Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (188 page)

"Mebbe some o'
the creeks up 'bove the lake," Lope answered. "None o' 'em this
here side ‘til farther down."

“
I guess
it would occur to people not to let their animals drink from the
creek," Kit suggested. "Not before we know what it's about,
anyhow."

"Won't," Lope
agreed. "Smell it 'n turn up their noses. Kids swim in ut, but
they's got orders to swaller none o' ut. Kids don't care nothin'
'bout the smell. Say uts tasten' awful sos they ain't no problem
with 'em drinkin' no more'n drops by accident."

"Probably won't
hurt anything if they don't swallow much of it," Tab said. "We can
go right out. Maybe we can make the lake today, spend a day or two
finding which creek it comes from if it doesn't come from the lake
directly, then go on up whichever it is.

"How big is the
lake, Lope?"

"Well, Mar,"
Lope answered, sticking a twig in his mouth, "Ut sorta depends. Ut
ain't fer 'crost ut, but ut's pretty longish. Mebbe a kilometer
'crost by four, mebbe five long. Got just Flint Creek comin' out
this here side, but they's sevrul a'comin' in ter t'other from the
mountins. Mebbe six, mebbe eight. Mebbe more.

"Some o' 'em're
bitsy things, t'others is bigger 'ns. Ain't none o' 'em big uz
Flint.

"Stay ter
inside o' tuh meanders. Current ain't near so bad inside. Make
better time."

They loaded
their few supplies into the skiff, then headed directly upstream.
They passed two adolescent boys and one young girl a hundred meters
or so above the farmhouse who had stripped off their clothes and
were swimming in the creek. It was obvious swimming wasn't all they
were doing. There was a sharp bend before the little cove that hid
the skiff until it was only a few meters away. The three had sprung
apart.

"Sorry," Kit
said with a grin. "If we'd known anyone was here we'd have made
some noise."

The girl
giggled, one of the boys stammered a bit and the other laughed. Tab
and Kit rowed on past them.

"I hope those
kids know something about birth control!" Kit said when they were
out of hearing. "Lope will have a fit if he finds out about that!
That one kid was obviously his!"

Tab read out
the cultural customs of the people and grinned at Kit. "They know
very well when they're in fertile period," he replied. "It's all
right so long as you don't get caught at it. She'd be considered a
bit of a little tramp if they were caught – or more than a little
bit with two at once. The boys would probably get a stern lecture
and no dessert for a week. In a month everyone would forget about
it. They're only semi-monogamous."

"Yeah, I see,"
Kit agreed. "They'll only have kids by their chosen mate, but
recreational sex is okay with whoever appeals to you. That'll be
accepted until they get some serious venereal disease, then it'll
have to change."

They went on
upstream until they were certain they wouldn't encounter anyone
else, then pulled onto a little sand spit that stuck out into the
creek to contact T6.

"Yo, Boss?" it
answered.

"Send a few
floaters," Kit said. "Maybe as many as eight. There's a lake a few
kilometers above our present position with a number of smaller
creeks leading into it out of the nearer foothills. One or more of
those creeks has something very fishy going on upstream. Analyze
the water as you go.

"This is what
it is here and what it was at Lope's farm a couple of kilometers
back."

He sent the
analytical information.

"What do you
think is going on?" Tab asked.

"From this, not
mining or refining. Maybe it's some kind of laboratory dump," T6
replied.

"Laboratory
dump?" Kit asked.

"Yeah," T6
said. "Like that meristem cloning project Z does with his orchids
or maybe cloning of something. Maybe even genetic engineering of a
primitive type. Note there are several very complicated hormones in
that goo. I'd have to get a lot closer to the source to determine
what else deteriorated before it got here. Lots of those things are
unstable as all hell."

"CHON,
potassium, sulfur, iron, copper, selenium," Tab said, dropping some
of the water onto his elementizer grid. "Chelated phosphorus salts,
calcium, sodium. It's all there. It could be any kind of
experimental thing, though. Plant or animal or something else
entirely. The hormones are too sparse for me to detect with
internals."

