Far-out Show (9781465735829) (24 page)

As she had planned it, everyone in the mob
was behind her so for a short time when she ran around to the far
side of her parked car they couldn’t see her hands. During that
short time she dropped the fanny pack by the car so it bounced and
ended up just under the vehicle out of obvious cursory view.

Then she sowed more confusion among her
cautious pursuers by reversing direction, putting on a fierce
expression, clenching her fists, and running back at the mob.

The majority were intimidated by that display
and slowed and moved apart – so she ran right through the middle of
the group growling and shouting out aggressive sounding
nonsense.

The mobs’ bravery and resolve returned once
she was past them and heading away down the lot. They took up the
chase again, a few learning from her example and shouting out
fierce noises to encourage everybody in their intent.

Two police cars with flashing lights entered
the lot at the far end and headed toward the action, hoping to
figure out what was happening here before they had to get involved.
Regimentator ran for them.

Krinkle walked calmly to and around
Regimentator’s car. After a glance around he picked up her fanny
pack, opened it took out her camera. He slipped out the memory card
and pocketed that along with the several others that were in
there.

Looking around he noticed a car with two men
in it who were probably able to see what he had done. He held up
the camera and used the zoom lens to get a closer look at them,
confirming his suspicion. He put the camera back in the fanny pack,
and that back on the ground where he found it, then casually headed
back to his own car.

Krinkle didn’t turn to watch that but was
confident he knew what would and did happen. He hadn’t gone far
before Gorilla drove his car up to Regimentator’s, Sparker got out
of the passenger seat, grabbed the fanny pack and took it back
inside with him, and they drove off.

Krinkle returned to the spot where he last
saw Nerber. He knelt and sorted through the debris of shredded
newspaper for recognizable pieces of the Nerber or Wilburps but
found none. He looked skywards, then sat on the ground staring up.
He wasn’t sure what he had been a small part of here but he could
fantasize. Somewhere up there were other worlds and other creatures
that might be a lot like humans.

Truer that he could imagine based on the part
of the story he knew.

On the home planet things played out in their
own way of course.

Ormelex City was colorful in a happy
cartoonish sort of way but totally barren of any vegetation. The
area beyond the city was also barren but those places were not
artificially colored so they looked as empty and desolate as they
actually were.

The A.D.U. company headquarters was an
imposing building covered in tiles of several shades of red and
orange with Amuse & Distract U spelled out in large black
letters on each side.

The directors’ office in the A.D.U. building
was a large, high-ceilinged space but plain with little adornment
since with no vegetation for inspiration all Ormelexian decor was
flat and simplistic.

Delmus, a male with red cheeks and dark feet,
and Ackack, a male with dark cheeks and red feet, lolled in
comfortable chairs under beams of light coming through ceiling
portals.

Large view-screens with no hardware apparent
occupied much of one long wall with a large control console and
desk facing the screens. These could show segments of the same
visual to produce one very large image or up to three dozen
different ones at once. Bits of several videos showing Ormelexians
in violent encounters with one another or with other things, living
and mechanical, were on different screen areas. These fights
involved a lot of head butting, often with various augmentations of
the head spikes, and flailing feet with strapped-on claws.

Delmus said laconically, “It's hard being in
charge - although of course it has its perks. All the audience
wants is violence but they soon get bored with each new variety we
search out for them.”

When Ackack slid his chair closer to the desk
the beam of light disappeared as the ceiling portal closed. “I'm
brimming with new energy but I can't claim to be brimming with new
ideas for what to offer nextmost. Fickle audiences don't deserve
us.”

Delmus also slid to the desk and his light
beam went off. “But without them we have nothing special to offer
to get the perks of being in charge so we have to keep them fixated
so they’ll be entertained and stay docile.”

Nerber, looking around before he meets the
dog, appeared on a segment screen, then was shifted to be the full
screen visual.

“Will this be the new
Can't miss it
?”
Ackack wondered.

“We had both better hope so,” Delmus said
with a mirthless laugh. “There's some funding on the side for
helping the governors explore the universe without seeming to put
any of us at risk but the real money is from the fickle audience's
‘amuse me’ fees.”

“It’d be so much simpler if we had a monopoly
on supplying the distractions but with the huge profits to be made,
both in cash and in influence and clout, the competition for the
few licenses the governors grant is fierce.
Bips fump
,
there’s not even much point in arranging lethal accidents for your
competitors when a new group will get the go-ahead to take over the
license before the removed one’s bodies fade to gray.”

“Of course if you hate the very scales off
their feet it’s still a bit satisfying to have some of the
competitors removed.”

“Of course. But that’s as much a personal as
a business decision. It’s risky though since the governors
understand the motivation but don’t approve of such actions. If the
removal is sloppy they may reassign your license which defeats the
whole point of paying an assassin. Sure you get that bit of
satisfaction, but in the process you can lose the best thing you
have going for you,” Ackack said with a sigh of
beechens
.

“I sneered to set the proper tone when the
program idea lackeys said only an intergalactic twist would keep an
audience glued to challenge shows much longer. As always they said
they only need a little more time to come up with the big new idea
for a show that’s something entirely different but basically the
same since that's what we know how to package and the audience know
how to consume. Then the governors told us what they wanted and it
all came together. Sending dorks off to do silly challenges on a
far away planet is my most brilliant ratings gimmick to date.”

“
Our
most brilliant ratings gimmick to
date. Unless it fails. Then of course I'll make sure you get all
the blame but we'll still both lose money and clout. It's risky
since nothing like it's ever been done before.”

