Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition (2 page)

It's sometimes
strange the way many organics react to machine intelligences.
That's why it's best few know about Maita being a machine – except
the Zulians, but they're a special case in all cases. That's
another story, too.

We've found one
completely mechanical society, and only a few intelligent
independent machines. There's Theron, who now works with the
Zulians, Searcher, who's a planoforming research machine who
operates the station and ship, T6, or Ship, who deeded itself to
Rimalt, the Inktan, Maita, TR and me, and a few others.

Machines run
the empire, which is really only a huge trading guild. The idea of
an emperor is basically because a majority of the organics want a
leader, so Emperor Maita's a figurehead in most ways, but can be
very definitely the emperor when called upon.

In so large an
area of space, it isn't surprising to anyone they've never directly
seen the emperor. The propaganda is that the emperor hides his race
so all may think he's one of their own. It's only known he isn't
Immin (who are as good as extinct, anyway) or Freenz.

The Freenz are
insectoids. Their queen declared it's obvious Maita's no Freenz, or
it would be Empress Maita.

So there!

It's also known
that Maita isn't a Maitan, but was named after that ancient race in
respect. That's true, because Z named it after its inventors. Z
didn't know at the time Terrans were from a lost Maitan colony and
that he was of Maitan stock.

That's enough
background, except to say all of us in the crew are very close and
share a deep affection one for the others. We say the most
outrageous things about and to each other and play horrible tricks
on one another. Many people think we're about to come to physical
blows, but it's actually our deep affection. We know and love one
another enough to where we can do this.

Maita
programmed a sense of humor into me (Oh? You noticed?) and learned
it for itself, but we've discussed our other, deeper emotions such
as our love, and have no idea where it comes from.

T6 has a deep
love and affection for Rimalt – and it wasn't programmed with
anything at all in emotional response. It has its own sense of
humor, too. It's forced to accept that Rimalt will die, and very
soon now. All of us with very extended existences must accept that
others will die and we will miss them terribly.

It was harder
for Z than for any of the rest of us when those original members of
the group, such as Ape and Joe and Triss and many others died.
Rimalt's like they were, in that he refuses to take the medical
machine's offer of virtual immortality. Thing and Z take it because
of their love for one another and for Maita and, now, me. For
Thing, it's easy, as its vast mental capacity will never allow it
to become bored, but for Z, it isn't so easy. He feels he can never
have a family that's genetically his own, because he'd have to
watch them grow old and die. After three hundred years he still
retains inhibitions from his childhood on Earth, and doesn't know
he's the father of Synteeven, who's now on the guiding council of
Plamaita, the other Maitan colony.

Z stayed with
Clohress at his home on EC for six years, which is the general term
of their "marriage" on Plamaita. He doesn't know Clohress was
pregnant when she returned home and would be shocked to know about
it, but that's their way. It was a typical and perfectly normal
arrangement, as far as she was concerned.

He would be
even more shocked to know that his son and his son's mate had given
him a grandson and a granddaughter. He knows all of them, but
doesn't know his own part in it.

I mention all
of these things simply because I'm aware most of you have never
studied Maitan Empire history, except cursorily. You've studied the
history of your own race and of your own world with little interest
in other worlds or empires.

Most of the
books written by Z, Thing, and myself are in the records, and few
ever read them outside of University. To assume you know what I
write about without this background is ridiculous at best.

I suppose you
do know the basic facts about the empire, the Pweetoo wars that
ended that tyranny, the petitioning by the Kheth Federation of
Worlds to join the Maitan Empire at the time of the pirate wars –
which started the whole idea of a Maitan Empire beyond the old
Pweetoo Empire – and the pirate worlds, the discoveries of the
Zulians, the establishing of Feach and their hospital ship, The
Tabori R. DeSixtee (Named after yours truly!) that travels the
galaxy, Hospital and University and Library, the Acnians as
protectors running the empire's small battle fleet, the finding of
the Freenz, and the myriad other things of which Maita and crew
were a part. The destruction caused by the Immins and how they were
eventually quarantined on their own home planet over a period of
more than two hundred years is perhaps the best known part of
Maitan Empire history because of what the Immins were.

You possibly
know about the establishing of the beacons to make travel anywhere
in the galaxy safe and sure, and the time Maita and I were flung
outside of the galaxy by the TTH14 drive. Only Maita and TR are
using that drive now, because it's such a dangerous thing that only
an intelligent ship can hope to handle it – and few of us, even.
Decisions must be made in picoseconds, and non-independent minds
are push-pull, which means as much as a millisecond in delay before
a decision is reached, and that is far too long in TTH14!

T6 may one day
have it, but Theron and Searcher have flatly refused to consider
it, though Searcher's mass would probably make it impossible to
install.

I've written
about many of my detective agency cases, both the larger and
smaller ones, and have enjoyed a bit of success as a chronicler.
I've tried to use methods I found in books Z brought from Earth on
several occasions, but find many of them aren't practical. It's
rare for someone to show up at the last moment, such as in the Miss
Marple mysteries, and it's rarer still for the tough guy approach
to work, as in Mike Hammer and those. Sometimes simply thinking
through the case will work, like in Nero Wolfe or Hercule Poirot,
but it's usually a matter of moving around and finding clues and
pointers, the majority of which lead nowhere, like in CD Grimes or
Colombo.

I have yet to
work on a case where every little detail was important, such as in
Sherlock Holmes or Quincy. Life is much more likely to give you ten
tons of pegmatite and one opal than ten tons of opals and one small
lump of pegmatite – and the opal will be somewhere inside of the
load, not right on top or right on bottom, in most cases.

Maybe that
doesn't make sense to you, but it does to me.

