Far-out Show (9781465735829) (27 page)

Ipanema rolled her eyes but shrugged and
thrust out her bosom saying, “Are you playing games with me,
Bub?”

With a shrug, Nerber thrust out his own
chest.

“This is a
lead up to it
game among my
kind. What do your kind like? You are looking to get physical yes?”
she asked.

Nerber threw up his hands in delight. “Yes,
be pleasing to have us get physical together.” He stepped up and
wiggled as if rubbing bellies with her. To his confusion she
stepped back.

“First you must make it worth my while.”

“What will make it worth this while of
yours?”

“Cold hard cash of course. This is not a
charity event.”

“Ah, cash is your money. I get your money and
give it to you and you give what to me?”

“I give you relief from the pressure for all
the audience to watch and have their fantasies about,” she said,
again in that Ormelexian version of a sultry tone of voice.

“Sadly is a problem. I am a stranger with
none of your money.”

“No money, no belly rubbing together.” She
waddled off down the street in her too high heels calling back,
“Weirdo aliens need to learn how things work here before they try
to come here and pass. We should run them all out of town or hunt
them down in violent bloody fights.”

The screen image freeze-framed in a tight
shot of Ipanema's rump. Ackack tapped a button and the screen went
blank.

Delmus said, “It must be better than the raw
feed but I don't know if it'll be okay.”

“This is a new idea. An ambitious and clever
tech's suggestion but something I’ve agreed to think through
thoroughly.”

“Explain.”

“We edit bits of the same visuals together
over and over but in different sequences and combinations, add
whatever talk-talk we want to each, and have different sequences.
The audience won't care that it’s the same visuals repeated as long
as we keep the talk-talk sexy - and
new
.”

“I like that idea up to a point. We need to
avoid the mistake other companies made of overdoing it though and
especially of ever repeating exactly the same video sequences. We
get them used to reedited stuff, then switch over to new material
made right here and they'll accept it as if it were new material
from far away. If we don't mark it as from far away it's not a
false claim. So from now on to obey the law we don't label its
source when we air any of it, then we don't have to change that
label, which some would notice and question.”

“This is why it's so exciting working with
you, Delmus! We stretch the product to maximize our benefits but do
it without sharing those. The
Bang-Boom
guys' contract
requires them to supply footage and a first edit. Anything after
that’s our call. They can't change it, stop it, or claim any
further profit from it.”

“Beyond the fact that if they produce a hot
show we toss them a few bonuses to stay in business with them until
they join the long list of has-beens.”

“This is why we're bosses. We know how to
handle all the sides.”

“We use the producers, we use the governors,
and we also use the audience - all in the name of serving them
all.”

“We're such good guys,” Ackack said with a
smirk. “The bill for damage to the space ship won't leave the
Bang-Boom Shows
guys much but we'll reduce that - in return
for the rights to their next shows at bargain prices. That seems
generous to me.”

“How could anyone not love us?” Delmus asked
with a shrug of mock confusion.

“Or not trust us completely?”

Both laughed.

A musical tone sounded. Ackack checked a
small panel on the control panel and said, “How convenient. We’re
getting a page from
Whizybeam
right now. Are you ready?”

Delmus straightened in his chair and put on
his most serious and concerned expression, then nodded. Ackack
touched a button and Hasley appeared on a central section of the
view-screen. The background showed that he was in the producers’
office.

“Good, we have some things to say to you,
Hasley,” Ackack said in his most in-charge tone.

“Me first,” Hasley said. “I have bad
news.”

“Always with the whining. Get over it,”
Delmus said.

Hasley went on as if he didn’t hear that.
“Now that we’ve had a chance to get over our shock and also get the
first episode and the other material to you, let me catch you up on
some things that happened because of your ship’s faulty, untested
equipment.”

“Spare us the unfounded complaints.
Everything on
Whizybeam
was expertly tested and in full
working order when she was turned over to you,” Ackack said.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Hasley said. “Then
there are records about the testing so when we raise objections
with the governors they can verify your statements. And yes, we
know it’s their ship, only on loan to you so you could supply it to
us for the real testing.”

“It got you there to be heroes as the first
to do what you’re doing so be glad and stop wasting our time,”
Ackack insisted. “If nobody died things are working okay.”

“But one of us did die,” Hasley said.

“Bring back his or her body!” Delmus
shouted.

“No. Not going to happen.”

“That wasn’t a polite suggestion, that was an
order, Hasley.” Delmus couldn’t believe he was hearing this.

“Talk to those who supplied the defective
transport system. Oh wait, that would be you. Then listen up,
responsible ones. Contestant Zipper was disassembled for transport
by your system but it didn’t reassemble him either at the planet
surface or back in the transport room. Based on his scream, he died
fully aware that he was lost and maybe in terrible agony.”

“Did you record the scream?” Ackack asked
quickly. “Is there visual of him disassembling?”

“Yes to the audio; no to the video. At least
the disastrous part. That happened after he was out of view of the
operator and somewhere in the void,” Hasley said calmly.

“Is the scream good quality stuff?” Delmus
asked eagerly.

“Yes, in both senses. It recorded cleanly and
it’s either stomach churning or delightful, depending on your point
of view about gore and horrendous endings.”

“He was the only one lost though, right?”
Ackack asked.

“So far. We still have to bring back every
contestant and zerpy that transported down and it’s the same
equipment with no obvious flaw that we can detect and correct
since, distressingly, we can’t find the details of its programs and
function specs in the stored information,” Hasley said.

Delmus went into take-charge mode. “Okay,
we’ll deal with the paperwork. That includes notifying the
governors. Don’t you try to tell anyone, that’s our job. It was
Zipper, right?”

“Correct,” Hasley replied.

