Far-out Show (9781465735829) (50 page)

“Which reinforces our guess that it was
programmed by guys who knew the layout of the ship and the details
of the workings of all its security systems,” Icetop said.

“Which narrows it down to…” Molten said with
a sardonic laugh, “Still several suspect groups.”

* * *

A short time later Eroder, Icetop, Molten,
Hasley, Feedle, and Lacrat were gathered by the main console in the
control room. On the view-screen they could see Yelpam running
various tests on the Minx-Zink zerpy that was still in position
high on the hallway wall.

“More questions than answers is never a happy
situation but we don’t always get what we want,” Eroder said. “We
have a zerpy that we know almost nothing about onboard. What should
we do about that?”

“Svenly and Venrik are reviewing our signals
to the home planet to see if they can detect how that zerpy could
send information home or receive directives from there without our
systems detecting those,” Lacrat reported. “So far there are no
clear answers.”

“When we split it open and pick through its
innards maybe we can find a way to convert it for our purposes,”
Feedle said. “It could be a route to send disinformation to
convince whichever group put it aboard that we’re too valuable to
toss aside as the easy solution to their worries.”

Everyone else except Hasley seemed to find
her ideas startling but no one addressed them directly.

“Unless it’s doing so in a new way that we
don’t understand, there’s no evidence that it’s sending any
signals,” Eroder said. “We can’t take advantage of what it’s not
doing. So far there’s no reason to think we’ll get to pick through
its innards any time soon either since we can’t get even a probe
signal to penetrate it.”

“There has to be a way to find out what it
can do. What do we have techs on the payroll for?” Feedle
asked.

Eroder snickered and said, “To give you
someone who knows more about technical stuff than you do that you
can berate to show how much you don’t know, Feedle.”

Feedle glanced at Hasley to see if he was
going to spring to her defense but his expression showed he agreed
she was talking nonsense.

“Do we know for anything like sure that it’s
a danger to the ship?” Lacrat asked. “Maybe we can simply ignore
it.”

“It’s unlikely that it’s only for gathering
information,” Hasley said. “This is the kind of thing where Feedle
has expertise. Would a business group go to the expense and trouble
of sneaky-sneaking aboard a zerpy that wouldn’t allow them to take
remote control of at least some ship’s systems?”

“Not a chance. That would go against all the
ruthless rules of business,” Feedle answered.

“Do the calculations. If it’s a danger while
it’s aboard then we have to get rid of it. Eject it. Problem
solved,” Hasley said.

“That only leaves the matters of
how
to eject it and
where
to eject it to,” Eroder noted with a
sad shake of his head.

“Can’t we spit it out and let it crash on
this side of their moon that the inhabitants almost never see?”
Lacrat asked.

“That’ll be an option if we find out how to
detach it,” Eroder said. “We’re not supposed to leave behind any
technology for the inhabitants to examine but since this zerpy’s
not on any list of materials we brought with us it officially sort
of doesn’t exist so leaving it behind doesn’t violate the letter of
that injunction, only its spirit.”

“With a self-destruct unit attached and
detonated just before it impacted it should be reduced to innocuous
pieces that the inhabitants are unlikely to ever notice and
definitely couldn’t learn anything useful from,” Hasley said.

“Or shoot it out so it’ll burn up in their
atmosphere,” Feedle said. Her tone made it clear she thought this
matter was perfectly obvious.

“Likely to happen but not guaranteed,” Molten
said. “More likely to give them something to reinforce their fears
and determination to search for every bit though.”

“Since there’s still the problem of being
able to eject it, let’s agree that if we can do that we’ll do so
but aim it to crash onto their moon when and where no flyby devices
from the planet are likely to spot the debris - at least until
we’re long gone,” Eroder said.

Everyone else nodded agreement, Feedle with a
roll of her eyes and a
let’s get on to something important
grimace.

