Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (155 page)

"They'll climb
right in bed with you and get you in a hug you couldn't get out of
with trmthm explosives! They like your body heat. They absorb it
like drypads absorb water. That may sound weird, but when you see
how hot it gets here you'll get so you like it. We have a little
air cooling, but it doesn't always work and you're going to know
what hot is in a few months! They always feel cool to us."

"I see. Won't
they be in the way later?" Grot asked.

"Oh, sure!" the
Jornian speaker said. "That's not for a lot of years yet so we'll
let our great grandkids worry about cutting their numbers back and
fencing them off somewhere. They're just dumb animals. Clarf says
they're quality protein, so maybe we can use them for cattle. As
wet as this world is we can't use standard pasture animals. We can
freeze them and the meat'll keep almost forever. Clarf says you
could freeze them for centuries then thaw 'em out and they'd go
right on as they were!

"We'll never
want for fresh meat! We can breed females, then freeze 'em, then
thaw 'em out whenever we need to increase the herds. It's a pity,
really. I like 'em, but if it's a choice between us and them I
won't hesitate a second. Like I say, it's not our problem.

"Let me show
you how we're getting along with the reactor."

Tab looked up
toward this Grot person. He was wearing a translator crystal in his
earlobes.

So! It was
Z!

*

Thing met with
Z, then had TR drop it and its floater off as they came in over the
ocean to the south. It rode with the atmosphere shield up until it
was a few meters above the water, then came to relative rest for a
moment to look around. There was no evidence there was anything
within a hundred kilometers in any direction except for a floating
antenna buoy above the dome four kilometers below the surface of
the sea. It turned on some of the floater's devices and turned
others off, then went below the surface. It breathed through
membranes that were well-suited for under water and actually
enjoyed the pressure. It's home planet had an atmospheric pressure
that would have crushed most beings instantly. It could adapt to
the four and a half kilometers of water pressure where the lower
fumaroles were located fairly quickly, its skin was an excellent
insulant against either heat or cold and the floater could shield
out the water, heat, or anything else if it became necessary. It
would also provide the light Thing needed. No sunlight would
penetrate to that depth though the fumaroles might supply enough
infra-red. Thing saw into both ultra-violet and infra-red.

The surface of
the sea was warm and didn't cool rapidly for the first kilometer or
more so the descent was very rapid. There was a slow and steady
current that was cooler on the near-surface parts, but which was
soon the same temperature as the surrounding water. At somewhat
more than two kilometers it was a lot warmer than the surrounding
flows. At three it wasn't there anymore. At four there was some
effect of the fumaroles and at floor level it wasn't too cold at
all. The fumaroles did give enough infra-red that augmentation
wasn't needed.

Thing loved
exploring in these places and amused and thrilled itself with a
number of the very strange lifeforms living on the cones of the
blacksmoke chimneys. The Jornian's dome wasn't too much of an
intrusion and only covered four of the chimney groups, but that was
still bad for the natural life there.

After finding
the com line and antenna leads Thing settled down to serious study.
It wouldn't be needed until there was progress on the land above.
It would lose itself in the study of these odd formations and the
life that depended on this process, old as the planet itself. Thing
wondered what the Shar were like other than physical traits. They
were herding animals or, more properly, schooling animals and would
probably be very warm and pleasant for an empath to be around. This
was an easy world, which would make for some rather interesting
problems if the Jornians tried to make slaves of them. They might
find it wasn't an easy task.

If Tab and Kit
had made it to the encampment yet, what had they encountered among
the Shar? Thing knew Tab had a psychology that would make him enjoy
the closeness of the school. Kit shared a lot with Tab. They were
in no danger, but Z might be. Z would let his temper get away from
him if those Jornians were doing anything to the Shar. Z would
immediately see them as innocents. Maita had a vile temper about
some things and Z tended to be worse. Tab and Kit may even be prone
to temper outbursts once their psychological match was made with
the Shar. Even TR had a temper at times.

