On the Dome: Flight of the Maita, #23

By C. D. Moulton

The crew decide to go exploring while Tab and Kit are getting settled in the detective business. The Krofpth are discovered. TAR-1 is met, and other adventures.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C. D. Moulton
• Release date: Jul 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9781393897262

Book preview

Prologue

Maita, spaceship, intelligent being, and emperor of the Maitan Empire (through no desire of its own), watched on its sensors as Tab/TR and Kit/T6, two robot detectives designed and built by Maita and their ships, one of which was built by Maita, went into orbit and soon flashed into TTH drive.

Kit was new and was built as partner and part of T6, the ship Maita didn't build, but a ship who developed independent intelligence through the random replacement of parts with components designed for another purpose. TRD-60 was designed to be intelligent and independent, as was Tab. This trip was to be to teach the robots to work together.

Maita was often referred to as a mother hen type worrier by Z, the Terran member of the crew, who was abducted from Earth three hundred MGS (Maitan Galactic Standard) years ago and who had been one of the two permanent organic members of Maita's crew ever since. The other organic member was Thing, the Mentan empath. Thing was a squarish, rubbery being with tentacles and eyes on stalks. It was one of the most intelligent beings ever discovered and the empire covered almost the entire galaxy in size, though much was still unexplored.

The two organics were on Maita right now, having come to say good fortunes to Tab and Kit and their ships. The organics and machines honestly cared for one another and worked well together. They played word games among themselves that were based mostly on insult and one-upmanship. People often thought they were about to come to blows if they weren't familiar with the game. Z and Thing also played physical jokes on one another as well as on the machines, but the machines had to take care if they joined in those because they were virtually indestructible while the organics were comparatively quite fragile. The organic members of The Emperor's Crew could be rebuilt almost entirely in the med machines, but the brain was not rebuildable. The robots could be totally rebuilt, but the experience of the individual was what made him an individual and those parts of the mind couldn't be replaced, making death as true a description of what destroying the brain was to a robot as to an organic.

Maita had speakers over the entire ship as well as on floaters the crew often used, Thing more than the others, as its tentacles weren't all that great for moving about on smooth surfaces.

The ships and robots were linked when in close proximity to one another through a type of very finely tuned gravitic/ radio transception that few others could intercept. (The ships would invent a new tuning concept on gravitics during their adventures that would make a system that it was as close to impossible as those things can be to intercept.)

Thing, being an empath who breathed through filter membranes couldn't speak directly so Maita designed circuits into its floaters, TR, T6 and even Tab and Kit as well as in itself to translate for Thing. As Thing used the same speakers as the rest of the ships a system was worked out three hundred years ago to differentiate between Maita and Thing. Neither used normal breaks in inflection or pauses to indicate paragraphing or thought separation so whatever either said was in one long paragraph. This was of necessity at first but, though it no longer was, they still used the system from pure habit.

Thing had a melodic middle C tuning fork sound ([ – ]) before and after what it said, while Maita used a bell tone (*). Maita was designing a system in the galactic fastcom system that wouldn’t carry those tones for any other station so the forms would soon be known throughout the empire and no one could realistically hope to impersonate either of them. The system would be carried on a fractal wave base that Thing was designing.

It had been quite some time since the group had gone exploring and things were running themselves very well, thank you. Maita was more a figurehead anymore, as machines ran the empire, which was one big trading guild for all practical purposes. Only the crew and the Zulians (That's another story) knew the emperor was a machine. Some cultures wouldn't like to know a machine was why the system worked.

Z and Thing were kept in excellent physical condition by Maita's medical machines so there was no reason they should ever die. There was no danger of their becoming bored, the great curse of long life because they figured that, should they explore one new planet every day in this galaxy, they wouldn't get to all of them in millions of years. There was always something new. They had one other great advantage: There were sockets in Z's earlobes in which he could wear what appeared to be fine quality diamonds, but which were, in reality, fully programmed data input chips. The sockets were wired directly to Z's brain so he had full use of everything on the diamonds. Maita could use the probe on anyone of any type, then edit language and customs for the immediate use of the crew, Z through the crystals and Thing and the others through direct broadcast. Knowledge, skills and abilities were also programmable onto the chips.

