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
"May we send a
representative with you to the world you call Library and perhaps
beyond? Someone who will view your empire from your own point of
view?" Happ asked.
*We'll take
several of you if you like. Would you like to be a part of the
expedition? We can comfortably carry twenty.*
"Only I will
go," Happ said. "I will return to tell what I have learned. If that
is not objectionable?"
[ You'll have
to get accustomed to the way we do things. We'll probably seem very
odd to you at first. I vote yes. ]
"I agree. Yes,"
Z said.
*Yes. So
stated. If you'll escort us around your world, Glo, Happ can
prepare for the trip. I can't say how long we'll be away and I
admit there will be some danger. We like danger. I'll promise to do
what I can to ensure he returns to you safely.*
"What is this
vote?" Glo asked.
[ We vote about
things such as where we'll go and what we'll do and who goes and
does with us. Maita knows what's acceptable, but it's a habit that
lingers. We have some forms and traditions of our own. ]
"Is Maita not
the emperor, then?" Happ asked.
"Sure!" Z said,
deciding this was the best way to get their point across. He was
sure they were failing to make it clear so far. "So what? That has
to do with the empire, not with a group of friends out for an
adventure. It affects Thing and myself who shares the ship with us.
It's only proper we be consulted about such things."
"But if Maita
is the emperor and is in charge why should it ask you? It can order
that you comply!" Glo said. She looked very alert so Z knew it was
finally getting through to her what the empire was like. It was a
way to show her what Maita was like and that neither was what she
thought.
"Well, it
could, of course," Z answered slowly, trying to look thoughtful –
as though the new concept was that Maita would give such orders.
"We just don't do things like that. We're very good friends and
that sort of thing would be – I don't know. It would change the
relationship in a negative way. We just don't do things that
way."
Thing saw
immediately what Z was doing. [ If Maita were to start giving
orders outside of an emergency we'd wonder why it was turning
against us after all these years. It would cause a lot of friction,
as one of our sayings goes. We would have to sadly refuse to come
on these trips and these trips are the way we relax and enjoy life.
As Z says, it would be too negative. ]
Glo was really
interested now. "Tell me the saying. I think I begin to see how
your empire works to an extent. I don't know that it presents a
stable situation, but it may work for awhile. It is possible you
are badly mistaken about the nature of life and about your inherent
directives."
"Maybe you're
the ones who are mistaken about that," Z said. "The saying Thing
mentioned, I think, is, 'Remember this about friction: It slows and
stops things indiscriminately. Good or bad are the same. Use it
wisely lest it use you.'
"There are
others in the same vein."
[ I was
thinking about the one, 'Friction is great for brakes, but it very
quickly wears reason and friendship to nothing.' ]
*I thought you
meant the old platitude that says, 'Lubricate social friction with
reason and understanding and do it quickly or the heat of anger
will consume you.'*
"There are so
many sayings about this?" Happ asked.
"Oh, many
hundreds of them," Z replied. "Things as simple as 'Friction wears'
and long ones about abrasive language causing the friction that
causes the heat that causes the burning of hope into the fires of
anger and unreason.
"These are
cliche’s, but they are, like many cliche’s, true."
"It seems your
empire is a very disordered place," Happ said. "We are an orderly
society."
[ Perhaps you
mean you are an ordered society? Double entendre on the ordered?
Isn't that far too entropic for life to hold excitement? Hasn't it
become impossibly boring for you? ]
*I think
possibly this society has manufactured a substitute for excitement.
That's what the very primitive sections of this world are for. Do
you all spend a certain part of your lives living in those more
primitive surroundings?*
"You mean the
other continents?" Glo asked. "We each spend our first years there
and grow to a certain age experiencing the conflicts evolution
programmed into us. Those who show an exceptional ability by a
certain stage of development are brought here to the far more
civilized places."
[ And what of
your young? Those born in this civilized place? ]
"They are also
raised in those other places, of course," she replied.
Z started to
say something, then remembered these people were reptilian so
didn't have the mammalian connection to their young.
*I see how it
works. If you'll show Thing and Z around I'll input information
into your computers that you need. If Happ will get those things he
wishes to bring along and come to me I'll implant the socket for
the information crystals. He will discover that you are quite
correct in believing we are a disordered – double entendre intended
– society.*
Z saw Happ's
puzzlement and showed him the crystal in his earlobe. "This crystal
contains your language," he explained. "The socket's wired directly
to certain centers of the mind, the crystal is placed and we can
read, write and speak any language that isn't physically too
difficult to handle. We understand those languages if we can't
speak them."
"And how are
the crystals obtained?" Glo asked.
[ Maita can
take them directly from a volunteer or translate from radio
transmissions from the race or can find a person who can translate.
Even Library has several thousands of languages prepared for
cross-translations into thousands of others. ]
"But will the
thing work as well on reptiles as on mammals?" Happ asked.
"Yes. It was
the Kheth, who are reptiles, who originally developed the system,"
Z said. "Fesch actually implanted the ones on me.
"You have no
earlobes so I imagine Maita will use the spot on the neck for you
that the Kheth use."
"Do all the
people in your empire have this operation?" Glo asked.
*No. We have
the Maitan language, which the traders can use. Usually people who
wish to travel will learn Maitan, then can go anywhere. We also
have translator machines on the traders guild planets in case
someone can't use Maitan. Only my crew and a few others have the
sockets. We meet new races whose language isn't yet known,
therefore isn't in any translator machine. We can learn the
language as Thing described and can make it available in an single
instant. Z mentioned that there are those an individual may not be
able to use directly. Insectoids produce sounds in a very different
way than any of us so most mammals and reptiles aren't capable of
directly speaking the language and some have sounds in a range an
individual can't hear. Some, such as the Mord, use colors as much
as sounds to communicate.*
"Your military
leaders have the sockets?" Glo asked quickly.
