Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition Read online

  This robot was probably an exact copy of Noobish, which meant Noobish was probably dead and disposed of.

  "Just because you look somethin' like Noobish don't mean you can pass yourself off as her!" I continued. "You can bet she'd know ME! You don't sound like her, and you walk different. She ain't some selfer! She don't act like you! No way!

  "She ain't you!

  "I don't believe this! How can you just LIE like that with a straight face? What kind of a THING are you?"

  I was attracting some extra attention with the shouting. It was another thing that wasn't done without the very strongest provocation.

  These robots couldn't very well move against me with those witnesses. They'd waited too long to act, and now I could show them as being very odd, at the least. One would never accuse a Killit of being a liar once, much less at the top of his voice and several times. The brain didn't know that, and would react in a less and less natural manner through the robots now. I would have to bait it into really unacceptable moves.

  These weren't a violent people, but that one taboo was strong enough to get a violent reaction! Call anyone a liar and they'd knock you on your ass so fast you wouldn't know what hit you!

  "I want to see the REAL Noobish, right now!" I shouted. "I don't want to argue with a couple of liars! You're both nothing but LIARS! You don't even have the courage to defend yourselves when I say it!

  "I tell these people here that you are both LIARS! LIARS! I want to see the REAL Noobish! Right now! LIARS!"

  They turned their backs on me and the male slammed the gate. That was the worst possible move, so I decided to give the brain something to think about.

  "You're nothing but GOLEMS! You're THINGS! You ain't got no spirits!

  "LYING GOLEMS! Where is your master? You ain't got no minds! No mind and no spirit! You're golems! Starker slaves! Metal and wire monsters!

  "Lying metal monster GOLEMS!"

  I then turned to the eight people standing around. There was a concealed microphone in the gate stanchion my sensors showed was broadcasting toward the house, so I was glad when a woman asked me what a golem was.

  "It's a copy of a natural man. It's all metal and wires inside. It ain't real. Just a copy. A starker trick, no more.

  "They don't even act real! Look at them!

  "Walls? There has to be a starker in there – or worse! Tain't natural! No way! Lyin' golems! It's a bad sign!"

  I turned and went back toward Stormlee. I met the two robots coming back up I had passed earlier. They stepped in front of me and I felt the radio beams giving them commands. I was stopped where the road went along the side of the cliff and where there were rocks and boulders about eighty meters below. They were to throw me over, but didn't know my strength or what weapons I had.

  I lasered the one closest to me and kicked out. It went over the side as I spun and shoved at the second one. The people who had been listening at the gate were running toward us as I was able to get a second kick into the robot. It skidded and held onto a rock, but I lifted the arm loose and it fell. There was a flash and an explosion as it hit the rocks, where it lay in a heap near the other with little fires racing here and there along its limbs, which were torn loose by the explosion, exposing metal frameworks and some very advanced robotic technology.

  I scanned the things quickly and recorded everything with telescopics as the people came to look over the side. The male robot from the gate came racing after them.

  "See?!" I shouted. "Golems! Wire and metal!

  "See? I were right!

  "Ain't no golem no match for Liht! No sir! Ain't no ten golems no match for Liht!

  "You! Golem!" I pointed at the robot from the gate. "You go tell that starker he better get the hell away from Stormlee! You done got Liht MAD now, you lyin' THING! Ain't no twenty of you golems no match for one Liht! Not when he's mad! No sir!"

  The people were mumbling and arguing. The robot, had it any intelligence of its own, would've seen it was in an impossible situation and would've retreated, but that military brain would never retreat.

  The robot started to lift its arm to point at me as I fell and rolled toward it. A heat laser seared the rocks behind where I'd been standing.

  I rolled to the legs of the robot and jerked it off balance (Which a flesh and blood Killit could never have done) and it swayed as it tried to focus the finger laser on me. A woman came up behind it with a rock and banged it on the head, which didn't damage it, but which did distract it for a split second.

  I yanked the legs apart and rolled hard against the nearer one. This time it went down and everyone was battering it with rocks. One man had the sense to know that finger was dangerous and smashed it flat. We all heaved at once and threw it over the edge, watching as it came apart on the rocks below. The power pack threw a long arc into the water nearby as it grounded out.

  "Ain't no golem no match for no Killit!" I cried. "Ain't no ten golems no match for no one Killit!"

  It became almost a chant among the people, who kept staring over the cliff at the three robots' remains on the rocks below.

  I edged away as more people came to look and the woman who hit the robot with the rock was saying there was a starker magician at Overlook House and he had all those golems was why you got the creepies when they came near you.

  Let the Brain Think

  I went into Stormlee, where I melted as much as I could into the background. I wanted the brain to have to think this over awhile before it could act again, and possibly make it decide to retreat from a place where it could find itself under attack directly. It had no choice, if it stayed here, but to try to become a direct tyrant – and these people now knew the robots weren't invincible, by any standard. They had seen one Killit dump two of them, and they had participated in tearing one of them apart themselves. The brain would have to worry it had far underestimated these people, too. It wouldn't know I was a robot, wouldn't have had time to discover I had used a laser on the one. It would have to assume I was one single Killit who handled it all by myself.