“Now to the important matter of why you’ve
sent us so little show material. You’ve had plenty of time. What
we’ve received so far is only about one contestant. What’s
wrong?”

“Things aren’t what we were told they would
be like here.”

“
Sib sog
, our hearts are breaking for
you,” Ackack said.

Hasley went on as if there had been no
interruption, “So we have to make adjustments and those take time.
From the early moment when it was clear that the information and
the equipment supplied by you is unreliable we’ve been proceeding
with great caution. Rashness leads to disaster. We should declare
that an official adage for survivors.”

“We’re under pressure here. There are
official questions about why we haven’t aired more episodes,”
Delmus said.

“You’re welcome,” Hasley said with a little
nod.

“What?” Delmus mentally reviewed what he
remembered being said to see if he had missed something.

“I’ve provided you with the correct response
to all questions so of course you’re thankful,” Hasley said. “In
two words,
technical difficulties
. Slightly longer version,
the conditions of making and transmitting the material in a far
place with conditions unlike any our kind have previous experience
with slows things up but we’re doing the best we can.”

“That doesn’t convince us so it’s not very
good, is it?” Ackack said with a sneer.

“But what practical difference does your
demand for some other answer make when all I do is repeat that,
Ackack? Are you going to come here and take over the production
yourself? Are you going to send up your tough guys to smack us
around? Oh wait, we’re far away in the only vessel built to get
here so we’re out of reach.” Hasley leaned forward and said, “And
now out of touch.” The screen went blank.

“We’ll get him back and make it clear who’s
in charge,” Delmus said as he reached for his keyboard.

“Don’t bother. We can hail them but we can’t
force our message onto their view-screen if they don’t allow it,”
Ackack said. “There’s also the problem that he’s right. There’s not
much we can do directly to affect them. It’s a new situation and
we’re all feeling our way through it.”

“Every person and zerpy out there has an
implanted self-destruct unit. We have the codes to activate any or
all of those whenever we want to from the comfort of our
chairs.”

“A final solution but not much good unless we
have to back away from the whole complicated but profitable show.
They shouldn’t even know about those units so you can’t threaten to
use them without giving away a real bottom-most lineage secret –
and focusing their techs on ways to neutralize them.”

“Why does everything have to be complicated?”
Delmus asked.

“Because if it were simple, guys like us
wouldn’t get paid to find ways to work around the knots. The simple
life is boring and not very profitable. Hardly worth living.”

“You always see through the annoyances to
what’s important. What do you make of what we’re expecting but not
receiving? Starting with the zerpies that are on the planet. Each
should be sending the records of everything it detects with each
upload to the producers but bypassing
Whizybeam
’s systems
and coming directly to us. We had a topnotch tech sneak in the
programs to allow those zerpies to do that without their own
awareness systems detecting what they are doing. We’re only
received material from the zerpy Wilburps, not from any of the
others that should be on the planet with the two other contestants.
And hardly anything at all from Wilburps. What’s the problem and
can we fix it?”

“Too bad they’re all too far away so we can’t
pull them over and do a thorough inspection. It seems to me that
there are at least five possible answers, plus those that include
two or more of the factors.”

Delmus counted them off on his fingers as
Ackack listed them.

“Nerber, the contestant that we’ve been
hearing from, could be doing something, deliberately or not, that’s
interfering. Our hired expert may have made critical mistakes in
the program or messed things up in some way when he secretly put it
into the zerpy. The zerpy itself isn’t functioning as it should for
some reason. The producers have detected that happening and messed
with it. Or the
ninxy
equipment on
Whizybeam
is
messing us up while it’s also doing that to them. Oh, or the
conditions in that area of space are, as they’ve been whining, so
different that things don’t work the way we expected and designed
our equipment for.”

“That’s a mess of reasons. I ran out of
fingers on my hand trying to keep count,” Delmus said.

“There are other questions too. This
long-long distance business is full of holes. Like, we’re paying a
crew member on
Whizybeam
to spy for us but there hasn’t been
a single coded message from him so far.”

“I’ve checked for those but nothing. Also we
should be secretly hearing all the talk-talk between everybody on
the ship but that’s being scrambled by some unauthorized onboard
system. Our techs here can tell me what’s being done but they say
it’s a system that works on the sensors right there on the ship
that’s responsible. It’s garbaged even before it’s preserved so
what gets recorded can’t be unscrambled later. But we can’t protest
them using that system without admitting we had the secret sensors
installed to spy on their every word. We swore we didn’t and
wouldn’t do that so admitting we lied won’t help in dealing with
them.”

“Which adds up to or boils down to the fact
that we don’t know how much of what we want to believe we’re
keeping secret from those on the other side of the snaggiewarp they
actually know all about and have taken steps to interfere
with.”

“It’s enough to tempt one to do things on the
strict up and up. No secrets, no lies, no tricks,” Delmus said.
Then he gave a snorting laugh. “What would be the challenge in
that?”

“The challenge is to keep the tricks and lies
secret. Like having a zerpy on
Whizybeam
that they don’t
know is onboard.”

“Ah, the secret that we’ve code named Zink. A
zerpy that will stay undetected and inactive until we decide we
need it to inform us about the conditions on the ship or maybe even
to take control of its systems,” Delmus said.

“We paid Foxpat a pile of money to prepare
that so it could monitor the systems and feed in override commands
if we order it to. This had to be a one-of-a-kind, matched to the
details of
Whizybeam
’s systems since she’s the only ship
like that they’ve built until now. Only a guy with insider
information on the ship’s design could program such a zerpy. In a
pinch it may be our best investment though.”

“A solution to some problems but one that
introduces a whole list of potential new ones by its very actions
though.”

Ackack sighed, “My head aches from trying to
keep track of all the things of the ship and in the various zerpies
that might have any unintended effects on one another.”