Read Online Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition by CD Moulton - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: CD Moulton
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gas
giant. Maita and the crew were sure it couldn't survive the
pressure and left without a minute scan of the recordings of the
ship falling into the atmosphere because it had sustained some
damage and was concentrating on various other things as a direct
result. When the brain later showed up on a moon Maita reran and
studied the recordings to "see" a parachute deployed and a balloon
to buoy the ship up until help could be called and repairs
made.
Balloons. Very
much like that rocket silo I designed myself on Mactow!
I felt the
fastcom go on and didn't ask. I knew that would be an emergency
call to Maita. I listened in for the confirmation of the
records.
*It deployed a
parachute, then helium balloons, and launched the upper stages from
the base rocket carrying it. I agree that there's no way you can
search for it in there, so you will have to lay a grid of detector
satellites it can't get past. It will have to use a hell of a lot
of energy to get away from that type planet, so that shouldn't be
too hard. Maybe twelve or eighteen geostationaries. I see no sense
in us leaving this project. We couldn't do any good.*
"I agree," I
returned. "I'd like for you to give Thing and Z the problem if they
can spare a little time. They can come up with something if anyone
can.
"I think
there'll have to be a floatation device of some kind holding the
brain at a certain altitude. It'll circulate with the intense winds
in one of the level flows away from the equator."
*Thing says for
the very reason of those winds it will be close to one or the other
of the poles. Even the least breeze near the equator could send it
plunging into the higher lower level pressures. Thing knows about
that!*
"There are
eddies all over the place," TR agreed. "I can say pretty definitely
it's within six or seven hundred kilometers of a pole and no more
than five hundred kilometers deep or less than three hundred.
"That would
leave a volume of more than two and a quarter million cubic
kilometers to search – and our target can move at will. Visibility
for sensors is a maximum of less than three kilometers down there.
It would be hopeless.
"We have to
find some way to locate it."
*It will have
to come out to do anything.*
"When? In a
hundred years?" I asked. "In two hundred? We can put the satellites
up, but can we realistically be expected to sit here and wait?
"I don't want
to make a berserker satellite that'll destroy anything coming up
from there, simply because two wrongs don't make a right. That's
exactly the sort of thing we're fighting!
"What else can
we do?"
*Deploy the
watcher satellites, and then we'll figure out something. TR, open
channel T, and I'll send you the schematics for your servos to
follow to make the sensors. There are asteroids there, so you can
mine what you need. Leave floaters over the polar areas for now
until the satellites are all on grid.*
There was the
buzz of high-speed input, then we said our goodbyes.
TR put the
floaters out, then we went to two asteroids and used the
elementizers to extract the elements we would need. TR used its
servos in the machine shop to make the satellites, and we deployed
them with a master circuit to a fastcom unit that would
automatically call TR and Maita both if anything at all came away
from the planet.
TR and I went
back to Flimt to make our plans and to see how things were going
there. Gorg had gone around to all the major places on our agenda
to recruit the blind. He decided to contact only the blind
themselves at first. Those who had experienced the weird feelings
in their areas were then assigned second partners, and the others
were given an E-code to call if they ever experienced anything
such.
They found one
more robot at a port facility. It self- destructed when cornered.
They found two others at spaceport and the same thing happened.
I was relieved
they had no instructions to fight if the brain wasn't in
communication. I was again glad it had no fastcom.
We had
satellite
giant. Maita and the crew were sure it couldn't survive the
pressure and left without a minute scan of the recordings of the
ship falling into the atmosphere because it had sustained some
damage and was concentrating on various other things as a direct
result. When the brain later showed up on a moon Maita reran and
studied the recordings to "see" a parachute deployed and a balloon
to buoy the ship up until help could be called and repairs
made.
Balloons. Very
much like that rocket silo I designed myself on Mactow!
I felt the
fastcom go on and didn't ask. I knew that would be an emergency
call to Maita. I listened in for the confirmation of the
records.
*It deployed a
parachute, then helium balloons, and launched the upper stages from
the base rocket carrying it. I agree that there's no way you can
search for it in there, so you will have to lay a grid of detector
satellites it can't get past. It will have to use a hell of a lot
of energy to get away from that type planet, so that shouldn't be
too hard. Maybe twelve or eighteen geostationaries. I see no sense
in us leaving this project. We couldn't do any good.*
"I agree," I
returned. "I'd like for you to give Thing and Z the problem if they
can spare a little time. They can come up with something if anyone
can.
"I think
there'll have to be a floatation device of some kind holding the
brain at a certain altitude. It'll circulate with the intense winds
in one of the level flows away from the equator."
*Thing says for
the very reason of those winds it will be close to one or the other
of the poles. Even the least breeze near the equator could send it
plunging into the higher lower level pressures. Thing knows about
that!*
"There are
eddies all over the place," TR agreed. "I can say pretty definitely
it's within six or seven hundred kilometers of a pole and no more
than five hundred kilometers deep or less than three hundred.
"That would
leave a volume of more than two and a quarter million cubic
kilometers to search – and our target can move at will. Visibility
for sensors is a maximum of less than three kilometers down there.
It would be hopeless.
"We have to
find some way to locate it."
*It will have
to come out to do anything.*
"When? In a
hundred years?" I asked. "In two hundred? We can put the satellites
up, but can we realistically be expected to sit here and wait?
"I don't want
to make a berserker satellite that'll destroy anything coming up
from there, simply because two wrongs don't make a right. That's
exactly the sort of thing we're fighting!
"What else can
we do?"
*Deploy the
watcher satellites, and then we'll figure out something. TR, open
channel T, and I'll send you the schematics for your servos to
follow to make the sensors. There are asteroids there, so you can
mine what you need. Leave floaters over the polar areas for now
until the satellites are all on grid.*
There was the
buzz of high-speed input, then we said our goodbyes.
TR put the
floaters out, then we went to two asteroids and used the
elementizers to extract the elements we would need. TR used its
servos in the machine shop to make the satellites, and we deployed
them with a master circuit to a fastcom unit that would
automatically call TR and Maita both if anything at all came away
from the planet.
TR and I went
back to Flimt to make our plans and to see how things were going
there. Gorg had gone around to all the major places on our agenda
to recruit the blind. He decided to contact only the blind
themselves at first. Those who had experienced the weird feelings
in their areas were then assigned second partners, and the others
were given an E-code to call if they ever experienced anything
such.
They found one
more robot at a port facility. It self- destructed when cornered.
They found two others at spaceport and the same thing happened.
I was relieved
they had no instructions to fight if the brain wasn't in
communication. I was again glad it had no fastcom.
We had
satellite
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