Far-out Show (9781465735829)

by Hanna, Thomas

  “I have confidence in you, Eroder. You and the techs have worked out bigger confusions than that.”

  “Those other orbiting devices made us want to cry until Venrik explained that on this planet the inhabitants have a lot, I mean a lot, of different ways of talk-talking. On Ormelex we may not agree with one another but at least we understand the insults we're all shouting back and forth at one another. It turns out different groups of the inhabitants here put the devices in orbit so understanding the control messages meant translating them to the talk-talk pattern we have the most experience with. Things weren't exactly easy then but at least we knew the confusion was talk-talk, not technical stuff.”

  “Do we have any technical trick to make us invisible to them?”

  “There's a camouflage system that will only operate when we've set down. There’s no record showing it's ever been used so we don't know if it'll work any better than some of the other equipment.”

  “Not a strong recommendation on this rattle trap of a ship but we're confident you'll get us home safe,” Hasley said, trying to sound more upbeat than he was feeling at the moment.

  Feedle and Lacrat entered behind Hasley as Eroder muttered “What now?”

  The image went to split screen as Eroder took a message from Molten and that was also displayed here.

  Molten said, “We’ve spotted the mystery whatever-it-is again. Blurs on the motion detection system along with interference on the other sensors. Unless there’s something critical for us to do this minute Biccup and I are going to check this out. We figure that if it’s real and solid even if it can mess with the ship’s visual sensors it’s probably not invisible to our eyes. Without knowing what it is, we can’t be sure it’s not causing at least some of our signal problems.”

  “Check it out. Something has to be the cause of all the problems. Go armed. It might be a dangerous stowaway or some kind of a creature peculiar to this part of space that we haven’t even imagined until now though,” Eroder said.

  The screen blanked as Eroder remembered he had forgotten to disconnect from the producers’ office earlier.

  “That whole ‘thing that can’t be seen’ is suspicious,” Feedle grumbled. “Something the monitoring systems can’t detect seems to me like a story made up to scare unwary hatchlings.”

  “If you use a technical system to watch, you can mess with the technical system to make it not work as planned,” Lacrat said. “There are always distortions and interference when the blurs are noted. In fact Molten told me he found more of the blurs by scanning for the short-term distortions and only looked at the visual record for those times.”

  “Consorting with the enemy’s a tactical mistake, Lacrat,” Feedle said. “They can’t be trusted, not a one of them.”

  “They’re our only hope of getting home alive,” Hasley said. “And we’d dump them faster than they’d dump us if we could all afford to not make it together.”

  “You think the techs are faking all the problems with the engines and communications?” Lacrat asked Feedle.

  “I suspect they’re faking a lot of it at least. Come on, we only hired top notch experienced crew members,” she said. “How could they not know exactly what’s happening and therefore be using a few minor anomalies to try to panic us?”

  “Using poorly tested hardware that none of them ever had any experience with except a brief training period before he left home would explain why they don’t know exactly what’s happening. Add to that the first ever trip through a snaggiewarp which may have done all sorts of harm that couldn’t be planned for because... What was that point? Oh yeah, it had never been done before so the ship designers couldn’t know what forces we’d be subjected to in there,” Lacrat said venting his annoyance with her and her attitude.

  Feedle said, “Look, I know enough to...”

  “No, you don’t,” Hasley said. “You know less about technical stuff than any of us and that makes you dangerous.”

  “What? I’m going to push the wrong button and the whole ship will fall apart?” she asked, annoyed that he would question her and not convinced there was anything she didn’t know that might make a real difference to what she did.

  “You get in the way of the questions that need to be investigated to get the answers that resolve problems,” Hasley answered calmly.

  “Like what question?” she asked defiantly.

  “Are the signal problems caused by unidentified tech systems or maybe unrecognized side-effects of those or are you convinced they’re deliberate manipulation of the standard systems by our techs?”

  “Nicely put, Lacrat. None of us is sure this isn’t all some kind of a rebellion scam but we have no solid evidence of that,” Hasley said.

  “Nor do we have the technical backgrounds we’d need to check all their claims and spot any deceptions,” Lacrat said.

  Feedle wanted to argue that point but Lacrat held her off with a gesture long enough to add, “None of us is a zerpy tech so we can’t do more than guess if they could reprogram those devices to give us false but reassuring readings in order to confuse us if we ourselves order the automated systems to run diagnostics.”

  Feedle’s expression showed that she was thinking the same thing.

  “We want to stay alert for evidence that we’re being scammed but we won’t help matters by becoming paranoid or by accusing everyone and being nasty without reason,” Hasley said.

  “Our survival may depend on figuring out who are conspiring against us and who are the innocents we could trust to help get us through,” Lacrat said.

  “You always want to placate the enemy,” Feedle grumbled.

  “Why take them on in a full out fight when they know how to use the tools essential to my survival against me?” Lacrat said.

  The ship shook violently.

  “Not again,” Feedle said angrily.

  The room lights and those on the console all went off.

  “Yes, again,” Hasley said. After a moment he said, “I can’t get a response on the communications system so it must be a widespread problem.”

