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  Bill helped Razood lift the giant crossbow from its stand, and then he held it steady from the front while Razood put his feet in the stirrups and exerted his appreciable strength to pull the cord down over the lock mechanism. Then he gestured for his assistant to come around and install the windlass in the socket, and the two of them took turns cranking until the bow was at full cock.

  “Can I get a volunteer to hold the target?” the blacksmith asked.

  “Are you nuts?” the girl who had spoken up before demanded. “I don’t want to be on the same deck if you’re actually going to fire that thing.”

  “Just a little weapons-crafting humor,” Razood said. “Actually, we’re going to demonstrate how to rate a crossbow for draw. Bill, hang onto this a second while I get the testbed set up. Any of you who brought your own crossbows today can check the draw after we demonstrate, and if one of you crafted a crossbow that draws even half as much as this Dollnick beauty, I’ll let you take it home.”

  The Frunge rapidly unfolded a device that looked a little like a hammock frame crossed with a bicycle, and then together with Bill, he lifted the Dollnick crossbow into place and extended an attachment with two hooks to grab the bowstring. Next, he tied a string around the trigger, motioned for Bill to step back, and pulled. The whole testbed assembly jumped like a bucking horse, but the magnetic clamps on the anchor chains kept it from moving far. Razood leaned in and read the result off the sliding scale. “One hundred and sixty-four.”

  “Is that it?” a burly looking man asked in disgust. “I can draw a longbow at one-seventy.”

  “One-seventy whats?”

  “Pounds. Were you talking metric? That would be like three-sixty.”

  “It’s in Plizars. To convert to pounds, you multiply by, uh, Flower?” Razood asked.

  “Nine point seven four,” the Dollnick AI replied by way of the speakers inside the workshop area.

  “Just under sixteen hundred pounds,” the Frunge calculated in his head. “But I’m feeling generous, so if any of you brought a crossbow that manages seven-fifty, you win.”

  None of the aspiring weapons smiths attempted to claim the prize, but many of them did have crossbows they wanted tested. After finding the third one cocked and ready to fire a bolt that the owner had forgotten was loaded, Bill understood why Razood insisted on a double inspection before testing the draw.

  “Were you really apprenticed to that Frunge?” a teenager asked Bill. “They’re the best medieval weapons smiths in the galaxy.”

  “Maybe because they make apprentices pump the bellows for seven years before allowing them to swing a hammer,” Bill replied. “Aren’t real weapons kind of overkill for a costume?”

  “I’m in the junior LARPing league and we use real weapons when it’s a raid against NPCs.”

  “NP whats?”

  “Non-player characters. They’re actually just bots wrapped in holograms so there’s something solid to hit, but when we compete against real players, we have to use noodle weapons.”

  “I’ve heard of those,” Bill said. “They’re rigid when they contact another weapon but they flop like a wet noodle if they hit clothes or skin. But wait a second. What’s to keep a bot wielding a real weapon from killing a player?”

  “The league’s Live Action Role Playing studios are all on Stryx stations,” the teen explained. “The local station librarian controls all of the bots. If they can use a bot to do neurosurgery, they can manage a sword fight without killing anybody. Besides, somebody told me that the NPC weapons are all dull.”

  “Not terribly sporting, beating up on poor bots who are only armed with dull weapons,” a familiar voice joined the discussion.

  “Dewey,” Bill greeted the AI. “Did you come to help with the workshop?”

  “I don’t know a thing about medieval weapons,” Dewey said. “If I’m ever forced to fight, I’ll go with a plasma blaster or something a little more modern. I’m here because Flower’s paying me to be the official con photographer.”

  “But where’s your camera?”

  Dewey raised and lowered the mast carrying the binocular cameras that served as his eyes.

  “I forgot you could do that,” Bill said. “But why didn’t Flower just use her own imaging?”

