Taylor gave a half-hearted wave, picked up his newspaper, then reluctantly headed over to meet his mother. When they met she berated him enthusiastically and he muttered his responses but they were too far away for Nerber and Wilburps to hear them.
Nerber said, “Time is elapsing with little useful residue. I must find more inhabitants to be meeting. I want to do what is possibilities for testing if the challenges can be done to completing here the way I find the situation. If the Matt one is correct my arrival has been detected and there is concern about where I am and what I am doing. Ah, here comes another for me to meeting with.”
* * *
Debra Ipanema, twenty-seven, a buxom but not too smart streetwalker, sashayed up and sat on the bench facing the street while she checked her makeup and hair in a mirror of the compact she took from her large handbag.
She looked Nerber up and down when he approached, sat his “backpack” where it faced them, and stepped closer. She shrugged her resignation as she stood and thrust out her bosom as nonchalantly as she could muster for such an effort. “Ya lookin' for a good time, Charlie?”
Nerber looked around to see who else was here saying, “This could be of interest. Where please is this Charlie?”
“I meant you. I call all johns Charlie.”
“John and Charlie are both names, no? They are too different but mean the same, yes? This is odd and strange.”
“It's all just words. You looking to get it on or not? Hey, you're not a cop are you? I know the rules, you have to tell me if you are if I ask or you can't take me in.”
A wisp of smoke rose from the zerpy as Nerber touched his head in pain because of the confused messages from Wilburps. What was all that? I melted a processor trying to follow.
“What was the question again?” Nerber asked her.
“You a cop?”
Nerber muttered mostly to himself, “You in questioning tone. Cop? A feel does not process. A copper? Not a metal but an officer with the law. Ah, am I a police personage.” To Ipanema he said brightly, “No.”
She rolled her eyes but shrugged and thrust out her bosom as she said, “You like?”
Nerber had no idea what this meant since he wasn’t of a species with anything like mammary glands. With a shrug he thrust out his own chest asking, “What is to like? Means to do this?”
“You playin’ games wit’ me, Mac?”
Nerber looked around for this person Mac.
After a moment Ipanema realized why he was confused. “Forget that, you lookin' to get physical or not?”
Nerber threw up his hands in delight and called, “Wilburps, are we in full view and ready. I meet the challenge right now.”
Now it was Ipanema’s turn to look around for someone who had been mentioned by name but was not seen.
“Yes, be pleasing to have us get physical together,” Nerber shouted eagerly. He stepped up belly-to-belly with her, but then looked confused.
He took a step back and wiggled as if rubbing bellies with her as he asked, “It will work with you in the covering?”
Ipanema snorted out a guffaw. “We'd get arrested for sure doing it here where people can see and you ain't likely gonna pay me enough to make that worth my while. Which brings us to the matter of making it worth my while before we do do anything.”
Nerber was straining to make sense of this so it took him a long moment to respond. “What will make it worth your while?”
“Cold hard cash of course. This ain't a charity event.”
Nerber listened to Wilburps's analysis, then got it. “So, cash is your money. I get your money and give to you and you give to me...”
“Hey, not my money, your money. Give me a hundred big ones and I give you relief from the pressure.”
Nerber listened to the silent translation of that. “Okay, I am now filled with understanding. Is a problem since I have no amount of your kind of money. Could we maybe - is this a right way to say this, take it out in trading?”
“That's what I'm doing, Doofus, but you ain't offered me nothin' worth my while in trade. And now you tell me you've been wastin' my time ‘cause you ain't got no money anyway.”
“Is not good for you just to do it?” He made the rubbing-our-bellies-together move again.
“Are you from Mars or something?”
Nerber looked around nervously. “Uh, Mars is where, please?”
She waddled off down the street in heels too high to walk in sensibly but that had the desired effect on her backside since a passing driver tooted his horn at her and laughed. “Weirdo aliens. Should run 'em all outta town,” she grumbled.
“Wilburps, did that go good? No, I thinked not either. Oh well, back to the sketchening surface. There is so much they did not tell me to prepare me for the challenges.”
“Things are not well in Glocca Morra, whatever that is.”
“What have I done to twisting around an axis things up? The talk-talk here can be so confusing even when graphic.”
“It is not you, but it may affect you,” Wilburps said. “Messages from the producers have been going on and then not on again fritzerish for a short time. Some messages are lost to me with no way to know if they were important.”
Nerber considered that, then looked worried and gestured for Wilburps to levitate himself to Nerber’s head level to make it easier to inspect his control signals.
Wilburps did not react. Instead he said, “Caution. The indicated action will make me conspicuous to any inhabitants able to visually inspect us. That might not be for the best.”
Nerber’s response was to silently repeat his gesture.
