A Strange Place: Flight of the Maita, #14

By C. D. Moulton

The crew are called to a world with three separate types of evolutions separated by raging seas. Before long the races will meet and it will mean disaster – unless the empire's do-gooders can prevent it

• Language: English
• Publisher: C. D. Moulton
• Release date: Jul 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201720315

Book preview

Flight of the Maita

Book 14

A Strange Place

© 1987 & 2011 by C. D. Moulton

all rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any other information retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holder/ publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

The crew are called to a world with three separate types of evolutions separated by raging seas. Before long the races will meet and it will mean disaster – unless the empire’s do-gooders can prevent it!

Critic comment

This is a very interesting study. It isn’t a new subject, but is as well done as I’ve seen. Moulton is able to take humankind’s foibles and build some very good stories around them.

– PA  Rtng: Way up there.

Contents

About the author

Prologue

Chapter one

Chapter two

Chapter three

Chapter four

Chapter five

Chapter six

Chapter seven

Chapter eight

Interim

Chapter nine

Chapter ten

Chapter eleven

Chapter twelve

Chapter thirteen

Epilogue

About the author

CD was born in Lakeland, Florida, in 1938. He is educated in genetics and botany. He has traveled over much of the world, particularly when he was in music as a rock rhythm guitarist with some well-known bands in the late sixties and early seventies. He has worked as a high steel worker and as a longshoreman, clerk, orchidist, bar owner, salvage yard manager and landscaper – among other things.

CD began writing fiction in 1984 and has more than 300 books published as of 3/15/16 in SciFi, murder, orchid culture and various other fields.

He now resides in Puerto Armuelles, David, and Gualaca, Chiriqui, Panamá, where he continues research into epiphytic plants and plays music with friends. He loves the culture of the indigenous people and counts a majority of his closer friends among that group. Several have adopted him as their father. He funds those he can afford through the universities where they have all excelled. The Indios are very intelligent people, they are simply too poor (in material things and money. Culturally, they are very wealthy) to pursue higher education.

CD loves Panamá and the people, despite horrendous experiences (Free e-book; Fading Paradise). He plans to spend the rest of his life in the paradise that is Panamá

- Estrelita Suarez V. de Jaramillo – 3/15/2016

CD is involved in research of natural cancer cure at this time. It has proven effective in all cases, so far. It is based on a plant that has been in use for thousands of years, is safe, available, and cheap. He has studied botany, and was cured of a serious lymphoma with use of the plant, Ambrosia peruviana.

Information about this cure is free on the FaceBook group, Ambrosia peruviana for cancer. CD asks only that all who try it please report on its effectiveness on that group.

Prologue

Z (Steve Zutec) walked down the path from the mountain to his home on Empire Center and, just before the marble terrace, took the detour that led to the water. The green sun was behind him and the yellow sun was rising, making gold and silver reflections run along the wave tips in a fairy pattern of images. The orchids were doing well and the camellias were beginning to bloom high on the mountain. The camellias were as much as a hundred years old or more and were now respectable trees. Their blooms made the top of the mountain a riot of reds and pinks and whites. The orchids and bromeliads filling the trees and covering the rocks made their own splashes in every color imaginable, the orchids each giving its distinctive unique scent to the air to mix tart sweetness and spice.

The gardens didn't stop with the ocean on this side of the large scenic island, but continued to a depth of more than three kilometers where Thing, Z's close friend and partner, spent much of its time.

Thing was a small creature from a very high pressure planet who was also an empath. It had four tentacles in lieu of arms and legs, eyes on stalks and an intelligence too high to measure. It found the pressure at greater depths to be most comfortable and, as it breathed through a sort of osmosis, could stay under the seas for days.

Z had seen a floater hovering above the water and knew that Maita, the spaceship, computer, intelligent individual, friend and, incidentally, (through a strange set of incidents) emperor of the Maitan Empire, had some new message for them.

