Far-out Show (9781465735829) (36 page)

Uldene stared at the pile of dust by his
chair then looked up at Gopgop who was doing all he could to send
the non-verbal signal not to complain about that loss. Ritrup acted
as if he didn’t notice that but any alert person would doubt
that.

“How I got this isn’t important but be aware
that simply having seen it or even just hearing that an
unauthorized person has one puts you in line for punishment by the
governors if they find out,” Ritrup said.

“Understood,” Gopgop said.

“I’d prefer to let someone inspect and
analyze it so they could make copies and I could put this one back
but if you insist on a direct sale I’ll go with that.”

“We need what this can do now, not in a few
weeks or even days. We’re ready to buy it. Tell us your price.”

The mini-zerpy extended its virtual screen
and keyboard . Ritrup entered a figure, then held it for them to
see.

“You can’t be serious,” Uldene said, going
automatically into haggling with inferiors mode.

Gopgop leaned forward and said, “We’ll pay
it. Set it up for a money transfer and let’s get this done.”

Uldene’s expression showed he thought it was
a mistake to pay the first asking price but he didn’t object. He
thought,
I’ll make sure I get part of my share of the
overpayment back one way of the other so I won’t be the loser in
this
.

Ritrup keyed some code into the zerpy and
indicated that it was ready for Gopgop’s input. That was done and
soon a single
beep
sounded, the screen and keyboard
disappeared, and the device moved toward Ritrup’s waiting hand.

“The transfer went through so it’s yours,”
Ritrup said as he moved the hovering zerpy closer to Gopgop. “One
thing you should know though...”

“Uh oh,” Uldene muttered.

“I acquired this but I haven’t used it until
now,” Ritrup said. “There’s no reason to believe the rumor that the
governors had this class modified to leave a traceable message
every time they’re used – but also no proof that it’s not true.

“So we could be shouting out ‘pay attention,
I’m ignoring your ban on having this thing’ to some unseen, unknown
watcher just by turning it on?” Gopgop asked.

“That’s the rumor but it’s probably just a
scare tactic.”

“Coming from the governors it sounds pretty
scary. But thanks, we’ll make good use of this,” Uldene said and
waved Ritrup on his way.

Ritrup was relieved and happy to get out of
there.

“We should try it right here since it may
take some playing around with it to figure out how to make it do
all it can do. It’s annoying that they don’t give you good
instructions with these things.”

Uldene held out his hand and Gopgop gave him
the zerpy.

Gopgop said, “We should designate it but
since we can’t admit we have it we shouldn’t use a giveaway
eight-letter name.” He looked away as he focused on another item
that was protruding partway from his pants pocket.

As he touched a standardized control spot on
the zerpy Uldene said, “We can call it...”

The device fell apart in his palm and then
fizzed
a bit as it reduced itself to a pile of dust. He
stared in terror and disbelief, then almost as a reflex dumped the
dust on the floor and put his hand behind him when Gopgop started
to look up. Then he screamed and shook his hand and looked around
for a way to make this all not have happened.

The scream got Gopgop’s attention. He stared
around, expecting to see the zerpy hovering here somewhere. “What
happened? Did you get a shock from it?”

“It did the thing it does but to itself and
in my hand,” Uldene babbled. “Not my bad, I did it good. This is
right, what went wrong?”

Gopgop stared at his partner as he worked
through all that, the words, the gestures, and the new pile of dust
on the floor.

Finally Gopgop said, “Did Ritrup rip us
off?”

“Cling to that idea,” Uldene said. “It helps
to hold off the thought that we are now in big trouble with the
governors who know what we did and just let us know we didn’t get
away with anything. That off-limits means off-limits even for
special guys like us.”

“That hardly seems fair though.”

“Please don’t make things worse by saying
that to them.”

