Far-out Show (9781465735829) (47 page)

“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.”

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 place 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.”