  “Again,” Feedle said sourly.

  “I’m sure the techs would welcome your help if you know how to fix it so it won’t happen anymore,” Lacrat said in a tone that matched hers for sourness and had a snicker built in.

  Minimum lighting came on so they could move around without groping but the energy storage units hadn’t fully recharged so it was still no more than gloomy as they manually opened the door and hurried to the control room.

  * * *

  The three producers found the control room doors open and all the mechanical techs present and busy at the consoles. Hasley, Feedle, and Lacrat stayed outside the door and watched the activity inside.

  “We’re losing signals,” Molten reported.

  “Sectors one, two, and three are off-line,” Icetop called out. “Four will go next. Yeah, four is down. Nine after that because of the weird way the systems are connected even after we simplified things. Yeah, nine is down. Now seven, five, and eight in that order. When six goes... Yeah, it just did. Captain, we are totally shut down.”

  “Tell me this isn’t a fake,” Feedle challenged her associates in a whisper. “They don’t know we can hear them and literally Icetop is giving the orders of what they’ll shut down next to make it seem like we’ve lost control.”

  “Or maybe even you could predict which parts would shut down in sequence if you knew enough about their interconnections and dependence on one another for signals,” Lacrat whispered.

  “Any thoughts so far?” Eroder called.

  “It started with the triplex routing pod,” Molten said. “That overloaded and sent a surge through the multi-spread circuit tree. Not happy news but at least it makes sense of the problem. The last patch is sending a lot more signals through the one routing pod than I for one recognized would happen.”

  “Let’s not rush to change that,” Yelpam called. “This happened because we didn’t have the life-
support system time left to follow all the circuits and see that after some weird twists and reverses most of them lead back to that one pod. Pick two sectors and look them over to see how to redirect some of the load. I’m checking two and four.”

  “I’m looking at sector seven. The simplest solution would seem to be the one of choice but in this case the simple reroute will reconnect the remote overrides and make us vulnerable to take-over by those far away who don’t have our safety as their top priority.”

  Biccup called, “Any except a carefully plotted rerouting through sector eight might let stray signals activate the self-destruct unit. They might also make it impossible to shut that off once it’s been activated.”

  “I need to see our options on monitors,” Eroder called.

  The techs’ fingers flew across the keyboards and signal readings, graphics, and text messages, some including flashing warnings and alerts, appeared on the monitors at the consoles.

  In the hall just outside the open door Feedle said, “I give them credit for putting on a good show to scare us but I’m not fooled. This is a scam to squeeze concessions from us.”

  “Has any crew member said anything to you about us improving the deals we made with them?” Hasley asked.

  “Wouldn’t you think the tacticians who could fabricate such a complete operation would know enough to establish the groundwork for the resolution before hand?” Lacrat asked. “We know they don’t trust us, and they shouldn’t. We won’t follow through on any promises we make that aren’t instantly recorded in terms too definite and explicit for us to squirm out of later.”

  Feedle suggested lamely, “Maybe they’re only tech smart, not scam smart.”

  The other two followed Hasley’s example and turned back to stand in the doorway to see all that was happening inside.

  “I’m not liking how few choices we have,” Eroder said, mostly to himself. “The controls of this hovering pile of gadgets are so twisty-turned they’re almost sure to fail and kill us all. At moments like this I wish those who designed the systems and those who told them how crazy they wanted them to be so we wouldn’t be able to protect ourselves by changing them were all onboard so we could beat them up before we all die.”

  “What looks like it will result in the most stable controls will leave us open to having all self-destruct units vulnerable to remote detonation,” Icetop said. “The only way I can see to patch around that is a major cause of this crash. The only other route around that would compromise the air quality and other life-support systems. They wanted to make it close to impossible for us to survive if they couldn’t destroy us any time they want to - and they did a good job of setting that up.”

  “Hasley. Feedle. Are you producers in the area? What do you think about this? Do we go with the threat of the guys at home ending us if we become a nuisance but we can breathe normally until then or risk passing out from bad air but know our carcasses will then float for a long time somewhere in empty space? As captain it’s ultimately my decision but I’m inviting your opinions. You too, Lacrat. I wasn’t cutting you out, just distracted by what I see on the monitors.”

  Feedle called, “Don’t think this will change anything, guys. I’m not fooled.”

  “Spoken like the fool we’ve recognized you to be for some time,” Eroder said. “Times up for inputs from the rest of you. The readings say make a decision now or never and... There, we have somewhat normal conditions but we may be terminated at will by those at home. If we’re really lucky maybe they won’t know they have that power back.”

  “Sorry, the system condition report just automatically sent to them includes that fact,” Molten said.

  “But what one tech designer can lay out, other techs can look for ways to reconfigure,” Icetop said. “We’re not necessarily doomed yet.”

  “We never doubted you guys would pull us through,” Lacrat said.

  “Was this somehow the result of the mystery blurs?” Feedle asked in a tone dripping with sarcasm.

  “We didn’t see anything back in that area,” Molten said as if he couldn’t hear her doubts and scorn. “We’ll stay alert. Whatever it is will turn out to be important.”

