Far-out Show (9781465735829) (45 page)

“Secret intercepts report. You’re not allowed
to know this,” Svenly whispered in an exaggerated conspiratorial
tone for comic effect.

“A.D.U. or the Peepees?” Hasley asked in a
normal tone but with a small smile to show he appreciated the
humor.

“Both,” Venrik said. “A bonanza of what no
one else is supposed to know that is much the same for the two
groups. There’s agitation and they don’t know how much to be
worried.”

“Agitation about what?” Feedle demanded in a
stern tone.

“The
geekocreepos
stalk the land of
Ormelex,” Svenly whispered as if afraid of initiating a nerd
attack.

As expected and as intended, Feedle took a
deep breath as she prepared to launch into a shouting protestation
but Hasley said, “If you can’t control yourself you should go to
your quarters and bask for a while, Feedle. They play you like a
synkrim
when you get all
quilcrup
like this.” To
Venrik and Svenly he said, “Give me the details.”

“Some complain that the setup for
The
Far-Out Show
promised that at least some of it would be
educational material but they don’t assess what’s being shown as
matching that description,” Svenly said.

“Plus they say there’s too much faking,”
Venrik added.

“With
too much
as the element they’re
complaining about,” Svenly said as clarification.

“Have either group contacted us directly and
mentioned these concerns?” Feedle asked.

“Not yet anyway,” Venrik answered. “Strictly
talk-talking these matters would be under A.D.U.’s direct control,
not ours.”

“So why bother us by even mentioning it?”
Feedle asked, glad to have an excuse to vent some resentment. “Why
call us all the way down here for this?”

Svenly said calmly, “Hasley, you asked us to
let you know if we picked up undercurrents in what we heard so
we’re doing so. Those at home recognize that the easy way to deal
with these objections is to ignore them but to get exciting new
episodes before the audience soon-most. What comes through is that
the objections of both groups to putting the contestants in harm’s
way are reduced now. Threats and violence beat educational interest
every time.”

Feedle gave one of her dismissive snorts and
stormed out.

Venrik looked after her more with interest
than alarm. Svenly smiled at Hasley and said, “You might also be
interested in this.” She brought up the image of Nerber and
Wilburps on the view-screen.

Nerber asked, “What are you hearing from the
producers? They must know as much as I do and surely are as
worried.”

“I am sending signals but with nothing but
static coming back I cannot tell if those are being received. We
are the first to be here and test the systems so I cannot tell if
this is due to conditions on this planet or if the producers are
not even trying to send return signals,” Wilburps said.

“Why would they deliberately keep me
unknowing?”

“You may prefer not to consider all the
possible reasons.”

“It is not happy to think it but yes, they
might abandon me here because the show was cancelled as too tame,”
Nerber said.

“Or too expensive. Ratings and costs are
always the bottom-most reasons for deciding about the doing of
things.”

“On a happier thought, maybe the producers
themselves crashed and burned up - literally.”

“I have no evidence to rule that out.”

Svenly blanked the screen but said nothing.
Hasley thought about it a moment longer, then said, “An interesting
bit. Even the zerpy suspects we’re messing with the signals to keep
him nervous although it can’t be any more certain sure than Nerber
can. I’ll try to be more subtle from now on. There’s nothing to do
about it now though. Even to mention it to Nerber might give away
that we’re hearing his every word. He may suspect that but it won’t
help to let him know he’s correct.”

Venrik glanced at a dial on the console and
said, “The continuous feed has stopped. We’ve lost contact with
Wilburps.”

“Hail him and I’ll find something to say as
an excuse for testing what’s going wrong,” Hasley instructed.

“He’s not responding. Not even an echo
signal. That should only happen if the zerpy’s manually turned off.
Why would Nerber do that?” Venrik said, mostly to himself.

“Were the contestants ever told how to turn
off their zerpies?” Svenly asked.

“No, that wasn’t part of their briefing. Stay
with it. Tell Eroder about this in case it’s some malfunction in
our receptors, not some change Nerber or the zerpy itself are
causing. Let me know if it doesn’t come back on soon,” Hasley said
and left.

