Far-out Show (9781465735829) (53 page)

She sneered at him and said, “I meant
Eroder’s attitude. We should be enough in control that he wouldn’t
dare tell the crew anything without asking our permission
first.”

“He’s the captain and it won’t help anything
to get into a fight with him about something like that,” Hasley
said.

“Why do you think the A.D.U. guys did that?”
Lacrat asked.

“Maybe to test that it works,” Hasley said.
“It would have sent back a status report showing the unit was armed
and working within acceptable parameters.”

“I’m thinking it was a warning,” Lacrat said.
“I’m thinking that they took Feedle’s faked message that we’re
having problems and may have to land on the planet to try to fix
the engines completely seriously. That they want to make sure we
don’t risk getting them in trouble with the governors by keeping
even our intact debris from being examined by the inhabitants any
time soon.”

“It would solve that problem for them,”
Hasley conceded.

“Hey, you’re supposed to reassure me,” Lacrat
whined. “Tell me they wouldn’t do that. That there’d be too much
left for the Earth inhabitants to pick through and learn from. Tell
me any and every reason that this isn’t a real threat to me.”

“It is a threat, so pull yourself together.
It’s too late for getting all
quilcrup
the way you sometimes
do to make things better,” Feedle said. “It’s a
mimzy-plishers
but we knew from the start it could come to
this. That’s been an extra incentive to find the fine-most lineage
between keeping them anxious while keeping us too valuable to
lose.”

“We don’t have the skills to deactivate
Whizybeam
’s big self-destruct but we’re pros at thinking
sugsipfer
the
kignip
so let’s do that. If we can’t
disarm the unit what can we do with it? We know where it is. What
are the options?” Hasley asked.

“Send it home addressed to the A.D.U.
headquarters building,” Feedle grumbled.

To her surprise Hasley said, “Good, that’s a
start. Get it out of the ship. There’s no way to aim it in more
than a general direction but once it’s out of
Whizybeam
we’re safe.”

“Safer but far from safe,” Lacrat corrected
him. “If it goes off anywhere near us it’ll still likely badly
damage us. That means eject the unit in one direction and get as
far from it as fast as we can in the opposite direction.”

“The best protection is to put something
solid between us and it. Eject it so the rotational force will take
it to the other side of this moon,” Hasley said, getting excited by
the idea of taking control of things.

“Then we head back for the snaggiewarp while
it should be held in orbit here,” Lacrat said, getting into this.
“When we’re well away we detonate it while it’s on this side of the
moon and they won’t know that happened so they won’t know to look
for any small bits, which is all that will be left.”

Feedle flapped her feet together in mock
applause and said, “A fine piece of ‘let’s pretend in order to
distract ourselves’. I identify three big problems for starters.
First-most, we know it’s located in the center of the ship to have
the best effect. It was firmly connected there to make it nearly
impossible to remove it without severely weakening the ship. We
suffered major damage and hardly made it through the snaggiewarp
coming here, there’s no chance we’d arrive back on the other side
intact. Second-most, for now as far as I know we don’t know the
signal to set it off so we can’t get rid of it once we’ve gotten
rid of it from our back closet. That therefore leaves open the
chance that the inhabitants would find it, identify it as a weapon,
and follow our trail to and through the snaggiewarp to deliver some
punishment back home.”

To her surprise and annoyance Hasley said,
“Good, this is a start. We’re thinking about this critically.”

“What was her third objection?” Lacrat
asked.

“We don’t know of any tested and proven way
to eject anything that big-big from the ship,” she answered.

“Good point. See this gives our imaginations
specific matters to consider,” Hasley said.

“In good part that’s so we won’t spend too
much useless time thinking about Icetop and Yelpam probing and
maybe testing whether they know how to set off personal
self-destruct units,” Lacrat said. “Any wagers on whose units
they’d test things on?”

“I know who’d be the two test subjects if I
were the one running the tests,” Feedle said. When Hasley and
Lacrat gave her startled looks she said, “I mean those two techs. I
don’t trust them and, once they get us all home safe, see no reason
to keep them around and reducing my share of the wealth.”

