Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (112 page)

"I've never
understood why you can't send pictures and even voice over fastcom.
I'm willing to bet that, unless I'm very badly misunderstanding
what you've said about it, I can do both things."

[ So give us
your theoretical basis. Sometimes you childish primitives have
ideas that actually work – after a weird kind of fashion. ]

Z refused to be
baited. "Well, you send digitals? That's what fastcom is?"

*Pure digital
signals, yes.*

Z took a sheet
of clean paper from the console record's drawer and a writing
utensil. He drew a fast sketch of a tree.

"Okay. I know
you can do this in full color and even in three-D, but this is
basic. I suppose you'll do all kinds of things with it within an
hour or so.

"How many
digital signals can you send in one second MGS?"

*Ten million
would be easy.*

"Good. Divide
this paper into ten million little squares in your visuals. This is
black and white so you need ... what are you doing?"

*I'm using the
holovid screen to set it up. Thing and you can see what I'm
picturing and you can tell me if I miss anything.*

"Oh. Okay.
Start a line from top left and designate a digital signal for each
of those ten million squares, say in an unending 'S' from top right
to the ten millionth on the bottom left like in TV. The pattern
covers every square angstrom of the sheet. Understand?"

*Except for the
part about angstroms. They don't mean anything to me. Okay. I've
got it. So very simple. One for black and 0 for white. The more
black in a small space, the darker. Grey would be less black spaces
– this is, as you say, simple and obvious!*

There was a
blur, then the sketch was copied exactly about a hundred times
actual size on the holovid screen.

*I could give
any number of signals in each spot for color gradations. Speech
would simply be a value in time for intensity in each of thirty
thousand frequency ranges. That would translate even into exact
tonal qualities of the individual voice. It's old technology that's
been forgotten. Simple scanning patterns, such as are used in
television. This could be what's happening down there! Rediscovery
of those simple little things we've done without for more than
three hundred years you've been with us. You could've said that at
any time. Why didn't you?*

"Quite frankly
it never once crossed my mind. I programmed computers on Earth and
even made little silicon chips that made sounds – music – from an
almost invisibly small piece of silica. The simple ones in watches
and clocks just lightened or darkened little square crystals to
draw numbers and letters. Same thing. You do it every time you call
records to holovid. It's the way the holovid works, as a matter of
fact, except you work with a three dimensional square. A cube.
Isn't that all digitally stored?"

[ Now that
we're sufficiently humbled at our obvious gross stupidity shall we
see what's going on on that world down there? It might be nice to
know since we came clear across the galaxy to get here. ]

"We only came
halfway across the galaxy. Why can't you be precise in your speech?
I've told you at least ten million times not to exaggerate!"

*I have
floaters there now. It seems they have some kind of knowledge of
the empire and know there are people out here so we can land here,
too. This should be an interesting contrast to the last one. There
are truly magnificent buildings and other structures as well as
some primitive things. A real mix. There seem to be any number of
contrasts. A supermodern community next to a primitive
society.*

"I'm getting
glad we came out here. Can you get the language before we go in? It
would make it far easier and faster all the way around."

[ Yeah, Maita.
Break the rules about the probe. You know we will, anyhow. We
always have. ]

Maita sent a
portable probe on a floater to seek someone in an isolated place
and in the proper circumstances to use it. It got two subjects on
different parts of the planet, to find the language to be
dialectic, but not so much a person from one place couldn't
understand one from another. The floater also brought back videos
of reptilian people of very fine features.

[ They seem to
be very highly evolved. They're graceful and intelligent. Their
mental capacity is far more than what they use. It's a reawakening
of some kind, I'd say. They had some kind of social disaster,
regressed to a primitive situation and are re-emerging into an
extremely high societal level. ]

"They do seem
very highly advanced, Maita. I have to agree these are a
re-evolving society. At one time they must have been far ahead
of...."

[ Great
colliding galaxies, Maita! These will have to be the Krofpth! There
isn't any other way to explain this! ]

"The leaders of
the old empire?!"

*Yes. I found
the coordinates while we were at Library and sent the satellite in
this direction. You'll remember that Station Two mentioned the
Krofpth so I immediately scanned records at Library to locate the
world. That's why I was so ready to leave back there! I wanted to
see what artifacts they may have left that would survive the eons.
It would seem they directly survived themselves! I didn't get a
picture at Library, which I regret, but this is definitely a very
highly evolved race. I'm trying to contact them on their radio. I
think I'm getting a reply. I'll put it on the speakers.*

"Maitan Empire
ship Maita," a pleasant voice said. "We have been waiting for you.
Please follow this beam to ground. Welcome to Focus!"

[ They've been
waiting for us? What could they...? Are they telepaths or what? I
didn't ... oh. Obvious, isn't it, but why waiting for us? ]

"Probably
figurative. They've been waiting eons for someone to contact
them."

*Mountbeast
excrement. Library and those beacons had fastcom of a sort so
they've been listening since we put our relay in place. That would
be since we came here – only eighteen days, but enough for them to
know we were here and we would definitely be contacting them,
eventually. Maybe they planned to contact us after they learned the
language. I'm getting very excited about this contact!*

"They didn't
have relays to Library and the beacons? I've got plenty of
questions! I've got questions I've never even thought of yet!"

[ I expect to
find something beyond anything we expect. ]

*Now YOU sound
like Z. That doesn't make any sense and you know it!*

"It does to me!
This is beautiful!"

Z and Thing
were together in the pilot's chair so were coming in upside down,
but were so used to it that it didn't bother them in any way. If
they settled into a grounding NOT under the ship upside down to the
landing site it would bother them.

