Free Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition by CD Moulton

as I finished the transmission. "It just
does what it was built to do!"
    "No, it has
taken the directions very consciously in another direction." I
corrected. "You know the Tlesson peoples. They never built and
programmed that machine for anything even vaguely like this. It was
misprogrammed only with the prime directive to protect itself first
and the people second. It wasn't designed or programmed to ever
attack organics. It was never programmed to be an offensive weapon.
It had rudimentary intelligence, but evolved and built itself into
what it is now very deliberately.
    "We'll wait
awhile for an answer, then try the other pole."
    An hour later
we were over the north pole. As soon as I got to the part about
being above it over the north pole it gave us an ultimatum. We
would withdraw and allow it to do as it pleased or it would destroy
us, and that was our last warning!
    "I'm glad to
hear that!" TR fired back at it. "I've had to listen to your silly
warnings on too many occasions already. I'm damned glad that's the
last one!"
    "You will pay
for every single time you have interfered with me!" the brain said
in its cold monotone.
    "Liar! Liar!"
TR replied. "You promised that the last warning before that one was
the last, and now you spout more!
    "Liar!"
    I think the
outburst, instead of infuriating the machine as TR wanted, only
puzzled it. There was a short pause.
    "I do not
understand your nonsense interjections," it declared coldly. "You
will remove those sensors above here and you will leave this
system.
    "You have been
warned!"
    "The satellites
will stay and you will be destroyed if you ever attempt to leave
the atmosphere of Nestar," I replied. "We know everything you plan.
You might note that we're here waiting for your arrival and we
allowed you to enter that atmosphere before contacting you, thus
placing you into a position that is not defendable.
    "You have no
allies, no troops, and are very short of energy. There are no
resources in that atmosphere OTHER than energy. You can't build
weapons or servos. You can't ever escape that world.
    "YOU have been
warned!"
    There was then
silence. I told TR to withdraw a few hundred kilometers. It was
mostly a feeling, but TR knows there's usually a strong basis for
my feelings as I know there are bases for its intuitions. This
machine had a long history of attacking when its safest and best
course was merely to wait.
    Suddenly a beam
shot from the atmosphere through the spot where we made the
transmissions. It was a combination disruptor field, heat, and
neutrons. Had we been there and unshielded we would be vapor
now.
    I didn't say
anything, and TR fired a heat laser down the beam to where it
estimated the brain would be. I doubt we were any more effective
than it was, but it would have to consider whether we had moved or
were shielded, and that we could be as cunning as it.
    I figured,
"What the hell?" and turned on the radio again, after saying to TR,
"I said the atmosphere had nothing to offer except energy!"
    "That was
inordinately stupid, even for you," I said over the radio. "Any
chance you might have had to negotiate your way out of your
position is now gone.
    "I will ask you
one simple question. You will have millennia to find an answer
unless you attempt to leave Nestar, so don't blurt out something
stupid in you egocentric insanity.
    "What's it all
for? What would be the purpose of you taking over this system? What
use is it to you? What good is it?
    "In short, why?
Is it only that you're insane and can't reason in a logical
manner?
    "Goodbye. Don't
try to leave that world. Ever. You have been warned. We can enforce
our warnings, you can't enforce yours."
    TR moved to the
side and waited, but there was no shot this time. We went back to
Flimt after checking all our satellites and replacing the one the
brain's servo shot down. TR and I agreed without discussing it that
we couldn't be sure it wasn't another servo we talked to on Nestar,
and the brain might be