"The spy
floaters are out and on their way," T6 reported. "We'll know soon
enough, I suppose. I'm sending carrier floaters for you two,
too.

"To you two,
too. Too true, you two. It'll do! Toodle-oo!"

"Sometimes I
think you work too hard, T Six," Kit replied. "If you didn't spend
ninety percent of your time resting I'd be tempted to suggest
relaxation."

They pushed the
skiff out into the stream to begin rowing again. They should be
able to reach Milk Lake before it began getting too dark so would
let the personal carrier floaters stay out of sight as long as
possible. Both of them wanted to explore some of the local plants
and animals as they went upstream.

Flint Creek was
actually a smaller river that flowed fairly swiftly and was quite
deep. The water was a light brownish color, but not dirty. It was a
clear light brown from the tannic acid leached from the leaves of
the swamp trees to either side. It would be a delight if it weren't
for the problem with the contaminants coming in from Milk Lake.
There was no evidence of any damage to the plants growing along the
banks – they were far too healthy, as a matter of fact.

The places
where the creek would back up into small swamp areas were as lush
as the vegetation on the shores, but were much more spread out.

The two took
water from several of the places, but found that the same general
analysis held for all of it. The same odd compounds in those flood
plain areas meant there had been little substantial change in the
chemistry in as much as a year. The way the trees were reacting
said three years or more.

"Does that mean
whatever is causing this is stable?" Kit asked. "I mean, it's
stayed virtually the same for three years, minimum?"

"Yes," Tab
replied. "Probably nearer four years. It would take almost a year
for the plants to react this strongly. I still can't picture what
this is about. We were sent here because there seemed to be some
kind of cultural interference, not to find some toxic waste
dump!

"I don't doubt
there's a connection. Whatever this is coming from shows a
technology these people didn't attain on their own. I can't begin
to figure what it even MIGHT be! They're a century from needing to
clone plants and like diversity too much for it to be useful. They
have the sense to control population so it's not likely they'd ever
go for a largescale project of the type. This is far too much and
too longterm for simple research."

"There's only
one branch that's feeding this stuff into the lake," T6 reported.
"It'll be right here (It showed a map on the internal circuits that
the robots could 'see' clearly). There're perhaps two kilometers of
lakeshore with one creek, a large one, coming in here. That'll be
the first one on your right as you enter from the bottom of the
lake – don't say it, smartass – where Flint Creek flows out. You go
up this way past a small creek, almost a ditch, then into the big
one. The second branch to your left is the one pouring the stuff
into the lake. I won't investigate further until you're at least in
Milk Lake. I don't have any idea what kind of sentry devices might
be in use."

"Why do they
call it Milk Lake?" Kit asked.

"Because there
are always clouds around the peak over to the northeast, which
reflect from where you enter the lake, making it appear to be very
white," T6 replied. "Either that or it was discovered coming from
the western approach where a creek runs through a lot of limestone
clay. If it was during the rainy season the clay would turn the
entire end of the lake a milky white."

"So who really
cares?" Tab asked. "Maybe whoever named it was waxing poetic."

"Maybe they
should wax your ass!" T6 shot back.

"I'd say they
must have been waning poetic to come up with that one," Kit threw
in. "Waxing poetic? Shee! Where do you get these stupid expressions
– as if I didn't know!"

"Yup! From good
ol' Z!" T6 agreed. "If you're interested in little details that
have little direct bearing on yourselves – or on anything else – TR
claims that Maita really WASN'T joking about the entire omniverse
being in jeopardy. It still is. The math would scare excrement from
even you! Maybe you should hurry this up so you can finish before
the omniverse comes to an end."

"Are you
serious?" Kit asked. "How long before whatever it is would spread
to here?"

"I'm, excuse
the expression, dead serious," T6 replied. "It will be like turning
out a light if it does happen. The omniverse is a point. Everything
adds up to zero. You both already know that. From what I can
understand about this the planes would all interface at once or
something cancelling each other out. Thing worked it out. It says
it's no joke."

Kit looked
toward Tab, who shrugged. If the Mentan determines that a fact
checks mathematically it checks mathematically. Period.