* * *

Eroder sat at the main control room console
keeping an eye on the general state of the ship’s systems. Icetop
and Yelpam entered and went to one of the side consoles.

“What did you learn?” Eroder asked them.

“It’s what we thought it was and where we
thought it was. We scanned it every way we know of so we’re letting
the special zerpy analyze it all,” Icetop reported.

“In case the main ship’s system is rigged to
give deliberately false readouts when given data about that unit
we’re sidestepping around it,” Yelpam explained.

“Good thinking,” Eroder said. “If we’ve
learned anything we’ve learned not to trust the defaults of this
fast traveling container or most of the information we’ve been
freely given about it.”

“Given enough time I’m sure we can see what
to do and then do it but if they don’t allow us that much time I’ve
decided a quick end will actually be better than dying off slow and
in agony because the life-support systems failed,” Icetop said.

“I’ve been thinking much the same thing,”
Eroder agreed.

* * *

Biccup had set the transport system to signal
with a tone if the change that had occurred several times should
happen again. Sooner or later he needed to find out what was
causing that.

The tone sounded and he was promptly focused
on a quick check that the same change had occurred and then in
making the adjustments to remedy that alteration. He worked as fast
as his hands would go. “We should alter the system so I can write
and store sub-routines for this kind of correction so I don’t have
to put them in by hand each time. At least after several times I
know what should work. Maybe I should take the time right now to
understand what’s happening better and that’ll be easier before I
change it back. No, they said Nerber’s in big-big danger so I need
this working now.” He finished the input and stood back. “Done. But
no way to test to be sure it works.”

* * *

The three producers were startled to full
attention by a very harsh signal tone. Lacrat almost fell out of
his chair reaching the console to connect to the program edit
room.

When Svenly and Venrik appeared on the
view-screen Feedle shouted, “Don’t you dare ever use that
annoying...”

Svenly cut her off, saying, “Shut up, Feedle.
The others of you probably want to consider what's coming in from
Wilburps.” She tapped buttons and the feed from that zerpy looking
over the front car seat moved to the central screen. The audio feed
was off. The nearby fearful crowd was obvious and ominous.

“What's happening?” Hasley asked, staring at
the image.

Svenly said, “Nerber and his new human
associate seem to be the focus of a mob. It's almost like being on
the street at home when there are no distracting entertainments
being aired.”

“Is this all being recorded?” Feedle
asked.

“Yeah, Wilburps is transmitting live whether
he knows it or not and we're recording audio and video both muchly
improved by better filtering. Do you want to hear the audio now?”
Venrik asked. “They're talking about
blowing things up
.”

The first firecracker exploded in the parking
lot and Nerber glanced back at Wilburps, his terror obvious.

“
Whatsydoodle!
That answers my unasked
question about what the inhabitants mean by
blowing things
up
,” Lacrat gasped.

Hasley asked, “Can we adjust Wilburps's focus
from here? If we can see the crowd's faces, maybe we can judge how
much danger Nerber is really in.”

The second firecracker exploded. The crowd
focused on the car.

Nerber scrambled from the car. The view
shifted around as he got Wilburps from the back seat.

“Hey, this is happening now,” Lacrat shouted
as he frantically pushed buttons on the console. “Lock onto them
and bring them back now. Please, please, please transport system
work as you're supposed to.”

Svenly and Venrik concentrated on working the
controls. On the view-screen people rushed at Nerber, who grasped
Wilburps in his arms and turned in a circle looking for a way to
safety.

On the screen there was a puff of smoke and
paper shreds, then nothing. The screen was dark and blank.

“Did we get them in time?” Svenly wondered
aloud.

“Stand by for word from the transport room,”
Venrik replied.

* * *

In the control room Icetop and Yelpam called
to Eroder, “We think that’s it. All the self-destruct units, the
big one and the personal ones, should be turned off. They were all
designed by the same team so they used the same pathways. Figure
out any one of them and you can modify them all.”

