Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (50 page)

[ Building Kit
wasn't doing much? ]

*It wasn't
action in that sense. To tell the truth, a little action on my part
while Kit and T Six and Tab and TR become a unit will keep me from
worrying so much.*

"Okay, mother
hen!" Z said. "I think we should be exploring on the galactic
center bubble, don't you?"

[ Galactic
bubbles now, Z? Is there no end to the depths you will delve into
for these similes? ]

"No
bottom."

[ What? ]

"No BOTTOM to
the depths to which I will sink, not no END. Ends are on things
like your tentacles. The depth is the bottom."

*Like Z's ass
can be called either his end or his bottom but not his depth,
though neither description is accurate.*

[ I see. You
can't accurately speak of it as his ass, either, because he's all
ass! ]

They played the
game awhile until T6 called to say that it and Kit were now fully
programmed and both were very pleased with the result. Thing and Z
went aboard T6 and they headed for Frim. Z and Thing told Kit and
T6 what they knew of the planet.

"It's a
mountainous world, with about three quarters under water. There
used to be a lot of Immins on it, but they're all gone now. I
suppose there'll be mostly Bentans running things. It's more a
distribution center and a seafood production world for the vacation
worlds than a pleasure world, though it has some smaller gambling
houses."

[ There are a
lot of Zeenans there. They like the planet. It's a good world for
freight relay and distribution going both inward toward Zeena and
outward on the arm. It's very much like Perfect Two. T Six has been
to Perfect Two and Three, so can tell you what the position means
and what the basic world is like. I would imagine that's programmed
in already, though. ]

"It's in the
storage area," Kit agreed. "I won't carry such a large load of
memory. It's all available when it's needed. There isn't any need
to clutter one's mind."

[ Are you
intimating that my mind's cluttered? ]

"Even your body
is cluttered, so I imagine that would be true enough," Kit replied
innocently.

Thing sprang
onto Kit's shoulder and wrapped its tentacles around his neck and
head.

"There's
certainly something blocking good sense in you!" Z exclaimed.
"You're not likely to be able to strangle a robot!"

[ Hah! I can
block his sensors, though! ]

"Oh, really?
Can you?" Kit asked. "There's an eye here (pointing) and one here.
Z is drinking some kind of stuff at the moment and the call light
is on for the fastcom."

[ No fair! T
Six let you use its sensors! ]

"You can use
them if you want," T6 said. "What, Maita?"

*I only wanted
to ask if you tried what you told me on the files from Wordt. In
the excitement lately I forgot all about that.*

"I'll be
damned!" T6 cried. "It worked! The machine has been patiently
waiting for me to give it my attention!"

"What was
that?" Z asked.

[ What was
what? You don't make any sense! ]

"What were you
trying?"

"T Six thought
the fact these people used various worlds may be programmable into
the random sequence of the code," Kit said. "Seeing as the decoder
has it all done I would assume it was the correct solution."

"Let's see," T6
said. "It used the coordinates of the world where the records were
kept and the MGS date divided by two for digital retrieval. The
code changed every day. If you extract for the date, then extract
for the coordinates, you have a simple letter for number – number
for letter code. A very complex system, then a very simple
one."

"What do the
files say?" Z asked.

[ Print them
all and we'll look for pertinent information in a pattern. ]

"It seems a
huge waste of space," Z said. "You would only use one out of a
hundred or so of the characters."

"One of every
one hundred thirty," Kit replied. "Each sheet there is encoded with
more than six billion digital characters. Each sheet still could
give seventy eight million characters, or about a thousand of those
novels you so enjoy reading."

[ I'd say that
was sufficient! ]

"We don't have
room for all that printing in T Six," Z said.

"I assure you,
no single page was more than one one thousandth filled," Kit said.
"I was merely speculating on the possibilities of the system, as it
were."

The printer
began spewing out long lines of figures and a few letters. They
each took a section and read through it rapidly.

"It's all
business records with a few comments thrown in," Z said. "We don't
really care about most of it now.

