Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (207 page)

"They were
experimenting with the real thing!" Kit cried. "This is the
fungoid!"

"Check probe
records, TR," Tab said shortly. There was a pause, then, "This was
suppressed with tremendous power, but the probe gets everything,"
TR reported. "This is recent. Nortich remembers on a low level that
Zantoo, who was working most directly with the fungoid, took three
vials of the spores taken from the Grandish project. The memory was
covered. I'd say we're going to find at least two more of these
areas.

"I'm sending
out floaters to search the whole damned planet! Take samples of
whatever killed the thing off back there. We'll put some of it in
this area and in any others where we find the thing. We have to
stop this before it can get a stronghold here!"

A floater came
in fast with equipment on it. Tab and Kit took samples from the
area they had visited before. They found a small colony of a fungus
that wasn't like anything on their reports growing there.

"Get Givzoo out
here, TR," Tab ordered. "We have to know something about this
fungus here. He'll be able to identify it."

"You've got
Givzoo, Volich and Nortich on their way out there on a fast
floater," TR replied. "There are going to be gaps in the memories
of all of them, but one of them should know what that thing
is."

The robots
waited a few minutes, then the three scientists came to them to
check the fungoid and the control.

"I don't know
what it is," Volich said simply, then went to examine the
fungoid.

"It's
Hydrocyanus tabori Grandishii, one of the things from your swamp,"
Givzoo said.

"But it's been
engineered!" Nortich cried. "It doesn't ... can't thrive in these
dry conditions. It also requires high level acidification. There's
no such thing here!"

"But no one was
working with H. tabori!" Givzoo protested. "How could it have been
engineered? Who could have done it?"

"Zantoo did
it," TR reported. "At least I think that's the information I
have."

"How
ridiculous!" Nortich declared, staring into the atomic microscope.
"Zantoo didn't have the knowledge to make that kind of thing! This
is amazing! I can't.... TR, give me magnification of the LT one
four six seven chain in sector A four."

She studied the
specimen for a few minutes, then waved for Givzoo to have a
look.

"Great stinking
hooprollers!" Givzoo cried. "That's easily the finest graft I've
ever seen! None of us are nearly capable of this kind of work! None
of us! Maybe Keen Fleschker on University! I can't believe it! We
can't do this! We can't do it!"

"Somebody
rather obviously DID do it!" Nortich said. "TR, the video records.
Trace them back from when Zantoo took the finished product to bring
it out here."

The
screen popped up on the floater. "I'll have to untangle what I can
believe in this mess," TR said. "It's mostly right about the time
the interference started ... this is immediately before. You'd know
what Zantoo was doing. I don't."

They watched
Zantoo working with some of the more delicate equipment, setting it
up for use.

"I've taken
this out to run in ordered sequence," TR lectured. "Note how Zantoo
is acting ... there! And there! Is that odd?"

Zantoo had the
equipment ready, then stopped to stare at the light fixture above
him for a moment. He went to the chamber, stopped and stared at the
fixture again.

"His eyes! He's
hypnotized!" Nortich cried. "But that would mean the fungoid was
directing the whole thing. It doesn't make any sense! Why would the
fungoid develop the very thing that would destroy it? This doesn't
make any sense!"

"Not from our
point of view," Kit argued. "What we know about the fungoid may
make it logical to such a plant. It knew we were working on methods
to control or destroy it. It can't run so must make a defense that
will work internally. We also know that it has a directed immune
system. It can control its own immune reactions.

"It picked your
minds, saw the direction your research was taking and would take
and decided to get a step ahead of you. It would allow you to
develop whatever you wanted, but would already have its spores
programmed to thwart it. It was successful in overcoming something
in that patch over there, but failed here."

"But it had
Zantoo spreading its spores AND the control group?" Givzoo asked.
"That seems suicidal."

