Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (205 page)

They made their
plans, then TR sent the special spy floater down toward the labs
where it was attacked as soon as it was detected. TR was able to
bring it back, but only barely.

"It attacked
immediately!" Tab cried. "I'd think it would try to use anything
that came near it! This doesn't make any sense!"

"It might to a
fungus," Kit said dryly. "What can we do, TR? We have to show some
kind of superiority over that thing or we're beat here."

"I'll try to
recast this brain," TR answered. "It removed several small bits of
wiring in response circuitry. My problem's going to be making
something it can't take pieces out of so easily."

"Could you
maybe make everything too big for it to take the important parts
out of?" Tab asked.

"No," TR
replied. "We have to use miniaturized parts simply because of lapse
time in the computing circuitry. There isn't any tolerance.
Reaction has to be more immediate than you could believe."

"Then make some
of those things too massive," Kit suggested. "Is the electrical
response of psiltripium good enough?"

"Hey! You're
getting pretty good at this!" TR answered. "I have psiltripium
aboard in the focus for the gravitics grids and for the beacons! We
can get more on EC. I'd think the inertial effects of psiltripium
would slow that psy force enough – and then some!" (Psiltripium is
the heaviest element ever discovered. It has some strange
properties other than the fact it has almost as much mass as
neutron mass. It is more than six hundred times the mass of the
common metal, lead.)

"We can see how
it responds to a thin shielding of psiltripium," Tab suggested. "I
wouldn't think it would be possible for a psy force to move
anything through it. You could use silver, lead and gold to
manufacture the device. Their mass would guarantee stability – but
do we have enough power to send a floater into the gravity well of
that planet carrying several tons of the stuff?"

"Sure!" TR
replied brightly. "I'll use the shield for the focus for the
gravitic drive on the floater. That should effectively cancel the
weight of the thing. The mass will be in containment so long as the
field's on."

They waited for
more than three long hours, listening to TR swear at times like an
organic when it met one of the difficult phases of working with
psiltripium, but it was eventually done.

"We can try it
now," TR announced. "I had to eliminate most of your weapons,
though."

"We do what we
have to do," Tab said. "Send it in!"

They watched
the view from the camera on the floater as it went into the lab.
There were, indeed, three of the fungi in there. The detectors
recorded very strong psy forces aimed at the floater, but they had
minimal effect.

"Whenever
you're ready you can stop with the silliness," Tab broadcast
calmly. "I should think you'd learn you can't defy me so
easily.

"Now! What's
with this foolishness about you attacking the people who're working
with you? Are you too stupid to realize you must depend on them for
your food, water, temperature control and everything else?"

There was a
short lessening, then the attack suddenly stopped.

"I can control
my own feeding!" came back sharply. "What is this thing here? I
detect some of Fel in it. I deduce it is that one who controls the
device."

"You've
attacked and done damage to my friends," Tab replied shortly. "I
don't wish to allow you to damage me so I'll use this device.
You'll find it not so easy to overcome.

"What could you
possibly hope to accomplish by attacking my friends?"

"The term
'friends' does not translate," You replied. "If you mean these who
are working to destroy me here, why should I not also seek methods
to destroy?"

"They're not
attempting to destroy you," Tab replied. "That would be a very easy
thing to do. They seek ways to control the growth of your spores on
worlds such as Grandish. That's all. You were safe here on Kuhlicht
until you so stupidly attacked them."

"You cannot
harm me! Your weapons are useless!" You sent loudly. "I grow weary
of these stupid games you are playing! You are defeated! Cease!
Leave me alone!"

"I can melt the
feed lines down," TR informed them. "It's distracted by the floater
so I sneaked another one in. I was waiting because Zantoo's in
there, but he's dead. The students are dead, too. There are no life
signs whatever from any of them I can detect."

Tab nodded,
then said, "I'll show you how much I can harm you. You've destroyed
some of my friends. Now I'll destroy you, but in a much slower
way."