* * *

Biccup was doing routine work in
Whizybeam
’s transport room when Icetop and Yelpam entered in
a hurry. Those two seemed startled to find someone here but not
enough to make Biccup suspicious.

“Is there problem?” Biccup asked.

“Eroder wants us to check on things. The
signals from Wilburps seem to have completely disappeared. Not even
an echo signal comes back,” Yelpam said.

“The zerpy would have to be manually turned
off for it not to send back an echo signal,” Biccup said as he
glanced at the transport system control podium.

Icetop saw that and asked, “Did something
unusual happen?”

“There was an odd twitch, nothing I could
identify. The system’s been on stand-by so I thought maybe our
changes to the controls left
cripsminz
in the works or
something,” Biccup said.

“Tell me about the glitch,” Icetop said. He
tried to not seem too interested although he was very much so.

“If the system had been fully on I’d say the
signal residues meant someone tried to activate it remotely but
none of the zerpies in orbit are programmed to do that,” Biccup
said.

“Could Wilburps do it?” Yelpam asked.

“You know more about that class of zerpy than
I do, you should be able to answer that. My guess would be no but
it’s only a guess. They’re not my specialty,” Biccup said.

“I wondered if you saw any signals that might
interpret as that,” Yelpam said. “From what I know about them that
class of zerpy shouldn’t be capable of sending that signal.”

“Knowing what we all do about what’s
happening on the planet though I’m concerned to learn that we’re
not keeping this system on stand-by to get Nerber and the zerpy
back up in a hurry on very short notice. Tell anyone you want to
but I don’t trust the producers to protect Nerber at the cost of
some dramatic and violent recorded stuff,” Icetop said. “I’m not as
sure as I’d like to be that any of us on the crew are that
important in their calculations.”

“I don’t talk-talk about it but I agree,”
Biccup said.

Without asking permission but without being
pushy, Icetop touched controls and put the transport system back on
stand-by. Biccup nodded his approval.

Then Biccup noted a signal on a monitor and
said, “Hold on, the continuous feed signal from Wilburps is back.
Maybe someone’ll be assigned to contact Nerber and find out what
happened.”

“Meanwhile we’ll review the analytical
signals to see if we can see any problems in Wilburps or our
sensors to explain what happened as simple mechanical glitches with
no damage done,” Yelpam said.

Biccup went back to his routine work as the
others left.

* * *

In the hall Icetop and Yelpam conferred in
quiet tones.

“What do you think?” Yelpam asked.

“I’m only guessing but I suspect that Nerber
has some high tech secrets in his pocket. Nothing I’ve seen makes
me think he wants to harm the ship and so far nothing I can’t
explain seems to indicate that’s happened so I’m willing to stand
back and see how things work out. I’m not promoting anything, but
I’m not in favor of trying to preempt things just because they’re
not authorized either. How about you?”

“I agree with you on all the points.”

* * *

The three producers entered the control room
to find Molten and Eroder staring at a monitor on the main
console.

“What is it now?” Feedle asked letting her
irritation show. “And why did you ask these two to come here and
not signal me?”

“Because you’ve been sending such strong
signals that you don’t want to be bothered that I’ve told everyone
on the crew to cut you out of the game,” Eroder answered without
taking his eyes off the monitor where Molten pointed at
something.

“What’s to worry about on the screen?” Lacrat
asked.

“Hey, wait a minute here, I’m not going to
tolerate...”

“Shut up, Feedle,” Hasley snapped. “You’ve
gone out of your way to send out those signals, so you don’t get to
protest that everyone was supposed to ignore them. If you’re not a
team member we can’t afford to include you in decisions.”

Icetop and Yelpam moved so they became
evident at the side console as Feedle really prepared to let
loose.

Eroder said calmly, “I’ve assigned Icetop and
Yelpam to restrain and then remove you to confinement so you won’t
distract us or do something more than your usually stupid nonsense
in one of your
adzercis
fits of temper and put us all in
danger.”