"T Six,
eliminate the figures.

"No! What we
want to know is about Frim! Just give us the parts pertaining to
that one world. We started this out thinking it was a problem on
Sentah, but it's really a problem on Frim! That's where Moodad
is!"

[ For us, it's
a problem on Frim, but for Moodad it's still the problem on Sentah!
]

"For Moodad
it's a problem on T Six!" Kit corrected. "I have to admit I'm a bit
excited about all of this! I have all of Tab and TR's little
adventures, but this is really different."

[ Yeah! Tab
always ends up in a bed with some local female. There isn't any of
that here. ]

"I'm looking
forward to those things," Kit said with complete innocence.

Z was enjoying
it immensely. It reminded him of the things Rimalt used to say
whose point hit you later. The joy that T6 was feeling was almost
palpable. Thing was waiting expectantly for Z to say something,
because it was a favorite joke among them that Z was so inhibited
when he first was among them. He could see Thing was baiting him.
He innocently said, "Tab doesn't need a female. He's never been
choosy if we're to believe Thing.

"Say, Maita....
No, you wouldn't do that!"

*Do what?*

"Oh, nothing!"
Z said with a smirk.

"Me and Tab?"
Kit considered. "Well, it would be an experience of certain
proportions, I would imagine!"

*Wait a damned
minute!*

[ Maita! ]

Z fell off the
chair laughing. Kit was almost as bad. T6 was spouting the static
that passed for laughter with it.

"You really
turned that one around on them!" T6 said. "You two managed to get
Thing and Maita at the same time! This is priceless!"

[ I suppose you
knew it all along! ]

"Sure!" T6
replied. "We share a brain, remember?

"We are now at
Frim. Will you stay in orbit, Maita?"

*For a short
while, then I have to head out for a bit. There's another plague –
and it's not contrived. I think it isn't so bad, but I always check
on these things personally. I should have made Kit a female
Swaz!*

"You could have
made both of them hermaphroditic, but then they'd never get any
work done," Z said. "According to what I can read in these files we
can go from Port City directly aboard a boat to the destination of
the invoice numbers I've listed here, T Six. You can access the
records and we'll know where it is."

[ Island?
Invoices? ]

"Yes, I see!"
T6 replied. "The profits and files were sent as exotic foodstuffs
and were sent on a boat. That way they could smuggle it in easily
enough. "If they had gone by direct or by air it would attract
attention, but slow cargo isn't paid much attention. It goes from
the space liner along with the restaurant supplies to a warehouse,
from one warehouse to another, then is loaded on a route boat.
Nothing suspicious about that!"

"I can
direct-access the warehouse dispatch machines," Kit suggested.
"That should be easy enough. We can trace the invoice through bills
of lading. It all came in through Clarbon except a few through New
Innovations in Mechanicals ... which means...."

"That the
island has automatic weapons," Z finished. "That won't be a problem
– unless T Six is recognized. We didn't think about that!"

[ I'll be most
likely to be recognized. T Six has on another disguise. We thought
of that long ago. ]

"I'm going to
give you feathers, Thing," T6 decided. "They're superficial. They
won't interfere with you. You can be an exotic pet from one of
those Parf worlds."

[ No, it'll
have to be a Woost world. It would fit if someone checks Library.
The feathers will have to come up thickly behind the eyes and will
have to ... you can put pads on the ends of the tentacles. ]

They made the
changes in Thing and had a few jokes about the result, then went
aground as a couple of tourists with an exotic pet. Kit accessed
the customs machine and programmed Thing in as a Narzzst from Woost
in case anyone checked. They then went to a local bar (Which Z and
Thing had been in two hundred plus years ago in the pirate wars),
then went to the docks. They moved around for awhile, using the
strange Narzzst to hold the attention of everyone there. Kit would
suddenly disappear for a few minutes at each of the main
warehouses, then spoke to Z, who said they had enough of this place
and they should see the view from the point out there.