  “Most of it is infrared, and the maintenance bot optics aren’t optimized for still images,” Dewey explained. He hesitated a moment, and then added, “She said something about how I should take advantage of the opportunity to study the human form for in case I decide to purchase a body and become an artificial person.”

  “Are you really considering it?”

  “You won’t laugh?”

  “You’re my friend, Dewey. I won’t laugh at you.”

  “Lynx put me in touch with the artificial people she knows on Union Station, and, well, the local broker is having a sale.”

  “A sale on artificial person bodies?”

  “Specifically the core bipedal platform humanoid models. I’m thinking of buying one, and if I don’t like the face, I’ll take my time to think about it before ordering a custom overlay.”

  “You mean the skin is sold separately?”

  “Unless I stick with the off-the-shelf model, but then there could be other artificial people walking around somewhere who look just like me,” Dewey said.

  “You know, it works that way with people too,” Bill pointed out. “Back on Earth, there was a kid in my neighborhood that people kept confusing with me, and he was always in trouble.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” the assistant librarian said.

  “Bill, could you give me a hand with this ballista?” Razood called to him. “I should have specified that we would only be testing crossbows with tension prods, but the siege team from Bits dragged a torsion arm thrower all the way here from their workshop, so the least we can do is try.”

  The rest of the session was spent testing a bizarre array of bolt-launching devices, with the Frunge blacksmith providing the makers with pointers about design features that various aliens had developed or abandoned millions of years earlier during their own early fumbling with weapons. Razood kept Bill busy right up until they both had to run for the theatre to prepare for the Everyday Superheroes shoot.

  Flower concealed the audience behind a holographic projection of an empty theatre, and the Grenouthian director omitted reminding Julie and Bill that they were performing live. Miraculously, both the scaffolding and preliminary voiceover work for the half-hour episode were completed in just over a hundred minutes, at which point Flower dropped the hologram and the audio suppression field, revealing a packed house of cheering fans.

  “Someday I’m going to find out where you live and kill you,” Julie subvoced to the Dollnick ship’s AI.

  “You see? You’re developing a flair for dramatics,” Flower replied over her implant. “Now take a group bow with the others and then meet your public.”

  A dozen maintenance bots carrying folding tables and chairs streamed onto the stage behind the actors, who lined up for the obligatory hand-holding bow. Then the Grenouthian director’s voice was routed to the public address system, inviting the audience to meet the cast. People began forming a long line in the aisles, and Julie and Bill found themselves shepherded to the tables by the other actors who refused to let them flee. The bots had also placed a number of felt-tipped markers at each seat, all of them printed with, “Vote for Larry, Phil’s son.”

  “How much are we charging?” Jorb asked the others as they took their seats behind the tables.

  “What are you talking about?” Harry asked the Drazen.

  “For autographs. We should decide on a price and not undercut each other.”

  “One cred is fine by me,” Avisia said. “But if any more young men ask me to sign their body parts, it’s ten creds.”

  “Did that really happen?” Julie asked the Vergallian, whose Battle Royale costume did nothing to conceal her curvaceous figure.

  “More than once,” Avisia s
aid. “It’s better than catching them sniffing my shoes.”

  “You can charge for autographs and posing for selfies another time,” the Grenouthian director told them. “You’re all still on the clock as principal animation actors for the next half hour and Flower advertised this event as gratis.”

  “We really need to join that union,” Julie muttered to Bill, who nodded in agreement as the first fans reached the tables.

  “Could you sign my tab?” a young woman asked Harry, holding out the device with the screen side down.

  “I’d be honored,” he said and scrawled his name.

  She inspected the signature and her smile dropped. “Who’s Harry Bloom?”

  “There’s an eraser on the other end,” Dave whispered to the retired baker. “I think they want our char names.”

  “Sorry,” Harry said, taking back the tablet. He flipped the marker around and erased his signature. Then he slowly wrote “Gerryman,” being careful not to leave out any letters. The young fan beamed at him before moving on to the next actor.