When Wilburps did as directed, Nerber stepped close and touched several spots in sequence which returned the zerpy’s exterior to the metallic-with-strange-markings configuration. Then he looked hard at the stripe around the boxy device that allowed a zerpy of Wilburps’s type to view and record everything around it. It could take in whatever seemed of importance in any direction, three-sixty on the horizontal plane with additional detectors on the bottom and especially the upper surfaces to let it keep tabs on what was there. Ormelexian technology included more than a few wonders, like zerpies that could record in all directions and then process the input to produce fine-focused images at any distance from it up to an earth half city block away, all without moving parts.
Nerber kept his face close to the zerpy and muttered to himself knowing that when he was so close his mouth could not be seen by the visual system and since he was actually muttering nonsense sounds even the zerpy’s acute auditory system could not pick up signals it could translate into meaningful sounds to report to the producers.
“The signal has cleared and you are told to step back so you can be understood or you are useless for the program,” Wilburps said.
“That must have been interference with our signals due to factors in the planet’s atmosphere or the inhabitant’s technologies that the producers did not anticipate. Surely it will be a learning opportunity for them. You appear to be working okey-my-dokey now.”
“Is there something you want to confide to me, Nerber?”
“I am on an adventure of discovery but there is some stuff I came with anticipation for. Be ready, be ahead, be the winner.”
“Pithy but obscure. Request you put the pieces in a row to make them all show your meaning with no secret stuff.”
“Secrets make for more I-must-see-each-episode-to-know-what-will-happen show material. Every group guessing is good Pacification By Distraction With Entertainment.”
“But those in charge should know all the bitsy pieces of what is being planned and done.”
“Noted with precision, Wilburps. So all with their eyes open can see that reversing of the things makes the picture happen too.”
Chapter 07
Eighteen-inch wide Wilburps sitting firmly on the six-inch wide top of the decorative side railing of the gazebo would have seemed noteworthy but perhaps risky to most people. The zerpy hovering an inch above tha
t board would have been a major point of interest but there were no Earth inhabitants there to see it.
“At home no one thinks a zerpy hovering is strange. But as they say on what we have now confirmed they call Earth, when in romance, do as the romancers do. At least your talk-talk gets better as we get update transmissions.”
“This should be okey-your-dokey. If local beings look upon us they will see you as resting on that barrier.”
“You are having doubting thinking about what, Nerber?”
“After these first encounters I am worry-warting that things are so strange here. There is the need to be first to complete the challenges to win but running fast into the spinning thing what they call a fan seems not to be clever. So much is not what I was told it should be like here.”
“I am required to correct your just said statement. You were told what it might be like here. Nothing was for surely certain.”
“Understood. The bottom-most lineage though is that we are here to provide Pacification By Distraction With Entertainment for the masses and there may be more interesting ways to do that than the list of challenges. Those were selected by Ormelexians with no true experience of what it is like here, only what has already been done on shows at home. I am here so I can explore and maybe find more interesting things even if they slow me in completing the list of official challenges.”
“Be remembering that you are mainly a tool of the producers who sold the show because of what they promised would happen. They can transport us back at any time if they decide you are not fulfilling their wants or needs.”
“So you are sending them my every word and thought despite my efforts to keep those as my privates until I could review and decide what is good to let them know,” Nerber noted.
“I cannot assure you that is not so. You manually adjusted my program as I was activating on arrival here, My awareness is of those restraints but you are a trained zerpy engineer so you know there could be commands blocked from my awareness that are causing me to rodent you out as they seem to say here, whatever that means exactly, but you get the driftingness of it.”
“Being without knowing how many competitors made it to the surface and how much each has made done of the challenges is much harder than I realized it would be. The show wants me to be stressed, even frantic, to make good visual crowd excitement but I now see how narrow of mindedness that attitude is when I am the first to be here. Are the Ormelexian masses truly only distracted by wild and crazy risks and grapplings in slippery or sticky messes?”
“Focus, Nerber. You agreed to come here on a specific mission. You are obliged by duty to accomplish that if doing so is a possibility thing. This is a programmed encouragement-and-keep-you-acting-right message.”
“Understood. I repeating am, that the bottom-most lineage is good show material - and those not here are not in the best position to decide what might fit into that categorizing list.”
“What do you need to know to attempt the challenges?”
“For a rough starting, better to know how the inhabitant kinds decide and make sensing of their surroundings. Being in danger makes good entertaining for those at home but being harmed here with no medicinals to cure things is, I now see clear most for sure, risky as to be so much of stupidity.”
“My data bases include a full list of materials that will function as medicinals in many situations.”
“Based on materials found on Ormelex, not here since we have never been here before to test and examine. Your reassurance message was appropriately dispensed but made no sense anywhere but on the home planet. It is foolish hardy to think those who prepared it for you to deliver did not realize that and maybe had a laugh at the silly business of what they were doing except that they were being paid to follow their directives and store messages that might be needfully used.”
“Contest challenge the leading off one. Get physical with a local of the most advanced species. What is the problem?” Wilburps asked.