They went along
the dockside road, stopping twice in little pubs for drinks. They
came to the warehouse on the point. There were long docks in three
directions from the huge structure and four separate ships were
being loaded or unloaded. They were very careful not to get in the
way of anything or anyone, so weren't asked to stay off the docks.
Most cargo was handled by servos. There wasn't much danger if a
person was watchful.

Kit was gone a
moment, then returned. "The Lightbringer Two on dock B slip three
seems to have a cargo for Sunset Island, which name delights me
with visions of magnificent light displays in the very late
afternoons," Kit reported. "As it is getting late I believe we
should go to our humble craft to rest. The Lightbringer sets sail
about two hours after dawn in the morning and, as it often does, it
has booked a small party of tourists who wish to get the feel of
the seafaring life. They'll go ashore at any or all of the stops.
They may choose to stay at any of them for so long as they please.
This route is taken every five days, so they can always leave next
trip."

Thing
didn't have its floater along to translate for it, but managed a
nod. Z said it sounded wonderful to him. They made their way back
to T6, Thing and Z ate a delicious meal and rested while T6 and Kit
exchanged information and worked on problems linked through the
console. T6 explained about its first learning of its intelligence
and how it happened (Short Story,
Describe Intelligent!
).

"I was very
apologetic," T6 related. "I kept saying, 'excuse me?' Rimalt
finally said, 'Who is that?' and I said I was the ship and, as the
TTH moder was dephasing and would blow us all to vapors in fifteen
seconds or so, perhaps they should prepare to die. It was a pity
they wouldn't be able to finish their project.

"Rimalt
screamed, 'Fix the damned moder, you half-brained idiot!' or
something such.

"That actually
never occurred to me until he said it. I had been programmed to
report difficulties, not to fix them. It was the crossing of
components and plugging in several that were designed for different
purposes that resulted in my becoming aware. Rimalt didn't know I
was independently intelligent until a bit later, after I registered
myself as his personal property. It seemed incongruous to him that
a college professor, even one who taught at University, would ever
own an S class ship, but I knew no one ever checks on those
things.

"Rimalt was
quite the academician. He would have reported it, anyhow, but he
got in front of one of those idiot administrators who had worked
his way up from being nothing more than a career bureaucrat into
his level of incompetency. Rimalt exploded and said he was using
his private ship for that school's business and wouldn't continue
to pay the upkeep. The administrator checked the records, found I
was Rimalt's ship, and got oh-so-nice. Then it was too late for
Rimalt to back out.

"He worried for
a couple of years he was going to 'get caught' for something, but
we became quite the team. You've input all the things we did after
that. Only you and Maita know the whole story. Maita had to alter
the empire records about my registration and put in a replacement
for me."

"I'd think Z
and Thing would know," Kit said. "Maybe not the details, but Maita
won't have any secrets among the crew. That will mean Tab and TR
know, too.

"T Six, Maita
has tried to program a lot of things into me. One of those things
is that I will have strong emotional reaction to various things at
various times. That is an integral part of intelligence.

"I know joy, T
Six. I know joy in being a part of you and I know joy in being a
member of Maita's crew. I know joy in these organic beings, Z and
Thing. They are my friends. I will know joy in meeting Tab and TR.
I know that.

"I am alive, T
Six. You are alive and Maita is alive and Tab and TR are alive.

"I want to meet
Theron and Searcher. I definitely want to know the Zulians. The
deep awe and respect a being such as Maita feels toward that race
tells me I will know pure joy in meeting them.

"I do want, T
Six. We are a machine who wants. That separates us parsecs from
other machines. It's what makes us alive."

"I have come to
the conclusion that being alive is mainly not wanting to be turned
off," T6 said. "Intelligence gives us all the rest. A plant is
alive, but it doesn't want or know emotions and doesn't
consider."

The dawn was
coming to light the sky and Thing's translator was still attached.
All of the communications between T6 and Kit had been silent, but
Thing could listen and had heard a part of the discussion about
life as it awakened.