Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (16 page)

The inside of
the house was the best bet. They would detect heat and movement. I
had no indication of any communications one to the other among
them, so they were probably all directed by the brain itself. An
individual wavelength for each servo, which meant an antenna for
each. I could be differentiated only by the brain. I would be
another robot to them. They wouldn't "know" I was any different
than any of the robots around the house!

As I said
earlier, I'm learning. That brain was far to clever to allow any
such simple things to go unconsidered, so I very carefully used a
passive scan on each of them.

I found a small
spot, almost like an accident, of radium on the tip of one ear on
each of them.

I didn't have
anything close to extract radium from with the elementizers, so was
again thinking very fast. The answer came as they entered the
gate.

I raced into
the house and sliced the tip of the ear off of the servant robot
and dropped it onto the elementizer grid, then transferred the
radium to my own ear tip. I shoved the servant robot out into the
hallway as the robots came in the front door. They slagged it
without hesitation. I was in the closet, where I remained immobile
until they passed, then I stepped out to follow close behind them.
The last one in line turned to scan me and I felt a thrill of
almost fear, but it turned back ahead as we went into the staircase
room.

We all started
to descend the stairs, but the leader stopped just above the
missing steps. It sent the radio pulse out and was answered.

Damn! How
stupid of me! I knew full well the brain wouldn't need external
antennae inside the house. I couldn't depend on the brain missing
those little slips forever.

My luck was
holding to a fairly good degree, though. I wasn't detected.

I felt the
radio pulses and turned along with the others to retreat back up
the stairs. Now I was the leader – and I was sure to be in serious
trouble! I had the visual sensors of all of them directly on me,
and there was no radio circuit to me.

There was a
momentary confusion, which I was able to use to my advantage.

I was complete
to the visuals, as well as the other sensors right down to the
radium on the ear, so they paused for a short moment before
acting.

I stepped
inside the doorway and raced for the hall. As my controls of such
things are internal, they're much faster than if I had to receive
instructions for each move from that brain.

I was outside
very quickly and raced for the gate and the people there. A lot of
laser beams followed me, but they weren't very effective at this
range, though I could easily shield those smaller weapons. I had
the one major advantage that the robots weren't under the brain's
control at any distance from the house, so they would stay
there.

I could say one
thing for certain. My woman of the rock, as I was beginning to
think of her, was willing to be the leader of these who were
fighting the robots. She was right in front of the gate again, so I
went up to her and asked her name.

"I'm Liht," I
said. "Don't let's get that started again. The starker ain't been
in no position to make no golems for tha past coupl'a hours."

She grinned
with bad teeth and said, "I'm Gorta, and I know yer Liht. We done
got them golems all a-runnin' now!"

"That's sure!"
I agreed. "I think they's all inside the house now. I think maybe
the starker'll give 'em stronger lightnin'r somethin'. Maybe
there're more of 'em in Stormlee, but I think maybe not.

"Got ta keep an
eye out."

"Open this here
gate'n we'll clean that there place right out now!" Gorta yelled,
and the people cheered.

"I'm Liht 'n
I'm gonna handle that starker all by myself!" I shouted back. "I
got tha right! Noobish were my friend! I done started this, 'n I'm
gonna finish it! I got the right!

"What is is
what is!

"I'll say one
thing though. I ain't outta there by dawnlight, git everbody in
Stormlee 'n tear Overlook House right down 'til you find the
starker'n dump tha stinkbeatle over that there cliff whar he ain't
gonna never bother nobody agin!"

They cheered
again when Gorta said she couldn't fight words with that. I was the
one who found there were golems in the first place.

She said half
the people would stay there and half would go into Stormlee to try
to find more golems. I suggested a few go on along the cliff road
to see if there were golems farther along. I said it would be
logical for the starker to have some guards up that way.

Gorta took six
men and went that way while the rest split up for the gate or
Stormlee.

I strolled
around the grounds at some distance from the house that should keep
me free from laser damage. I had no illusions about whether or not
I was observed every step of the way, but I was sure the robots
would stay close to the house.

It's a good
thing I'm used to being wrong. It's also a good thing I can sense
the energy from the robots, because there was one waiting near the
tree where I came over the wall.

I wish Maita
hadn't put in that random idiotic move circuit at times. I knew
these were at least partially programmable robots from the fact
they had come after I destroyed the antenna system. Now there was a
programmed robot waiting for me to walk right up to it so it could
laser my head off!

No one could
see here from the front or from anywhere else, so I was going to
give the brain something to think about.

No I wasn't! It
had programmed the robot and sent it out here. There was no direct
communication now. If I destroyed this unit and it didn't report at
a given time or something I would find myself in worse trouble.

I had another
idea about that!

I walked with
my head constantly turned back toward the house, waiting for the
right moment to fire at it where I would have a reasonable chance
of hitting a fatal spot. I kept a shield up.

I couldn't
understand why it didn't fire as I moved closer and closer. I kept
a shield up and ready.

Finally, I was
where I wanted to be and turned to fire. The robot was scanning me
carefully, but was hesitating.

I shot it in
one of those eyes and it spun and fell. I went close and fired into
an ear. Sparks flew, it jerked, then was still. There was a strong
smell of ozone and a spot on the side began to glow a cherry
red.

I dove away as
a small explosion blew out one side of it. I'd caused a dead short
of the powerpack and it had heated until it blew.

Why hadn't it
fired?

Because of the
radium on the ear, stupid! It was confused, had been programmed to
kill anything that moved – except its fellow robots and the brain.
I had been identified as one of the robots by that radium.

The brain was
capable of stupid mistakes too! – Or was it?

