Far-out Show (9781465735829) (13 page)

“Any that sell used cameras? That should be
the cheapest way to do this since we don’t care about it beyond
taking some snaps of the stranger.”

“Better yet, there are two places that rent
cameras.”

“For an arm and a leg I’ll bet,” Edith
said.

“Instructions on using them is part of the
package.”

“You point it at what you want to take a
picture of and push a button. How much instruction do you
need?”

“Tell me all about it when they show you what
to do,” he said.

“Me? No way. You’re the one doing the leg
work. That’s not something we’re gonna talk about, it’s how it is.
Meanwhile time and opportunity are scooting on by. See where you
can get to to rent a camera and then get back here and use it.
Maybe we should send your cousin Barry to rent it, he might argue
them down to a better price.”

“Or waste time quibbling over a few dollars
that won’t make it cheaper since there’ll be his fee on top and
first paid.”

“Why doesn’t he do things for us for nothing?
We’re family after all,” Edith grumbled.

“We won’t take time to analyze that. Let me
call this store and see if they have something I can rent, then
I’ll worry about getting there and back.” Adam walked out of the
room with the Directory.

“At least if you rent it we won’t have some
neighbor griping that we borrowed her camera so she should get part
of the money we got for the pictures,” Edith said, knowing he was
probably out of hearing but not caring about that. “Go ahead, call
from the kitchen phone so I won’t kibitz while you’re doing it. I
know what going out there’s about too.”

She went and stood close to the window to see
as far as possible up the street. She muttered, “Maybe we took too
long thinking to do this. Having a good camera won’t matter if we
can’t find it to take its picture. Where could it have gone? Hell,
once it got to the corner it could have gone lots of places and I
don’t have a clue. Have do I make the boy know that’s his
fault.”

Adam came back in with a street map in hand
and without the phone directory. “They have a camera that should do
what we need to do for a reasonable price as long as I get it back
to them within one day.”

“How much did you tell them about what you
want it for?”

“I didn’t say to take ET’s prom pictures,
only that I wanted to record some people at a short distance or
even a long distance. He’ll show me how to use the lens that lets
me get close from far away.”

“How much?”

“A reasonable price considering what we want
it for and don’t want to invest in it for the long haul.”

“How much?”

Adam ignored that and focused on his laptop
that sat in its usual spot on the end table by his chair.

“How much, Adam?”

“Have you figured out where he went? It’d be
a waste of time and money to have a camera and no reason to use
it.”

“How much, Adam?”

“I have to charge it on my credit card so I
don’t have to leave a big cash deposit with him but that avoids a
trip to the bank which would slow things up even more. Here we go,
I could get a bus at the corner of Mapledrip and Fogbound on the
hour every hour all day. It’s a twenty-two minute ride to where I
then have to walk three blocks to the camera shop. Coming back is
the same times in reverse.”

“That’ll take all day.”

“Yeah, but then you won’t complain for months
that I spent too much money by taking a cab,” he said. “I’ve lived
with you long enough to know how some things go, Momma.”

“Take a cab. Both ways.”

“I don’t have enough cash and as far as I
know cabs don’t take credit cards. Not that I ride in them
often.”

“I have some reserves.”

“That should cut the time down to maybe an
hour before I’ll be back. Then how do I pick up the suspect’s
trail? If nobody has beaten us to it by then.”

Edith didn’t like being played but she knew
the signs and knew that in this case he had a strong argument on
his side. “I’ll start right away to find it. You can make the cab
bring you to where it is.”

“How will I know where it is?”

“I just told you, I’ll be there keeping an
eye on it.”

“Good, then I only need to drive all around
town in a taxi with the meter running until I happen to spot you.
Will you be waving to every cab you see in case it’s the one I’m
in?”

“What am I supposed to do, put a long cord on
the phone and take it with me?” Edith asked in exasperation.

“How about a variation on that. Take Mimi
Brownowski and her cell phone with you so I can call that number
and ask where you are when I’m ready to start back with the
camera.”

“I can’t stand Mimi Brownowski. She so
empty-headed she makes me crazy. And she hums the same tune over
and over.”

“But she has a cell phone which means you can
be anywhere in the area and make or take a call. And she won’t ask
what you’re doing, try to make you share the money you make using
her phone, or probably even ask you to pay for any calls you make
on her phone.”

“The things I’ll put up with to get rich
quick. Okay, I’ll go ask her if she’s free to go for a walk and
what her portable phone’s number is.”

“All three points are taken care of. She’d be
happy to go for a walk with you. Her cell phone is working since
that’s how I asked her that. And I have her number since I looked
it up so I could call and ask her out.”

“You asked Mimi out?”

“With you. For a walk. Nothing more than
that. There are limits to what I’ll do to get rich quick.”

“You asked her before you asked me?”

“Your limits aren’t as close as mine. I need
the cash. I’m calling for a cab. Then Mimi’s waiting for you. You
know what direction he went in, you’ll have to figure it out from
there if he’s not standing on the corner waiting for a space ship
to swoop down and pick him up or something.”

“Hell, that’d ruin everything if we’re not
ready to be the first to take pictures of the saucer doing
that.”

“Take the one-use camera just in case. And
don’t sit here longer than you really have to hoping something will
change and you won’t have to take Mimi for a walk.”

He left the room. She gave free expression to
her sour look, then shrugged and got up to do what she had to to
make it possible that she’d get rich quick.

* * *

Back in the tool shed Wilburps hovered as
Nerber silently fretted as he tried to come to a final decision
about what to do.

Wilburps said, “There are still signals that
I cannot interpret. They had been faint for some time but got
stronger but have stayed the same intensity for a time period now.
Those are the ones that seem like they are coming from a localized
source.”

