Far-out Show (9781465735829) (48 page)

“We can transport Nerber up any time we want.
That was the deal,” Lacrat said. “At the end of the contest we
retrieve every contestant and zerpy. They all have signal implants
to let us do that even if they’ve been captured or are dead and
even stored by the inhabitants. Those implants aren't likely to be
recognized as such on a casual inspection by the inhabitants.”

“He was told that but he doesn't seem
confident it'll happen,” Hasley observed. “Maybe we overdid the
‘scare him into believing that he's stranded due to technical
problems’ bit but this is our first time, so we can't be blamed if
we didn't get it right.”

“He's probably not for really true happy
knowing that he can be smotcheroodled without warning or recourse
from afar by the self-destruct device he knows is inside him,”
Feedle conceded. “I’m told that we've altered the system so that
only we can send that signal from here and would only do so under
the direst circumstances but if we tell him that he may relax
enough to not be as interesting to watch. It reassures me to know
we have that real bottom-most lineage way to deal with anyone who
gives us too much trouble. Recently I’ve been struggling not to use
those units to remove several of them.”

“Nerber has declared the contest over for him
though. He has no way to know that ends the whole gimmick,” Lacrat
noted.

“Are you hinting that we should transport him
up right now?” Hasley asked.

“Soon at least,” Lacrat said. “In my opinion
it would hurt our chances for shows like this in the future to have
him go to pieces or die of anything except a true accident not
related to our faulty equipment or due to hostile action by
inhabitants.”

Feedle said, “You're probably right.
Similarly it’d be interesting to take one or a few of the
inhabitants back with us but since we don't know if their kind
would be permanently damage by the transport system – or damage it
passing through it - it's not worth risking. Sooner or later word
of such a mishap would be sure to get around.”

Feedle reacted with distress and signaled the
others to go silent. She turned off the screen image and said in a
whisper, “I accidentally left the channel open so the crew might
have heard us just then. We might have sounded like we think
everyone but us is disposable. I'll reopen the channels and we'll
talk-talk about how essential each crew member is to getting us all
home safe.”

Lacrat whispered back, “Which is literally
true. We can't get home without their expertise.”

Feedle nodded and brought up an image of
Nerber on the screen. This time it was Wilburps's view of Nerber
speaking to the Adam Parker through the porch window.

“This is new in. What's he saying?” Hasley
asked.

Adam said to Nerber from inside the living
room, “An interesting question. Who could give sanctuary to a
space-type alien and deliver it to the scientists to keep it from
being senselessly slaughtered by yahoos?”

Hasley freeze-framed the image saying, “Yes,
definitely we need to transport him back soon if that's what he's
planning.”

“We'll give the crew the ‘Everyone's
important’ talk-talk after we've checked on Nerber’s latest
movements and for any messages from home,” Feedle suggested.

* * *

Biccup was at the control room main console
keeping an eye on things while Icetop and Yelpam worked at a side
console looking over the schematics of the ship hoping to find a
way to route the necessary commands to where they needed to go
without using sequences that would force them through limiting
sectors.

Biccup leaned forward, intent on some
readings. He keyed in commands and watched the feedback scroll down
the monitor screen. He called, “Did you two just change something
or make some input?”

“No, we’ve only been looking and tracing for
the last while. You don’t get to blame us for whatever is
happening,” Yelpam said but in a friendly, joshing way.

“Is something you don’t understand
happening?” Icetop asked and walked over to look over Biccup’s
shoulder.

“There was a
twigril
. Like a signal
came to the transport system but wasn’t recognized so it wasn’t
given a full response. It was probably nothing,” Biccup said. “It
only noticed it because I happened to be looking at the dial when
it twitched.” He pointed out the dial in question to Icetop.

Drawn by Icetop’s apparent interest,
conspicuous to him since he worked around him regularly and knew
when Biccup was feigning lack of interest, Yelpam came over to
stand behind him to see the console.

At that Icetop hurried back to the side
console – trying not to let Biccup see his enthusiasm - where he
began to work excitedly keying in commands and watching the results
with open interest.

“Any system other than the transport having
twigril
squirms?” Yelpam asked to distract Biccup.

Yelpam leaned forward to see the console
better when Biccup said, “Since you asked, it’s happened to several
systems. All in only the last minute or two. Odd.”

“Not effective signals so they’re probably
strays sparks coming off something we’ve rerouted poorly. Me and
Icetop will check to be sure there’s nothing serious involved,”
Yelpam said.

“Do you think I should call Eroder back from
his bask to take a look for himself?” Biccup asked.

“That’s your decision. I’d just make a note
in the log and move on, but you may have a different feeling,”
Yelpam said.

“It’s probably not worth disturbing his bask
about,” Biccup said to himself as Yelpam moved over to join
Icetop.

Once at the side console where he saw that
Icetop had found a sender signature for the
twigril
Biccup
had noted, Yelpam pointed out the several other places Biccup had
then seen similar twitches. Working in silence Icetop scanned the
recent record and found the same sender signature for those
events.

The two exchanged nods. Yes, they seemed to
have identified something important. Pointing to things on the
monitors they silently agreed on a division of the task, then
Yelpam went to the other side console and began to run some
tests.

Several minutes later Icetop and Yelpam went
out into the hall, making sure that Biccup showed no special
interest in them and that the door closed behind them.

In the hall they spoke in whispers. “The
sender zerpy signature is a handy search tool in the records. There
have been several contacts today, each apparently a remote attempt
to check the status of some ship systems. Some of those evoked
downloads of status reports,” Icetop said. “I can’t be certain with
only this much to go on but there may have been some tests of
whether the remote signaler could override and take control of the
systems but so far they haven’t actually tried to do that.”