Another thing was that Z could be modified to a large extent in the medical boxes on TR, T6 and Maita to be indistinguishable from many beings. Coupled with the language and intimate knowledge of the society he could accomplish great things among those beings.

The medical boxes were used to implant the sockets for the crystals as well as for medical and physical modification reasons. There were occasionally other beings who traveled with Maita who were also implanted with the data sockets to facilitate their interaction with the crew.

They decided before coming to see their friends off that they would next explore on the galactic central sphere, which was only very slightly known. Maita needed to be doing something to take its thoughts from Kit and Tab so announced they could leave at any time.

[ I'm ready, Maita. Everything's much as I want it and will take care of itself. ]

Thing had planted vast gardens under the ocean on Empire Center. It was from a high pressure planet so enjoyed working under two to three kilometers of water. The augmented membranes made breathing almost as easy in liquid as in gases.

*It's up to you, Z. How soon can you be ready to go?*

I have some of Joe's People to take care of things, so I'm ready, Z replied. Let's get this play on the stage!

Z had an island on EC where he brought plants from hundreds of planets, most of them in forms that were like the orchids of Earth, which he had the galaxy's finest collection of – off of Earth itself, of course – well, he had a lot of things that were now extinct on Earth so he had a more complete collection of species as well as a huge inventory of hybrids he'd crossed himself. He also raised types of camellias, bromeliads, and allied types of plants. He’d found many that seemed identical to familiar plants from Earth in appearances, such as what seemed to him to be amaranthus, but were actually very different genetically. The amaranth looked, smelled, and even tasted exactly like the amaranth of Earth. The crew used it – or its identical structure made with the atomic architect aboard the ships (Minus toxins for whichever being was to eat it) – in many recipes. They had never found a plant or animal native to one world that would cross with even the closest form from another world (except in cases where the lifeforms were earlier transplanted in bioforming experiments where a basic gene construction matched) and probably never would.

There's no reason to stay here! Z agreed.

*Then we're off!*

We get accused of that all the time! Z said.

Both Maita and Thing had learned all of Z's idioms by now so didn't reply.

Chapter one

Maita made a stop at New Zule so the crew (including itself) could visit awhile with those delightful people and with Theron, the intelligent ship who ran the Zulians around the galaxy. There were a number of Parf, among the greatest artists in the empire, visiting to share their new techniques and skills. Some of the Woost, also great artists, landscape designers and architects were also congregated there, making this perhaps the greatest meeting of natural artists to ever take place anywhere in the galaxy.

The Zulians are an unclassifiable race with tubular whitish opalescent bodies, four hard bony plates on the bottom which they use to move along much like inchworms and four tentacles immediately below the head. They are the most loved and respected race in the entire galaxy and have a number of artists on a par with the Parf.

The Parf are four-legged and two-armed beings with vestigial wings and feathers, the males are quite colorful while the females are a tan-grey.

Theron said it had been transporting Parf and Zulians back and forth between the worlds as well as making its regular trips to University. It was a truly happy machine now.

The Woost were also birdlike in many ways, but the females were very colorful as well as the males. Theron was just beginning to go to the Woost worlds and was excited about that, too. The visit made Thing wonder how Searcher, another intelligent machine, was doing so they detoured a third of the way across the galaxy to wake the amazing planoforming complex that was Searcher to visit for awhile. They decided that, as they were visiting machines, they would visit the world of robots they had discovered (but agreed to keep silent about until the machines were ready to expand into the empire's galactic society).

Theron, Searcher and the Zulians (of course) knew about them.

