Eileen Gunn - Questionable Practices

Obviously he was hoping to lure her in.

“I see your little game,” Amelia muttered softly. But just what dirty little trick did Eszterhazy have up his sleeve? The red light was flashing on Radio 2. The hell with that. She didn’t need XB-29’s bloodless advice at a time like this. “Okay, loverboy, let’s see what you’ve got!” She pushed the stick forward hard. Then Radio 3 flashed — and that she couldn’t ignore.

“Amelia Spindizzy,” the referee said. “Your flight authorization has been canceled. Return to Ops.”

Reflexively, she jerked the throttle back, scuttling the dive. “What?!”

“Repeat: Return to Ops. Await further orders.”

Angrily, Amelia yanked the jacks from Radio 3. Almost immediately the light on Radio 1 lit up. When she jacked in, the hollow, mechanical voice of Naked Brain ZF-43, her commanding officer, filled her earphones. “I am disappointed in you, Amelia. Wastefulness. Inefficient expenditure of resources. Pilots should not weary themselves unnecessarily. XB -29 should have exercised more control over you. He will be reprimanded.”

“It was just a pick-up game,” she said. “For fun. You remember fun, don’t you?”

There was a pause. “There is nothing the matter with my memory,” ZF-43 said at last. “I do remember fun. Why do you ask?”

“Maybe because I’m as crazy as an old coot, ZF,” said Amelia, idly wondering if she could roll an autogyro. Nobody ever had. But if she went to maximum climb, cut the choke, and kicked the rudder hard, that ought to flip it. Then, if she could restart the engine quickly enough and slam the rudder smartly the other way…. It just might work. She could give it a shot right now.

“Return to the Zeppelin immediately. The Game starts in less than an hour.”

“Aw shucks, ZF. Roger.” Not for the first time, Amelia wondered if the Naked Brain could read her mind. She’d have to try the roll later.

In less than the time it took to scramble an egg and slap it on a plate, Radio Jones had warmed up her tuner and homed in on a signal. “Maybe because I’m as crazy as an old coot, ZF,” somebody squawked.

“Hey! I know that voice — it’s Amelia!” If Radio had a hero, it was the aviatrix.

“Return to the Zeppelin — ”

“Criminy! A Naked Brain! Aw rats, static…” Radio tweaked the tuning ever so slightly with the pliers.

“ — ucks, ZF. Roger.”

Edna set the plate of eggs and pastrami next to the receiver. “Here’s your breakfast, whiz kid.”

Radio flipped off the power. “Jeeze, I ain’t never heard a Brain before. Creepy.”

By now, she had the attention of the several denizens of Fat Edna’s.

“Whazzat thing do, Radio?”

“How does it work?”

“Can you make me one, Jonesy?”

“It’s a Universal Tuner. Home in on any airwave whatsoever.” Radio grabbed the catsup bottle, upended it over the plate, and whacked it hard. Red stuff splashed all over. She dug into her eggs. “I’m ’nna make one for anybody who wants one,” she said between mouthfuls. “Cost ya, though.”

“Do they know you’re listening?” It was Rudy the Red, floppy haired and unshaven, born troublemaker, interested only in politics and subversion. He was always predicting that the Fist of the Brains was just about to come down on him. As it would, eventually, everyone agreed: people like him tended to disappear. The obnoxious ones, however, lingered longer than most. “How can you be sure they aren’t listening to you right now?”

“Well, all I can say, Rudy” — she wiped her mouth with her hand, as Fat Edna’s bar was uncluttered with serviettes — “is that if they got something that can overthrow the laws of electromagnetism as we know ’em and turn a receiver into a transmitter, then more power to ’em. That’s a good hack. Hey, the Game starts in a few minutes. Who ya bettin’ on?”

“Radio, you know I don’t wager human against human,” Rudy said. “Our energies should be focused on our oppressors — the Naked Brains. But instead we do whatever they want because they’ve channeled all our aggression into a trivial distraction created to keep the masses stupefied and sedated. The Games are the opiate of the people! You should wise up and join the struggle, Radio. This device of yours could be our secret weapon. We could use it to listen in on them plotting against us”

“Ain’t much of a secret,” said Radio, “if it’s all over Edna’s bar.”

“We can tell people it doesn’t work.”

“What are you, some kind of no-brainer? That there’s my fancy-pants college education. I’m not tellin’ nobody it don’t work.”

Amelia Spindizzy banked her tiny craft and turned it toward the huge Operations Zep Imperator . The Zeppelin thrust out its landing pad and Amelia swooped deftly onto it, in a maneuver that she thought of as a penny-toss, a quick leap onto the target platform, which then retracted into the gondola of the airship.

She climbed from the cockpit. Grimy Huey tossed her a mooring line and she tied down her machine. “You’re on orders to report to the Hall, fly-girl,” he shouted. “What have you done now?”

“I think I reminded ZF-43 of his lost physicality, Huey.” Amelia scrambled up the bamboo gangway.

“You do that for me every time I look at you.”

“You watch it, Huey, or I’ll come over there and teach you a lesson,” Amelia said.

“Amelia, I’ll study under you anytime.”

She shied a wheel chuck at him, and the mechanic ducked away, cackling. Mechanics’ humor, thought Amelia. You have to let them have their jokes at your expense. It can make you or break you, what they do to your ’gyro.

The Hall of the Naked Brains was amidships. High-ceilinged, bare-walled, and paneled in bamboo, it smelled of lemon oil and beeswax. The windows were shuttered, to keep the room dim; the Brains didn’t need light, and the crew were happier not looking at them. Twin rows of enormous glass jars, set in duraluminium frames, lined the sides of the Hall. Within the jars, enormous pink Brains floated motionless in murky electrolyte soup.

In the center of the shadowy room was a semicircle of rattan chairs facing a speaker and a televideon camera. Cables looped across the floor to each of the glass jars.

Amelia plumped down in the nearest chair, unzipped her flight jacket, and said, “Well?”

There was a ratcheting noise as one of the Brains adjusted the camera. A tinny disembodied voice came from the speaker. It was ZF-43. “Amelia. We are equipping your autogyro with an important new device. It is essential that we test it today.”

“What does it do?” she asked.

“If it works properly, it will paralyze Lt. Eszterhazy’s engine.”

Amelia glared at the eye of the camera. “And why would I want to do that?”

“Clearly you do not, Amelia.” ZF’s voice was as dispassionate as ever. “It is we who want you to do it. You will oblige us in this matter.”

“You tell me, ZF, why I would want to cheat.”

“Amelia, you do not want to cheat. However, you are in our service. We have experimental devices to test, and the rules of your game are not important to us. This may be a spiritual endeavor to yourself, it may be a rousing amusement to the multitudes, but it is a military exercise to us.” There was a pause, as if ZF were momentarily somewhere else, and then he resumed. “ NQ -14 suggests I inform you that Lt. Eszterhazy’s aeroplane can glide with a dead engine. There is little risk to the pilot.”

Amelia glared even more fiercely at the televideon camera. “That is beside the point, ZF. I would argue that my autogyro is far less dependent on its engine than Eszterhazy’s ’plane. Why not give the device to each of us, for a square match?”