I remember
(naturally! When did a machine ever forget anything – and no
remarks from TR? ) once when I started a story telling about my
reading one of the novels. I flung the book across the room before
I finished the first page, saying I knew who did it already, even
though I didn't know what was done except maybe it was a murder –
it was, after all, a murder mystery.

I later picked
up the book and began reading it to find the page I read was a
dream-sequence parody of a type of author. The story wasn't
bad.

I mention this
because I can be just as wrong as any detective anywhere. I have to
stop myself from jumping to conclusions from insufficient data.

The story was
one of the CD Grimes short stories and the point was exactly that.
Those old stories that began in that manner ("...she had legs up to
here and a body that wouldn't quit. When she spoke, her voice was
like little bells, and a warm electric ripple ran up my spine...")
were always the same. The woman who caused the reaction was the
murderer.

The difference
in that story was CD figured the same thing out in his stupid dream
sequence. ("...so there was no point in going on in the
investigation and getting shot up or worse. I'm not bulletproof,
and am enough of a coward to know I'd probably get hit – and not a
flesh wound somewhere that would let me jump from the hospital bed
to continue the chase. However, if she was going to use....")

I personally
prefer a bit of reality.

I've been shot
at with a lot worse than a projectile weapon, and have been hit.
I've provoked that act, deliberately, but I'm a machine with
built-in deflector shields and such, and am in little danger.

I like a
fantasy that isn't so completely improbable. I find that acting
like I'm a somewhat greedy and self- centered normal businessman of
whatever race I'm investigating will get me much better results
than a tough- guy act.

A crook will
trust a crook. He understands what's going on in his mind, but the
tough-guy type, while often a crook, is never trusted. The violence
freak isn't quite sane, and one doesn't allow dependence on someone
they know is unstable. I've found in only a couple of cases that a
person who is so unstable ever gets into a position of power.

Z would point
out people like Hitler and Khomeini, but those names mean nothing
to me, and Earth isn't such a great example anyhow. They seem
always to go to the extremes, even now, when they're finally being
allowed into the empire.

When I consider
all of what I've written to this point, I wonder how much I lie to
myself about things. Maybe I allow those novels of Z's to influence
my programming to more of an extent than I ever knew.

I chased one
Immin woman across a lot of planet, had a running battle with
lasers, and was as close as I've ever been to being killed by her!
(Oh yes! A machine can definitely die! Anything with independent
intelligence can die.) It was like a lot of those spy/action things
I read.

That's really
different though, because those things weren't part of the
detective business so much as they were part of the emperor's
crew's duties.

I consider
everything Z and Thing wrote, and find they've seen a hell of a lot
more action in some ways than most of those spy novels, and those
things are history, not fiction.

Let me just say
that a murder mystery.... Let me just say I started out to give
some background on things, and allowed my self-justification
tendency to get out of hand. TR is, of course, aware of every word,
and is getting quite a lot of amusement from it. TR likes to see me
get overly wrapped up in these ridiculous situations of my own
making.

Maita
programmed me with a random screw-up factor, as it calls it so I
could give it the reactions of a true organic mind. These things
can't happen in a critical or dangerous place, but they've taught
me embarrassment and more. I could, of course, simply erase the
ramblings of the past few minutes and no one would be the wiser,
but I'm not about to do so. It would be the thing TR expects, so
I'll think like an organic and say, "What the hell! I wrote it and
that's that!"

TR can enjoy
even this rationalization, saying at least any readers who
accidentally pick up the wrong book to try to read it will know
confusion is my strongest trait!

"It's like on
that planet, Vood," TR said. "When I told Heku your mind tends to
wander. Last time it never came back!"

You see what I
have to put up with.

Something Odd on
Flimt

There wasn't
much happening on Perfect 3, so I told TR to take us to EC. We
might as well visit with our friends while there was time, and I
was interested in Z's and Thing's gardens.

I'm waterproof,
of course, and am built to withstand the high pressures at the
depths where Thing's gardens grow, so I'm one of the few who can
view them directly. There's a holoview in Z's home of a section of
the gardens, but that's limited. The overall plan is vast and
brilliantly done. It's much like the difference in standing on Z's
terrace to view his orchid gardens as opposed to walking around the
mountain. The small percent seen from one point tells you little
about the overall picture.

Thing is
capable of completely abstract thought, where even as advanced a
machine as Maita or myself/TR simply can't handle all the random
variables. It uses a number of those theories in its gardens in
some very interesting ways.

It simply isn't
possible (Okay! I mean it figuratively! I don't believe in
impossible either!) to get an overall view of those gardens – yet
it accomplished that very clearly. It was successful in getting a
coherent view of random abstractions.

In addition,
it's beautiful.

We arrived, and
TR landed next to Maita, where it began to exchange information
about whatever projects they were working on. I visited with Maita
awhile, then went through the transmat to Z's. He'd left a note on
the board that he was on the mountain with some of the Tendd and a
couple of Joe's People working with the Cymbidiums and paphs.

I radioed to
find Thing's floater wasn't far out in the ocean, so went out and
down. Thing had another Mentan down there showing it around, and
they both hooked tentacles around me. I have a receptor for Thing's
empathic projections, so we were immediately in full communication
with the contact.

We spent a
couple of hours in the gardens, then I went back to Z's while Thing
took its friend to visit its own island a short distance south. Z
was still up on the mountain, so I went out to find him. I found
some of the Tendd and Joe's People dividing the plants to plant in
a large new area. They told me Z was farther along, so I went along
a path with a rough terraced rock ledge to one side. There were
Odontoglossums and Maxillarias on the lower parts, and Miltonias
upwards. It was a beautiful display, and Z was hanging from a rope
along a ways planting Zygopetallums and Masdevallias. We talked
awhile, and I went back to relax at his place.