“Challenge shows are new? They've been the
backbone of the whole Pacification By Distraction With
Entertainment industry for as long as I've cared about making
money.”

“
Off the planet
challenge shows are
new and very now. Secretly going along with the governors' plans to
explore the cosmos is also new. We stay on their good sides and
make the big money by trying to pacify the masses so they'll let
the governors get richer and do whatever they want. It’s
mimzy
plishers
that the only shows getting good ratings today are so
lethally violent that no sane citizens will go on them as
contestants. They bred other species as fighters but the audience
soon got bored with those - leaving the breeders with lots of
useless and hard-to-control fighting things. One of these days
that’s gonna come back to haunt those who can’t duck the
blame.”

“You're right. Right now the competition's
most popular show features literally brain-damaged Ormelexians
fighting to the death - but the number of those contestants is
limited and getting more so with each fight. So we risk our ratings
lead by testing a program to amuse the masses with a non-violent
‘See us put down the silly aliens’ contest. The moralists who got
attention by protesting the violence seem okay with humiliating
other kinds for laughs and the governors are subsidizing the show,
so we win. Unless it all flops. But even then we come out even
while the governors and the contestants lose big.”

Various violent action scenes reappeared on
several of the screen sections while the central area now showed
Nerber talking with Ipanema. Delmus said, “How long before the two
moralists on our whole planet who object to any supposed
intergalactic exploitation find a way to get attention for their
nonsense claims? Guys who want to be noticed even for the wrong
reasons always find dumb things to protest.”

“I’m not much concerned about that unless
there’s a big change in the panel of governors. The present ones
understand that it’s better if some things are never allowed to be
talk-talked about in the open even if they maintain the absurd
claim that anyone should be free to talk-talk out his or her
thoughts. Censors they are and phony’s they are on this point – but
don’t quote me on that. The governors know subtle ways to keep
small groups from being heard – and have the means to use the
unsubtle ways if those seem called for. Even talking about
interactions between different kinds would open the governors
program to search the universe for vulnerable planets to widespread
scrutiny. Consequently that’s a no-no so it won’t be allowed to
happen. They’ll decide that a few individuals who disappear and
aren’t heard from again is an acceptable price.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“The technicians are working on the best
translation of the stuff from the far planet. The producers sent us
their version but we're juicing it up for maximum impact. The odd
pattern of not having six letters in all names for inhabitants and
eight letters for their zerpies caused a lot of confusion.”

“I saw the memo about that.”

“Recognizing their naming dumbness makes it
clear that we've misunderstood a lot of the signals from there that
we've intercepted over time so our guys have warped ideas about
what the creatures there are like. We'll have to see if that
affects the new show's ratings. Fortunately what we've broadcast
before this we always labeled as ‘edited, altered, and amplified’.
So we can continue to alter and amplify and just plain fabricate
any stuff that seems to amuse the audience and might extend their
interest and their number.”

“Meanwhile it's smart to plan ahead,” Delmus
said. “I have the research guy searching the science reports for
hints about other planets we might reach for the next-most
challenge season.”

“Assuming
Whizybeam
holds together and
it is possible for us to send and get back bodies and signals in
usably fast time.”

“An exciting part of the whole
Far-Out
Show
experiment that we’re hardly even talking about. Is
two-way traffic with really far places through a snaggiewarp
possible?”

“It seems that the inhabitants of the far off
planet know enough about snaggiewarps to have a name for them but
so far our zerpies find no hints in their records that they have
any practical knowledge about them. They call them
wormholes
, whatever that might mean to them. Superior as we
are we still have basic questions about them too. Do we yet for
truly sure understand the risks and the quirks? Have we devised
technology to let us send and get back messages and even travelers?
And if not, who will we blame because we can’t do that?”

“So far we’re getting the signals quick-quick
but we won’t know until they try it if the
Whizybeam
can get
back by that route. If it can’t the other route will take a
long-long time so those on the ship will be long-long forgotten by
the time they get here. That also means they’ll have been dead for
so long those who come after us probably won’t even realize what
the debris had been at one time,” Delmus said with a shrug.

“On the other hand if they make the trip in
both directions more or less intact that’ll make the whole group on
board heroes of a sort but it’ll be up to the governors to decide
if they can be acclaimed. This Nerber is definitely the first to
set foot on another planet but getting there was a big challenge
too. And a bigger risk than the contestants and the crew are
supposed to be fully aware of.”

A shrill
beep
sounded just before the
A.D.U. logo appeared in a section of the view-screen, replacing the
close-up view of a impending decapitation in a program running in
that spot.

“I tell them to use that
ninxy
annoying sound signal because I can’t ignore it but I hate it every
time it jostles my mind. That means the latest material’s ready for
us to decide about,” Delmus said. “I told the techs to let me know
as soon as it was ready for our first look. I’m thinking that what
we’ve been getting is too worked over and we need to demand the
Bang-Boom
guys send us no more than lightly edited scenes. I
find it suspicious that they’re stretching it so thin. They should
be accumulating continuous records from the contestants’ zerpies.
This raises questions about who’s amassing the library of
potentially usable material to be milked for episodes for the
longer time, them or us. Of course the answer’s going to be us, no
matter how they try to play games about it. This is why we went to
the trouble and expense to make sure we know more than they think
or would like us to know about what’s happening on
Whizybeam
. We got some raw feed for comparison so the techs
have put together several versions for us to decide about how we
can get the most use out of it.”

At a nod from Ackack that he was ready,
Delmus started the presentations on the screen.