The brain
couldn't physically reach the robots to add another identity
feature, so it had to protect all the robots of its own. The
problem was unsolvable from a distance and it had decided ...
to...!

I got the hell
away from there. I was certainly identified now. The others were
observing me while I got this one, who was only a decoy. A trap I
had fallen right into. I was SUPPOSED to destroy that one so the
others could get a complete fix on me.

Well, that
could work both ways. I was going to really give that brain
something to think about.

I went around
until I was out of direct sight of the house behind some rocks and
changed my patterns of energy discharge, then went out the other
side to approach the house as close as my calculations indicated
would be safe. I wanted them to scan me thoroughly. I repeated the
process at two other spots, then went back to the original rock and
came out as the original one who went in, then strolled back toward
the tree.

Now the brain
would have information suggesting there were several of me to work
against. Its problems were now multiplied by three at least – and
it would have to worry about how the others got inside the walls
and to those hiding spots. It would feel there was a large gap
somewhere in its defense sensors.

I saw a robot
go to look behind the rock and waited.

It simply
checked around and went back to the house. As it came toward the
door I felt the radio transmissions, then it was suddenly blasted
to slag by three separate robots.

Uh-oh! I had
been more than stupid again. The brain now knew I could disguise
myself in various ways and wasn't going to take any chances.

Now it was down
to only six robots – seven with the one it had undoubtably repaired
from the earlier encounter in the basement. It couldn't and
probably wouldn't continue to blast them itself because of
suspicion it could possibly be me instead. There was an advantage
in that it couldn't allow communication with any of the remainder
of its robots to be broken for one moment.

It would get
all the more paranoid now. It would have to be more and more
suspicious of everything from this point onward. This could be for
the better in the long run. It could give me the one little edge to
bring me out on top of this mess.

I still had one
very large problem: Those robots would stay in or very near the
house and the brain would have only one robot down there with it
until the lower staircase was rebuilt, which I didn't think would
be very long. That was a matter of welding a few sheets of plate
steel to some I-beam stock.

I had to find a
passage into that basement, but I couldn't go through the house. It
was time to come up with another plan of attack altogether. If I
could change tactics it would serve to confuse the brain as to the
number of me out here and could make it spread its defenses thinner
to counter whatever move I might make.

I wasn't about
to get cocky again, though. I'd done enough of that.

Advantages

There are
generally a number of ways to approach most problems, but none of
them are any good if you can't think of them. I've said many times
and have heard all of our little group say that clever is never a
good substitute for intelligent.

I'm not clever,
and didn't have any reason to think I'm very intelligent at that
particular moment. I was being so clever I gave far too much to
that machine, who was cunning and clever at one and the same time.
It had to know I'm a machine by now, which eliminated the
possibility I'm native to this world, which means Tlesson or the
empire.

While I evaded
the fatal traps, I fell headlong into the ones that could prove
fatal later, both for me and for a lot of these people here. If it
wasn't too late already I had to change my approach to this
situation and begin using a little of the normal intelligence Maita
built and programmed into me. I would have to stop doing things
that were to the advantage of the brain. All it would take would be
a little thought before I let my penchant for being stupid act too
fast.

First I would
have to find a way to get to the brain. I had already closed off
several avenues of attack by letting the brain know I could fake
various sensor illusions. I couldn't take on the reactions and
identity patterns of one of its own because it wouldn't for one
single second abandon its contact with any of them. It would know.
I couldn't approach through the house. It would be far too
well-watched. I couldn't call the floater and use it to come from
above because it knew I had that ability and would be waiting. I
couldn't come in and blast the thing and the house away because
that was far too dangerous to the people here.

My advantages
were mostly that the brain was very temporarily confined to the
house and had little direct protection.

I sat on the
rocks just outside of the wall to think. In a very short time now
that brain would have a new antenna system in place and would no
longer be confined to such a small area. If there were other robots
still outside it could communicate with them.

I looked
downward when my audial sensors picked up a scraping sound to see
the plastic shield around the wire below move very slightly. Either
the brain was trying to push it out of the way or it was
withdrawing the antenna wire.

I decided on a
course and used the light beam communication to tell the floater to
come in at the surface of the water and to pick me up. It then took
me to the tube where I could see the wire was being drawn back, so
I hooked a fiberoptic visual bead pickup onto it and waited until I
could see faint light slowly approaching as it was drawn in. I let
it go to a few centimeters inside the edge of the tube and held it,
pulling it off of the wire where it had been attached with resin
from the gumtree by the wall. If there was a trace it would appear
to be a natural substance on the wire. That brain would almost
certainly scan every millimeter of that wire. (I do think of SOME
things!)

The light in
the cavern was infra-red and was easy for me to use. The brain had
the robot slowly pulling the antenna wire in onto a coil. I could
only see a rounded cylinder I would estimate to be four meters
high, was extended too far either way to see any end, and had a
piece of a hatch in the extreme side in my view.

I had no way to
move the bead and it was far enough inside of the tube to where the
view was restricted far too much, but I could do nothing about that
now. The filament was too fine to push along.

The robot
pulled the last of the wire into the cavern, then approached the
tube with a fiberoptic filament of its own, so I could be sure my
own method would be used to see why the wire hadn't acted as
planned.

I pulled my
optic fiber out, measuring the thickness of the wall of stone (four
meters) as it came back, then removed the shield and dropped it
into the sea. I found a small loose piece of rock and held it to
shield me from the "eye" as it came out and began dropping. When I
was sure it was safe I reached to bend the fiber so it would fall
into the hole I'd pushed the antenna wire into. The bead moved a
short distance into the hole, then withdrew.