Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition by CD Moulton Page A
Authors: CD Moulton
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them to scan for evidences of
civilization.
"A silver ball
a kilometer or two in diameter would be most logically an
installation big enough to hide near, but out of close sensor
range.
"You can't get
close to that thing and survive."
Whether or not
that was what happened or whether there was simply no brain sent to
that system we don't know. That much mass causes the star to show a
fairly obvious perturbation to a point no farther away than
Tlesson, but we can't be sure. There was no brain in the system and
there was one in all the other close systems, so we can assume the
one here was a thin film on the neutron mass.
Next was
Leepup. There were three possible planets in the system, but Leepup
was the one where we found the brain. It was building much on the
order of the one on Tohm, so TR didn't waste any time. It hit the
dome with a disruptor first, then slagged it. All the robots shut
down except for some in a mine a few kilometers away. I went down
to the surface. The robots totally ignored me, so I was able to
locate the sender computer and to shut it down. It was
preprogrammed to direct the mining of the vanadium there and wasn't
programmed for anything else. I spent awhile reading its boards,
while figuring how the system worked. I had the robots all go into
the cave and wrap themselves in a preservative box from the inside,
then to shut themselves off. I used the system to call all the
other robots still working to join them, then shut down the entire
system. Those servos may someday be very useful to someone. If they
had been designed for military uses I wouldn't have saved them, but
there's no sense in destroying things like that if they can
possibly be used for a good purpose later. It would be a simple
matter of reprogramming the central command computer. It was a
simple type of computer we understood since the original meeting at
Old Home, so maybe we could reprogram them and have them ready to
work on planoforming projects or something.
The next
system's brain was housed on a planet called Ziim on my charts. It
was the only planet in the system that was in the "life producing"
zone that didn't have emerging life. That was encouraging, because
it could mean the brains were supposed to avoid life until they
built strength.
"Nuts!" TR
retorted. "On Flimt we learned better than that!"
"Then maybe
this one had ... no," I replied. "They're to use intelligent life,
and are to avoid basic lifeforms. There's nothing the stage of life
on these planets could offer except problems. Molds and bacteria
could attack the materials used in building things, so it's easier
to use a planet without those things, so long as there wasn't
something else that could be used to greater advantage.
"It's a matter
of weighing the advantages against the disadvantages. The military
mind. There simply isn't anything worth conquering on those
planets.
"I hope this
setup is identical to those on Tohm and Leepup!"
"Request
denied! I don't like this much at all! It means Thing figured it
wrong, and we have to go to all the systems where there are no
planets to try to trace where they might've gone from there."
"Why?"
"Because the
fact this thing has the same situation as those on Tohm and Leepup
but acted in a very different manner shows it has some ability to
make choices! We have to see what else is different here and try to
... we're lucky all of these closer systems had planets of one sort
or another. Farther out means less chances of them going far, so we
should be able to find them all. They're still slower than light,
so our original sphere is the same. We'll have to find the closer
ones, count them, and trace the second row outward. That
militaristic brain certainly wouldn't have programmed two of them
for one system under any circumstances whatever."
"Whatever you
say. I guess you know what you're talking about.
"Let's do
something about that thing down there on Ziim. I'm afraid it'll
take some time if there's one on Killit.
civilization.
"A silver ball
a kilometer or two in diameter would be most logically an
installation big enough to hide near, but out of close sensor
range.
"You can't get
close to that thing and survive."
Whether or not
that was what happened or whether there was simply no brain sent to
that system we don't know. That much mass causes the star to show a
fairly obvious perturbation to a point no farther away than
Tlesson, but we can't be sure. There was no brain in the system and
there was one in all the other close systems, so we can assume the
one here was a thin film on the neutron mass.
Next was
Leepup. There were three possible planets in the system, but Leepup
was the one where we found the brain. It was building much on the
order of the one on Tohm, so TR didn't waste any time. It hit the
dome with a disruptor first, then slagged it. All the robots shut
down except for some in a mine a few kilometers away. I went down
to the surface. The robots totally ignored me, so I was able to
locate the sender computer and to shut it down. It was
preprogrammed to direct the mining of the vanadium there and wasn't
programmed for anything else. I spent awhile reading its boards,
while figuring how the system worked. I had the robots all go into
the cave and wrap themselves in a preservative box from the inside,
then to shut themselves off. I used the system to call all the
other robots still working to join them, then shut down the entire
system. Those servos may someday be very useful to someone. If they
had been designed for military uses I wouldn't have saved them, but
there's no sense in destroying things like that if they can
possibly be used for a good purpose later. It would be a simple
matter of reprogramming the central command computer. It was a
simple type of computer we understood since the original meeting at
Old Home, so maybe we could reprogram them and have them ready to
work on planoforming projects or something.
The next
system's brain was housed on a planet called Ziim on my charts. It
was the only planet in the system that was in the "life producing"
zone that didn't have emerging life. That was encouraging, because
it could mean the brains were supposed to avoid life until they
built strength.
"Nuts!" TR
retorted. "On Flimt we learned better than that!"
"Then maybe
this one had ... no," I replied. "They're to use intelligent life,
and are to avoid basic lifeforms. There's nothing the stage of life
on these planets could offer except problems. Molds and bacteria
could attack the materials used in building things, so it's easier
to use a planet without those things, so long as there wasn't
something else that could be used to greater advantage.
"It's a matter
of weighing the advantages against the disadvantages. The military
mind. There simply isn't anything worth conquering on those
planets.
"I hope this
setup is identical to those on Tohm and Leepup!"
"Request
denied! I don't like this much at all! It means Thing figured it
wrong, and we have to go to all the systems where there are no
planets to try to trace where they might've gone from there."
"Why?"
"Because the
fact this thing has the same situation as those on Tohm and Leepup
but acted in a very different manner shows it has some ability to
make choices! We have to see what else is different here and try to
... we're lucky all of these closer systems had planets of one sort
or another. Farther out means less chances of them going far, so we
should be able to find them all. They're still slower than light,
so our original sphere is the same. We'll have to find the closer
ones, count them, and trace the second row outward. That
militaristic brain certainly wouldn't have programmed two of them
for one system under any circumstances whatever."
"Whatever you
say. I guess you know what you're talking about.
"Let's do
something about that thing down there on Ziim. I'm afraid it'll
take some time if there's one on Killit.
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