“So that ends an interesting but chaotic chapter in Ormelexian history and business,” Gopgop said, sitting back in his chair. “At least that tension’s over. It’ll take a while for all the other potential problems to come together so they become evident but also can be dealt with.”
“After all the twists and turnings I’m not going to say that’s all over but I agree that it may be best if it is. At least until we hear some definite word to the contrary I’ll focus my superior mind on covering my backend - and thinking about how to use what we learned for new investment opportunities. A bit of relaxation is also called for.”
“I’ve summoned Elfwip and told him to bring two assistants. We need a lot of worrying done and I’m tired. It’s good to be rich enough to hire help for these tasks,” Gopgop said.
“I’m going to bask for a while, then I’ll start thinking about more new and inventive ways to amass profits. I know my place in the scheme of things. I’m content to be a business person. That’s enough of a challenge for me,” Uldene said.
* * *
So that is basically the way things happened on the distant planet Ormelex far away and reached in less than thousands of years only by way of, to use its Earth scientist’s high tech name for it, a space wormhole. Not surprisingly, those from Ormelex working on the Earth side of that wormhole aka snaggiewarp had a different perspective on the events.
Chapter 30
From an early stage of the adventure it happened like this on Whizybeam, the space ship from Ormelex, that was in stationary orbit beside and close to Earth’s moon
The ship was specially outfitted as a really far-ranging mobile message reception, processing, and transmission center so she was effectively a fast-moving, far-traveling TV show production station.
The producers’ office was a fairly small room in keeping with the inevitable cramped conditions on a small spaceship. There was a view-screen and control console on one side. Two doors, both currently and routinely closed, provided access to the rest of the ship. The decor was basic Star Trek type, light on detail but durable and easy to maintain. At this time the producers Hasley, Feedle, and Lacrat sat in a circle in roll-around swivel chairs, all happy and feeling a bit playful.
“Show runner Feedle reporting that we've made more history. We've sent home the first show episode ever made on, and edited from orbit over, a planet beyond Ormelex's star system.”
“Making the best use we can of the contestant prepared for the task by our lovely talent coordinator, me,” Lacrat noted.
“While as chief schemer and diplomatic bully of the onboard team of Bang-Boom Shows Certificated major players I handle the delicate task of coordinating with those far, far away back home,” Hasley proudly proclaimed.
“I'd take a bow but it's too much trouble to get up for such a small if distinguished audience as this,” Feedle said.
“The first packet of edited material is on its way and I'm worried that it'll be too big a hit among the masses,” Lacrat admitted. “This isn't going as planned so we'd be better off with only a moderate success this time. That level of expectations we could meet.”
“I'm shaping and stretching what we have into as exciting and long-lasting a show as possible but it's a strain without a real contest,” Feedle said. “See what you think of this.”
She started the sequence on the view-screen. The image was a close-up view of Nerber, from his zerpy’s perspective, as he cautiously but curiously examined Matt Taylor’s newspaper. The voice-over was a synthesized version of Nerber’s voice, not too artificial sounding but not entirely convincing either.
Handed the newspaper, the on-screen Nerber moved it close to his face and said, “This substance is not familiar to me so if I learn all about it I maybe can offer those on my superior home planet new options for marking down information.”
He rubbed a page between the fingers of one hand to feel the texture, then rubbed a hand flat against the page to test its smoothness. “It is light but flexible. Thin, but strong enough to hold its shape. An interesting substance but surely inferior or we would be using it on Ormelex.”
Taylor gave him a sideways glance but said nothing when Nerber conspicuously sniffed at the pages.
“It has some faint odors but none that I recognize or that I can identify. Maybe one of the zerpies searching the inhabitants’ information sources will identify what it might be and I can become more of a hero by confirming that. I could do that since I now have some of it in my grasp so I know better than any other Ormelexian what it looks, feels, and smells like. Well, except for any other contestants who might meet an inhabitant possessing some. Of course under The Far-Out Show rules I am not allowed to know how many of the others arrived intact and fully functional or what they are doing.”
He turned his head and listened to the pages. He jerked them away when a breeze rustled the tops of the pages that were barely standing upright. “It makes sounds!”
Once he identified the sound source though he was fascinated, shaking the pages to cause it again. “Ah, those sounds may happen when it bends or moves. They are not signals it is picking up or generating itself. Items on Ormelex are superior because they would do more than just make noises when moved around or made into other shapes.”
He pulled the pages close to his face and flicked his tongue at it a bit several times without making contact. “For a full report on its sensual properties I should taste it but doing that when I will return it to an alien inhabitant is going too far.” He moved the paper back to arm’s length.
Hasley freeze-framed the image of Nerber’s head and asked, “Did either of you see that item, whatever it is, that’s attached to his hat among Nerber’s things when you secretly searched his quarters before we came through the snaggiewarp?”
“No, but it doesn’t look like anything you’d bother to hide,” Feedle said. “How long has it been part of his costume?”
Lacrat looked up from the small monitor on the console and said, “From the first views we have from Wilburps after they arrived down there. Same sort of nothing special thing in the same spot on that head covering.” He then keyed instructions into the system.
