the weight of the thing. The mass will be in containment so long as the field's on."
They waited for more than three long hours, listening to TR swear at times like an organic when it met one of the difficult phases of working with psiltripium, but it was eventually done.
"We can try it now," TR announced. "I had to eliminate most of your weapons, though."
"We do what we have to do," Tab said. "Send it in!"
They watched the view from the camera on the floater as it went into the lab. There were, indeed, three of the fungi in there. The detectors recorded very strong psy forces aimed at the floater, but they had minimal effect.
"Whenever you're ready you can stop with the silliness," Tab broadcast calmly. "I should think you'd learn you can't defy me so easily.
&nb
sp; "Now! What's with this foolishness about you attacking the people who're working with you? Are you too stupid to realize you must depend on them for your food, water, temperature control and everything else?"
There was a short lessening, then the attack suddenly stopped.
"I can control my own feeding!" came back sharply. "What is this thing here? I detect some of Fel in it. I deduce it is that one who controls the device."
"You've attacked and done damage to my friends," Tab replied shortly. "I don't wish to allow you to damage me so I'll use this device. You'll find it not so easy to overcome.
"What could you possibly hope to accomplish by attacking my friends?"
"The term 'friends' does not translate," You replied. "If you mean these who are working to destroy me here, why should I not also seek methods to destroy?"
"They're not attempting to destroy you," Tab replied. "That would be a very easy thing to do. They seek ways to control the growth of your spores on worlds such as Grandish. That's all. You were safe here on Kuhlicht until you so stupidly attacked them."
"You cannot harm me! Your weapons are useless!" You sent loudly. "I grow weary of these stupid games you are playing! You are defeated! Cease! Leave me alone!"
"I can melt the feed lines down," TR informed them. "It's distracted by the floater so I sneaked another one in. I was waiting because Zantoo's in there, but he's dead. The students are dead, too. There are no life signs whatever from any of them I can detect."
Tab nodded, then said, "I'll show you how much I can harm you. You've destroyed some of my friends. Now I'll destroy you, but in a much slower way."
TR melted down the feed and water lines. It also burned the smaller fungus down to its pot with a microwave beam. The fungus gave a mental scream.
"They're obviously linked through the psy," TR noted. "That will give it something to think about!"
"Burn it! Now! While you have the chance!" Kit cried.
"Yes!" Tab agreed. "It'll find a defense if we give it the time!"
"Nnn! Too late!" TR said. "It really made a mess out of that floater!
"I got the one on your left – about half of it – then it got the floater. It's what would be called hopping mad if it could hop."
"I'm bringing that com floater out," TR said. "Look!"
Things were flying around the lab, aimed at the floater. There were bottles and flasks being broken all over the place. There was a long loud mental cry along with the mayhem taking place.
"The damned thing's insane!" Kit said. "I mean it's really insane, not merely different."
"I think so," Tab agreed. "When I saw it had attacked the ones who were its only source of food I saw that. I think it intends to spore right away, which is what the subterfuge was really about. It wasn't able to defeat me by doing that before, but it planned this one very carefully. Now that I'm here it has to tighten its schedule."
"But why kill those people?" Kit asked. "If it waited until the last possible moment to do that it could have gotten away with it."
"We can't know how it thinks," Tab said. "TR, when you get that floater aboard let's put more distance between Kuhlicht and us. Tell the fleet to back off a plazsi or so, too. I have an idea. We have to get Givzoo and Nortich out of there if we're to defeat this thing. We also have to find Volich.
"Contact Maita as soon as it’s able to answer you. There's something more we have to do here Maita's going to explode about, but this is getting way too serious to take any chances unless we can get rid of that thing before it spores."
"How do we get them out?" TR asked. "It's getting more and more dangerous for us to even be in orbit there."
"That's exactly what I'm so scared of," Tab agreed. "That thing CAN get off the planet!"
"Oh, great exploding galaxies!" Kit exclaimed. "Givzoo's ship! It's down there!"
"Oh, no!" TR added. "It can program that ship if it can program the servos. It HAS programmed servos – okay, no smart remarks. Orders."
"I want a complete energy shield on a large floater and I want the personal shields checked on Kit and myself to be sure there's no leakage. By that I mean NO leakage! Get Fleet ships to give us some of their focus mass psiltripium. Make another floater like the one down there. Make two if you can. I have to know exactly where Givzoo and Nortich are. Kit will get them out and to you or a Fleet ship while I locate Volich. The psiltripium floaters will be for diversionary purposes only. Make shields that leak the least amount of energy, move them from around the planet toward the labs when we need the diversion."
"Slow like a sneak attack and close to where you two are working," TR agreed. "I get the idea."
