Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (20 page)

"There was a
reader outside. I caught it in time to duplicate the results from
the inner one."

"One of the
watchers has gone and the other moved to our south to perch on a
rock outcropping. I don't think they have such a great power
supply, and they're constant senders. We depleted more of that
thing's resources than we knew back at Stormlee."

We had constant
internal conversations along with our standard bickering and
insults all the time. The reports were added data.

It was the
third day, when we had almost decided to make the door into the
cave that we were both glad we had those sensors outside and that
we knew the brain was tricky. TR reported two cave probes
approaching, while the one from the outside moved to the surface of
the outer slide.

"They're going
to do another sonic, I think," TR reported. "I'll give them the
same readings as before."

"No! Mostly the
same, but with some minor changes. These rocks in here will be
shifting for a year at least."

"Yo! I figured
that. There'll be some changes. One hole filled in and another
small one that suddenly appeared without any seeming reason."

"Without a
reason? Is that smart?"

"I really THINK
so!" TR replied smugly (HOW DOES IT DO THAT?). "Surely, no one who
was faking a reading would do anything that would call attention to
it and that will certainly draw attention to the area! It would be
too stupid for anyone to do, so it has to be a natural phenomenon.
I know I'd come to that conclusion. There'd be absolutely no logic
to such a thing.

"The brain
knows you're a machine and you're in charge of the search here.
Machines are logical.

"This isn't
logical.

"No machine
would do it.

"It is,
therefore, a natural occurrence. Move on."

I grinned and
agreed. It struck me we did a lot of very high-tech battle in
primitive caves. There wouldn't be much to do for some time now, so
I asked TR why it thought that kept happening. "I mean, Maita had
to fight that insane machine in caves on EC, and it's happened at
various times and in various places since."

"Primitive
caves can mask a lot of high-tech's more detectable radiations. The
caves are already there on all of these worlds, aren't visible as
habitations, are generally strong and defendable.

"We can be glad
they use them, because it also gives us all of those same things to
use against such as this thing. It gives us ways to reach the brain
here as well as it did in those other instances.

"Caves often
have interconnecting tunnels if they're volcanic or if they're
formed by flowing water.

"What are you
building? You seem very industrious lately."

"A sort of
portable gravity grid. I figure we have several possibilities.
These things might give us an edge where the brain would never
expect it. It doesn't use artificial gravity in its own ship and
might not know how to build it. It certainly won't be building its
robots and servos to withstand a lot more than what's normal here.
I can also string it along the ceiling of the cave and walk around
up there. It's possible the thing won't have sensors in that cavern
against the ceiling while it WILL have sensors to detect anything
on the ground and in the air.

"We can use any
advantage we can find or manufacture."

"It'll be a
little while before you'd better go out there. I want to keep the
shield up for awhile. It withdrew the servo sensors on both ends of
this cavern, so I think it's being clever. It doesn't really think
there's anything here, but it won't take any chances."

I nodded and
worked on the grids for a few hours. TR told me later the servos
were sneaking up again very carefully and were planting the probes
at opposite angles. Later it said the sonics were being used, then
said the probes had again withdrawn.

"Do you think
that damned thing can detect small high gravity fields?" I
asked.

"A child can. I
don't think it will, though. It won't be something it'll be looking
for."

"Even on its
own ship?"

"I don't know.
Maybe not. You have a plan?"

"It all depends
on whether I can get to the ship and whether I can get to the
position where I need to be – under it – without being detected. I
want to make it decide to offload that plutonium. If I can get to
the right spot I think I can do something there.

"The stuff's
dangerous enough at the best of times if you have any quantity of
it. I'm afraid that thing would set it all off if we trapped it
here where it knew it was lost. It would be in an effort to take us
out with it, and that would contaminate half of this planet. We
couldn't hope to clean up that stuff if it's set off in that
quantity anywhere, and this is near the sea as well as in the major
wind currents of the tropical zone.

"We can't allow
it. If I can not only get the stuff offloaded, but also broken up
into various piles in several places, we've half-won the
battle.

"My worry while
we're waiting here is that the brain will be building things as
fast as it can. All this time's a definite advantage to it and
anything but an advantage for us."

"Not much we
can do about that. I can't contact Maita from under here, so I'm
programming a signal floater with everything as it happens. It has
instructions to go directly to the protector satellite and to
fastcom all the information to Maita each third day – and to go
immediately if I turn off the direct hookup to it at any time
without first giving it other instructions.

"I have it
well-hidden outside with a shielded lead to it. I'll wait awhile
longer just to be sure that thing isn't being clever again, then
you can do whatever it is you plan. We'll make a systematic plan to
remain in communication with laser beam or something.

"We have one
more thing in our favor in all of this: The brain can't begin
mining too soon. It doesn't have elementizer grids, so it'll have
to refine ores with the old laser heat method, then remelt, alloy,
cast, and finish.

"It has to find
copper or silver for circuits. Aluminum will be much too hard to
find and to refine here. It won't be able to produce much better
than a few stainless steels, and nothing with titanium, platinum,
or other really high heat-resistant alloys. It'll all be
susceptible to heat lasers. It won't be able to make floaters
without aluminum and magnesium and can't hope to refine magnesium
worth a damn until it makes a power plant. The plant uses a lot of
hard-to-get metals here.

"It can do
everything it has to do, but it can't do it this year. It plans to
take whatever time it needs. It's in no hurry and, I suppose, it'll
really do a great job on any of its weapons and defenses, but its
time is running out – and it doesn't have any hint of THAT!

