Read Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition Online

Authors: CD Moulton

Tags: #adventure, #science fiction, #flight of the maita

Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (206 page)

Tab headed back
to the outside and around to the side entrance to the labs. He was
going to have to face that thing now, but with caution. Slow and
careful. He checked the layout map on the wall of the entrance
office as he passed, making an internal photograph of it. He
stopped with his hand on the lock to the growth room. He knew where
he would find Volich.

After checking
around the rooms there on the fringe of the lab area he went back
outside and to the utility supply sheds. As he suspected when he
reviewed that map there was extensive damage to various things
stored there. The feed tanks were standing at empty and the
lighting circuits were set on timers that would cut in in about two
more hours. The intensity and wavelength indicators were both set
far to the extreme right. He didn't know what Volich planned so he
left it alone. Volich alone knew this was done because Volich had
done it. Why?

Make a note:
Volich was laying on a small cot by the main generator station. Tab
thought she was dead at first when he could read no vital signs
from a few meters away, but then saw she was just drugged into a
deep coma.

Of course! That
was how she was able not to be taken over by the fungoid!

Tab picked her
up and carefully carried her out and back behind the hill, placed
her on the floater, climbed aboard and headed back to TR. The
fungus would have to wait until he knew more before he faced it. He
would also need some time to place some weapon that would be
effective against it.

Kit was already
back when Tab arrived and had taken a probe reading of Givzoo and
Nortich. Tab almost exploded at that kind of use of the probe, then
thought about it. He had to agree this was the best hope they had
and didn't need to be told the two would have accepted the probe
without hesitation. You have to do what you have to do.

The two robots
linked, exchanged information with TR, then separated.

"TR, see what
you can do to bring Volich out of this coma," Tab suggested. "We'll
have to get together with the three of them to determine what
they've accomplished and what they still feel they can do."

"Yo!" TR
replied.

Givzoo and
Nortich were somewhat lethargic and were still confused while
Volich had an enormously painful headache. Tab asked TR to do
something about the pain, which it did through an electrical
device.

"Does that stop
any of the pain?" Tab asked, looking at the electrodes placed
against the sides of her head.

"It's a total
blessing!" Volich replied. "I don't feel anything at all, but pain
was all I could feel so that suits me fine!"

"I have to ask
all of you some questions, but first I want to know why you set
those lights like that and on a timer," Tab said to Volich.

"Timer? Set the
lights?" Givzoo asked.

"I set
intensity at maximum and the wavelength to its shortest after
seeing to it the food supply would run out about the time when they
came on," Volich answered.

"Of course!"
Nortich cried. "That will burn it! It will try to spore
immediately! If the UV intensity is high enough it'll sterilize
most of the spores. I suppose we'll have to take out all the
cautions now. We have to destroy that thing one way or another.

"I seem to
remember those students laying around. Zantoo was working with them
and he's not here. I assume.... I ask what has happened to
them?"

"I'm afraid
they're all dead," Kit replied. "I'm sorry."

"I was so
afraid of that," Volich said, "but I couldn't do anything. I wanted
to try to drug them. That thing can't reach a comatose mind."

"It appears it
killed them by removing critical parts of their central nervous
systems," TR explained. "It had been experimenting with Givzoo and
Nortich, which was what we noticed. They noticed themselves that
they weren't acting normally. That's why they got out of there.
They were hypnotized to not notice the dead students or Zantoo,
which was partially successful. In addition the drugs saved you
because the fungoid couldn't locate you unless your mind was
active."

"Who was that?"
Givzoo asked.

"Oh. Givzoo,
meet TRD Sixty, my ship," Tab replied. "It's intelligent and is a
partner in the agency. I think most people know that now."

"I've heard of
you!" Nortich exclaimed. "Now I make the connection. You're Tabori
DeSixtee and this is your ship, TR. Yes. That explains a lot.
Emperor Maita depends on you for many things.