"Wouldn't it be better to have the diversion away from where we are?" Kit asked.
"No," TR responded quickly. "It'll already be suspicious. It'll think along logical lines so this might work. Z showed this trick to us once a long time ago. The fungus will watch all around the area on the far side of the seeming attack because a diversion is logically AWAY from the action. If the action is almost IN the diversion that action's likely to be missed. We have to hope the fungus has a similar logic is all. That's the point of doubt!"
"We'll never know until we're there. Let's make our plans!" Tab said.
* *
Kit dropped on his shielded floater very rapidly toward the surface of the planet. The floater plunged into a lake a good many kilometers from the labs, then worked its way carefully on toward the shielded building where Givzoo and Nortich were in hiding. The shields would be of little use now so it would be imperative the fungus be distracted. The three floaters with psy transmitters were aground and were moving slowly and carefully toward the lab. They were to one side of where Kit came in. There was one between Kit and Tab and two to the other side of Tab's floater. If there was no leakage from this floater there was a good chance this phase of the plan would work. The fungus wasn't interested in Givzoo and Nortich at the moment.
When he was a few meters from the shielded shed Kit stopped to look the situation over. He couldn't take any chances so he couldn't know what was happening. There was no way he could know if he was detected unless and until he was attacked. Things seemed quiet enough.
He went to the shed, cycled the doors open, slipped in and closed the doors on full seal. Givzoo was there with a hand heat laser, as was Nortich.
"Those things wouldn't do much good against that thing now," he warned. "Get on the floater. We have...."
He ducked as the two both shot at him.
"What the hell!" he cried, then noticed the blank looks on their faces. They fired again at the spot he'd just dropped out of. Nortich was slowly turning her weapon toward him. He wouldn't be hurt by a laser so was a little slow in deciding what to do, then he rolled out of the way and fired a bit of strong anesthetic at the two scientists. They dropped.
As he loaded them onto the floater he searched them both very carefully, finding the tiny vials of spores hidden on their persons. He was sure the spores were from the supply he and Tab had brought. He ordered the floater to microwave the vials, then he carefully replaced them exactly where he found them. TR would decontaminate the two completely, but it would be interesting to know what plans were made for them by the fungus that were emplaced through posthypnotic suggestion. One thing was certain. He wasn't worried they would be stopped from leaving the planet.
Kit loaded the two onto the floater, retraced the route and soon had them aboard TR. He interfaced with the console, then TR made another search finding spores in individual little hiding places.
"They're carrying some spores internally," TR reported. "I'll feed them something to kill the spores before I bring them around. They won't know anything about any of this."
"I know," Kit replied. "What worries me most is whether the fungus implanted the suggestions AFTER they were in the shed."
"I think it's time for the probe." TR insisted. "Maita isn't in this plane to forbid it. We're both machines so there's no invasion of privacy. I'm sure
they'd both volunteer if we asked them, but it's better they don't know about it."
Kit nodded and got the helmets.
*
Tab dropped to the east of Kit, came in very low and fast and landed behind a close hill. He was sure the fungus hadn't detected him as his shielding was as near perfect as possible while the several decoy floaters were producing enough to appear to be something coming in while trying to hide.
Where would Volich be hiding? She had been, according to the report from Maita, trying to do part of her research out in the field on the local varieties of fungi.
Then why hadn't she reported at the regular report period? Why didn't anyone know where she had gone or even where she was supposed to be? That didn't seem to be like Volich and as certainly wasn't like the kind of operation Givzoo would be running – though it was now known Givzoo and Nortich were affected.
Had Volich seen what was happening to the two heads of the research and tried to do something about it? If so she was in hiding and in some place where the fungus wouldn't be so likely to be able to reach her.
First things first. Do something to Givzoo's ship so the fungus couldn't use it, then try to locate Volich. The ship was right to the side of the laboratory where the fungus – correction, fungi – were housed. There were two still living. The cutting off of the food supply wouldn't affect them for quite some time in all likelihood.
Tab was able to make his way to the ship and to stay out of sensor detection areas in a fairly short time. He went in the manual emergency entrance to find the ship was already disabled. The TTH moder cartridge had been removed along with the power supply breaker box. The ship was then rendered effectively useless except to an expert pilot and an equally expert mechanic, neither of which was any longer available here.
Extrapolate: Volich saw what was happening to Givzoo and Nortich and did this.
Ergo: Volich was, for some reason, not yet affected at the time this was done.
Where would she have gone?
Logically where the fungus wouldn't expect her to be, which would be somewhere inside of the lab. It was fairly certain she wasn't in there so where was the next choice?
