Far-out Show (9781465735829) (41 page)

Lacrat sat in his chair and faced the two
techs for whom there was now only one seat available. “We’re
offering you the once in a lifetime opportunity to expand your
titles and horizons and become full participants in
The Far-Out
Show
as contestants. In fairness I can’t offer you more reward
than Nerber agreed to since the same offer was made to all
potential candidates.”

Icetop said, “So you give Nerber more. I bet
he won’t refuse it. The others declined to follow through which
voids any contractual promises you made to them.”

“We don’t want to be narrow though. The money
rewards are nice but as Hasley emphasized the
vipsig mermin
is the fame that goes automatically with having your name known to
everyone on Ormelex. Think of how you and your families will bask
in the glory.”

“I’d rather bask in the best spas - which
takes money so that is important. If you don’t agree then let’s
have the lawyers make up the agreement to switch all your rewards
from the show, short and long term, for all of mine,” Yelpam
said.

“All of these money matters can be worked out
later, right now we need to make a show and get it aired or none of
us will get any reward,” Hasley said.

Yelpam said, “I’m okay with being called a
mimzy-plisher
but I’m not a
discer prumous
. Before I
agree to any changes that might put me in line for nasty abuse I
insist on the terms being worked out in detail. We’ll start with
this one. What immediately enforceable guarantees of proper
treatment on the planet and after are you offering?”

“What do you mean by that expression?” Hasley
asked.

“What money payments will be paid to my
family at home now if I complain to a specified arbitrator and she
agrees you are or recently were mistreating me? Nothing delayed
until we get home is worth even the effort of lying about it. We
set this up before we go down to this planet. Specifics of how
we’ll be treated, who will arbitrate, and how we would contact her,
and the rest.”

Lacrat sighed, “There’s no time Yelpam,. None
of that is preset so there’ll have to backing-and-forwarding
between lawyers and all. Time is short. Trust us, we’ll do right by
all the crew and contestants.”

Icetop sneered at that but asked, “In light
of what’s now known about Earth, how have you changed the show’s
challenges?”

Lacrat answered, “We haven’t. In fairness we
can’t change those since Nerber has already begun them.”

Hasley jumped in with, “That means he has a
head start so the chance to be the final winner according to the
rules of the show is slipping away with every minute you’re not on
the planet interacting with inhabitants. The zerpies the others
were going to use are ready to go so there’s no reason to delay
getting both of you down there and in fierce competition for
ultimate glory and honor.”

Yelpam said flatly, “Nerber hasn’t done any
of the challenges and doesn’t even seem to be trying anymore.”

Lacrat blurted out, “You can’t know
that.”

Icetop said, “We aren’t supposed to know
about a lot of what’s common knowledge on the ship. Ignoring the
official challenges, what could any new contestants do down there
with the inhabitants already on widespread high alert?”

“No, the show’s challenges, however we
interpret them - and they were chosen to have a lot of leeway - are
still the basis of winning the competition. The inhabitants’ state
of alert only makes it more exciting and challenging,” Hasley
insisted.

“While increasing our chance of being killed.
It’s not the original game so sugariness up the offer or forget
it,” Icetop said.

Hasley said, “Okay, you win. We will work out
a new deal for winning based on whatever interesting stuff you do
interacting with the inhabitants or showing us aspects of the world
down there that will distract the home audience. But time’s short
so you have to go down now or it’s too late. Trust us to give you
the best deal possible.”

Icetop and Yelpam exchanged nods. Icetop
said, “Your offer’s unrealistic. No deal. We insist that this
meeting and the promises made be registered at home immediately.
The power’s back so communications are reestablished.”

Hasley waved his hand in a vague gesture of
agreement. “Yeah, surely for true correct. We’ll get right on that.
We’re done here, you get back to the work you will do.”

Icetop and Yelpam left.

Lacrat held up a hand to delay any comments
while he used the security system to be sure the others were out of
hearing and moving away down the hall.

When Lacrat gave the nod, Hasley said, “I’m
sort of relieved. If there are going to be more engine problems we
may need them more as techs than as contestants.”

Lacrat said, “I went to their rooms and
offered Zemgas and Rumpsy double rewards but they won’t go. It’s
only Nerber.”

“And maybe not even him for long since the
inhabitants are much more advanced and aggressive that we
thought.”

They both turned to look when a harsh tone
sounded and the
Bang-Boom Shows Certificated
logo appeared
on the view-screen.

When they recovered from their shock they
jumped up and ran out the door. Hasley noted, “This has to be big
and bad for him to use that summons signal.”

* * *

All three producers rushed into the control
room where they found Eroder, Molten, Biccup, Icetop, and Yelpam at
the consoles conferring in whispers about what was happening and
what to do.

Looking over and seeing the producers Eroder
called, “Things don’t look right. We recognize now that
Whizybeam
was designed with so many strange round-about ways
to make it all happen that the most obvious route to disable the
remote controls from home would also disable key life-support
systems. A
ninxy heyhexel
twenty and two.”

“The designers sent us off in a pre-sabotaged
ship?” Feedle asked, having trouble accepting that.

“So it seems,” Eroder said. “Maybe being able
to destroy every last bit to hide what it was and where it came
from was the top priority consideration. Uh oh, things don’t look
good.”

“Letting the ship be destroyed when it’s the
only source of the hottest pacification show Ormelex has ever seen
doesn’t make sense,” Feedle insisted.

“No, things don’t look even acceptable now,”
Eroder muttered as his scanned the console and tried not to
panic.

“The designers were techs, they must have
known that any crew of competent technical guys would see the
inefficient ways things are done and try to improve on them,”
Lacrat said.

“
Fampfuzzle
! Can we even survive
this?” Eroder whispered.

“Somebody tell us what’s happened,” Hasley
called.