"We did notice
things wrong with each other. We were hypnotized then. Perhaps we
still are controlled so I for one would appreciate it if you would
use the mind probe to determine to exactly what extent we're still
under the influence of that thing!"

"Yes!
Definitely!" Givzoo cried. "Volich, too! That thing is cunning as
all hell!"

"We did that
while you were unconscious," Kit admitted. "It was a point where
the empire's at risk. I was sure you would demand it and time is of
the essence, to be trite about it."

"There's no
point in not telling them about all of it," TR said. "There are
vials of spores from the original gathering hidden on your bodies
and you've swallowed some of the spores, too. We've microwaved the
vials and have given you a purgative and antifungal agent. You were
given posthypnotic orders to spread the spores on other worlds. You
wouldn't have known you'd done that. Volich's drug overdose
protected her from use in any such subterfuge.

"The timers
should be going off right now. I'll read Maita's spy devices there.
I'm sure the fungoid will release control of the servos that are –
were – disrupting them."

TR projected a
picture on the main screen. It had to turn the intensity down as it
was so bright in the labs the cameras couldn't handle it. The fungi
were coloring quickly to a dark brown, then toward black. They
watched them shrivel.

"How high did
you turn those things?" Givzoo asked Volich.

"As far
as they would go," she replied.

"Well!" Nortich
spat. "I hope that thing knows pain! This is our revenge for Zantoo
and those students, you damned monster! Die, damn you! Die!

"Those
ultra-violets at that intensity will set the place on fire in no
time."

"Yes!" Givzoo
cried. "We still have the main sterilizing elements hooked up. We
left them in place so we could sterilize the place when this one
spored. I forgot they were there."

"I imagine the
fungoid made you forget," Kit suggested. "It did too good a job. It
didn't make you forget how to turn the things on."

"Well, we want
to investigate what's left so I've sent a floater to turn the
things off now," TR announced. "Let's see what we can salvage from
this mess. It's too bad we can't use ultra-violet on all of
Grandish."

"Nothing's ever
that easy, I'm afraid," Tab replied. "Not for us, it isn't!"

 

Not That Easy

The fungus was
indeed dead. Cooked by the high intensity ultra-violet lights
installed when the lab was built. They were designed to sterilize
the rooms before the fungus was planted.

"There isn't
any chance spores were produced," Givzoo said. "There weren't any
of the spore-bearing structures grown yet. There were perhaps some
small buds along the edges, but it was too soon."

"Another six
days and it would have been complete disaster here," Nortich
agreed. "It could have produced spores and could have grown the
memory into them. Another two days and it could have produced
simple spores that would have grown, but wouldn't have had more
than a few instinctual mental abilities."

"Where are the
bodies?" Volich asked. "I'll wish to give the death rites to
Zantoo. I want to arrange whatever's proper for the students."

"I've removed
the bodies and have arranged for the death rites of the Feach, Mord
and the two Sampth," TR replied. "I was going to ask that one of
you give final rites to Zantoo. I know your people use burial. Do
you think he should be buried here or on some other place?"

"We aren't a
religious people," Nortich said. "Our rites are those of respect
for the memory of a good person. Zantoo was a good person. We'll
perform the rites here. I think it would be fitting that Zantoo be
buried on the hill to the east under the large tree."

The others
agreed fully. Volich went out to make the arrangements and to
direct the floaters in the proper preparation of the peaceful grave
site while Givzoo and Nortich went through the labs to be sure
other projects weren't harmed. Tab and Kit went through the entire
growth area carefully, but they found little of consequence. They
all met a bit later to discuss where they could go from that
point.

"We're working
on a possible control," Givzoo reported. "I got the idea from Tab's
reports from the swamps. I was working on some genetic injection
into a bacterium that seems ubiquitous in those areas, but which
doesn't appear at all where the fungus grows. I'm afraid it's been
a bit disappointing so far, but the answer is there somewhere."