It wasn't a particularly urgent or important message or the floater would've gone into the sea in search of Thing while another would have located Z on the mountain.

The special floater had a pickup that was sensitive to Thing's peculiar empathic ability as well as speakers built permanently into its devices. Maita used the floaters to tell the others what Thing was saying as well as to deliver its own speeches.

The differentiation between Thing's speech and Maita's was in the tone of the words and the tone before and after each of their speeches. Maita had a bell tone (*–*) while Thing had a sort of middle C tuning fork sound ([ – ]). Z tended to think of the tones much like quotation marks.

All who knew the two also knew Maita and Thing (because Maita was translating for Thing) tended to make their speeches without intonation and without breaks for different thoughts, so one had to listen to the words.

Z sat on a rock near the water's edge to wait for Thing to come up.

What's up, Maita? he asked the floater.

*We have a little job to do if we want. One of Louahna's things. We've been pretty much inactive for more than two years now. I thought we might try it ourselves instead of sending Tab and TR off on this one.*

Tab was the fourth member of the group who acted as regular crew to Maita on their little adventures. He was a robot who was designed to look like a Swaz, an amphibian being from a planet called Swaville. Tab had a specially designed ship that was, in reality, part of him. The ship, TRD-60 (affectionately known as TR), was an independent intelligence in itself.

Tab's full name was Tabori R. (for robot, though only the crew, Louahna's people and the Zulians knew that he was a mechanical being) DeSixtee. The ship was registered as TRD-60 and had its own distinct personality. Many people in the empire knew TR was intelligent and independent.  It was, of course, as intelligent as Tab when it wasn't part of him. Together, they made a super-intelligent unit (though Thing probably still had them beat). Z called it their built-in schizophrenia.

All the members of the crew, including Maita, had a strong affection for one another, though one would think they were about to come to blows much of the time. They played a one-upmanship game to relieve tensions and to keep their minds sharp. The object was to get the best insult in without allowing an answer from the subject. The game could go on for hours.

Z was a Terran who had come with his strange sense of humor. Maita had become interested because otherwise it would never know what was going on with Z. Thing had to develop a sense of the ridiculous in self-defense, though all of them now fully enjoyed the games.

Maita built Tab and TRD-60 personally with its own servos so built-in a sense of humor.

The Louahna mentioned by Maita was a member of a race the group met a few years ago. They were beings from the galaxy known as M-82, which is exploding. The people escaped that galaxy only to be caught in two dimensional planes at once by a malfunction of the ship's drive between the galaxies and now spent much of their time working with developing races in this one. They could use their now-natural dual-planal state to step to any point they chose in the galaxy so could easily cover the whole place.

They would steer the races to a sense of wonder. One of them had worked on Earth in the guises of Apollonius of Tyana and Merlin. Their travels made them come into contact with many races on many worlds and they often brought problems to the group that were outside of the ways they handled things themselves. Louahna seemed to always come up with the weirdest of the jobs.

Tab stepped from the transmat on the terrace at the house, which was a cave cut out of the solid granite of the mountain, and came down the path.

Hi, Z! he called. Our rubber ball still bouncing on the bottom?

I guess. Maita says Louahna has a little job for us. I know it'll break your heart to have us along, but we're sort of bored.

Tab always complained long and loud when he had an assignment from Louahna because they were generally so strange, but he really loved them.

Ha! Maybe you'll learn what I have to go through with her!

*We've already had the Theron thing and a few other things as weird. Searcher says hello, as does Theron.*

Searcher was a planoforming machine who had slowly evolved its own intelligence over the years and Theron was a spaceship built by a race who had perished many centuries ago of a sudden virulent plague. Theron was also an independently intelligent machine.

Is Theron with Searcher now? Tab asked.