  That would mean it had underestimated the physical strength of the people, as well as their intelligence and sophistication. It would be very much off-balance.

  I would have to try to keep it confused. Two can play at this "ring in the robot" game.

  I found my way back to the ship where I finished the following day's work and reported I was going to stay there in Stormlee. Partih and Clare were having a beer-like beverage together, and Clare said it would be no trouble finding a replacement. Lots of people wanted to get OUT of Stormlee – the trouble was in finding a crew to come TO Stormlee.

  "Heered aboot tha golems," Partih said. "I allus said there was more ta ya then we knowed. Good seaman, but dasn't think ya was quite right, if ya know what I mean. Jest a liddle too good. Knowed ya wasn't from no north country, neither. Yer accent's good, but 'tain't perfect, if ya know what I mean.

  "Figured ya was runnin' from somethin', but dasn't take it as my biznez.

  "Gonna miss ya. Good hand. Like I say, a bit too good.

  "A hardy breeze and a warm sea ta ya."

  "May seastorms come when you're on the desert," I replied. "I've sorta dedicated my life to gettin' rid of magic starkers, who're no more than troublemakers. They've got one here who's a roadshow on 'is own."

  "Done heered," Partih replied. "Take care. Thisun's most smart enough ta make a golem, if ya know what I mean.

  "Nuff said. It ain't none uh my bizznez, but would ya mind tellin' me why? – Tha starkers, I'm a'talkin' aboot."

  "Let's just say they done some things to my family, an' that I'm a vengeful man. What is is what is."

  Both Partih and Clare nodded at that.

  I went back into town with my seaman's pay and took lodging at the guild hall, but would spend most of my nights with the bar whores. That was what was as much as a custom here, and I wanted to appear as normal as possible in most ways.

  I spent all my time in Stormlee talking to variou
s people and gathering information. TR was keeping in touch with Maita and the fleet, but we weren't directly communicating between ourselves much to avoid being detected by the brain. TR sent a floater with lightbeam coms, but I wasn't very often in a position to use even that.

  I waited two days, then went back up to Overlook House to find a brand new robot at the gate. I decided the best thing to do was to keep the brain a little off balance if I could, and to do the unexpected.

  The woman who banged the first one with the rock was on the road and excitedly told others I was the Liht who had done "all that stuff with the golems" three days ago.

  I told her I saw there was another golem at the gate.

  "Don't bother nobody," she replied.

  "Yuh," I agreed sourly. "Ever stop to think maybe that starker had to kill off Noobish and her father to make the golems what look like 'em?"

  "Mebbe they's still in thar."

  "You gonna let the starker keep 'em prisoners?"

  She fidgeted, and the others around began mumbling. No one had considered what had to have happened. The brain was going to try to let things slide along until the people forgot about the golems, building an army in the meantime. I wasn't going to let that happen. It definitely had limited materials and resources in the house, so I could possibly use that to make it move. Robotics takes very specialized materials.

  I went up to the robot at the gate with a crowd of twelve or fourteen people following me, and said, "Golem! Tell the starker Liht is here and wants to see Noobish, and he better not send no golem what looks like 'er! When I says Noobish I means Noobish, not some damned lying golem!"

  The robot scanned me, so I fed normal readings that would come from a Killit to it.

  "No one may see the people here," the robot answered. "They have left orders that they do not wish to be disturbed.

  "You will go away."

  "Liar!" I shouted. "They're prisoners or they're dead, and we ain't letting you and your starker master git away with neither thing! I done showed you that there ain't no ten golems no match for Liht! Ain't no ten starkers no match neither! You tell Liht to go away from no public road agin'n that there starker better have another golem in there to take your job! You ain't gonna be in no condition to do nothin'!

  "When I tell you somethin', you'd better jump, golem! You wire and metal things break real easy-like! That starker in there will bleed real easy, too!

  "Now, you do what I told you or I'm gonna see how easy you break right now!"

  I traced the radio between the robot and the brain and was able to decode some of the transmissions by observing reactions to what I said and the codes sent to bring out those reactions. There was a two two three pulse, and the robot brought the finger laser up to point at me.

  "You shoot me!" I yelled. "Go ahead, lyin' golem! You might even kill me, but then everybody in Stormlee will come up here and tear that wall and house down brick by brick and you and your master right along with it! That whole place will end up in the water and you and your starker along with it, golem!

  "Go ahead! Use your lightning finger trick on me! I dare you, you lying THING! We'll see how fast you metal things sink!"

  There was a one two pulse and the robot lowered the finger.

  Two two three was attack and one two was stop. Good to know. The brain was broadcasting speech directly to built-in speakers and was broadcasting every movement at the same time. I didn't think it could handle many at once. That was a lot of circuitry on different wavelengths as well as a separate set of wavelengths for each robot.

  The brain wouldn't let them calculate too much on their own, so would limit itself. I think it had let the two who attacked me on the road work under general orders, which was why it was in the trouble it was in now.

