Far-out Show (9781465735829)

by Hanna, Thomas

  “Yes! I love it. We don't reveal the governors' underlying agenda but we emphasize, oh heck we exaggerate, the consequences of those creatures being able to contact us directly while they're still in an early stage of developing technologies.”

  “Once the masses are hooked on what is to happen next, the governors can't come down on us without everyone knowing. Including the unfairness of blaming us for what we had no way to control.”

  “What a twist,” Delmus exulted. “Our competition, all those production and distribution companies, become our protection because they won't pass up the chance to get audience share with the latest on any move to punish us for telling the masses what's truly going on even if the governors would rather hide that. Therefore the governors are better off cooperating with us to assure there's no real story for the competition to bother with. We could hardly have made this up better ourselves. Maybe a bit, but hardly.”

  “But this has the same downside we're already worrying ourselves pink about. As soon as we air any report about this we need rapid, regular updates. It seems that in this new reality of reality entertainments the audience has no patience.”

  “We've created a monster. How do we get it under control?”

  “It'd be risky but we could make it up as we go. If from the first image it's all being recorded in a setting right here in this building we can control what the audience sees as well as what they're told about it.”

  “I see the possibilities but it leaves us too vulnerable. It takes a lot of guys to create programs like that and they all talk-talk. If we did that we'd give the competition a story that'd take attention away from the one we want them focused on precisely because it'd be played up to make the masses suspect we're faking it, which we would be. Why tune in to us when you know we're openly lying?”

  “I know schemes are never simple and straightforward but I get dizzy going through so many twists and turns.”

  “It comes down to assuring us of a steady stream of reports on what's happening or just keeping quiet,” Delmus said.

  “Missed opportunity, but it keeps the governors happy. Well, happy that the masses don't know what's going on but not happy if the hardware is in danger of being captured. Isn't anything simple anymore?”

  “Fortunately no or we, who can always seem to find ways to profit from whatever's happening, wouldn't prosper. Focus, Ackack, what do we need to do?”

  “I hate that's it's this way but only getting a guaranteed almost continuous feed of material from the Bang-Boom guys solves most of the problems. That still leaves the possible captures by the alien creatures to deal with but as we've noted there are ways around our risk in that.”

  “I agree with your analysis. I hate being at the mercy of Hasley and his bunch but I don't see a better alternative.”

  “I expect the technical difficulties will disappear if we sweeten their deal. I don't like being in this position but I've learned to accept what I have to do in order to get as much as I can of what I want.”

  “Spoken like one who's succeeded, not merely survived. We'll work out a specific offer and then contact them.”

  “We can console ourselves that we're putting it to them in a bunch of the details so we're still the biggest winners. Let's do this before things fall apart even more,” Ackack said.

  A harsh tone sounded and Techim appeared on the view-screen. “What now?” Ackack said. “If she’s using the annoying signal she has news we should hear right away.”

  “Happy news can usually wait a while,” Delmus said and touched the button to make the connection.

  Techim showed no emotion as she said, “There is no actual competition on the far planet.”

  Not sure what that meant, the others didn’t react.

  She continued, “I tested the all points onboard listening system to see if they were still blocking it and heard a bit of conversation among the producers before their interference system kicked in. Nerber is the one and only contestant on the planet. Apparently after one contestant was lost in transit the other two refused to use that system. Clearly there is only one Ormelexian and his zerpy on Earth.”

  “Is this widely known among our techs?” Delmus asked.

  “Two heard about it on the recording and alerted the supervisor. There’s no way to know how far the word has spread by now. It’s very likely that threats made to the techs will signal that it’s true or at least that you believe it,” she replied.

  “What are you suggesting?” Ackack asked.

  “Leak it that you think this is a joke or the producers’ attempt at misleading you in order to squeeze concessions from you. Let others think you’re not taking the idea seriously and they’ll be less likely to whisper about it to others,” she said.

  “An interesting idea. How do you suggest we do this leaking?” Delmus asked.

  “You entrust that task to someone like me,” she said.

  The bosses exchanged nods and Delmus said, “Consider yourself entrusted, Techim. Keep us informed about any talk about this topic outside our space – or anything else relevant.”

  “Of course,” she said. The screen blanked.

  “It just doesn’t stop,” Delmus moaned. “Problem after problem that could destroy what we’ve made but if we can keep things secret we can stave off disaster for at least a bit longer and maybe permanently. The uncertainties make me want to flap somebody silly with my feet.”

  “Get control of yourself. This could destroy everything but it doesn’t have to. If we handle things right we can come out of this intact. For now the facts are contained so our challenge is to figure out how to make the best use of this before we let the audience find out. We got this far because we’re clever. That fact justifies our profit from it all. Now we need to earn the continuing profit from The Far-Out Show.”

  “Sooner rather than later we have to tell the governors. We won’t survive if we leave them looking like fools. But no one else needs to know for now. Since we learned about this by accident we really don’t know it, only the producers do. We have someone to blame. The first step of business dealings is covered. We must shift our thinking but with this warning we can be ready when we have to go public with the news.”