They next went to Library to find what information they could about any lost civilizations in the area they planned to explore, though they were aware the odds of any of them surviving these many thousands of years were as much as nonexistent.

It was a happy time for the crew and for Maita. It was good to just float around being lazy and irresponsible for a few days every hundred years or so. It gave zest to life.

Z and Thing played a bit, but it was a close sort of loving teasing where the insults and jibes were forgotten. Those games were more fun when Tab, Kit and their ships were around anyhow or on EC where elaborate traps could be set up to augment the verbal abuse they heaped on one another.

Maita left the emergency call circuits open, cutting off everything else about the empire. It often said it could be blown to oblivion somewhere and that no one would even know it for a thousand years.

This was to be mostly an exploratory trip and a selfish one. This was for Maita, Z, and Thing. It was only incidentally for the Maitan Empire in the reports and recordings to be filed later. This was so the friends could be together like old times when the wonder of amazing new discoveries was still there. This was so they could be, according to Z, Good old Flash Gordon and Dr. Who and Buck Rogers and the Space Patrol all rolled into one! one more time. Maita had to admit there had been far too much of a sense of routine creeping into their explorations. It was true there were no more pirates unless they turned up on the galactic domes, no new concepts in politico-religious tyrannies. Even fighting mad robot brains or insane machines of other sorts had become more of a routine than a real adventure.

Well, maybe not so with a truly powerful insane machine. There had only been the one – two, if you could consider the Tlessarian berserker machine as being insane.

It would be nice if Tab and Kit could be along with TRD-60 and T6, but it was better they become a unit. Kit had much to learn and they were, after all, immediately connected through fastcom if anything came up.

If a machine could sigh Maita did so then. It was a sigh of relief and expectation, but not of too great an expectation. They'd learned a long time ago that great anticipation generally led to disappointment. The expectation here was the close friends could again directly interact and learn to know each other anew. The sigh was of a contentment only this situation could bring.

That was what it was really about – that and worrying about Kit and Tab. Just a little. The mother hen complex.

Finally they had stalled long enough. They headed out.

*I'll head toward the south dome first. We've explored little fractions of both the domes, but no more than one one thousandths percent.*

[ We're safe from intergalactic drift now so let's start on the very outermost stars and work inward from there. I want to determine at what depth into the dome we're most likely to find the things we're looking for. ]

We already know there's not much at more than halfway toward central plane, Z said. I'd say we'll still have to be inward a plazsi or two because there'll be too little radiation on the edge itself. Life needs a certain amount to diversify, I think.

[ Any stellar body has some internal radiation in its youth. The stars will individually produce enough, though I agree the diversity won't be there to as great a degree. ]

*The worlds will tend to be much older out there. They'll have condensed and cooled a good many years before those farther in, though we were just at Library, which is proof enough there's been plenty of time for the civilizations to rise to a fantastic point, then to decay into oblivion and obscurity. I was planning to start at the exact polar point and work inward in a spiral if that's all right?*

[ Yes. ]

Fine with me, Z replied. Maybe spiral away and slightly more inward than the natural curve of the dome. That would meet Thing's criterium at the same time.

They ate, cleaned up and rested. Maita was traveling in TTH14 only until they were into the galactic central sphere about two thirds of the way, then in TTH4 so they wouldn't be caught in IDmode drift and flung out from the galaxy. Z was in the pilot's chair with Thing rolled into a ball on his lap. They were sound asleep when Maita reached the polar point. Maita would've let them sleep except for the fact there was some kind of artifact there.

There shouldn't be an artifact at the exact polar point! That was taking statistics too far!

What in the Sam Hell is it? A neutron mass? Z asked. It's certainly shiny and smooth enough to be!