*No, but they are in communication, as am I. Searcher is in an active period and wants to be caught up in everything that's happened since it turned itself off a few years ago. Theron is en route from University to New Zule at the moment.*

[ What's this? A welcoming committee? For me?! Oh! You really shouldn't have, no matter how much I so richly deserve it! ]

We didn't, Z retorted. Louahna has a little job for us and Maita wanted to ask if you wanted to go. We tried to tell it you weren't interested, but you know Maita.

[ Z should really stay here and mind his gardens until the camellias are through blooming, but I'll go. I should think they'd be through blooming in another century or two. Or ten. ]

Thing climbed Z's leg and wrapped its tentacles around his shoulders.

Hey! You're all wet!

[ Really? How thoughtless of me! ]

It went to the top of Z's head and bent over to look him in the eyes.

[ That better? Hooo! ]

Z grabbed the little animal and threw it to Tab, who threw it back.

Yich! What am I supposed to do with that? Tab asked. I don't have a racket or a net or anything!

*Knock it off! Thing, I mean!*

I'm trying! It's got me in a strangle hold! Z cried.

Thing wrapped a tentacle around Z's neck and squeezed slowly.

[ Say you're sorry! ]

Gurp! Lurg go you liddle mmmff!

[ That's good enough. ] It went to Z's shoulder. [ You mammals turn the strangest colors when your air supply is cut off! I really must do some extensive experiments and write up the research for Library! ]

Library was a planoformed planet that was just that – a huge library. It was established by a long-dead empire, had been kept in perfect condition by robots and servos and was now constantly being used and expanded upon by the Maitan Empire.

*If you will reserve that stuff until you're aboard we can get started. Maybe you should postpone it until next year sometime.*

You'd go nuts wondering when the next line was coming and you know it! TR pointed out through the speakers on the floater hovering over their heads.

They went to the transmat and were instantly in the mountain where Maita stayed unless they were going elsewhere. TR was there beside it.

TR sometimes spoke through Tab’s speakers and other times through various floater's speakers.

Do I get to come along?

*If you like. We don't know what kind of a project this will be yet. You've been completely overhauled and I've added a much-improved atomic architect that will save us a lot of time. You can make the crystals as fast as I can now.*

Yo! Neahna or Neeneeahna? (referring to the planets where Louahna was most likely to be found.)

*Neither. Fortney.*

[ Fortney? ]

Fortney? from Z. Shades of Wahnee!

Wahnee had been a Kheth, a reptilian woman, who acted as a diplomat for the old Kheth Federation, then for the Maitan Empire. She had often given them strange puzzles before she took the death rites a few years ago.

She had given them the original project that eventually led to their meeting Louahna and her race and once even sent them to a world that had disappeared (Book five: Now You See It – Now you Don't). That was a planet that actually had disappeared – because a magician decreed it would!

*We're to meet Louahna at Wahnee's offices there. Talk about deja vu!*

Uh-oh! Z said. Want to bet she's found some of Wahnee's old notes and we're going on one final trip for Wahnee, not Louahna?

[ A trip from both Wahnee and Louahna? This is going to be a lot more than merely interesting! We'll be lucky to survive three days! ]

Yeah! Tab cried. This is one I really can't wait to hear about!

That's only about eleven thousand plazsis (a little more than a light year per plazsi), TR said. I'll meet you there in two hours! I'm gone!

TRD-60 moved out the mouth of the cavern and rose swiftly into the atmosphere.

*If none of you have any reason to delay we can make a race of it. I've refined TTH fourteen a bit closer than TR, I think.*

Do it! Z cried.

[ It will be fun to be waiting for TR when it arrives! It's usually the other way around. That's what you get for making it with improvements you didn't even have yourself yet! ]

They rose above the atmosphere and flashed into the IDmode (InterDimensional mode) plane called TTH14. It was a very fast method to cross vast distances, but wasn't accurate enough to figure very closely so the major part of the trip was made in TTH14 and the remaining part in what was called TTH4.

The method worked by modality translation of the dimension structure into a dimensional plane lacking stress of one of structure's subdimensions such as length. It's obviously closer and easier to step across a point than it is to travel along a line.