  “Sooner than that we do have to talk to the governors though. Luckily we have a meeting scheduled so we won’t attract extra attention asking to talk-talk right away,” Ackack said.

  “So first we decide how and how much to tell them.”

  “And what not to say. Like no joking about public executions as distracting entertainments. Don’t plant any ideas that might come back looking for us,” Ackack said.

  * * *

  Later as Delmus and Ackack entered their A.D.U. office Ackack said, “I was afraid the governors would openly threaten us and make a lot of trouble but they were actually helpful.”

  “They're at least as worried as we are,” Delmus noted. “Maybe even more so - which should probably make us more worried too. My assistant said there’s a message from the far away Bang-Boom producers.”

  He brought up a worried-looking Feedle on a view-screen. She said, “Sorry you weren't there when I made contact since we wanted your advice. It's not certain if contact with those at Earth will ever happen again. The planet's inhabitants are searching and turn out to have more advanced detection systems and weapons than we were told. It seems likely that this ship with its guys and zerpies will soon be found.”

  The message started to break up, the interference and distortion got progressively worse. “We have no way to know if we'll be captured or simply destroyed. Should those whose lives are at stake try to surrender or must they die in a possibly ineffective effort to keep the hardware out of the aliens' grasp? Uh oh, this is worse than I expected so soon. It seems that's not a decision they get to make after all.”

  The audio and video degraded to noise, but then it all stopped abruptly and the screen goes blank.

  Delmus paced anxiously. Ackack sat at the console and pushed buttons
and keyed in commands in an almost frantic way, his feet flapping as fast as his hands moved. He said, “There's no current signal from them. Our secret frequency... No signal there either. Maybe there’s something's being routed through... No, nothing there. We've lost them.”

  Delmus was livid. “Fingle fangle on the inhabitants! May they yawdle in their own primsy!”

  “Delmus! Such language. I'm shocked.”

  “Some situations call for strong words.”

  A large amount of text scrolled continuously down a screen in front of Ackack. “The techs have detected other signals from them. Something shifted these so they were being ignored. They were badly degraded so they needed a lot of cleaning up but the techs have done that. The reports say that the earth inhabitants are sending their own zerpy-type thing that they call a satellite to orbit their moon - which is where Whizybeam is staying out of sight. This happening exactly when our ship isn’t working right makes it very likely that Whizybeam will be detected. We're about to find out if the earth inhabitants can capture or destroy a ship in space - except that we won't know because that ship was our only link to what's happening there.”

  “I'll have the lawyers prepare our defenses,” Delmus said. “We didn't guarantee the governors this planet could be taken over without much of a fight, we only said that as far as anyone on Ormelex could tell it seemed likely.”

  “I can't stop thinking about how huge an audience we'd draw if we could show all of this actually happening. We sent that ship off equipped to record everything we thought could possibly happen but a lot of it isn’t working and we won't even be able to inspect the damaged hardware to find out what to do better next time.”

  “Good point. We need to emphasize to the governors that things didn't turn out as expected on this planet but that doesn't mean they should stop paying us to find excuses to send explorers to other planets.”

  “Right. Keep them on the hook,” Ackack agreed. “But first we need answers from a certain agent of sneakery. We hired him because we knew he was devious but was he devious with us while he helped us be devious with those on the ship?”

  * * *

  Outside, the building in the out-of-the-way location was small and non-descript. Inside, the interview room was empty except for three not especially plush or comfortable chairs. The walls were solid, solid colored, and adorned only with a recurring pattern of squiggles to provide a small relief from the monotony. One door, no windows, no zerpies in sight.

  When Delmus and Ackack entered Foxpat, a male of enough years to qualify as looking like an old hand at things, sat in one chair with his hands folded in his lap. He had shiny black feet and head spikes of four different lengths that got shorter as they approached the midline of the top of his head and all curved a bit toward that landmark, giving him the appearance of a tidy helmet of head covering. He smiled easily, although not with particular warmth. He was relaxed and sure of himself.

  He motioned for the others to have a seat, saying, “You have demands to make of me so we won’t waste time on social customs intended to get everyone ready to talk. What do you want to know?”

  “What did you put onboard Whizybeam?” Ackack asked.

  “What you paid me to put aboard without anyone else knowing. A device programmed to meet your specifications that you chose to refer to as Minx so any reference to it wouldn’t give away that it is in factness a zerpy. One that stays dormant and undetected until you activate it with a code message. Then it can monitor many of the ship’s communication and operating systems and send those results to you, coded so only you should be able to read them,” Foxpat said.

  “Did you also put a secret zerpy on there for someone else?” Delmus asked.

  “Not that I’m free to talk about. Please note, that is exactly what I’d tell almost anyone if they asked about your device.”

  “Almost anyone?” Ackack asked.

  “It’s never good sense, much less good business, to lie to the governors,” Foxpat replied evenly.