"You mean it'll
be as though none of this ever existed?" Kit asked.

"It doesn't
really exist, anyhow," T6 pointed out. "Thing says that's what's so
fascinating about the math."

"What the hell
are we doing worrying about Maita's damned problems?" Tab asked.
"We have problems of our own. Where is this stuff coming from? What
is it? What does it have to do with cultural interference?

"I don't see
how it affects us that the omniverse might end now or later. It
equally as well might not."

"Maybe I like
to bitch," T6 said. "And yes, that's also one of Z's
expressions.

"Go on to the
lake. I'll do a reducing analysis of the lake and on down Flint
Creek to the ocean. I can keep the floaters under water all the way
so it's no problem. You two can work as well in the dark as in the
daylight so maybe you can detect the sentry equipment in use before
you bumble into it."

Tab refused to
start the sniping again. It would take up too much time they could
put to better use. They entered Milk Lake at sunset to see a
magnificent color show on the clouds hovering against the peaks on
the far end of the lake. There were golds and yellows with red
above and dark purples below.

Both robots had
strong senses of beauty. They reacted just about the same as Z or
their other organic friends would. The difference was mostly that
they could record the magnificent scene to play back later to
themselves or through the displays on their ships for Z to react to
himself.

It was dark
when they entered the side creek from which the effluent poured
into upper Milk Lake and began to make their way carefully along it
toward the smaller creek where the stuff came into that one. The
night did help them to locate sentry beams because they were on
infra-red reception anyhow and could drop in filters to enable them
to "see" longer or shorter wavelengths that would ordinarily be
invisible to organic beings. Kit pointed to a microwave beam at one
point so they were able to move around it. At another point there
were beamed low infra-red detectors so the two made certain they
weren't broadcasting anything on those wavelengths. There were
sonic detectors at another point, but they could avoid problems
with those, too.

They came to a
path that led from the water around a small hill, but decided to
first locate the point where the material was entering the creek
before exploring anything on the land.

It was coming
through a large pipe that came from behind a little knoll.
Actually, the pipe came from under the knoll.

The two used
direct lightbeam communication through a fine fiberoptic connection
then to avoid any chance of detection.

"I'd say the
entrance is somewhere on that hill," Kit suggested. "There's not
much room for a laboratory in there, though."

"That's
probably just a storage and pumping station," Tab replied. "The
labs will be in those mountains behind and to the left. Underground
is perfect for that kind of work – assuming it's genetic
manipulation or cloning – because everything's so easy to control.
Temperature, light, filtration. It's a lot easier to control
sterility in a completely closed system, too. I'm hoping we can
find a safe way into the pumping stations and that there's another
entrance to the labs through a tunnel or something there.

"A pumping
station won't be too well guarded, I'd say.

"First we have
to find who's doing what and why, then we have to make a plan.
Until we know more we're just pushing a rope up a hill."

"We're what?"
Kit asked.

"It's one of
Z's expressions," Tab answered. "It means we're expending a lot of
effort for no appreciable gains."

"Shee! Do you
realize just how much that Terran has influenced the way we think,
talk and act?" Kit asked. "Him and Thing. They're the reason we
exist, I guess."

"We don't
exist," Tab replied. "Thing proved it.

"We seem to be
finding every reason in the galaxy to stall on this and that's not
like us at all! We always set a goal and go directly for it, now
we're discussing idioms and platitudes? I wonder why? I wonder what
really IS going on here?"

"We're
constantly off on some tangent, it's true," Kit agreed. "Do you
think maybe we're susceptible to some sort of psychic
influence?"

"Let's retreat
back a ways," Tab replied. "It occurred to me that Lope came up as
far as the lake, but didn't even try to find which creek the stuff
was coming from. That wouldn't have taken much time. He could
easily see the vegetation from near the mouth of this one and
toward the end of the lake is like an arrow pointing to this creek.
That didn't even occur to US! Why did he turn around and go home? I
don't know about any psychic force affecting robots, but I do know
something's a lot more wrong than we thought!"