Biccup appeared on a section of the
view-screen standing at the podium in the transport room. He said,
“I’m ready to try this. There are no instructions I can find for
doing this kind of thing but we’ll see if it can happen. I’ve gone
through the documentation and I’m reasonably sure it can’t damage
the ship’s superstructure or the transport system if it doesn’t
work. But again no guarantees.”

“Why the heck are we paying you if you don’t
know how to use the system that’s your specialty?” Feedle
shouted.

“Because at least I know more about it than
you do,” Biccup said, letting his irritation show.

On the screen they saw him silently mutter,
then Feedle gave a jerk and grabbed for something to hold on to but
didn’t get a hold before she rose a bit into the air and began to
fade.

“Don’t you dare, Biccup!” Hasley shouted.

Then Hasley gave a jerk and started to rise
into the air.

“Thank you, Biccup. Your test shows that yes,
the transporter can grab items on board that aren’t there in that
room,” Eroder said.

Feedle and Hasley were abruptly dropped back
onto the floor where they staggered as they recovered their
balance.

“Now try it on the mystery zerpy,” Eroder
instructed. Feedle was looking for a fight but Eroder’s look made
it clear he had no time for her bile and would deal with her
harshly.

She looked to Hasley for backing but he was
obviously shaken by his brief encounter with the transport system
he didn’t trust and was focused on the new danger that the result
of Biccup’s test presented for himself from now on.

They all waited as Biccup worked the
transport system console. On the other screen area Yelpam was
standing back out of the way but aiming a sensor at Minx-Zink.

Nothing visibly changed.

Finally Biccup said, “No, it won’t release
and this system can’t pry it loose. I can tell you that it’s a
magnetic based adhesion but it’s not like anything I can find any
reference to in the data we have available.”

“End the test so you don’t damage the
transporter,” Eroder said. “We need that to bring Nerber back.”

“Or to at least try to,” Biccup said. His
image then disappeared from the view-screen.

“So what are you going to do about that zerpy
that’s smarter than a whole crew of techs?” Feedle asked.

“Live with it for now,” Eroder said. “We’re
not thrilled about it but we have some experience going on with
what we need to for the present despite some guys or things we’d be
happier without.”

“Is that supposed to mean me?” Feedle angrily
demanded.

“Well yeah,” Eroder said with no hint of
apology or intimidation.

Feedle turned to glare at Hasley, defying him
not to defend her. His response was to motion her out of the
room.

She stomped out. He followed her, head down,
as he considered what he was going to say and do next.

When Eroder and Icetop seemed to ignore him
Lacrat decided he could comfortably stay here and keep tabs on
developments – and avoid the shouting that would be going on
elsewhere.

Eroder brought up Svenly and Venrik in the
program edit room on the view-screen. He asked them, “Making any
progress in solving the interference problems?”

“The noise from onboard is gone but there’s
still that awful stuff from the planet source,” Venrik said.

“We only take brief listens every few minutes
and watch the dial that shows the reception levels. It goes on but
we avoid letting it frazzle our thinking organs,” Svenly said.
“It’s ironic that because of that interference we’re imposing the
same silence on ourselves as the show’s producers were deliberately
subjecting Nerber to. And with some of the same results. We’re
confused, angry, and frustrated.”

“We’ve tried filtering out all but a few
frequencies of the noise, sending back an echo to mess up the sound
originating device, and even activating the system in Wilburps that
should destroy other signal generators close to the zerpy. Nothing
has worked,” Venrik reported.

“With no clear signals getting through in
either direction that’s not too surprising,” Icetop said. “If we
knew our signals were reaching Wilburps and it didn’t respond to
the nearby-generator-destruct order I’d have to say, knowing the
details of that class of zerpy, either Wilburps been damaged or
Nerber knows enough to have manually turned off some of its
systems. That would be a most interesting situation.”

“Keep me informed,” Eroder said and ended the
connection with the program edit room.

Yelpam entered. There was still a view-screen
image of the Minx-Zink zerpy in position. He said, “There’s no sign
that the thing’s doing anything so I left a security zerpy where it
will let us watch the other while I help deal with our on-going
mysteries and problems.”