The math was understood by Thing, Maita and TR/Tab, but few others had the capacity to work with planal absolute abstracts. Abstracts on this plane are facts on others and vice versa.

TTH14 was the fastest reltime (relative duration) they'd yet discovered and was being used only by Maita and TR because it was far too dangerous for general use due to the galactic drift problem. Any miscalculation and one found oneself outside of the galaxy entirely – and normal physical laws weren't exactly the same there as they were inside the omnipresent gravitational fields within the galaxy.

The way to picture it is that N space (what is normal in this dimensional plane) has a Milky Way galaxy that's streaming through space at a tremendous relative rate of speed, but the point of TTH14 isn't moving relative to anything.

If you enter TTH14 the galaxy moves at the high rate and may pass you altogether if you stay in the mode for more than a few minutes.

TTH4 was a larger point that was moving more slowly relative to N space so was easy to figure.

Modes such as TTH1, which were used until recently, were even slower relative to N space and were therefore safer by far. Each plane had its own distortions to other planes and shielding was different for each one.

One, (which was one of half of all planes) was a negative plane to the N plane and was composed of antimatter. Maita had developed a shield and they used the antimatter in several of their exploits, bringing it back to N space for various reasons.

Anything that exists in one plane has a direct opposite plane. The omniverse must add up to zero to work at all.

Maita calculated TTH20 would have a drift factor that would vaporize anything dropping into it even in null inertia. The relative difference wouldn't allow matter to exist at all. No shield seemed possible, but then TTH14 didn't seem possible, either.

Not all modes could be used safely. TTH2 and TTH3 had no stressed dimensions that would be of benefit. TTH5 had such highly compressed dimensions Louahna's race had been trapped in two of them at once.

TTH6 through TTH9 lacked dimensions that would allow life to exist because compounds didn't exist so the ships couldn't use it because they couldn't shield the effects. TTH10 through TTH13 had no electronic flow differentiation. They were pure dissipated energy, meaning the ship couldn't operate there. TTH14 was the highest planal yet attempted and no one was foolhardy enough to try higher planals. TTH14 was found by accident. (By TRD-60.)

Okay. So you don't care. I do.

They felt the strange mental twisting sensation as Maita dropped into TTH14.

Changing dimensional planes disrupted electron flow in the mind and caused the slightly unpleasant sensation.

How did you figure TTH fourteen closer? Z asked.

*It was a question of crossdrift and direction of velocity. I determined that the galaxy's overall momentum was (they felt the twist as Maita dropped back into TTH four for the rest of the journey) opposite the overall spin of the galaxy, expanding outward from the galactic centerpoint and is, at the same time, flowing from what's now galactic west southwest by west toward galactic east northeast by east. The expansion's at only about nine hundred thirty seven point four four two six plazsis per second while the crossflow that's standard to this part of the omniverse, or rather our universe, is closer to six thousand two hundred eight point seven seven five two plazsis per second so all I have to do is figure vector and....*

All right! Forget it! Z cried.

[ That's interesting, Maita! How did you figure the direction of force? I find the secondary subfunctional zeta crossmovement is opposed to the confluence currents. Wouldn't that subjugate the absorption of higher wave energy? ]

*Not entirely. Delta pi function sigma....*

You can do that silently! Z said. All I want to know is did we beat TR?

Hell no! came over the speakers. But you came pretty damned close! I got here about three minutes ago!

*Then we beat you! We left almost six and a quarter minutes after you!*

Hmm. My error factor was no more than two hundred thousandths of a percent. That's as close as I care to try now. The relative velocity coming out of fourteen into four could push you awfully close to a star.

[ The moder repulse factor would make it safe enough. It would stand you out far enough that damage would be minimal or nonexistent. ]

*For us ships, yes, but not for our organic passengers. We've shaved the time down to nineteen minutes fifty three seconds from over an hour in TTH four so that's pretty good. We can arrive a lot