"Forget the
floaters. It doesn't have them.

"It'll be up to
you to make a plan and to handle things. You seem to have some
ideas."

"I have a lot
of ideas. They aren't very defined yet. I have to see exactly what
I'm up against.

"Let's get that
doorway ready on this end, then we can finish it when the shield's
dropped a lot quicker than if we wait to do it all at once."

I went with the
various servos I needed to build the doorway and spent several
hours clearing the rubble from the inside. TR expanded the shield a
bit so we could spray a fixing solution on the looser rocks inside
of this small cave and across the covered original entrance. It
would be solid enough at the outer entrance to hold, but weak
enough that TR could blast right through it if it came to any such
thing.

We took a
little extra time to lay a sensor grid to broadcast constantly. Any
sonic sensors would find pretty much what already was shown if any
more probes came. Neither TR nor I thought there would be anymore
except for a possible regular check every twenty days or so.

I laid the
gravity grids I'd built on a floater and ran the attachment lines
so they would be deployed very rapidly. They could be placed on the
ceilings or on the floors or even on the walls, though that wasn't
very practical unless you crawled. The normal gravity was there to
pull you to the side if you stuck out for your normal height. If
you're directly upside down it doesn't affect you greatly, as it's
simply a matter of having the grid gravity stronger than the normal
pull of the planet.

We waited until
late in the morning outside the following day simply as a
psychological ploy. The original programmers had, though they knew
perfectly well that light made no difference to the machines, left
some sense of darkness being the time when anyone would try to
sneak in.

I went to the
doorway to wait until solution was pumped to hold things as they
were. A very thin laser was then used to cut a "plug" out, the
"plug" was hooked to a servo motor and pulled inward (It was
cone-shaped, so it would fit closely when it was reclosed) so I
could step into the outer cave.

I was on my
way!

Clever Tricks

I stepped into
the tunnel, where I stopped to let my sensors study the place at
full range and sensitivity. If there were any detectors here, they
were passive.

I sent six very
small floaters with sensitive equipment to scan the entire area,
centimeter by centimeter, before I moved. TR sent a larger floater
to affix and focus light beam relays so we could be in constant
communication without being in very much danger of detection.

This was a
purely exploratory trip. I wanted only to discover what was where
and what kinds of protections were in place. The brain was
paranoid, as all military minds are, so it was as much as certain
there would be a number of devices set about.

This time there
was basis for paranoia.

If possible I
wanted to locate where any mining was being done and what was being
mined, how it was being handled, and what was to be built with the
metals. There were definite limitations as to what was to be found
in the area, which would place severe limitations on what could be
built.

TR sent
floaters to the island where the brain left things to find it was
just minor mining machinery, so we could prevent the brain's
getting certain basic things in the future if it proved
necessary.

I was signaled
an all-clear to the first bend, so cautiously moved ahead to see
our probes had discovered a small movement sensor the brain had
placed in a small recess, but the floater placed a nul screen
around it so it would show nothing. It was combination vibratory
and infra-red, so a simple Styrofoam shield was excellent and could
be made to resemble the natural rocks. There was also a simple trip
mechanism suitably fixed so it would show nothing. Those kinds of
traps were very simple, but could be the most effective, as they
were purely mechanical and passive until activated. You step on
what would appear to be the normal flooring of the cave, a flexible
piece moves a thousandth of a centimeter, and a burst of radio is
sent. It can't be stopped, and the brain is alerted that something
is moving at that point in the tunnel. It then dispatches a servo
to see if it's only a falling rock or something more sinister.

The floaters
located and disabled the traps automatically by injecting a
substance to prevent the flexible part from making contact with the
contact point. The appearance of the device wasn't changed in any
way.

I had to check
for one very simple device that there was no defense for, really:
tiny quartz crystals of very exact sizes. Stepping on them would
cause a burst of radio on a very specific wavelength. The good
thing was that they were basic radio fixers, so were detectable by
sending a very weak, very wide-range wave out such as those
temblors emitted and the fact a large number of crystals responded
on a single frequency told us they were not natural features. (I
mention this because the brain had thought of it and TR detected
it.)

The seeking
sensors reported along the beam to TR, who then told me about them.
They were then easy to avoid.

I knew the
brain couldn't place anything we couldn't find and thwart, but that
first trip along those passages was what Z must mean when he said
he had "a constant case of the creeps" in such places. Natural
sounds, electrical phenomena, bioluminescence, and everything else
was artificially amplified to my sensors in some subtle
psychological manner. The dripping of ground water sounded like a
drumbeat, the rattle of a bit of dislodged gravel from temperature
change was like a collision between two S class ships. Even the air
movement sounded terribly loud to my sensors.

The brain was
known for clever tricks, so I got tricky, too. The brain wasn't the
only one who could be clever.

There was a
spur cave that connected to another cave farther along, so I had
the light beam relays set up to go a distance along into it, then
circle around and back through an impassible rocky slide that fell
when we made the outer plug. It took some time and some difficult
focusing techniques and took a lot of extra equipment but, should
any relays be found closer to the brain, they would be traced to
the cave that went outside, seemingly.

TR thought it
was a good idea, so continued the relays to the outside of the cave
mouth and focused the last one upward toward the top of the volcano
on the next island, then set up a pulse system to guarantee the
pulses wouldn't cross the slide to our own hiding place if there
was any change in pattern. The lack of communication would tell TR
immediately the relay system was found and it could remove the ones
closer to itself quickly. There would be nothing to lead anything
to our own cavern.