How odd! Here
was a situation where the newest member of the group, T6, may be
the only one with an even temperament! Thing knew full well that it
would react badly to any serious mistreatment of the Shar if only
because it was the kind of thing the Immins would be prone to do.
Most things the Immins had done disgusted Thing. It has read many
thousands of them and had never found one with a psychology that
was in any way positive.

The Jornians
were far from what the Immins had been. That race brought about its
own final extinction through its never-ceasing disgusting acts.
Many Jornians were as good as the average race in the empire and
better than some.

For now the
smartest thing would be for mental energy to be expended in the
research of these amazing things down here.

*

Z landed in TR
and went out the port as if he owned the place. He was met by
several armed Jornians rushing out to meet him.

"I'm Grot!" he
announced before they could speak themselves. "So this place has
grown this much! I was wrong about some of that part. I predicted
at the first you were doomed to failure after that stupid screw-up
with Sarnof, you know. Thought he'd bring in the fleet, but I guess
he has better sense than to do that to himself. He'd put himself
out of business.

"Who's in
charge now?"

One of the
Jornians came carefully forward and said, "Grot? What the hell? I'm
nominally in charge I guess. I'm Kilk.

"Why didn't we
know ... what did you...? I mean, how did you find us?"

"Oh, I was in
on the original planning, but I was so pissed when Lugac and
friends screwed up that thing with the hijacking I said it couldn't
work anymore and went off in a huff. I've grown up since then. I
was just a bareass kid.

"So! Is the
rhodium reactor modulation phase disruptor generator working yet? I
predicted about fifteen years and it's almost that."

"Lugac?" Kilk
asked innocently. Much too innocently.

"Lugac and Root
and Chart and Flale on Sarnof's ship," Z said. "I know you can't be
too careful, but face it, I flew right here.

"Is it always
this hot? I mean, I took readings on the way in and you're not too
bad up here yet, but it's hardly past winter here!"

"It gets so hot
we stay inside the air-cooled caves unless we have to go out for
some reason," Kilk answered. "If you'll come in we'll check you out
and show you around.

"Anrir send
you?"

"Who? I never
heard of him!" Z replied. "I planned the whole operation with
Masyrt and Klevin. Ran into Klevin on Grlaq and he said you had
this thing going here. He's been laying low and had to run.

"Did you know
the emperor is supposed to be on Grlaq? Him and that Mentan and
some other guy who goes all over with him. Terran one. The one who
gets on holovid and nobody can figure what the hells he's talking
about most of the time."

Use names like
they're supposed to know them. Get them off balance.

"He’s on
Grlaq!?" Kilk cried. "Great exploding novas! We have a ship there
getting supplies right now! The emperor could follow them right
back here!"

"Then you'd
better get them on fastcom right now and tell them to get the nine
hells out or lay low or something!" Z suggested. "There's no way
the empire can know about this place, but it might not be smart to
do business when the empire is sitting on your dome. They have too
many ways to hear and see things and too many people will bang
their jaws about too many things. That Mentan can take two totally
innocent things from two people on different planets and figure out
what's happening halfway across the galaxy even when the two people
don't have a hint!"

The theory was
to hit fast and hard, get them off balance and bulldoze a way right
through them. Throwing them the information they would soon know
anyhow if they didn't already could only help .

"Lugac took
chances and almost screwed it up for all of us!"

It worked. Kilk
ran for the com shed with Z close behind him. He called the ship,
which was approaching the system right at the time to say there was
a rumor the emperor was on Grlaq and to check it out before they
landed. The message came back through the scrambler less than two
minutes later.

Emperor's ship
reported on Grlaq w/Terran/ Mentan. Proceeding to Strak. Will
intercept ship 2. Warn off. Good intelligence! We may have landed
right in a trap without it! We could be followed if we didn't
expect it – Galf ship 1

Kilk fully
accepted him then without further question. Still, he was placed in
the caverns until the following day before being shown around. The
disruptor was built and ready for use as soon as the generator was
finished – in less than a halfyear. He was shown the mines and told
the fumarole condenser mines were doing better than anticipated.
They were sending in some very high quality ores. The fractional
distillations were working to perfection.