The agreed on meeting place was a different
nondescript small building on the edge of Ormelex City. The
unfurnished basic office inside hadn’t been used for a long time.
The only ones present were Delmus, Ackack, Gopgop, and Uldene. They
all stood and walked around since there were no chairs or other
furniture or fixtures they could sit on. A floor-to-ceiling barrier
at one side blended so well with the wall that it was almost
undetectable without a careful look around.

“Is all this really necessary?” Delmus asked,
looking around the place. “Why meet in a run-down place where none
of us, in fact from the looks of things literally no one,
works.”

Gopgop asked by way of a reply, “Would anyone
notice if we called you to our offices for a little chat, Delmus?
Oh yeah, lots of guys would, so there'd be lots of questions we
might prefer not to answer.”

“I get it now,” Delmus said. “This place
isn't likely to have snooping workers or hidden recording devices
or to be routinely used for secret meetings so the masses won't
find out that we met unless we tell them about it.”

“In fact this location was randomly chosen
from a list of seldom used spots by a low level worker who had no
idea why she was asked to do that,” Uldene explained.

“Couldn't we at least have chairs?” Delmus
complained.

“I'll contact my guys and have them deliver
some right away,” Uldene said, almost burning his clothes with the
sarcasm dripping from his words.

“Oh yeah, then I'll worry that there are
recording devices inside them or that the deliver-the-goods guys
are listening at the door,” Delmus said, finally understanding the
precautions.

“Let's get to it then. Why did you want to
meet secretly with us?” Ackack asked. “We heard Gopgop's address to
the masses.”

“We did what we could to slow down the
muttering and doubts,” Uldene said.

“Assure us that the show is from far away or
then let us help you cover up the lie to protect our interests
too,” Gopgop said.

“Do you have serious doubts about it?” Ackack
asked.

“We have a huge audience getting more
agitated by the hour,” Gopgop replied. “A rumor like this could be
an excuse for some to take the violence off the view-screens and
into the streets.”

Delmus placed one hand on top of his head and
the other flat against his midsection and attested, “By the
Twitchels
and the honored
Twees
I swear that it is
absolutely true that one or more contestants of our show are
sending back reports from the surface of a far planet.”

“Okay, I'm reassured. Suggestions on how to
calm the masses?” Uldene asked.

Why bother calming them?
Gopgop
thought
. Let them get the blood lust out of their systems by
tearing all you second-bests to pieces while we top-of-the-heaps
watch and record it all to rebroadcast as audience pleasing
entertainments.

“Start right away to add a sworn assurance to
each program,” Delmus announced. “Sadly, for the moment we do have
technical difficulties so we can't tell anyone when we'll have new
material.”

“We have to change gears and think longer
term,” Uldene said. “We need to have plans ready to distract and
fascinate the populace if there are riots. It’s prudent business
sense to sacrifice the short-term profits for our personal and
company survival. We have to maintain the peace at almost any
cost.”

What a dumb idea and how totally
crilmentzee but I have to go along until I can make a clean break
from all these losers and claw my way to the top, the only
appropriate place for me
, Delmus thought.

“We could distract them with new material
from that planet that our techs have finally made something of.
It's almost all visuals which are the hard part to reconstruct,”
Ackack said.

“This sounds promising,” Uldene said. He
thought,
At least if there’s talk-talk like this they’re not
proposing things that will make it even harder for me to beat them
all to the profit in spite of the confusion
.

“Well, you see there’s this thing about it.
It's their pornography. Let's just say they don't do things the way
we do so it might create its own controversies,” Delmus said.

“Will it grab the audience's attention?”
Gopgop asked.

“Almost guaranteed if we advertise what it’s
going to be at least a day before we show it,” Ackack answered.
“Whether they’ll want to see more or sit through reruns is less
certain since what the alien creatures do isn’t really that
exciting.”
But it might buy me enough time to empty the bank
accounts and disappear before the mobs come for the rest of you.
When they’ve removed you from the scene I’ll breathe a sigh of
relief and come back to build a new and better company from the
ashes.