  “Since you consider yourself the expert in making something out of nothing we’ll send it to you for careful analysis, Feedle,” Icetop said loud enough for everyone to hear as something not intended to be heard.

  Eroder and the techs all smiled. Eroder called, “Lots of knots to be untied and retied better, guys. Let’s stick with the problems until they’re all solved and not make any useless ones, fun as those might be.”

  Chapter 35

  Feedle and Lacrat were alone in the program edit room, working the control console. Wilburps's view of Nerber sitting on the ground among the shrubs of the corner house, out of breath and scared was freeze-framed on the screen without audio. Feedle touched switches to activate the recording.

  Nerber said, “As of now I abandon all plans to complete the show's dumb challenges and focus my attention on staying alive in any case - and free if I can manage that too.”

  She freeze-framed Nerber's image and turned off the audio as she said, “This is good but not great stuff yet.”

  The two sat back as they evaluated the material. Lacrat noted, “He's fraying around the edges but he's only approaching the crisis point. He can either go entirely to pieces and become a ranting mess or pull himself together and give us some good chase-and-defend-himself sequences. Basket case or hero? Either one will keep the audience happy. Just hiding won't. He has to reach a breaking point.”

  “So we continue to make our contacts with him disjointed and sporadic. ‘Technical problems’ is such a useful excuse for manipulating things.” She restarted the recording.

  Nerber announced, “That does it. Send this. Producers or the guys on Ormelex, this will be my last report unless I get a clear response to tell me I am being heard, not just static and garble.” She freeze-framed the screen image again.

  “At least with the continuous feed from Wilburps that neither of them is aware of we get to record it all,” Lacrat said.

  “While we allow only an occasional teasing bit to go through to A.D.U. More technical difficulties excuse. We tip our hats in thanks to A.D.U. for fixing Wilburps to give that constant feed that in theory we don't know about so we can't read it, much less block it.”

  “Let's not get over-confident about having out-smarted them,” Lacrat cautioned. “We still want to make more use of them before we toss them aside the way they've intended to do to us from the start.”

  To test his thoughts Feedle asked, “Should we worry much about Nerber? If he unravels rather than somehow triumphs he may be permanently damaged. That might not be the best outcome for the show.”

  “True, there’s a point where he becomes too pathetic to exploit because the audience won't enjoy watching his decline any more but then he'll just disappear. Once he's not featured on a show he effectively no longer exists. He's a contestant. He signed waivers. He's expendable.”

  “You're right of course. I simply have a problem understanding why these guys sign the waivers they do to let us ruthlessly exploit them the way we do,” she said.

  “For a few moments of glory on the view-screen. They may be the lowest of the low of the on-screen population but to many of them that's still a head and a half higher than anyone at all who's not in that population.”

  Svenly and Venrik entered to take over so Feedle and Lacrat got up to leave. Svenly said, “We're back to see what's new among the incoming messages and intercepts.”

  “While we continue to figure out how to make us all as rich as possible,” Lacrat said.

  * * *

  A bit later Hasley, Feedle, and Lacrat were in their seats in the producers’ office. Hasley brought up Venrik on a screen and Wilburps's view of Nerber hiding in the tool shed on an adjacent one.

  “Where is Nerber at this time?” Feedle asked.

  “It's like some kind of a storage pl
ace but what those things are around him or what they're used for we have no idea,” Venrik answered.

  “Make sure Wilburps gives us many views of it. We're thinking about a show where contestants suggest uses for things like we see in there and the audience votes for its favorites,” Lacrat said.

  “Nerber's pretty scared,” Venrik pointed out.

  “With good reason. The inhabitants are looking for him to kill him out of fear of him. It can't take them long to narrow in on him,” Lacrat replied more cheerily than Venrik seemed to think appropriate.

  “I'm sure we must have told him we might tweak him a bit to get more useful reactions from him so he's not being fair making it seem like we're doing him wrong,” Feedle said to smooth things over. “It’s such a nuisance to have any of the others believe they’re important enough that we’d risk any loss to our bottom-most lineage to protect them.”

  “We can transport Nerber up any time we want. That was the deal,” Lacrat said. “At the end of the contest we retrieve every contestant and zerpy. They all have signal implants to let us do that even if they’ve been captured or are dead and even stored by the inhabitants. Those implants aren't likely to be recognized as such on a casual inspection by the inhabitants.”

  “He was told that but he doesn't seem confident it'll happen,” Hasley observed. “Maybe we overdid the ‘scare him into believing that he's stranded due to technical problems’ bit but this is our first time, so we can't be blamed if we didn't get it right.”

  “He's probably not for really true happy knowing that he can be smotcheroodled without warning or recourse from afar by the self-destruct device he knows is inside him,” Feedle conceded. “I’m told that we've altered the system so that only we can send that signal from here and would only do so under the direst circumstances but if we tell him that he may relax enough to not be as interesting to watch. It reassures me to know we have that real bottom-most lineage way to deal with anyone who gives us too much trouble. Recently I’ve been struggling not to use those units to remove several of them.”