“More confusing signals from the
producers?”

“No, these seem to be coming from here at the
planet’s surface. They have a quality about them that makes them
different but I am not able to be more precise about them than that
at this time. Like they are communications signals I can detect but
am still not able to decipher.”

Nerber got excited as he considered this.
“Maybe those signals are from another contestant who’s in the area.
Maybe the producers gave us each a different communications system
so we couldn’t cheat by listening in on one another. Try to track
those signals. Maybe the other contestant has a clear channel to
the producers. At the least maybe we can help one another survive
the search by the inhabitants since going it alone seems more
dangerous and a lot less desirable. Can you get a sense of which
way we would go to locate the source?”

“Yes, but it seems to be a distance away so
it will take us some time to reach that location. Not a
long
long time but the source is not within your sight.”

“It’s not like I have a better idea of where
to head in hope of not becoming a laboratory specimen.”

“I am also still every so often detecting
those other unexpected signals from somewhere on or near
Whizybeam
. Those come in sudden rushes. Directives to
process signals and transmit them to be piggy-backed on signals
being sent to Ormelex by
Whizybeam
but so the ship’s systems
should not detect that is happening, be able to prevent it, or even
be able to read the messages.”

“There is no way you can respond to those
directives? There is no feedback route?” Nerber asked.

“No feedback route, no identification code.
Also the commands are coded so that I cannot store them. Either I
respond immediately as commanded or they disappear leaving no
traces. I am not equipped to do what they call for so I have not
produced any effects, I only detected the fleeting directives. It
is all a mystery.”

“Are you detecting those signals at this
moment?”

“No. They ended abruptly a short time
ago.”

“Abruptly?”

“In the middle of a command chain there was a
sudden override command to initiate an emergency shutdown program.
I have no such program so I did not respond to that command
either.”

“I do not know if I should be fearful about
that or what. Let me know if you detect those signals again. I am
tied up with caution though. I will leave you here in safe hiding
for a short time while I look around for trouble.” Nerber tapped
control spots leaving the zerpy unable to locomote again.

“It is not needed that you immobilize
me.”

“Yes, it is. The producers care less about my
survival than about putting me in peril for the sake of
excitement.”

“They deny that.”

“Thereby making my point. I will be back
soon.” Nerber closed the tool shed door and hurried to the
out-of-sight spot among the landscaping.

Here he wasted no time. He plucked Wowseyla
off his hat and extended the keyboard and view-screen. He typed in
code and watched, his apprehension showing in the fact that even
inside his boots his feet flapped up and down a bit.

He closely examined the first messages that
appeared, then keyed in more commands.

“Yes, they are using the Three X Nine system
to garble all the messages they are sending to Wilburps while
keeping all signals coming from him clear for themselves.”

He stared at the new onscreen message. “It is
for surely true a scream justification situation when the answers
are so unsure. Perhaps I can access the transmission program for
the self-destruct signals with Wowseyla but it is not certain that
I would not automatically activate it by doing so. Also I still
cannot be certain whether I can initiate transport back to
Whizybeam
on my own from here.
Splinkflert!
I need
definite answers before I risk disaster trying to avoid a more
delayed one.”

He shut down the mini-zerpy and put it back
on his hat, looked up and down the street for any signs of a
gathering mob, then ran back to the tool shed.

He opened the shed and freed up Wilburps. “I
cannot detect any immediate risk so I am ready for you to guide me
to the source of the signals coming from nearby.”

“Continue down the street away from where we
arrived. I will alert you promptly if a change of direction is
needed.”

“I am proceeding as fast as my courage will
allow – which at this time is slowly and with great caution.”

“Prudent behavior on a
strange-on-several-levels world.”

Penelope Regimentator sat in her parked car
staring at the line of storefront shops that included the one with
no identifying signs and with newspaper taped over its windows on
the inside. This neighborhood, only a few blocks from the Parker
house although she didn’t know or care about them at the moment,
was part of what was once a separate small town that had been
engulfed by the expanding city.

She talked to herself because it was her main
way to make herself pay attention to things. “The local police
pulled him over but then let him drive himself and that airhead
here. Then the police drove away showing no further interest in
him. But he’s been inside for more than twenty minutes. What does
that add up to? Not a hill of beans if I don’t know who’s inside
with him and what they’re doing or talking about.”

She fidgeted and squirmed since the car seat
always seemed extra uncomfortable when she was sitting still in
there. “Maybe I should go over and walk right in there and demand
some answers. If whoever he’s meeting with is on the public
payroll, citizens have a right to some answers. But if they locked
the door I’d give myself away and put me on their radar. Probably
better to wait a little longer before I rush into action to save my
day.”

She stepped out of the car for a better look
at all the parked cars in the area. “If he’s giving his secrets to
official people they might start to block off the area where he
knows something important is located. Unless I’m already inside
that perimeter to record what’s there I’m wasting my time because
nobody except official people will see what that is. I can’t see
any of the big black SUVs the federal people always drive on the TV
shows.”

She quickly got back into the car when a man
in casual clothes came out of one of the other storefronts and
looked around. “Unless there’s a disaster and everybody inside the
perimeter dies in some horrible way. Then it’d be worthwhile being
close enough to record that happening while being safe on the
outside.”

That man got in a car parked by that shop and
drove away.

She checked that her camera with the zoom
lens was within easy reach. “Maybe they’re beating the truth out of
him in there. I could sell pictures of that too. But they’d be pros
and wouldn’t let him just walk out after that. No, they’d whisk him
away, maybe never to be seen again depending on what he told them
and whether he could be of more help to them. They’d use a rear
door to take away a body.”