“Have it ready to show on short notice,”
Gopgop ordered.

“Am I intruding? Too bad if I am,” Parbam
said as she stepped into view from behind the barrier at the side
of the room.

Uldene glared at Gopgop and whispered, “You
said you scanned this place.”

“He did but I have ways to distort the
functions of zerpies and have other resources at my disposal. Guys,
it’s convenient to keep you unaware about it but the governors know
a lot more than you think they do about what’s said and done even
in your private offices.”

“Snooping is hardly good governance,” Ackack
snapped.

“Whatever gets the job done and keeps the
peace qualifies as good governance, Ackack. For some, not having to
distract the masses with public executions is a relief. Others of
course are eager to petition for exclusive rights to show those
executions or
distractions
while they try not to think about
themselves being the center of the doings.”

“Are you threatening us?” Uldene asked.

“Only in the bigger picture for some of you.
More immediately and definitely for those who went where you were
all warned not to. The governors want this to resolve well for all
but they want me to remind everyone that they won’t hesitate to
punish both companies. Especially you boss guys, if that seems
called for. Some transgressions might even be overlooked if you
guys do an effective job of keeping the masses calm and docile. If
you’re not effective, maybe you’ll be the centerpieces of a few
short
distractions
.” She walked calmly to and out the only
door from the room.

For a long moment the others stood still and
silent.

Finally Delmus asked, “Is anyone else feeling
a strange something in the air now?”

“That’s condensed paranoia,” Uldene said.
“But maybe a useful warning. Definitely an unpleasant reminder that
we four pride ourselves on being idea and starter guys so we’d
better come up with some good ideas and get offsetting stuff
started – fast.”

“Try not to think about it obsessively now
but apparently in spite of all our efforts, we have little if any
privacy from the governors,” Ackack said.

“If that’s not bad news I can’t imagine what
is,” Gopgop said.

* * *

Shortly after that Delmus and Ackack hurried
into the A.D.U. office, out of breath from exertion and
agitation.

“We didn’t even get here to our comfort space
where we control what we find out and what we want to do even if we
can’t always make it happen before we ran into bad news piling up
on top of bad news or at least the claims and potential for it,”
Delmus whined.

“Better to know sooner when things should be
changed and you still have to chance to do that,” Ackack said,
feigning being more relaxed that he felt. “We know the
Bang-Boom
guys want to rattle us so we can’t believe
everything they tell us in messages from far away where there’s no
independent verification but we can’t ignore them either. My rule
is to take their claims as being part true.”

“How much true? Fifty parts per hundred?
Ninety per hundred?”

“That’s where it becomes guess work. They say
they may be about to be detected. That may be true but none of us
knows how likely it is to happen so I favor a low out of a hundred
number for how much is true. This is business, not a social
pairing. Not that I’m in favor of much truthiness in social
encounterings either of course,” Ackack said with a shrug.

“So we won’t call it what we know, only what
we’ve been told something about. But what it that? They say they
may have been detected and may be about to be attacked by the
inhabitants,” Delmus said. His tone made it clear he hoped to
prompt his partner to join in the listing.

“We’ve had the secret coded contact signal
sent. Our Minx didn’t respond. We’ve asked subtle questions and
searched all the feeds we get from them but there are no clear
hints that they know of anything about an unidentified zerpy
onboard. What can that mean? That they found and disabled it or it
shut itself down because it detected one of them nearby. I wanted
to have it made so it would send us a signal if it did that but
Foxpat said that would give it away for sure.”

“I agreed with him that it would.”

“At least if it was active and is now shut
down, if it was causing the interference with the signals from the
ship that should have stopped. We need to check with the techs to
find out if that has happened.”

“There is the maybe that Minx is active and
is what’s making the interference that kept it from answering our
signal. Maybe we should send the definite ‘shut down’ signal in
case that’s causing the problem. At this point it’s probably better
to sacrifice some feed from there for adequate reception of the
other signals,” Delmus said.