"Well, Lieutenant, this is something we should have gotten a long time ago," said Sushi. "I'm surprised nobody in Intelligence has been after us to get them some of these."
"Maybe so, sonny, but I'm still downright stumped," said Rev. "How about lettin' us in on the secret?"
"I do believe it's some Zenobian equivalent-of a tri-vee set," said Beeker, peering at the device. "To tell the truth, I'm rather disappointed-I thought better of the little saurians. But I suppose it was too much to hope that a technically competent race would have the good taste to forgo creating its own version of the mass media, once it had the capability."
"Beeker's got it," said Sushi. "And if it'll make you feel any better, it looks like Flight Leftenant Qual has about as low an opinion of the Zenobian's mass entertainment as you do of ours. He gave me this machine-their name for it translates as viewbox-last night, when I asked him about one of their popular shows. This set was supposed to be for the officers' quarters of their little base here. But he's the only officer, and the enlisted Zenobians have their own viewbox. Qual said he has more amusing ways to destroy brain cells than watching the stuff they show. So he didn't see any problem in letting me borrow it for a while. Of course, it took most of today to adapt it to our power sources and add a translator to the output, but it's mostly working, now."
"I follow you so far," said Lieutenant Armstrong. "But what do you want it for? Are you going to watch whatever silly thing the Zenobians do instead of gravball?"
"That's not such a bad idea," said Sushi. "I'll add it to the list. But first I wanted to find something I heard the Zenobians talking about earlier today. I think Rev will be interested in this... Excuse me a moment while I try to get this crazy machine working again." He turned around and began fiddling with the controls of the viewbox.
The speaker emitted several whistles, pops, honks, and crackles, and the screen on the front of the unit began to display apparently random splotches of color. Sushi peered at it, fiddling with one of the controls, and eventually the image resolved into the recognizable close-up image of a grinning Zenobian, swaying back and forth. "Take my eggs-please!" came the mechanical voice through the speaker, followed by the sound of an audience laughing and applauding.
"What's that all about?" asked Rembrandt.
"No idea," said Sushi. "Remember, I've only been watching this for a couple of hours. It's all new to me, too." He pushed another control, and the picture changed.
This time the view was of an outdoor scene, with two Zenobians riding at a breakneck pace on the backs of a pair of large reptilian creatures. They came to a third native, who stood by the side of the path they were following, at a point where it divided. The dismounted native pointed down one fork, and said, excitedly, "The miscreants followed yonder trail!" At this, the two mounted Zenobians directed the beasts they were riding down the indicated path.
"That seems familiar," said Armstrong, peering at the screen.
"Depressingly so, in fact," said Beeker, looking down his nose at the images.
Sushi changed the controls again, and the image shifted to what looked like a large indoor arena, where an excited crowd of Zenobians stood on ramps surrounding a smaller group of the natives, wearing contrasting costumes of bright primary colors and running at top speed from one end of the central area to the other, knocking each other down. and biting the opponent's tails in. what like nothing short of an all-out riot. An off-camera commentator shouted, "Garp has the nodule; he hurls it to Wafs; that worthy cradles it cleverly, avoiding the snap of Brotch! The Guardians are at a turning point!" It was easy to guess that some sort of team sport was in progress, but none of the watching humans could make out what was supposedly being passed around, let alone the object of the "game." Perhaps the translator was at fault, or perhaps the game had hidden subtleties.
After a few more moments of incomprehensible mayhem and even less coherent commentary, Sushi again changed the controls and brought in another "channel" that apparently being the closest equivalent in human communications to the different settings of the viewbox. "Ah, here's what I was looking for," he said, and stepped back to let the others see.
This image was radically different from any the watchers had seen so far. In fact, to everyone's consternation, it showed not a Zenobian, but what appeared to be a human-although greatly distorted, as if scanned through a defective input device. The colors were washed out into shades of black, white, and shimmering gray. The jerky movement was accompanied by a shrill, relentlessly thumping sound track. But even the grainy, unrealistic image was clear enough that, after a moment's glance, every eye in the room turned to look at one person. And that person stared in openmouthed disbelief at what was on the viewbox screen in front of him.
"Wait jes' one cotton-pickin' minute, Sushi," said Rev, at last. "Are you tellin' me that these-here Zenobians are showin' the King on their viewboxes?"
"I'm not telling you-I'm showing you," said Sushi.
"But if I had to guess, I'd say we're probably seeing an Old Earth broadcast that made its way across the intervening space to here, back when the Zenobians were just beginning to explore the electromagnetic spectrum-however long ago that was. We'll have to check the light-distance between there and here to find out when they could have first seen it. But I think we've got the answer to the question you asked me to research, Rev. Now, at least, we know who 'L'Viz is." Sushi put on his most sympathetic expression and turned to Rev. "You see, there's no mystery at all. It's all perfectly rational and scientific-just old signals that the Zenobians somehow received and intetpreted in their own way. Sorry, Rev. I guess this is a disappointment." He felt sorry for the poor company chaplain, who'd pinned so many hopes on the Zenobians' apparent veneration of 'L'VlZ.
But Rev seemed not to notice. He was still staring at the viewbox. Finally, he turned. "No mystery, Sushi?" he asked, a smile now playing on his lips. "No mystery? Why, I guess I gotta disagree with you on that, son. These here broadcasts left Old Earth countless years ago-back in the age of the King himself, as any fool can see. And somehow they traveled night and day, runnin' all the way, just like a mystery train, tryin' to get right here to Zenobia-just as the little folks who call this world their home was ready to receive 'em. You want to call that perfectly rational and scientific? Well maybe you believe that. But I say, the King done jes' what he set out to do." Rev turned and bowed to the officers, who all stood there openmouthed. "Now, gentlemen, if you'll excuse me-I gotta spread word to the faithful!" And he turned on his heel and left the room.
Beeker and Phule made coughing sounds to cover up what might have been laughter. But Sushi spread his hands, and said, "Well, there's one more proof-it all depends on how you look at the data."
There were a good dozen beer containers tossed into a corner of the shelter, and a large pile of dollars in front of Euston O'Better, when Qual caught their attention with a penetrating hiss. "Creatures approach," he whispered.
"Whoa," said L. P. Asho, turning to look at the view screen. Sure enough, there was activity visible in the hollow below their hunting blind. A herd of small hopping animals with kangaroo-like forefeet was swarming around the water-it was hard to tell their exact size without some standard for comparison, but they seemed no more than a meter or so in height. Intermixed with them were a few larger creatures-homed quadrupeds, perhaps twice as tall at the shoulder, and three times longer than their height, if you counted a substantial-looking tail.