“That’s what I make of the other recent
unknowns too. They were probes of the signals. Tests to see if
someone off-ship can find out the current state of a system and
affect it if he wanted to,” Yelpam said.

“Nerber?”

“I can’t say, but as far as I can trace the
signals they’ve only come in since he reached the surface. A search
for the sender signature finds that the first one came in almost
the minute he was down there. There have been several, most
apparently no one noticed until we went looking with the sender
signature as a way to spot them. No sign they’re done or were
intended to do any damage.”

“The traces I saw when I checked the
transport system records make me think he wants to know if he can
transport himself back up here when he feels he’s in really grave
danger even if nobody up here knows or cares about that,” Icetop
said.

“He did strike me as a prudent guy putting on
a show of being naïve for those wanting to believe that.”

“From what I could find he’s only probed us a
few times so his zerpy or whatever it is can’t be the source of
most of the strange signals we can’t identify a source for.”

“He’s been testing more frequently,
apparently as he feels more threatened,” Yelpam noted.

“Which I’d expect from any prudent guy who
knows what is happening among the inhabitants and has hardware he
took down there with him in the hope it’d get him back here to
safety.”

“Should we tell anybody about this?”

“About what? A couple of signals we can’t
identify for certain that haven’t done any harm and don’t seem like
they could? I’m not planning on mentioning it to anybody but
you.”

“Good. I’m glad we agree about that. I hate
to see Nerber get hurt because that would make certain others a
little bit wealthier and therefore a little bit happier. He
deserves better than that,” Yelpam said.

“We all do.”

Svenly and Venrik looked up when the three
producers entered the program edit room. There was no clue in the
techs’ expressions whether they had overheard anything that
disturbed them about the producers’ thoughts regarding the crew
members.

Svenly reported, “This just in, the Peepees
seem about to drop all connection to A.D.U. because of the
confusion that has
The Far-Out Show
's ratings reported to be
in free-fall.”

“That sounds like bad news for us but it
isn't. It means A.D.U. loses some clout but no longer has a big
chunk of its profits from the show skimmed off by the Peepees,”
Hasley said.

“But A.D.U. are plotting behind closed doors
to publicly blame
Bang-Boom Shows
for the show's failure,”
Venrik noted. “They're going to say we sent them almost no useable
material and what we did send was boring. They plan to deflect
attention from themselves by a whispering campaign to make us - or
more specifically, you three - so hated that you can't safely
return home to Ormelex.”

“They've intended to try to rip us off from
the start so this is no surprise,” Hasley said. “But when we arrive
with a ton of new material from the far away planet we won't be the
hated ones, those who spread false claims about us will be. Their
scheme will do them in while we get super rich.”

“That'll also reflect a bit onto the Peepees
but they're clever enough to manipulate public opinion so it'll
almost all stick to A.D.U.,” Feedle said with satisfaction.

“All of that depends on us getting home
alive. Meanwhile we need to go see what's happening,” Lacrat
said.

* * *

Minutes later Hasley, Feedle, and Lacrat were
back and pacing the program edit room behind Venrik and Svenly at
the console. On a screen section was a view of the back of the moon
with
Whizybeam
in stationary orbit as seen from farther
out.

Feedle said, “That should do it. The second
zerpy's stable in that high orbit so it can record it all as the
inhabitants’ orbiting device comes around and passes between us and
itself.

“It should make exciting viewing knowing that
it's important that their device not detect the ship or that zerpy
as it passes,” Lacrat agreed.

“With reports from Wilburps to guide us we
spotted their launch site and remotely probed their device's
detection systems,” Hasley said.

“We found how to reprogram the device's
primitive recording system but only did so after it was launched so
they wouldn't detect the changes in time to deal with them,” Feedle
said. “If we got the details right, their device won't notice or
record either our ship or our satellite. They won't find any alien
visitors.”

“Unless our engines or tracking systems fail
again and we can't get out of the way and their device crashes
right into us. They'd probably notice that even if they don't see
it happen here behind their moon,” Lacrat commented.

“Trust the techs, they'll get us back in full
working mode. Plus, Eroder says there's some kind of a camouflage
program. I didn't ask for a lot of details,” Hasley said.

“It's not over when the thing's gone back
around though,” Feedle reminded them. “From their reports to their
masses we know that their device will make multiple orbits, each on
a different path to see the whole moon in detail.”

“Eroder knows that,” Hasley assured her.
“He's plotted the moves we need to make each time their thing goes
around the edge to stay out of its view where it'll come by the
next time - if we still have to be here each next time.”

“But we left the audience at home on Ormelex
fearing the worst since their anticipation translates into our
success - and the big-big benefits that go with that,” Feedle
said.

“You've gotta love big-big benefits,” Lacrat
agreed.

“Here’s something new to distract you for the
moment,” Venrik said and brought up Wilburps’s view of Nerber and
Krinkle making their tentative first contact in the gazebo in the
Oakline Street Park. The audio was off.

“No sound?” Feedle asked.

“This is Wilburps’s continuous feed from a
short time ago. There’s sound but I’ve turned it off for a reason
I’ll let you appreciate for yourself,” Venrik said. “This is
certainly an interesting looking inhabitant and he has
surprises.”

“Show us the wrap-around views,” Hasley
ordered.

Svenly tapped some buttons and the views in
the other directions appeared in sequence on another screen
section. “He’s back near where he arrived. There’s a second
inhabitant sitting over there not far away and several at a
distance. I haven’t figured out what they’re doing but they seem to
be watching Nerber without getting close. It’s all been recorded so
you can decide how to interpret it for best effect.”

“This is what the signals are like now, just
a few minutes after that part,” Venrik said and touched a button.
The video went to snow, with scattered bits of color popping in and
out of view. The audio was loud, wailing country music.

The producers clapped their hands firmly over
their ears and grimaced in distaste and even pain.