"I was against
that waste all along!" Z snapped. "The only way we would be
detected mining the asteroids was if they KNEW we WERE mining them!
We could go to any of three close systems and it wouldn't matter if
they DID find us! This is such a waste! There are all the ores we
could want for the taking in other nearby systems that aren't
connected on top of that! Don't tell me about fumarole mining! It's
a stupid waste!"

"I’ve heard all
of those arguments," Kilk said, grinning. "We're self-sufficient
here now and not dependent on one thing from offplanet."

"Maybe. I still
don't see it," Z argued. "What's happening with the rhodium chrome
generator capacity? That ever get past the 'maybe someday when we
have the time' phase?"

"We have
standard hydroelectric while we build the rhodium catalyzer nearby.
It's still maybe two years away," Kilk replied. "I'll show you
within a few days. We figured that's a pretty good investment so
went ahead with it."

The following
day he was shown how the disruptors would be placed to defend the
whole planet and grumbled about that being another waste because
the empire would wipe the whole damned planet out before it would
get bogged down in a silly little war with disruptors.

"Didn't it ever
occur to you that if the empire finds us the disruptors won't help
us against them and the fact they're our only undetectable big
weapon is irrelevant?" Z asked.

"No, not here!"
Kilk explained. "Restricted planet with developing intelligence.
Disruptors backwash. The emperor will call Fleet off and will
simply keep us here. We can buy all the time we want that way."

"I don't much
hold with that kind of tactic!" Z complained. "I agree with Emperor
Maita about evolving cultures. I wouldn't do anything to cause a
backwash."

"I wouldn't,
either," Kilk replied. "It doesn't matter. The fact the things are
here and we COULD use them is enough."

"What's going
on?" Z asked, pointing to a group of Jornians over by the stream
that came along one side of the camp.

"Probably
natives," Kilk said. "We'll see. I'll show you the generators and
we'll go right by them anyhow."

"Natives?" Z
asked. "They come here?"

"Yeah. It's
getting to that time of year," Kilk answered, laughing. "You'll
have to meet our natives! That was one fiasco you would approve of.
They're absolutely useless!

"They're fun,
though. Come on!"

They went to
see two of the Shar laying on a dark rock in the sun. They were
both males and were teasing and playing with one another.

"They lay
around in piles!" Kilk explained. "Literally! Those are two males.
They never stop touching. It's something you have to get used to.
They touch each other and they touch you. They'll climb right in
your bed when it gets hotter."

Kilk explained
a bit about the Shar and the reactions of the Jornians at first and
again, now, and how there was a plan to use them for food. Kilk was
leading him to the stream to show him the generators when he turned
to look toward the two, who met his eyes directly. There was great
intelligence there, though the Shar were supposed to not have
much.

Then he saw the
purple patch on the shoulder of one and the yellow hexagon on the
chest of the other. Tab and Kit!

But what was
going on? The two robots must certainly have a plan about this
place – but what could they be up to?

Well, they were
expected to be here at the camp and here they were.

Kilk showed Z
the generators, then they walked back to the caves. The Jornians
mostly left the robots on the rock, but two women were very close.
As Z watched the women reached out to touch them and they reached
back.

Kilk shook his
head. "I told you about the ritual touching and inspecting?" he
said. "It seems some of our people spend a lot of time trying to
seduce them. I don't really understand what the attraction is, but
they do."

"Are they
successful?" Z asked.

"In seduction?"
Kilk replied. "I'm sure I don't know. I sort of doubt it. The Pads
aren't sexually stimulated by us. They don't mind mating right
there on the stream bank when the mood strikes them, but I've never
seen any of our people get very far toward seducing them. They mate
with each other.