  “Tell them about the opportunities for anime production on board,” Flower encouraged Bill over his implant.

  “Who should I make this out to?” he asked the woman who had passed him an autograph book to sign.

  “You mean you’ll write more than your name? I’m Darla.”

  “To Darla,” Bill said out loud as he wrote. “Have you ever considered working in the field of anime production? Ask our ship’s AI about available opportunities. Digger.”

  “And we have open positions in animation and scriptwriting,” the Grenouthian director was telling a couple who were dressed as bunnies as he signed the smooth spot on the back of the wrists of their costumes. “If you brought any examples of work you want to show me, I’ll certainly look at them as well.”

  Sixteen

  Julie forced her way between the two groups of feuding women and brandished her management badge at anybody who looked her direction. She channeled her Refill character’s waitress-taking-control voice and ordered, “All right, break it up. Just step away from each other and act your age. Now somebody tell me what the problem is.”

  “Isn’t it obvious,” a middle-aged woman in an ankle-length dark dress with long sleeves and a black bonnet demanded. “Just look at them!” She pointed dramatically at the opposing group of women, who were dressed in revealing silk wraps that left most of their skin showing. “It’s scandalous. The only reason they could possibly have for attending our session is to provoke us.”

  “Which panel is it?” Julie asked.

  “Amish Romance,” the woman replied, at the same time that one of the scantily-clad women said, “Alien Abduction Romance.”

  “It appears that there must be an error in the program,” Julie said. “Please wait a moment while I check.” She pointed at her ear and subvoced, “Flower? Can you get me Yaem?”

  “What’s wrong now?” the Sharf’s voice inquired in her head. “My hands are full here trying to deal with some clown who brought an organ to a Filk session.”

  “Organs aren’t allowed?”

  “Fairground pipe organs aren’t. Apparently he borrowed it from a Libbyland attraction on Union Station. It runs on steam.”

  “Oh. Well, I have two groups of fans waiting for the door to open for a session that starts in a few minutes. One group thinks the panel will be discussing Amish Romance, and the other group is here for Alien Abduction Romance.”

  “So what’s the problem?” Yaem asked. “We agreed not to have a dozen romance sessions running at the same time to cut down on room-hopping, and both genres came at the start of your alphabet. It’s about time that Humans learn how to share.”

  “But the two types of romance are as incompatible as you could possibly get!”

  “It’s really not my thing,” the Sharf said. “Check with Bianca. I have to—Do not fire that boiler!” The connection broke off.

  Julie managed a nervous smile at the waiting women. “I’ll just try somebody else.” She pointed at her ear again and subvoced, “Flower? Can you get me, Bianca?”

  “I’m right behind you,” Bianca said in her ear. She stepped past Julie and inspected the opposing groups with amusement. “I see that our alien program director has played a little joke on all of us. I imagine that you,” she gestured at the conservatively dressed women, “are here to see Marcy Planter, Judith Wood, and Melody Sawyer, while you,” she turned to the other group, “came for Alyssa Steel, Xena Star, and Venus the Fifth.”

  “You’re Bianca D’Arc,” one of the scantily-clad women gushed. “I love your new gryphon shifter book.”

  “I read that one too,” one of the dark-bonneted women said, ignoring the scowls of her neighbors. “When is the next one coming out?”

  “You can save your questions for inside because I’ll be moderating this panel,” Bianca said. “Unfortunately, we had a late cancellation from Venus due to the side effects of accidental ethanol poisoning—”

  “She’s too hung over,” Geoffrey said, stepping up beside Bianca. “I’ll be filling in.”

  “Who are you?” one of the women demanded.

  “Geoffrey Harstang,” he introduced himself, receiving blank looks in return.

  “He was the model for the Abraham character in Mercenary Hearts,” Bianca told them, and a number of the older women nodded in recognition. “Is it time yet, Julie?”