  The brain did learn fast and did consider consequences.

  The robot simply went inside the gate and hung a lock on it. I yelled that no lock was going to keep us out and we'd know if Noobish and her father were dead or just prisoners in no time and that the "starker" was going to pay a high price no matter what.

  The robot ignored me.

  I turned to the people following me and said, "So this is how the citizens of Stormlee do for each other! Just let some lyin' trickery starker come in and make a couple'a golems and you crawl around in the mud and wring your hands!

  "Well, Liht does somethin' when it's his friends been done wrong! I knowed Noobish a bit. She were nice enow to me, and I ain't lettin' no starker get away with killin' her or worse! No sir! Not Liht!

  "You hear that, golem?! You better start runnin' right now! I'm gonna take you apart wire for wire and I'm gonna stick all them wires where your starker master's magic don't work!

  "Whataya think of that?! You THING!"

  I turned and went back into Stormlee, where I rented a small boat that would move well along the coast. I was sure the brain would have sensors out along the entire property and could spot me coming in easily enough, but the boat was for the benefit of the people. I wasn't going to be in it.

  I waited until dark, then rowed the boat out and around the cliff base until twenty five meters before the bend that led to Overlook House, then slid into the cold water, used water on my elementizer grid to form oxygen for buoyancy, and moved around below the surface. I was sure the brain could detect me above the water and, though there were no submarines here, I was pretty sure it would have sensors underwater, too. There would be a very limited area tight against the rock of the cliff base where it couldn't detect me. Radar wouldn't penetrate the water and sonar would be as useless against that solid rock. I wasn't radiating anything else that would give me away and was being most careful about sound.

  There were detectors under there that worked on sweep, but they detected body heat, which I neutralized. I was exactly the temperature of the rock I was clinging to. There is also an area of perhaps a meter's thickness right at the surface where the air won't carry sonar well and the waves interfere with radar. By moving horizontally in the wave lap I could avoid most types of sensors.

  I found enough slices and clefts to be able to go above the water at times until I was beneath the house. I moved to the far side of the property, scanning the cliff carefully. I would have no trouble climbing, but there wasn't anything to climb to above in most places. I was sure there would be some way from the house to the sea, so kept searching until I found the path even farther along than I had been.

  I now knew where NOT to go!

  I made my way slowly up the rock face to find there was a wall along the top of the cliff here, too. It was smooth and would offer no hand or toeholds. I was sure anything that reached the top of that wall would be easily detected – and as easily removed as a threat.

  I called my floater, gave it careful instructions, then waited until it appeared moving flatly up the cliff face. I had it lift me carefully, where I could see a large tree silhouetted against the sky, over the tree, and close to an overgrown garden of some plants with large variously colored blooms.

  I could detect the scanners in the area to avoid them. They came into a triangular area on either side of the tree that it was easy to go above. There was no protection from an airborne assault here, though I had no doubt whatever the brain would build something before it began its master plan. It wouldn't do anything to attract outside attention to the planet, but would prepare.

  That was fine with me. It couldn't expect detection for years yet.

  I gave the floater input all the information I had and what I planned, though even that would have to come as I learned. I had it then go to TR to report. I may run into serious trouble, so wanted help to be ready, and we didn't dare use any beams we had in place for communications this close to where there had to be sensors.

  I waited. A robot came around the house after half an hour or so, scanned the area, and went on.

  I went under the scanners in the area and to a doorway with a beam sensor. I used an inertia field to fool it as I went through
into a hallway. Such things are really very easy if you have the technology. If the brain was depending on these things this would probably be easier than most such undertakings. A false sense of security in the brain because of these devices would work very much in my own favor.

  I could detect the energy use mostly below and to my left, so the brain would be there. I had to find a way to get directly to it, then find a way to shut it off or something. None of it would be as easy as I would prefer to think, but it shouldn't be too difficult, either.

  See how soon we forget? See how stupid even such a magnificent machine as myself can be? I just SAID how dangerous a false sense of security could be!

  I found a long hallway with doors to either side with a lot of very heavy, very good quality furniture, but it was easy to see no one had been here in some time from dust and a general air of neglect. That meant Noobish, her father, and anyone else here were dead.

  I looked into the large kitchen to find there was no recent use of it, either. There was no food around. The brain copied them and then got rid of them – which means the copy of Tramth, Noobish's father, was around somewhere to be called out when needed for things like the phony Noobish coming to the gate to get rid of me. It would be a special-purpose robot, as was the Noobish one, so would be stored somewhere convenient until it was needed. I didn't believe it would be armed, but I wouldn't be lulled by that. This was one tricky machine, as I had already learned.

  I looked into each door and found another hall just before the front entrance. This one was used so wasn't very dusty.

  I opened several side doors to find the Noobish robot, what appeared to be a servant copy, and the Tramth one. I spent a bit of time, found the power lead, and disconnected it. Until the brain had use for one of them, there wasn't any reason to think it would know they were useless. I then found the leads to the antennae along the roof. These were the way the brain communicated with and directed all the outside robots.