“First the out-going signals stopped. Next it
was the reception of in-coming signals. Then the general power. Now
the main engines are gone,” Biccup called back.

“There go the life-support systems,” Icetop
said. “Everything is shut down except the onboard communications
system that’s running on stored power so it won’t last long.”

“What can we do?” Feedle called.

“The apparent cause is the change-over from
the default control systems. That makes changing back the obvious
remedy,” Lacrat said.

“With a long list of doubts dragged along as
baggage,” Yelpam said. “Maybe that’s not the actual cause but only
what happened at the same time. Maybe only minor tweaks are needed
to make it all work right. Or maybe a hundred other things.”

“It is such
dismilquam
that they’d
intend this to happen,” Feedle grumbled. “Bad enough that those
dinglefingledorkporks would arrange it to scare us but true
craziness if things can’t be reversed or fixed so we
neprist
oglimp vinx crupsmimp
.”

“I need to hear recommendations,” Eroder
called.

“Change back to see if that corrects things,”
Lacrat said.

“We’re not in immediate danger so give us
techs time to analyze the systems while they’re in this down
condition,” Icetop called. “We need to understand how the engines
and the life-support systems are interconnected to deal with any
unintended breakdowns later. If we also find ways to patch around
the problem areas in the process that’s an extra. Our energy stores
are full charged so we have life support and test power for a
while. Let us take advantage of it.”

“Agreed,” Yelpam, Biccup, and Molten called
in unison.

“You’re the captain, we trust your judgment,”
Hasley said.

“Good thing since I agree with the techs,”
Eroder said.

Feedle wasn’t sure how they should proceed.
Lacrat wasn’t happy with any delay and wanted to say so. Hasley
ushered those two into the hall and waited for the door to
close.

“We can’t overrule the captain and they know
more about the technical stuff that we do so let them do what they
can,” Hasley argued. “And think like a producer. This means the
guys at A.D.U. and probably the Peepees know communications are
down. We can’t be sure but probably they know why. Let them worry
that their big moneymakers are in danger to make them think about
how important we are to them.”

“I follow,” Feedle said. “They expect the
crew to bring all the systems back on line right away – but we
don’t.”

“Bigger worries for them. Maybe they’ve lost
us. Maybe now the governors will want a full investigation and our
home office can supply signal recordings the others don’t know
about that could show their lies are...well, lies,” Lacrat said as
he got into the spirit of this.”

Feedle gave him a pitying look as she said,
“I see where we can make use of this when we make contact again. I
would go slow about choosing to do this but it’d be a waste not to
use it.”

The other two followed Hasley back into the
control room.

Inside the captain and the four techs were at
the main console. Molten was in the chair keying in commands as
fast as his finger would go. The others muttered encouragement and
uttered little sounds to bring the occasional input error to his
attention so he would correct it.

Eroder walked over to the producers and said,
“It took some searching but we finally found parts, but only parts,
of the ship’s detailed specs. They were hidden under three levels
of cover but now we can begin to see the layout in all its paranoid
stupidity. It’ll take much longer to follow through all the twists
but the guys have put together a patch that should work for now. We
can shut it all down, excise whole areas, and replace them with
simpler and more reliable versions later but this fix should be
stable for a while.”

“If hiding the essential information was
A.D.U.s idea we should expose that and destroy them. If it was the
governors’ doing I’m not sure how we’ll deal with that,” Hasley
said.

“I want your advice on one bit,” Eroder said.
“One subsystem gives the A.D.U. guys feedback that tells them they
still have remote controls. With the patch in place that’s not
accurate, plus we could use that route as a portion of a subsystem
to make another control routine more efficient. Should we let them
know we’ve changed things or mislead them but at the price of some
reduced reliability?”

“It’s better that they know and know that we
know,” Feedle said. “It’ll be instructive to see if they ask about
why they’re not getting that feedback. I’ll be fascinated to hear
how they defend putting us in that danger – if they even mention
it.”

They all looked up as the lights flickered
and came on brighter and the techs gave one another their version
of high-fives, which for Ormelexian involved startling complicated
movements of their feet.

Eroder hurried over, checked the readings on
the main console, then announced to the whole ship, “
Hula boola wattinghams
, my fellow travelers. We’re back
in business. All the readings show all systems working efficiently
again.”

As they left the area Feedle said to Hasley
and Lacrat, “I watched the continuous feed from Wilburps before we
lost power. As things got confused and he didn’t know what was
happening or if he would be able to get home Nerber looked more and
more scared and upset – which made him a much better show
element.”

“Which means we, or more precisely the home
audience, want to see him that way. If being out of contact
produces the desired result we’d be dumb to let him know we can
hear his every whimper and record his every shudder,” Hasley
said.

“That’s just the kind of mistreatment Yelpam
wanted enforced protection from,” Lacrat pointed out.

“But we didn’t promise
him
that
either,” Feedle said with a nasty chuckle. “We’re the show’s
producers so it’s our duty to get the most useful performances from
the actors. That’s what we’re rewarding them for putting out and
putting up with.”

* * *

With the power restored Biccup returned to
the transport room and used the equipment there to scan for the
signal device in Limbrush but could find no evidence of the
zerpy.

After several scans of the whole area around
its landing spot he stopped his search. “For the log I’ll enter
that it was lost in transit so there’s apparently still a problem.
With the changes in the ship’s major control routines that may have
fixed itself but too late for that old cleaning zerpy. If by some
quirk the inhabitants found it or do so later there’s little chance
anyone at home will connect anything those here learn from it with
what happens when we’re all long gone. Nothing for me to worry
about or upset any official types about.”

He shut down the whole transport system.

* * *

Not much later the three producers looked
around their office, startled and annoyed, when Icetop and Yelpam
entered without signaling and waiting for permission.