"Oh, no!" TR
put in. "It could produce literally billions of spores so what was
a few million? All it had to do was to have one successful immune
reaction among all of them – and those controlled – and it had won.
The one that learned to fight the control agent would communicate
what it did and the immunity could then be programmed into all the
billions of spores to be produced in the future."

"AHHA!" Tab
cried suddenly. "Now it begins to make sense! Now I see why the
thing felt trapped and defeated. I know why it attacked us! It was
a reaction to despair! It was this patch right here! It COULD NOT
produce anything to fight this one!"

"But ... but IT
made this fungus!" Givzoo said, looking puzzled. "It produced this
H. tabori strain itself. Why would it worry that we would ever come
up with the same thing?"

"Because it
thought in a pattern that left it billions of spores to experiment
with at any one time," Tab replied. "We could work on tens of
experiments at one time so we may have never found this. It didn't
know that. It knew we were trying various fungi and bacteria so
could assume from its own experience that we would come upon this
strain fairly soon. There are only half a million or so choices we
could make. That was only a few days' experimenting to it. It
couldn't know it was half a century's experimentation to us. The
fungoid found its own control agent. It must assume we would find
it as quickly so it must stop the experiments.

"It knew there
are billions of us. You see, it had to work from its own
experience. A fungoid can produce billions of spores, thus billions
of experiments. There are billions of us. It couldn't conceive of
the number of experiments that MUST be going on at any one time
according to that extrapolation. It was hopeless. If the thing had
logic as we understand the word it would see we hadn't brought many
into the battle against it. It could have deduced that only two of
the people working here had any real ability to make control
experiments so could have extrapolated that very few of us would
know how to fight it. All fungoids of a given species would have
the same natural abilities, ergo, all animals of a species would
have the same abilities. There were several species working against
it here.

"Hopeless.
Totally, undeniably, hopeless. If it could develope an immunity to
that particular bio-engineered fungus it would probably have gone
on. It was learning how to use the psy ability very well."

"Then we must
experiment with this fungus," Nortich said. "If it meets our
requirements we can possibly produce enough spores to spread it
over the entire world of Grandish. I suggest we also spread the
spores over this entire world as a test. There isn't much to harm
here. We'll know quickly if it will work on other worlds and should
also give us ample amounts of the spores to seed Grandish."

"Why not just
spread it on this continent," Givzoo suggested. "There's no reason
to assume any spores have gotten even away from this one area."

"That's true,
but only if we find what Zantoo did with the rest of those spores,"
TR warned. "We haven't located enough for even one of those three
vials yet."

"Zantoo never
left the immediate area," Nortich pointed out. "We can therefore
assume the spores were... oh!"

"Oh?" Volich
said. "What was that for?!"

"TR, check
requisitions," Nortich said. "I'm looking for the weather...."

"Balloons!" TR
expostulated. "Oh, groan! Zantoo was taking wind readings,
directions at various levels and speed – with balloons!"

"So we spread
our control fungus over the entire planet," Givzoo decided. "Better
done than wondered about!

"Nortich,
Volich, we want as many samples of this thing to grow as we can
find. We have to know if there's any mutational frequency in the
engineered bioform. If it's going to mutate into something like
Parawandrea we'll have to find a way to stabilize it before we make
a problem almost as bad as the one we have.

"Hip hup hope!
Let's get at it, team! Time is short for Grandish! Hip hup!"

Tab and Kit
helped to gather samples, then went back to TR while the others
went to the labs to grow spores.

"I can't find
but one other area where Zantoo used those spores. They're both
successfully defeating whatever bioforms were put there with them.
I think we have to act on the assumption those spores were spread
by those weather balloons," TR reported. "I'm growing some of that
fungus myself. I want to try something.

"Do you two
boobs realize what you did out there?"

"Clue us," Kit
replied.

"You casually
walked away from a total of three hundred forty nine fungoids,
growing and healthy," TR said happily. "Sometimes I think both of
you kooks have critical circuits that're defective!"

"And those
other patches YOU found?" Tab asked.