"I really think
maybe we'd better rerun all of those experiments," Volich
suggested. "I've read some of the reports and haven't seen the
results described in them. Quite to the contrary. I've watched you
throw away some perfectly good cultures – that's what made me
suspicious about what was happening. I told Nortich about the fact
she was dumping valuable research and she got a blank look for a
few seconds, then continued as though she couldn't hear me. That
evening she didn't remember my being in the culture room.

"I've done a
little experimentation on my own and know that betacortiferomide
amaliphene hydrochloride, while being a dangerous and addictive
tranquilizer, also stops the fungus from reaching a mind. It
couldn't control rodents injected with the stuff, but they fall
asleep quickly. I began injecting myself and using a stimulant at
the same time. I know that's damned dangerous, but I felt I must do
something. I am almost surely an addict by this time, though I feel
no need right now. I was able to do the things I thought must be
done.

"For your
information, the moder and the fuses or whatever you call them are
all under the cowling around the TTH coils. I figured the enormous
energy already in use there would make them undetectable to the
fungoid. The last day I felt the fungoid was slowly overcoming my
resistance so I took a massive dose, sabotaged the food supply, set
the timer on the lights and took yet another dose. I laid on the
cot. I would either awaken under control of the fungoid, would die
from the overdose or the thing would be killed."

"I detoxified
you," TR said. "You were severely addicted to the tranquilizer.
That dose pushed you into a true coma, which saved your life. The
fungoid couldn't locate you closely enough to start removing parts
of your nervous system."

They had the
computers transfer all the data collected to TR, then Givzoo and
Nortich spent several hours describing what they were trying to do
and what they must know to TR.

"A lot of what
you've input is gibberish at best," TR said. "I can follow the
thread. There's a lot of automatic.... Videos! It's on the video
records! I can run through the whole program."

"IF the fungoid
hasn't done whatever it did to those spy devices Maita had in
there!" Kit added, coming into the room as TR described what it
intended to do.

"It did," TR
replied, "but I know at exactly what point because the background
scanner suddenly stopped. We have three quarters or more of it we
can depend on.

"Nortich, you
were trying the injection method into the Parawandrea strain of
fungus. It was very successful, but you dumped it. That was before
the timer stopped so maybe you remember what was wrong?"

"I do," Volich,
who had come in a few minutes before said. "The stuff grows too
widely so would interfere with too many other kinds of life on
Grandish. There was a second injection into Filamentosa radicans
Grandishii that seemed to show a lot of promise, but you dumped
that. You said it was worse than the Parawandrea strain. That was
later so we should do that one over again."

Tab came back
into the room, listened to the talk for a few minutes, then
motioned for Kit to come out.

"Problems?" Kit
asked.

"I've been
roaming around the entire area looking at the experiments," Tab
replied. "I've seen a couple of things that look promising. TR's
linked so we can decide if there's been any real success."

They went to a
nearby area that had logs and stumps placed in what should have
been a perfect location, but the small fungi weren't there.

"TR?" Tab
asked.

"They're using
the gall fungus, not the spores from the one on Grandish, for
control. This was the Parawandrea strain. It doesn't restrict
itself to the rotting wood so won't work," TR reported. "This is an
injection of the T two eleven BGr-A nine strain. It was the first
complete success, but it's still a form of Parawandrea."

They went to
another area.

"G four nine
BGr-C two strain. Parawandrea," TR reported.

Next was
another Parawandrea strain.

"It seems they
really are concentrating on using a form of Parawandrea," Kit
remarked.

"At first," TR
replied. "They had to start somewhere and it did look promising. It
DOES kill off the fungoid. It's just that it kills too many other
things."

They went to
another spot.

"Strange.
There's no record of this one," TR said. "Tab, you noted this one.
There doesn't seem to be any records of anything in this.... Tab!
Go to that one over there! I don't like the looks of those
growths!"

There was
another large section not very far away where what looked like the
young plantlets on Grandish were growing in great numbers. As they
approached Tab let the psy part of his mind be receptive. He felt
the repulsion more than thirty meters away from the growths.

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