  “How many secret zerpies did you put aboard?” Delmus asked.

  “One and only one,” Foxpat answered.

  “So we have total and exclusive control of that zerpy, right?” Ackack said.

  “Not quite,” Foxpat said. “There’s more than one channel that can, within limits, receive and respond to some commands. Each of the channels, however, sends its feedback exclusively to one address here on the planet. There’s very little chance of any leakage between channels.”

  “How many channels?” Delmus asked.

  “More than one. Since your feedback can’t reach anyone else there’s no reason for you to know if, how many, or who any others who bought in might be.”

  “This is outrageous. We dergigged on an agreement with you,” Ackack shouted. “We didn’t say yes to being part of a shared facility.”

  “Our agreement didn’t contain any specifications about that. If it had I wouldn’t have dergigged on it,” Foxpat said. “You got what you paid for, a way that only you control to snoop and maybe even take some control of the far away ship.”

  “I’m shocked that you would violate our trust,” Delmus said in a tone that made it hard to tell if he was sincere.

  “You should be thanking me for cutting corners. We all know you gloated about the good price you thought you bargained me down to,” Foxpat said. “I could have demanded several times that and after you’d hemmed and whined for a while you’d have paid that. Building the device with split controls saved me a lot of time and made it easier to get it on there without it being noticed so I passed on the savings. I didn’t do wrong on this.”

  “No, we won’t let you get away with this,” Ackack shouted, jumping up and stomping around. “There are rules in business and ways to make the violators sorry.”

  “Okay, get the law on me. Claim I violated the terms of some contract I made with you. Oh wait, at your insistence there’s no legally binding written contract because this was all secret and sneaky-sneaky. Oh wait, that means it would still cause you lots of trouble with the governors if word got out about it. Here’s the thing, guys, I’m ready and willing to go right now and put the matter before them and accept their judgment. Or here’s a very generous alternative offer. Since you’re not satisfied with what I provided for you, I’ll return your money. No interest, but the full amount you paid me.”

  That had the other two weighing their options.

  “But when I do that I immediately disconnect you so you no longer get any signals from or control anything by way of your little Minx. And when and if there are official questions I’ll still name you as the ones who paid to have the system built and secretly installed. You don’t get to walk away from the responsibility, only from the payoff. What’s your decision?”

  Ackack stopped by Foxpat, leaned close and said in a threatening tone, “Maybe you’ll have a terrible accident here and now and won’t be able to change anything. Maybe there won’t even be enough of you left to make anyone even think to investigate. You suggested this place to meet because it’s designed for unofficial, off all records meetings. No one knows we came here and I’m betting no one knows you did either.”

  Delmus got into the spirit of it saying, “With no record of what was said or done clever guys - that would be us - can create a record at our convenience to deal with any loose ends. If we have no further use for you why would we let you stay around and threaten our plans?”

  Foxpat suddenly held up the mini-zerpy he had been holding cupped in his hand this entire time. Ackack squealed in pain as he staggered back several steps. Delmus started to get up but then decided he was better off in the chair.

  “Have you two seen the latest in mini-zerpies like this one?” Foxpat asked. “These devices keep getting smaller and more useful. This model is even a potent weapon if needed.”

  He pointed the top of it toward the chair Ackack had been using – and that fell apart into a pile of dust. Then he left the device hovering as he s
cratched his nose. He said, “Don’t threaten me unless you mean it and are ready to die as a result. And of course this amazing helper has recorded every word we’ve all said here. I assume you’re recording this too and that’s okay. Complaints meetings are prime sources of misquotes so it’s prudent for both sides to have an accurate record of what was and wasn’t said and done.”

  “Sproingy, how I wish I had you now,” Ackack whispered.

  “What?” Foxpat asked without showing special interest.

  “Nothing. Just mumbling,” Ackack insisted. “Uh, I was saying to myself that obviously my partner and I overdid our acting. This was all a joke but you took us seriously. We’re not threatening anybody. If you thinking that you’ve made a silly mistake.”

  “Yeah. All a mistake. Uh, but back to the secret zerpy. Does the other group know we’re also getting info from the same hardware as them?” Delmus asked.

  “You have to ask them what they know. I sell hardware and software, not raw information,” Foxpat said. “I don’t rule it out or give false assurances. My job doesn’t include telling what anyone else knows, suspects, asked for, or did. It’s awkward that you two have to guess who any others might be and that if you’re wrong and say something to them you’ll start them asking questions, and if they lie about the matter you won’t know that so you can’t get far on that question but sib sog.”

  The others glared angrily at him.

  Foxpat said quietly, “Be assured that if I disappear or die by any cause whatsoever a whole lot of information goes to the governors. Oh wait, and also to the public who love to hate you guys. It’s in your best interest that I live long and happy.”

  “Have you no sense of loyalty?” Delmus asked.

  Fox laughed heartily.

  “Are there no innocents left among us?” Delmus continued.

  “Supposedly your contestant is one,” Foxpat said.