“What about what Icetop said? Are we
underestimating Nerber?” Molten asked. “Could he be a more active
part of what’s been happening than we’ve realized?”

“I had Biccup check the documentation we have
available to find out all about Wilburps’s class of zerpies,”
Eroder said. “Few who use them know you can manually immobilize one
and in that condition it will stop all transmissions although it
will receive and store any signals sent to it. Only zerpy techs
would be likely to know that – and especially the signal codes to
do it.”

“Is that relevant?” Molten asked to get
Eroder to spell out what he was thinking.

“With the correct code input, the zerpy’s
memory program would not only not prompt it to question what
happened during such a partial shutdown, it wouldn’t record that
shutdown,” Eroder pointed out. “There are several short periods
when we have only
fritzerish
input from Wilburps. No visual,
no audio. And no record that it detected those missing periods and
at least ran a self-diagnostic unless told to.”

“So maybe Nerber’s more of a zerpy engineer
than we realize and is using Wilburps for his own purposes at times
but knows how to hide that from the ship’s monitoring systems,”
Molten said.

“We can’t rule that out,” Icetop agreed. He
glanced at Yelpam and they exchanged small nods but let on no
more.

“Part of his resume that got him selected as
a contestant was his claim to be a master of adaptation and even
deception so he can wing it, doing what the situation calls for
with whatever is on hand even though unexpected and not planned in
advance,” Eroder said. “That sounds like a good description of
what’s happening here today.”

“When we get the interference under control
so we can get through to them we should have the home office check
on his background,” Molten suggested.

“That’s being done. I’ve had questions about
him since he landed down there,” Eroder said. “I’m waiting for the
reply.”

A musical tone sounded. Eroder brought up
Svenly and Venrik in the program edit room on the view-screen.
Those two were excitedly pushing buttons even as they spoke.

“New and glorious development,” Venrik said.
“The interference from the planet below us stopped and we’re
getting a rush of upload from Wilburps. His material storage units
were so full he was about to start recording over the oldest
stuff.”

The view from that room tilted up to show
Eroder on part of the view-screen, Hasley and Feedle in their
office on another part. So everyone was getting this news
simultaneously.

“Can we see where they are right now?” Hasley
asked.

“We can see the place but with no lead up to
it we have no idea what we’re looking at,” Svenly said. “Check it
out.”

The view-screen divided into four areas. The
edit room techs in one quadrant; the producers in their office on a
second; the continuous feed image from Wilburps of the shopping
center parking lot with Nerber and Krinkle standing outside the
car; and the scene at the park with Adam and Edith at the taxi,
then Edith and Reggie shouting at one another, the last as seen by
Wilburps from the back seat of Krinkle’s car.

“Wow!” Lacrat said as he watched the two
feeds from the planet. “I can hardly wait to see the complete
upload. This looks like it should be great show material. The
audience will love it if we see inhabitants fight.”

“That’s Nerber with the inhabitant he met
immediately before the interference started,” Svenly pointed out to
everyone.

“In fact that’s the device we think causes
the interference beside Wilburps there inside that unit, whatever
it is,” Venrik said. “Oh, I see from the stored feed that must be
some kind of a conveyance to go from place to place. We need to
check for their name for that in the inhabitant lexicon we’re
accumulating. Wait on it – it’s called a car. No, maybe an auto. A
rattle trap? We’ll decipher it but it may take some work. Their
talk-talk can have more than one word for things. If that doesn’t
prove that they’re inferior to us what could?”

“It’s exciting to have more material but it’s
also disturbing to see that the inhabitants are so aggressive and
not nearly as predictable as we expected,” Hasley said. “This means
Nerber and his zerpy are in more danger than I wanted to believe
when he has to deal with inhabitants.”

“So
sib sog
,” Feedle said. “We’re
getting material we can use and nothing else...”

Hasley cut them out of the communication
link.

Lacrat noted the looks that Eroder and the
three mechanical techs exchanged but no one said anything.