[ I don't see
anything primitive here at all, Maita. This is advanced beyond even
the Parf worlds so far as art forms and architecture are concerned.
The evidence of technology beyond anything we have is overwhelming!
This is a very old technology and is slightly different from our
own. Perhaps they can explain a few things to us. ]

"Like how a
bumblestinger can fly?"

*I'll settle
for how those damned transmats work and how that grounding spell
works and how you can produce that little blue flame in your
hands!*

They sat on a
cleared piece of ground where nothing would be disturbed. Z and
Thing went down the ramp to where a floater was waiting. Thing rode
its own while Z used it.

Z had the
language crystal in place and, for the first time, studied it. The
language was highly complex, but not flowery or decadent. It was
more precise than even Maitan, but would be harder for many races
to pronounce. Due to the fact they had viewed the people on holovid
through the sensors before coming aground they knew what to expect.
The people were the general form (K-form) of many of the empire's
higher intelligences, but were all close to the same general size
and shape. They were curious about Maita and the crew, but were
very relaxed about it. They were perfectly willing to wait simply
because they knew with certainty they would soon know everything
they needed to know about their visitors.

Thing was very
closely scrutinized. There had been no race in the archives on
Library much like it. There were definitely no empathic beings
there to nearly the point the talent had reached in the Mentans.
They were introduced to Happ and Glo, who would act as their
guides. Happ was male and Glo female. They asked about the sex of
Z, which they figured as male, and Thing. They knew of races with
several sexes in the past and questioned it closely.

They asked why
Maita, who spoke with them on the radio, wasn't along. The floater
told them it was along as the floater.

*I'm sure you
have figured I am the ship. I'm sure you know of mechanical
intelligences.*

"We will wish
to ask about the fact you are called Maita, and you are of the
Maitan Empire," Glo answered. "We have recently listened to your
communications gravitics, but hadn't yet quite translated your
language. We will wish to know much about your empire and of how it
operates. We had great scholars in the past who have posited
machine, er, controlled societies."

[ We'll want to
know as much about you, too. When we found Library we felt you were
extinct at that time. The empire was dead for a quarter of a
million years. You haven't devolved here, you've advanced. We want
to know how.... I can't even think of the proper questions at this
point. Suffice it to say I will wish fantastic quantities of
information. I'm always fascinated by societal imperatives and am
greatly puzzled as to what yours might be. ]

"We looked
around at ourselves and asked what it was all for," Happ replied.
"The answer made this more or less inevitable. We were expanding
without growing. The empire was ever larger and larger yet we might
possibly be doing more harm than good. It was seemingly ever more
and more pointless. There seemed no reasonable answer to the
question."

*Perhaps we've
asked that question, too, and have found a much different answer.
It may have a great amount to do with the basic psychological
imperatives of your race and of the race who designed me. We're
obviously very different in some ways.*

"I've always
found the truth to be somewhere between different viewpoints," Z
suggested. "There times when you have an answer, then as much as
forget it while you search for exactly that answer – or maybe give
up the search.

"That's what
the fastcom pictures amounted to. Your attention gets diverted at a
critical time."

[ Truth is
relative. The fastcom thing, that our hosts have no idea what we're
talking about, was because the old Maitan system wasn't carried on
a positional digital so it WASN'T practical then and the Kheth
system was positional, but not digital. The system wasn’t usable
until methods were combined into what we have now. ]

"We could have
had it for three hundred years," Z pointed out. "I'm sure these
people don't know or much care what we're talking about."

Glo and Happ
both grinned and Z liked them for it. They had a sense of humor.
"It wouldn't seem to have much to do with our discussion," Glo
replied. "Fastcom, as you call it, is a method of communicating
between machines that then translate to people."

[You've never
tried machines as your planners and leaders? ]

"We didn't see,
uh, there would be very much, uh, difference," Happ said, suddenly
seeming a bit confused. "Perhaps more efficiency from machines, but
efficiency can be detrimental in some ways."

"They get rid
of bureaucrats," Z said. "Maita runs the traders guild so far as
trade routes and distribution and such go. The empire isn't much
more than a large trading guild. We have Hospital and University
and now we have the planet we call Library you bequeathed to us
eons ago. We've restarted your beacons for the traders to use.
Those are magnificent structures. They're monuments to a truly
great empire that once flourished in the area.

"We enjoy
finding those kinds of things. We spend our time exploring. There's
so much that's new!"

"Then Maita
here is actually the emperor?" Glo asked. "You leave out the
military, I see. We used to do that. Don't mention them and they
don't exist for the time in consciousness."

[ Maita's the
emperor. We'll call the Acnians if we need any military action. The
Feach are good strategists, too, and will generally aid them. They
haven't done anything other than aid in a few emergencies in a good
many years. We're hopeful they won't ever be needed as military
agents again, but that's asking far too much of the universe. ]

"We will wish
to ask what is different in your empire with the military under the
control of machines," Happ said. "Militaries are expensive.

"How are taxes
handled?"

*There are no
taxes to handle. The empire runs the vacation planets and that's
about it. I get ten percent of the profits and Hospital and
University receive ten percent each. There's also a general
emergency fund of ten percent. My budget has never used more than
half of the funds allocated to the emperor's use so I generally
spend what's left on research. I'm certainly not motivated by the
desire to accumulate wealth. I have no use for it. The power is
more a curse than anything any sane being would seek is why I've
delegated responsibility to the extent possible. Rid yourself of
responsibility and you rid yourself of power.*

"How many
worlds are there in the empire?" Glo asked, a slight smile on her
face.

[ Four thousand
thirty one full members. That's as of the time we left so there are
one or two more by now. They join all the time to get into the
established routes of the traders guild and to meet others. The
meeting of different peoples is basic to the drive in almost every
advanced race we've found. ]