She looked at those two who stared back at
her without any show of emotion. She looked to Hasley and his
expression made it clear he would make no move to interfere with
Eroder’s orders. Lacrat had found something fascinating on the
floor to stare at so he wouldn’t have to meet her glance.

Eroder brought up a series of short views of
routine recorded views of halls in the ship on the main
view-screen. A distortion moved across the view in each case.

“Molten noticed these and brought them to our
attention,” Eroder said. “We don’t know what they are. Each time we
see one in a visual there’s only a blur. The other sensors detect
interference at those spots but can’t resolve what they are.”

“A spy on board?” Lacrat asked.

“Right now we can’t rule that out. It would
have to be a spy equipped to mess with our routine monitoring
systems but that wouldn’t actually be too hard since they’re among
the least up to date systems,” Eroder said.

“Why would a crew member hide like that?”
Molten asked.

“Unless whoever it is means to sabotage us,”
Lacrat said.

“Can’t rule that out but we’ve been checking
and everyone seems to be accounted for elsewhere when these mystery
movers showed up,” Eroder said.

“There’s only the one of them, right? Not a
whole group,” Lacrat asked, scaring himself more and more.

“I can’t say for sure until we find out
what’s going on but that seems unlikely. Several would be more
likely to be noticed than a single thing that’s staying almost
completely out of sight,” Eroder noted.

“I’m wondering if whatever this is could be
responsible for the signals Wilburps can’t avoid but can’t make
sense of. Maybe some of the other things going wrong onboard due to
distortion or interference too,” Molten said.

“Or maybe it’s just
cripsminz
in the
control systems from the mess of changes you guys put in there,”
Feedle sneered.

“Can’t rule that out right now either,”
Eroder agreed.

“We trust you guys to figure it out and deal
with it,” Hasley said, then shepherded Lacrat and Feedle out the
door.

* * *

In the hall Hasley asked in a whisper, “Any
thought on what this last business is about?”

“A tech trick to do to us what we’re doing to
Nerber,” Feedle said. “Get us all worked up for the fun of
watching.”

“I can’t prove it’s not just that, but it
seems like a lot of trouble to go to,” Lacrat said. “What we don’t
understand keeps piling up. Maybe they were right earlier and we
should be recording ourselves to have some more show material.”

Svenly and Venrik spoke quietly at the edit
room console. “She can be difficult but we don’t need that
distraction so we’ll play nice with her without encouraging her too
much. We can deal harshly with her when we’re safe,” Venrik
said.

“When I heard that Hasley threatened her for
disrupting things I knew it had gotten pretty dire,” Svenly said.
“He’s usually her strongest defender but the bottom line’s always
his guide. Her attitude threatens the payoff from the show so he’s
ready to stand up to her.”

“That gets the rest of us some relief but
doesn’t change the fact that we all know we’ll be tossed aside even
faster if Hasley decides we’re blocking his access to a bigger
profit,” Venrik noted.

“So we make nice with them all and do our
jobs. If we happen to forget to mention an item now and then and
that helps us but leaves them with a little less profit why of
course that’s simply an awkward but understandable mistake.”

The door opened, Feedle entered and snapped,
“Status report.”

“We sent on the latest batch of edited
material from Wilburps,” Venrik replied.

“A.D.U. are now demanding, not requesting,
more material soon. There's real concern that the frustrated masses
might riot,” Svenly said.

“I'll send another report to emphasize that
things aren't going as planned but we're adapting as best we can
without giving them details like the fact that we only have one
contestant,” Feedle said.

“You're amazing, Feedle. A master of the art
who can tell it all without telling a lot of it.”

“It's a carefully honed skill, Venrik. In
this case I'll use it in the service of shifting the A.D.U. bosses
from their focus on the ‘anticipated fight to the finish between
these contestants’ to a focus on ‘the alien inhabitants are going
to get them’ idea. When I get those behind the scenes guys
refocused they'll then figure out how to shift the audience
expectations by hyping the new idea. Let me talk to the
others.”