“It must be something he found down there and liked so he made an attachment to it. Too bad, we need to warn him that if it’s a local material we can’t risk bringing it up with him in the transporter system. We don’t know enough about the qualities of the local stuff to risk it. If it mixed in with him and ruined him we’d never hear the end of it,” Hasley said.
Lacrat said, “Be sure to give him that warning. I had Wilburps do a secret zick-zip scan of it. It doesn’t register. It doesn’t seem dangerous or important but it also isn’t anything we can tell all about so we need to be careful of it.”
“Or zick-zip scans don’t work on this planet,” Feedle said.
“I can’t rule that out. Those depend on certain energies working in predictable ways and we don’t know enough about the conditions here yet,” Hasley said.
“It doesn’t cause our regular equipment problems and he favors it so we’ll let him keep it until it’s time to bring him up,” Feedle said. “Problem solved. Matter closed.”
A musical tone sounded. They all turned their chairs to face the view-screen. Feedle stopped the edited material while Hasley checked a small monitor on the console and said, “It's our trusty pilot. It must be time to move us behind their moon.”
Eroder, an older male with blunted head spikes like a crew cut, appeared on the screen from the helm.
“Is there a problem, Eroder?” Hasley asked.
“I'm moving us as planned. There was a problem with the engine but I hope it's only a minor glitch. I'll move us out of sight of the planet surface and then do a complete diagnostic.”
“Understood. Keep us informed.” Hasley pushed a button and the screen went blank.
Lacrat reminded the others, “We need to decide what to do with Zemgas and Rumpsy. They came this far with us to be contestants but
refused to go to the surface after they heard what happened to Zipper during his transfer down. I mean they literally heard it, not just heard about it.”
“I sympathize with their fear of that transport system,” Hasley said. “After what happened to Zipper I wouldn't use it either. Especially not starting the move sitting inside that booth thing which some of the techs suspect is what messied up so badly and made things go wrong for Zipper. You won’t get me using the system for any reason maybe even after the techs figure out what happened and fix it. But the show's not nearly as exciting with only one guy down there doing challenges.”
“Maybe one of others will come around if we keep reminding them of the ego rewards to be had. They're too late to be the first Ormelexian to walk on another planet but they could still make history as the winner of the first challenge show to take place there,” Feedle said.
“Forget it, they won't risk it,” Lacrat said. “In the future we need to only accept contestants who really don't much care about surviving as long as they get to be planetary heroes for a few days. These two came across that way when the risk was theoretical but now they’re not about to accept any assurances about the safety of this ship’s equipment no matter how long I say it has been in regular use without a problem.”
Feedle said, “I'm in favor of not telling the A.D.U. guys about this format change for as long as possible. We can coast along on the wild adventures of Nerber and his zerpy Wilburps. Once the audience knows there'll only be one contestant which means no down-to-the-last-effort struggles, the ratings will drop kersplinketty plunkaboo - and our futures with them.”
At the musical tone Hasley checked the console's monitor. “An update from the transmission and reception technicians.” He tapped a button on the console. Venrik, a young male with only one ring of spikes on his head, and Svenly, an older female with a permanently sad facial expression and long, droopy head spikes, appeared on the screen sitting in the ship’s program edit room.
Venrik said, “A.D.U. confirms receiving that last packet of edited material in good condition.”
Svenly asked, “Do we have more of a reply to them than the standard message received signal?”
Hasley checked with the others – who shake their heads no. He answered, “Just the routine message for now, Svenly.”
Svenly nodded, pushed a button and the screen blanked.
“What realistic options do we have in dealing with contestants who balk at continuing to be used?” Hasley asked.
“We can't force them to continue. We can't even get them down there without their cooperation. Not even if we don’t use that booth thing again since it’s not essential. That was convenient so we could shoot the contestant full of calming drugs if we wanted to but Nerber seems not to be affected by those anyway. Tied up or drugged up contestants don't make for good shows,” Lacrat commented.
“It'd be a major nuisance to force them to do it but I'm sure we could either buy them off or deal with the bad publicity in other ways if necessary if we did that,” Feedle disagreed.
Lacrat laid it out. “It'd be expensive to beam them home now with the way-way-faster-than-light system we use for our messages but that system's also untested with bodies so they'd be crazy to try it. We can put them into dormancy in the back room until we get home but that uses a lot of energy we might need.”
“Plus, the dormancy system has problems too,” Hasley reminded them. “I guess that at least if you're dormant and the system fails you die without knowing what happened.”
Feedle shuttered at the memory. “Unlike Zipper whose screams made it clear he knew just what was happening as he was reduced to molecules that wouldn't be put back together.”
“We're gonna make trouble with A.D.U. about that since they vouched for all the equipment they provided,” Hasley promised.
“We need to consider what to do with the recording of Zipper's transfer though,” Feedle said. “Every gruesome second of it's in our data storage. It's terrible for him but it'd be a real audience pleaser. That scream is an instant classic.”