"They’re burned
to crisp little champignons fritados!" TR replied. "Care for some?
They should be tasty. High in quality proteins."

"Great
exploding galaxies!" Kit snapped back. "You're mixing French and
Spanish! I think you've been spending too much time with Z! You're
getting as bad as he is!"

"Meanwhile I'm
glad you didn't burn off our test plot with your overbearing and
thoughtless manner!" Tab remarked.

"Say what?" TR
said.

"Did it ever
occur to you that we'll have to know if the new bioform will kill
off the growing plants or if it only stops spores from growing?"
Tab responded.

"I knew that!"
TR snapped back.

"Then you
wouldn't have made such a big deal about our walking away from it,"
Tab replied smugly. "I don't suppose there's a lot for us to do
except wait?"

"We might as
well go to Grandish to see how our little glass plant is doing,"
Kit suggested.

"You can give
the Grandish a little more pride, too," TR said. "You can report
you two were of a lot of use here. Tab will report you were a
credit to your race."

"Definitely!"
Kit agreed. "We want to use every least opportunity to give the
Grandish more self-esteem!"

"Maybe it'll be
a perfect time for Mar to drop out of the picture," TR suggested.
"That'll put the plant half into the hands of the workers. It'll be
an extra point of pride for the Grandish that one of their race has
received a hero's commendation, if post mortem, from Emperor
Maita."

"Then I'll go
back with Kit as Tabori," Tab agreed. "Maita will have to...?"

"Maita will
donate a plaque," Kit said, using the thought patterns of the
Grandish. "The plant will design a lifesized statue of Klist Mar in
which to place the plaque. The statue will be in the lobby of the
offices."

"Maybe Looph'll
agree to come to Grandish to design the statue!" TR cried. "I think
the people there should meet the Parf!"

"You're like a
little kid!" Tab said. "I like the idea – so let's do it!"

TR came in to
land on the jetty out from the glass plant. Tab, Kit and Looph
waited until people came from the plant toward the ship to open the
port.

It was a
strange sight that met the Grandish as the group came from the
ship, Kit in the lead in the character of Jarj Fel, followed by
Looph, the famous Parf artist, who looked like a feathered centaur,
though that's truly a poor description.

Tab came last,
carrying the plaque. Looph knew the facts of the case and why all
of this was being done. The plans were made. She knew Maita and the
group on EC well and knew how they worked so would do all she could
to assist.

Djin, the two
engineers and Veen (?) led the line toward the ship. Kit met them
to hug Djin and blurt out suddenly that Klist Mar was dead. The
Grandish reacted with shock.

Tab stepped to
say loudly enough for all to hear that he had something to say to
them all after introducing Looph, the Parf artist whose work they
reproduced so very well.

"I never met
Klist Mar, but I do feel as though I know him well," Looph said. "I
have come at the request of Emperor Maita to pay tribute to this
hero, this person who without thought to personal danger gave his
very life so the empire and his own world would be a little safer
so all would know that Grandish is a caring place.

"The emperor
wishes to give to the people of Grandish the commendation in the
form of a memorial plaque, one that I was asked to design. Fel said
he would wish to have a statue cast of Mar in which to emplace that
plaque. He asked that I design that work, also. It is such a small
thing I can do to show my awed appreciation for this remarkable
person. I am honored to come here and would be even had the emperor
and Fel not requested it."

Tab stepped
forward.

"Friends, I'll
tell you what happened on a world called Kuhlicht," he said. "There
was a scientific group there working to find a way to fight a form
of plant that has developed intelligence and that wishes to
overthrow the empire. It is insane according to our way of
thinking.

"That isn't a
necessary truth when we consider that it is very unlike like us. It
thinks very differently than do we animal intelligences.

"We were called
by Emperor Maita to Kuhlicht because the fungoid had seized the
minds of the scientists there. It had killed four students and one
of the scientists. It had a way to prevent anything we tried to do
to rescue those remaining three scientists. It would destroy them
and us, too, if we couldn't find a way in there to get them
out.