Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition by CD Moulton Page B
Authors: CD Moulton
Ads: Link
The fleet shouldn't have
any trouble locating others farther out. Call Gohn and Ander and
have them do a search on grid from systems within range that have
no planets if they don't find anything still in the systems and
talk to Thing about it. Maybe it considered this already and has a
reason for what it projected. It usually has ten steps figured
beyond what we thought of."
"Thing won't be
able to respond for awhile. Maita and T Six are working on various
things while Thing and Z are handling their own problems. We got
them en route before. Maita doesn't have any idea of how long
they'll be busy.
"From what I
can tell, the brain seems to be holed up in a cave or something.
It's built a couple of robots or servos and is doing something
inside there."
"It isn't
mining or anything?"
"It's not doing
much of anything, judging by the energy use. It's barely detectable
... so!"
"Yes. It was
somehow damaged. The reactors were destroyed and its generation
power is poor, so it has to build something first to recharge
itself. It's using only the servos that were aboard from the first
– those it brought with it.
"This is one we
shouldn't have a lot of problems with. Maybe I can get to it to
read it."
"It's been here
for twenty or twenty five years. The damage must be pretty serious.
Its ability to produce the robots and servos is gone."
"And it doesn't
have energy to spare for weapons. Maybe we've found the one I can
read at last! It'll save us a lot of time if I can.
"We've
accounted for five, and we know there were a minimum of fourteen.
Of the other nine, the fleet got rid of one, leaving a minimum of
eight more.
"One is on
Killit almost certainly. Seven.
"I'm getting a
worse and worse feeling about Killit. With that population in the
stage they're in we could have a very hard brain to get rid of. I
don't like the way that thing always starts building nuclears. It's
too much like the Immins for my tastes!"
"Hold on," TR
said, and I waited a few minutes. "Okay. Ander reports his fleet
destroyed four and lost one ship through a very stupid mistake. We
told them this thing is known for trickery, yet the ship approached
what they thought was a dead brain ship and were destroyed. Twelve
crewmembers.
"Two other
ships were dispatched and slagged the brain there. There are three
more at minimum."
I went aground
and found the sealed entrance to the cave. A floater found another
entrance big enough to get through over a flowing stream coming
from inside of the mountain, so I went in to confront the brain. My
problem was to prevent it from self-destructing and taking me with
it, though its fusion generator wasn't working much at all. There
was some high radiation in the cave, but I'm a machine, so it would
have no effect on me.
The brain ship
was in a cavern. It had a large rupture on one side and had three
servos working around an old-style electrical generator that worked
on a flowing water principle in a stream flowing from the cavern
out along the mountain where I came in. It was an easy thing to
enter the ship through the hole, which was directly into the
machinery storage area, and then into the generator area. There
would be much too much leakage of current in some of these points
for the brain to advance very rapidly from the waterwheel, but it
would soon be able to direct servos to repair those lines. Once it
had that power it could slowly build its strength until it could
begin mining.
There was iron
in this cave, so it could then expand rapidly. Less than a hundred
years from now it could build another fusion reactor.
I went through
a narrow passage and into various rooms. The beam weapons were
usable but unpowered, as were the rest of the defenses. The
nuclears weren't usable because they must be launched. There was
some activity around some of those missiles, so I checked it
out.
It was building
a plutonium reactor with the materials from the missiles! It would
be unshielded and dangerous, but would work. This
any trouble locating others farther out. Call Gohn and Ander and
have them do a search on grid from systems within range that have
no planets if they don't find anything still in the systems and
talk to Thing about it. Maybe it considered this already and has a
reason for what it projected. It usually has ten steps figured
beyond what we thought of."
"Thing won't be
able to respond for awhile. Maita and T Six are working on various
things while Thing and Z are handling their own problems. We got
them en route before. Maita doesn't have any idea of how long
they'll be busy.
"From what I
can tell, the brain seems to be holed up in a cave or something.
It's built a couple of robots or servos and is doing something
inside there."
"It isn't
mining or anything?"
"It's not doing
much of anything, judging by the energy use. It's barely detectable
... so!"
"Yes. It was
somehow damaged. The reactors were destroyed and its generation
power is poor, so it has to build something first to recharge
itself. It's using only the servos that were aboard from the first
– those it brought with it.
"This is one we
shouldn't have a lot of problems with. Maybe I can get to it to
read it."
"It's been here
for twenty or twenty five years. The damage must be pretty serious.
Its ability to produce the robots and servos is gone."
"And it doesn't
have energy to spare for weapons. Maybe we've found the one I can
read at last! It'll save us a lot of time if I can.
"We've
accounted for five, and we know there were a minimum of fourteen.
Of the other nine, the fleet got rid of one, leaving a minimum of
eight more.
"One is on
Killit almost certainly. Seven.
"I'm getting a
worse and worse feeling about Killit. With that population in the
stage they're in we could have a very hard brain to get rid of. I
don't like the way that thing always starts building nuclears. It's
too much like the Immins for my tastes!"
"Hold on," TR
said, and I waited a few minutes. "Okay. Ander reports his fleet
destroyed four and lost one ship through a very stupid mistake. We
told them this thing is known for trickery, yet the ship approached
what they thought was a dead brain ship and were destroyed. Twelve
crewmembers.
"Two other
ships were dispatched and slagged the brain there. There are three
more at minimum."
I went aground
and found the sealed entrance to the cave. A floater found another
entrance big enough to get through over a flowing stream coming
from inside of the mountain, so I went in to confront the brain. My
problem was to prevent it from self-destructing and taking me with
it, though its fusion generator wasn't working much at all. There
was some high radiation in the cave, but I'm a machine, so it would
have no effect on me.
The brain ship
was in a cavern. It had a large rupture on one side and had three
servos working around an old-style electrical generator that worked
on a flowing water principle in a stream flowing from the cavern
out along the mountain where I came in. It was an easy thing to
enter the ship through the hole, which was directly into the
machinery storage area, and then into the generator area. There
would be much too much leakage of current in some of these points
for the brain to advance very rapidly from the waterwheel, but it
would soon be able to direct servos to repair those lines. Once it
had that power it could slowly build its strength until it could
begin mining.
There was iron
in this cave, so it could then expand rapidly. Less than a hundred
years from now it could build another fusion reactor.
I went through
a narrow passage and into various rooms. The beam weapons were
usable but unpowered, as were the rest of the defenses. The
nuclears weren't usable because they must be launched. There was
some activity around some of those missiles, so I checked it
out.
It was building
a plutonium reactor with the materials from the missiles! It would
be unshielded and dangerous, but would work. This
Similar Books