Hasley made a cautioning gesture, “Except that it would send the message that all guarantees about the safety of planetary exploration are worthless since the equipment's not reliable. A message the governors definitely and strongly don't want to have anybody send. I say we secure that recording and keep mum about even having it for now. Later we'll see what the governors will pay for the only copy of it.”
“For now I've confined the balkers to their quarters and I’ve deactivated their zerpies. That should hold things,” Lacrat said.
Feedle remembered something to pass along. “By the way, Svenly tells me our crew techs have compromised A.D.U.’s system to send secret coded messages only they could receive and decode. He gives special credit to Molten for imagineering the way around their setup.”
Hasley gloated, “Yeah, now the same hardware can send those secret messages to them and the Bang-Boom home base or, with the push of a few buttons, send them only to our guys while leaving A.D.U. unable to detect or decode them. Sugariness. Molten is also ready to turn on the scrambler to mess up the system of sound detectors that would let the A.D.U. guys hear every word said anywhere on the whole ship which they somehow forgot to tell us about.”
“Their techs would get to giggle every time one of us let out a loud vuprup or kensidmif his cimgim,” Lacrat said.
“For now we can’t safely remove the many detectors but we can make the signals they send useless and annoying as fliggrow, Halsey said. “Maybe once they detect what we’re doing they’ll turn off the system and stop draining our energy storage on devices intended to work against us.”
“What's the word on Icetop and Yelpam?” Feedle asked.
“I’m meeting with them shortly to ask them to consider switching from mechanical tech crew members and become contestants,” Lacrat said. “You can sit in and pressure, tempt, or cajole them if you want.”
The musical tone sounded. Lacrat and Feedle looked toward the door, their frowns saying they weren’t expecting a visitor.
Hasley said, “This should be Biccup. He asked me for a private meeting with us so I said sure.”
“He was operating the transport system when Zipper, uh, went missing. Is this about that?” Lacrat asked.
“I wondered the same thing but the only way to find out is to hear what he has to say,” Halsey said.
“I don’t have the stomach for any whining so let me go do other things,” Feedle said. She left by the one door as Halsey touched a button that opened the other door for Biccup.
The technician was male, short and stocky, with unusually small feet for his species – close to what most humans would describe as normal sized. His head was covered with a random mix of head spikes of three different lengths which gave him a perpetually disheveled look.
Lacrat sat back to lend moral support but he would only move to intervene if this turned too pathetic.
“What’s the problem, Biccup?” Hasley asked without preamble to move this to a quick resolution.
“A pair of things I noticed and thought you should be aware of but maybe wouldn’t want in the records for now,” Biccup said.
Hasley thought, Let’s get to the point and not waste time on how distressed you feel. He asked. “Is this about you losing Zipper during his transfer?”
“I didn’t lose him, the transport system did,” Biccup said with a shrug. “Nothing I could do about that since you guys said the system was ready to use and I shouldn’t run any tests to check it out. And it worked okay with Nerber. He’s my first point but my second point is sort of about the second guy’s thing. Too late to do Zipper any good, I did take a close look at the system. I think I’ve found why it messed up. It’s an elementary design flaw which means it’s simple to fix. The only safe way to make sure it’ll work right now though is to test it. I’d have to transport something down and back. Maybe the next contestant? It’s ready for the test right now. Should I run a test
or two.”
It took Hasley a moment to react. He had been braced to deal with a problem but faced only a simple question instead.
“Uh, okay, Biccup. You’ve becomes the local expert on the transport system so if you think you’ve made it safe to use that’s good. We’d all feel safer if all the systems were well tested before we used them. There’s no better way to check out a technical system that to use it and see what happens.”
“You’re babbling, Hasley. Is that an okay to test or a no?” Biccup asked to move this along.
“No. I mean yes, test the system” Hasley said. “But only use something we can afford to lose and won’t have to worry much about if it gets to the planet but you can’t bring it back. Something that won’t be obvious to any inhabitants that see it as an item of interest from a superior world.”
“Understood.”
“What was your other point? The one about Nerber,” Lacrat asked when it seemed Hasley had forgotten what had been said earlier.
“Uh, yeah, I was just getting to that,” Hasley lied.
“When he touched down. Right at the start. I went back and looked at the record to figure out what didn’t work right the next time. There’s fuzziness in the signals coming back.”
“Fuzziness? Is that a technical term?” Hasley asked.
“Nah, it’s tech talk-talk for something strange and maybe fritzerish in signals,” Biccup said. “Little things that you can’t say exactly what they mean but you notice them enough to wonder. Things you don’t even know how to check out further.”
“Do you think this fuzziness is important?” Hasley asked.
“I don’t know what it means or if it’s important. It might mean that Nerber had something on him that generated a signal that kept the transport system from identifying it. Or Wilburps did. Or both did. If so there are two obvious questions. What went down to the planet that we don’t know about? And was that deliberate? Did Nerber intend to sneak something down with him or doesn’t he even know something on him or the zerpy produced those fuzzy signals? The other obvious possibility is that one or both were damaged in the transport in ways the system isn’t programmed to recognize and specify.”
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