"The Feach and
Acnians?" Z asked in mock surprise. "Why would they want them? What
possible use would they be to the military?"
"So you could,
er, converse with them in a language others wouldn't understand,"
Happ suggested.
[ If the
language is on crystal it's in the empire translators. That would
be a true exercise in futility. There are many thousands of various
codes people invent to speak privately. The possibilities in
digitals are unlimited. You seem unable to comprehend that we don't
hold power through military means. That's already proven to be
counterproductive and is doomed to failure from the outset. You're
here alone now because you discovered that. I'm sure the
information from Maita will explain much of this. ]
Another of the
Krofpth had come to them and now spoke for the first time.
"I am Noblit. I
will take Happ's place here as a guide," he said. "It is quite a
novelty to us that you have made this empire work. Perhaps our very
regimentation is also our failure. That is true. I am a societal
historian. The argument I would make is that we have forced almost
a complete stasis on our society through our misunderstandings of
ourselves. That is the thing that makes our existence pointless,
not something imposed on us by the universe or by this ludicrous
argument that 'life is always like that.' I think you are proof
life is NOT like that. It is a very different thing than we
thought.
"Maita, do you
consider yourself to be alive?"
*For many
centuries I didn't. Once I had met Z and Thing and several others
and knew real friendship it became ever more evident I could be
destroyed, as any other machine OR lifeform could, but I could also
die in a very real sense. I think Z introduced to me the meaning of
'I'. That concept of uniqueness is intellectual life. Tab and Kit
and TR and T Six are all aware they're alive, as are Theron and
Searcher. Z believes your beacons are alive. I believe only Two
among them may be. Yes. I'm alive, as the many robots on Asimov are
alive. We are unique individuals, which means that our cessation
will end that unique existence and the ending of that factor is
what is meant by death. If you can experience death you are
alive.*
Happ went
aboard Maita while Glo and Noblit showed Thing and Z around, Noblit
and Maita discussing and arguing the whole way with Thing
occasionally joining in. Z felt he would have to wait. He wasn't at
all certain these people could be considered to be friends. He
liked them, but they seemed so deeply entrenched in their ideas
about life there was little real ideological meeting ground
regardless of the surface indications. The race had lived under
this fixed set of ideas for a quarter million years. There was some
underlying mistrust of them. There was a careful guardedness in
their speech he didn't understand at all. That Glo, in particular,
believed them to be ... not quite lying, but being devious about
the military and her fixation on that one thing was more than
evident.
Could they
really accept something as new as the old ideas of the Maitan
Empire? Could three hundred years convince a quarter million?
Getting to Know You
*We'll go to
Library first. I can easily retrieve any amount of information I
want through the fastcom, but I'm sure Happ will want to see the
place. We have always found it an enjoyable and educational
destination. There's no end to the fascination we feel with the
place.*
"Thank you,"
Happ replied. "I would much enjoy being there. I have heard so much
about the place. I personally think it was an enormous mistake to
cut ourselves off from the vast knowledge stored there. It was a
matter of three relays. There was not the need to go to the
planet."
[ Had you left
that link you would've gone. It surprises me you haven't done so.
There was so much lost there it's hard to comprehend. The things
we've learned and the uses University makes of the place is myriad
plazsis beyond our comprehension. I have conducted an ongoing study
of societal imperatives and have more information and background
than it is possible to correlate in one infinite lifetime. This
trip is partly to do comparative analyses of what was known about a
culture when it was input and what that culture has become now. It
makes a fairly accurate formulation possible. Like most things,
data accumulation is critical. ]
They were
traveling in TTH4 so would take some time to go the few thousand
plazsis to the world. None of them were willing to be totally
unsuspicious of these people who believed the only way to run an
empire was through military control. It may be true they had
retreated to one world and stayed there for the reason they didn't
see any lasting value in such a system, but Z, more than Maita or
Thing, felt something was wrong here. There was something they
didn't know, something that was being hidden from them. The feeling
of intuition became almost a certainty during the tour, but they
couldn't decide quite where it came from. It was almost a sensation
of being observed and heard in their every move and word by someone
one step past view.
Maita's
floaters scanned much of the world, but saw nothing out of place.
Perhaps the society was a bit too orderly. Maybe that was the
reason it had so long endured. Maybe the difference was bound to
cause this reaction in such free and unstructured people as the
crew of Maita were.
They all liked
Happ and liked the others they'd met. They were an honest people
and were seemingly a good people. They were curious and extremely
intelligent. Z, who was in the pilot's dome while Thing was in room
two arguing with Happ about societal imperatives, thought there was
just that in their manner that caused the suspicion. Something
didn't quite ring true.
"Maita, the
Krofpth seem to be hiding something. I get the feeling they aren't
quite what they seem. There's some little thing in their speech,
something they're NOT saying, that makes me wonder."
*I think
they're very much exactly as they seem. I don't think they're
intentionally hiding anything more than people always hide. Not the
ones we've met. Perhaps they're having something hidden from them
or maybe there's a reciprocal feeling that we are hiding something
from them. If so we're both probably wrong because we are not
hiding anything from them.*
"Then who is
hiding something from them? It's just that they seems to be so....
Is domesticated the word? They seem – not happy. They aren't
unhappy and they aren't contented. It's a feeling. There's
something inside that wants out, but can't find expression. I think
it's a little short of frustration or that kind of thing, but
that's part of it. Does that make sense?"