  “Flower has taken to keeping the door locked until everybody who was in the last session has had a chance to leave through the exit on the other side,” Julie said. “Is it true that at regular cons everybody tries to leave and enter through the same door at the same time?”

  “Pretty much,” Geoffrey said. “Flower is nothing if not innovative.”

  There was an audible click, and the door opened on a largely empty room, though a few women from the last session were apparently interested in seeing how the Amish versus Alien Abduction panel would play out.

  “Where are all of the other panelists?” Julie asked the two authors, as the audience filed into the room and segregated themselves into ankle skirts on the left, more skin than cloth to the right.

  “No doubt they’re running late,” Bianca said. “Whatever possessed Flower to put massaging recliners in the Green Room and have bots circulating with gourmet chocolates? I stopped in before my first session and I was tempted to just stay there the rest of the day myself.”

  “When I was a small boy my father told me that schools and houses of worship on Earth used to paint bathrooms a nasty green color so that people wouldn’t be tempted to dawdle,” Geoffrey said. “I used to wonder if the green-room moniker really derived from that or from the green lights used for directing traffic. Then I did some research and apparently it came from a famous old theatre in London where the waiting room for actors happened to be green. In any case, it sounds like management may have misunderstood the concept.”

  “Flower?” Julie subvoced.

  “I heard,” the Dollnick AI replied. “You can’t expect me to get everything right on my first outing and I’m waking the authors up now. The champagne was probably overkill, but they requested it.”

  “Flower is waking them up,” Julie reported. “She served them champagne and they’re going to be late.”

  “I have an idea,” Bianca said. “Why don’t you take my place as moderator until they get here and ask the two of us questions? It’s better than just making everybody wait.”

  “She has a point,” Geoffrey said. “They’re probably going to need a coffee before they’re ready to face an audience. Besides, from what I heard about your performance last night, it sounds like you’re over your stage shyness.”

  “Flower hid the audience with a hologram,” Julie muttered, but she took the center chair that Geoffrey indicated and pitched her voice to reach the back row. “MultiCon apologizes for the mix-up today, and your scheduled panelists will be here as soon as possible. In the meantime, I’m going to ask Geoffrey and Bianca
a couple of questions, and then we’ll open it to the audience.”

  “Aren’t you going to do introductions?” one of the women in the audience demanded.

  “We covered that in the corridor, but I’m the seventh in the D’Arc line, and he’s the one-and-only Harstang,” Bianca said. “Most of you know my books, but the closest he’s ever come to writing a romance was the time that a scout pilot in his Galactic War College series crashed on an alien planet and—do you want to tell them, Geoffrey?”

  “I’d rather not,” the older author said. “Writing male leads for men and writing male leads for women are two different things.”

  “Can you elaborate on that?” Julie surprised herself by asking.

  “Well, men who read action science fiction don’t want to hear about their hero’s inner thoughts on intimate relationships, and when it comes to sex, quality takes a back seat to quantity.”

  There were giggles from the Alien Abduction fans and clucks of disapproval from the Amish readers.

  Julie turned to the other author. “I finished your gryphon shifter book last night, Bianca, and I could barely breathe during the mating flight. How do you write a scene like that without being able to fly yourself?”

  “Ah, there’s a story behind that, actually. A few years, well, more like two decades ago, for a tenth-anniversary present, my parents babysat the kids and sent us on a weeklong vacation to a lunar resort. The hotel had atmosphere retention fields installed over a surprising number of craters, and they rented them out privately, along with Frunge wing sets. My ex-husband and I decided to splurge, and all I’m going to say is that it was memorable enough to make writing the gryphon mating scene a snap.”

  Julie saw a number of women on both sides of the center aisle surreptitiously getting out their tabs and swiping menus, though where the Alien Abduction fans could possibly have hidden the devices was beyond her. For a moment she worried they had lost interest, but then she caught an image of a gryphon in flight on one of the tabs as a woman showed it to her neighbor, and she realized they were all ordering Bianca’s book.