“Great job. I’ll send silent alerts to the
other crew members,” Eroder said.

“You’re not going to broadcast the news?”
Yelpam asked.

“I’ll let all the techs know. Everybody else
can wait. We know they’d do the same for us,” Eroder said. “Or to
us.”

* * *

Hasley paced the length of the producers’s
office at a moderate pace. Lacrat nervously paced on a parallel
track at twice that speed. Feedle sat before the console, the
picture of cool detachment. A view of Svenly and Venrik in the edit
room was on one section of the view-screen; Eroder and Molten at
the main console in the control room on another. All of those were
focused on the equipment and saying nothing intelligible, only an
occasional
grunt
,
gasp,
or whispered naughty
word.

“What happened to Wilburps’s feed?” Lacrat
asked in a whiny tone. The agitated slaps of his feet on the floor
almost drowned him out.

“We don’t know but we need to decide while it
might still be possible – do we
pop
them with their
self-destruct units? Otherwise we risk having them captured and
examined by the inhabitants,” Feedle said calmly, sitting back,
eyes closed.

“Not yet,” Hasley said as he fidgeted in his
chair, then quickly keyed in commands. “It’s a risk but I’m
trusting the transport system long enough to be sure whether we can
retrieve them. Besides which, if they’re in that system and those
units activate that would likely destroy the transport system and
part of the ship with it, stranding us all here.”

“That’d be an interesting experiment. We
could get on the good side of the governors by reporting on that,”
Feedle said as she opened her eyes, and tapped firmly on a console
button. “I’m not as trusting as you, so I’m making the
decision.”

Lacrat, who hadn’t watched Hasley’s actions,
stared at Feedle and demanded, “What did you just do?”

“I removed the problem of captives giving
away our secrets,” she answered. “I obeyed the governors.”

“Can she do that on her own, Hasley?”

“We can argue about that later,” Hasley
replied. “It seems that she tried. But did the units work as
planned under earth conditions? That’s not clear yet but I’m not
counting on it.”

At a musical tone Hasley connected with
Venrik in the edit room. Venrik said, “As you suggested earlier, I
sent some of those last images of Nerber and the first of the
things nearby exploding on to Ormelex to keep up excitement about
the ending there.”

“Good job. That’ll keep them on the edges of
their chairs until we get around to telling them more – when we’ve
thought through what’s most in our favor to tell them,” Hasley
said.

“Assuming we don’t all end up with the same
fate as Nerber if the engines fail as the indications are they’re
in the process of doing,” Venrik said, then disconnected.

“What do we do now?” Lacrat asked
nervously.

“Wait and see how things work out,” Feedle
said sitting back in her chair and putting her feet up on the edge
of the console. “Nothing we can do but wait and see.”

Hasley got up and hurried from the room.
Lacrat jumped up and followed him. Feedle yawned and turned on her
overhead basking lamp.

Nerber stood in the alcove of
Whizybeam
’s transport room getting oriented. Quickly he
clutched Wilburps who was hovering beside him – and removed
Wowseyla from the side of the bigger zerpy and pocketed the
mini-version. Biccup, who seemed annoyed but determined, stood at
the podium pushing buttons and watching the results so he didn’t
notice that maneuver.

The single door opened and Lacrat and Hasley
rushed in.

Lacrat said, “
Frinxbedunk grumpkers
!
We got you back in time.”

Hasley asked urgently, “Do you need emergency
medical care, Nerber?”

“What I need is to imbibe a strong tonic. I
was scared but I don't think any parts of me were blown up as the
crazy inhabitants down there say,” Nerber replied.

Lacrat gestured and Nerber turned in a circle
for inspection. “You seem to be intact,” Lacrat said.

Wilburps said, “I seem to be intact too,
thanks for asking. Uh, Nerber, we are only work teammates.”

Nerber self-consciously released the zerpy -
that floated free and sank to hover a foot off the floor. Lacrat
promptly stepped over and wrapped a light cover around the
device.