TR melted down
the feed and water lines. It also burned the smaller fungus down to
its pot with a microwave beam. The fungus gave a mental scream.

"They're
obviously linked through the psy," TR noted. "That will give it
something to think about!"

"Burn it! Now!
While you have the chance!" Kit cried.

"Yes!" Tab
agreed. "It'll find a defense if we give it the time!"

"Nnn! Too
late!" TR said. "It really made a mess out of that floater!

"I got the one
on your left – about half of it – then it got the floater. It's
what would be called hopping mad if it could hop."

"I'm bringing
that com floater out," TR said. "Look!"

Things were
flying around the lab, aimed at the floater. There were bottles and
flasks being broken all over the place. There was a long loud
mental cry along with the mayhem taking place.

"The damned
thing's insane!" Kit said. "I mean it's really insane, not merely
different."

"I think so,"
Tab agreed. "When I saw it had attacked the ones who were its only
source of food I saw that. I think it intends to spore right away,
which is what the subterfuge was really about. It wasn't able to
defeat me by doing that before, but it planned this one very
carefully. Now that I'm here it has to tighten its schedule."

"But why kill
those people?" Kit asked. "If it waited until the last possible
moment to do that it could have gotten away with it."

"We can't know
how it thinks," Tab said. "TR, when you get that floater aboard
let's put more distance between Kuhlicht and us. Tell the fleet to
back off a plazsi or so, too. I have an idea. We have to get Givzoo
and Nortich out of there if we're to defeat this thing. We also
have to find Volich.

"Contact Maita
as soon as it’s able to answer you. There's something more we have
to do here Maita's going to explode about, but this is getting way
too serious to take any chances unless we can get rid of that thing
before it spores."

"How do we get
them out?" TR asked. "It's getting more and more dangerous for us
to even be in orbit there."

"That's exactly
what I'm so scared of," Tab agreed. "That thing CAN get off the
planet!"

"Oh, great
exploding galaxies!" Kit exclaimed. "Givzoo's ship! It's down
there!"

"Oh, no!" TR
added. "It can program that ship if it can program the servos. It
HAS programmed servos – okay, no smart remarks. Orders."

"I want a
complete energy shield on a large floater and I want the personal
shields checked on Kit and myself to be sure there's no leakage. By
that I mean NO leakage! Get Fleet ships to give us some of their
focus mass psiltripium. Make another floater like the one down
there. Make two if you can. I have to know exactly where Givzoo and
Nortich are. Kit will get them out and to you or a Fleet ship while
I locate Volich. The psiltripium floaters will be for diversionary
purposes only. Make shields that leak the least amount of energy,
move them from around the planet toward the labs when we need the
diversion."

"Slow like a
sneak attack and close to where you two are working," TR agreed. "I
get the idea."

"Wouldn't it be
better to have the diversion away from where we are?" Kit
asked.

"No," TR
responded quickly. "It'll already be suspicious. It'll think along
logical lines so this might work. Z showed this trick to us once a
long time ago. The fungus will watch all around the area on the far
side of the seeming attack because a diversion is logically AWAY
from the action. If the action is almost IN the diversion that
action's likely to be missed. We have to hope the fungus has a
similar logic is all. That's the point of doubt!"

"We'll never
know until we're there. Let's make our plans!" Tab said.

* *

Kit dropped on
his shielded floater very rapidly toward the surface of the planet.
The floater plunged into a lake a good many kilometers from the
labs, then worked its way carefully on toward the shielded building
where Givzoo and Nortich were in hiding. The shields would be of
little use now so it would be imperative the fungus be distracted.
The three floaters with psy transmitters were aground and were
moving slowly and carefully toward the lab. They were to one side
of where Kit came in. There was one between Kit and Tab and two to
the other side of Tab's floater. If there was no leakage from this
floater there was a good chance this phase of the plan would work.
The fungus wasn't interested in Givzoo and Nortich at the
moment.