“Three points for starting outs. What does ‘get physical’ mean with a type of being you know almost no facts about? Second-most, how do I know what is ‘local’ with so little input about this place but it is a rush-rush contest so I am to do this without finding what is any distance away. Third-most repeatings the second-most but is not just the same. Without taking time to make visits around, who can judge what is the ‘most advanced species’ and why bother to risk messiness or worst when some dinglefingledorkpork of a celebrity judge may say your actions fail the defining words and so were wasted risk to be making?”
“Your concerns are recognized as having some value. Challenge the second-most?” Wilburps asked.
“Recognized as having value but not as having validity. Words that seem to mean but are only gas to move things along.”
“Your concerns are noted. Repeating the challenge the second-most, create a monument that can be detected by our planet’s zerpy in high-orbit by moving a mountain.”
“Define mountain, what the word means on Ormelex.”
“Any bright object making itself or reflectioning brightness that allows visual detection,” Wilburps answered.
“Define mountain. What the word seems to mean on this place the inhabitants call Earth.”
“No for-certain-sure definition is available.”
“State the most likely definition based on a complete analysis of the intercepted information from here.”
“Nerber, you are maybe wasting our time when you should be rushing to make good visuals and win the contest.”
“Redirectioning message appropriately dispensed. Now state the definition I asked for.”
“An amount of the planet’s surface raised above the surrounding area. May be massively big.”
“That is what I made learning of from our data bases on the trip from Ormelex. Makes my point, the definition does. Do I attempt to make or move an Ormelexian mountain or an Earth one?”
“Part of the challenges is by plan to make you interpret what is listed as what the challenges can mean where you find yourself when you announce for the recording that you are accepting that challenge.”
“Even your programmers do not truly know what that line is supposed to have meaning for.”
“Acknowledged as correct. Challenge the third-most, record the most interesting behavior of the most interesting species you can find,” Wilburps said.
“More of the similar to the point of not being different. Lots of interpretation based on no more information than a few guesses but subject to sneering disagreeing say-sos from celebrity judges. Not worth the effort is my now judgment.”
“You seem to be jumping ahead in deciding...”
“Encouragement and cautioning message acknowledged. Moving on. Challenge the four-most. Mimmimkink the largest alien you can find into submission. Translate that to Earth realities,” Nerber insisted.
“The nearest local term for mimmimkink seems to be mud wrestle. The challenge then is to mud wrestle the largest life form you can find into submission.”
“A standard he-male ritual at home but who will be unthinking enough to attempt such close contact with any large creature here? With no knowing-all-abouts of its kind’s defenses. No knowing-all-abouts of their style of aggressive responding to being jumped at. No knowing-all-abouts whether they must be cornered to make them do anything to make for excitement to witness visuals. No knowing-all-about if it will only flee, not make a fighting with your exhibition. By zoytheus not knowing rachem accadip about whether it is even safe for us to touch one? So many variables, no useful inputs. Clearly failure of the producers to prepare proper challenges for the contestants, not the back part in the forward position. Choss-choss on them.”
“Saying things against those who control your only way home is not the bestest way to be proceeding, Nerber.”
“They will not resist sending that home when I say it officially. They want controversy stirring up and disagreement-making to add sparking to the show. Being the co
mpletely total and agree-with-them-for-every-detail guy will not make me their best friend except that it will make me a better profit-maker for them because the audience likes what seems to not being going along with the plans of those ones who act like shot-calling leaders.”
“So you refuse to mud wrestle?”
“Who can say what will happen and I will okay as I take the time to see what kinds of creatures there are here? I do make pointing out that challenge the seventh-most and last is truly the same as the four-most challenge. That makes revealing at once and the same timing of the show makers wish for always with the fighting since they have trained the masses to want that.”
“Clarify how the four-most and last-most are the same.”
“The last is to pick a fight with an alien who has seemed friendly until that moment. Where all the types that do not right away make to attack you are friendly sort-of any move to mimmimkink any creature is like maybe probably gonna be picking a fight with it. They could be differing when the types are known in advancement but on a planet of we don’t know what they are or know rachem accadip about how they act it is being a meaningless line drawing to separate them.”
“You have been thinking again. You were asked not to.”
“And the producers promised lots of information it is clear they knew they did not possess. Sib sog, send out weeping distress calls to all planets.”
“Your nigly, uh sarcasm, is duly noted. Challenge the five-most. Eat the local food while I record and transmit you doing that.”
“Sounds like innocent fun. Earn a few extra points in the contest by upchucking for the laughs of the audience. Better yet you might turn colors or your head spikes might do unusual things. Not a fun thought however, with no way to be testing things in advance that one makes big chances of the contestant being poisoned out of reach of any help and dying with convulsings and screamings for the audience to watch. We contestants were warned that death can happen and that disqualifies us. No one else cares much about us, we are the only protectors of our safety. Taking in any untested, unknown material is not risking for excitement, it is dumbness removing you from any chance of rewards but leaving the producers with images of you becoming dead to laugh about and sell.”
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