*I don't detect nearly that much mass. It's hollow. It's not broadcasting on any waves I can find and doesn't respond to light of any wavelength. It may be dead except for some stored power. The power isn't in use at the moment. It seems unlikely it's belligerent in any fashion, but I've sent a floater to see what happens. I'll visual it from up close.*

[ What size is it? How far are we standing off? I know you don't detect weapons or we'd be shielded. This is fascinating! It seems every time we come away from the old sections we find all kinds of odd new things! That’s definitely a manufactured body, Maita. It seems to be maintained, and very well. ]

*We're a hundred kilometers. It's six hundred nineteen meters in diameter. No weapons-type sensory input. I'll project what the floater finds on the main screen.*

The holovid screen lit to show a bright smooth sphere against the backdrop of black space. The nearest thing they could see beyond it was Andromeda.

The floater slowly moved closer, then began to circle, showing nothing but smooth metal.

Could it be some sort of force field instead of metal? Z asked.

*Mostly chrome-vanadium-steel with a small touch of psiltripium.*

[ Psiltripium? Whoa! Then whoever built it is very highly advanced scientifically! Tremendously if they could alloy psiltripium! ]

Look!

A bright blue light flashed on the sphere as the floater passed and a large portal irised open. A platform extended from the opening.

Whoa! Why couldn't we see that door before it opened? Z asked.

[ Psiltripium. It's so reflective you can't see seams. Maita? Do you think that's why they used it? It doesn't have structural value that I know about with that alloy. The technology behind that thing is also beyond us, I think. Be careful, but I don't think it's dangerous. I don't get anything on the empathy. There is no hostility or suspicion whatever. ]

*It's so highly reflective I imagine it's used mainly for its insulation properties. It would keep a temperature level very steady with little energy expenditure. Psiltripium will insulate in both directions from most wavelengths so it's very good. As Thing says, fascinating!*

The floater sat on the platform, the platform retracted, the door irised shut, the screen went black.

What happened? Z exclaimed.

[ Maita didn't consider one of the fine points about psiltripium. It reflects radio waves, too! It's a very good insulant! ]

The screen lit up again.

*But it augments gravitics. We can use them here. The thing will act as a natural amplifier.*

The floater was in a large chamber that could hangar a small spaceship. There was light, the monitors detected the temperature to be about sixty absolute. There was a whisper that Maita worked on for more than an hour, then a flat mechanical voice appeared, along with a display on the screen.

Digital one ~ digital zero 0. ~ / ~0 / ~~ / ~00 / ~0~ / ~~0 / ~~~.

Acknowledge. Yes ~ / No 0.

Maita sent ~ We have a basis to establish language. It will be a purely computer language, though. I may be able to refine it.~

They waited again, then the voice said, "This unit understands and will adjust temperature as directed as per directions from servo floater.

Oxygen, nitrogen, neon, carbon dioxide, hydrogen hydroxide vapor atmosphere being provided as per directions from floater. Light range as per directions from floater. Organics may come aboard four time units. Welcome to Beacon Point Two.

I assume Beacon Point One is the north polar beacon? Z said.

Maita asked the computer, who replied that such was indeed the case.

There are other navigational beacons emplaced at eight points, it explained. The ninth point, which is galactic center, contains a gravitic force bubble so it was impractical to place a locator beacon there. As triangulation may be determined at any point within the galactic mass it is redundant to place one there. Your organics may now come aboard. Beacon Point Two welcomes visitors. This station would prefer to offer your organics sustenance, but it has been many thousands of gorbeks since any was here. The last several visitors took such supplies as were available and left nothing in their place.

*We have ample food and will replenish your storage if you wish.*

It would suit the programming of this unit to have supplies in cases of emergency, the voice answered.

[ You broadcast navigational beacons? Do you have many other purposes? You have ample food and supplies to what purpose? ]

At one time we served many functions, it answered. "They were turned off by Sarvengct, very sadly. This unit was placed on standby. Sarvengct said the empire was dead, but another may evolve to take its place. There is a place prepared that holds records of all of the empire's mistakes if a new force has