When he was a
few meters from the shielded shed Kit stopped to look the situation
over. He couldn't take any chances so he couldn't know what was
happening. There was no way he could know if he was detected unless
and until he was attacked. Things seemed quiet enough.

He went to the
shed, cycled the doors open, slipped in and closed the doors on
full seal. Givzoo was there with a hand heat laser, as was
Nortich.

"Those things
wouldn't do much good against that thing now," he warned. "Get on
the floater. We have...."

He ducked as
the two both shot at him.

"What the
hell!" he cried, then noticed the blank looks on their faces. They
fired again at the spot he'd just dropped out of. Nortich was
slowly turning her weapon toward him. He wouldn't be hurt by a
laser so was a little slow in deciding what to do, then he rolled
out of the way and fired a bit of strong anesthetic at the two
scientists. They dropped.

As he loaded
them onto the floater he searched them both very carefully, finding
the tiny vials of spores hidden on their persons. He was sure the
spores were from the supply he and Tab had brought. He ordered the
floater to microwave the vials, then he carefully replaced them
exactly where he found them. TR would decontaminate the two
completely, but it would be interesting to know what plans were
made for them by the fungus that were emplaced through posthypnotic
suggestion. One thing was certain. He wasn't worried they would be
stopped from leaving the planet.

Kit loaded the
two onto the floater, retraced the route and soon had them aboard
TR. He interfaced with the console, then TR made another search
finding spores in individual little hiding places.

"They're
carrying some spores internally," TR reported. "I'll feed them
something to kill the spores before I bring them around. They won't
know anything about any of this."

"I know," Kit
replied. "What worries me most is whether the fungus implanted the
suggestions AFTER they were in the shed."

"I think it's
time for the probe." TR insisted. "Maita isn't in this plane to
forbid it. We're both machines so there's no invasion of privacy.
I'm sure they'd both volunteer if we asked them, but it's better
they don't know about it."

Kit nodded and
got the helmets.

*

Tab dropped to
the east of Kit, came in very low and fast and landed behind a
close hill. He was sure the fungus hadn't detected him as his
shielding was as near perfect as possible while the several decoy
floaters were producing enough to appear to be something coming in
while trying to hide.

Where would
Volich be hiding? She had been, according to the report from Maita,
trying to do part of her research out in the field on the local
varieties of fungi.

Then why hadn't
she reported at the regular report period? Why didn't anyone know
where she had gone or even where she was supposed to be? That
didn't seem to be like Volich and as certainly wasn't like the kind
of operation Givzoo would be running – though it was now known
Givzoo and Nortich were affected.

Had Volich seen
what was happening to the two heads of the research and tried to do
something about it? If so she was in hiding and in some place where
the fungus wouldn't be so likely to be able to reach her.

First things
first. Do something to Givzoo's ship so the fungus couldn't use it,
then try to locate Volich. The ship was right to the side of the
laboratory where the fungus – correction, fungi – were housed.
There were two still living. The cutting off of the food supply
wouldn't affect them for quite some time in all likelihood.

Tab was able to
make his way to the ship and to stay out of sensor detection areas
in a fairly short time. He went in the manual emergency entrance to
find the ship was already disabled. The TTH moder cartridge had
been removed along with the power supply breaker box. The ship was
then rendered effectively useless except to an expert pilot and an
equally expert mechanic, neither of which was any longer available
here.

Extrapolate:
Volich saw what was happening to Givzoo and Nortich and did
this.

Ergo: Volich
was, for some reason, not yet affected at the time this was
done.

Where would she
have gone?

Logically where
the fungus wouldn't expect her to be, which would be somewhere
inside of the lab. It was fairly certain she wasn't in there so
where was the next choice?

Nonsense! She
was somewhere in or near the labs! She could figure how the thing
would think better than he could!