"So you get a big kick out the
tourney, huh? Watching the winners walk away with a world and all
that stuff? Change their life forever. Not me. I come to watch the
worlds blow up. It's what I used to do for a living before the
tourneys. Blow up worlds. I come to watch on the off chance that one
of them might show some talent. Every now and then, there's an
original and classy destruction. Not every time though. More often
than not, I go away disappointed. I mean, it's their first time. What
can you expect? But some have a natural talent. But they're all
stupid, in my opinion.
"Why do I say that? You got to be
stupid to spend money on a lottery, except for the chance to get to
blow up a world. Winning the planet for best show is a waste. All you
have to do get a planet these days is go there and claim it. Leave
some token that you've been there and come back and claim it. Cheaper
than what you go through if you're selected by the lottery board for
your ticket. That's all a bunch of bunk to make it more cost
efficient for the Expedition Council to remove rogue planets from
their paths. They used to pay me a good salary to do it. Now they
don't pay me no more. They let the contestants pick up part of the
expenses instead.
"I mean, hey. It's a kick. You'll
never know the feeling that you get when that big fat monstrous glob
of mass comes apart, and you know you did it, all by yourself. I
could put all of those guys to shame. Even the good ones are a bit
shy of the class you get when you do it time after time. You get a
feel for planet busting with experience.
"Oh yeah, lots of things to consider.
Core size, density, fault lines between the mantles, atmosphere.
Atmosphere plays a big role in the first few minutes. More than you
think. Best atmosphere I ever saw was when this guy tried to implode
the planet with a spin sensitive B-ball. He wanted to get the planet
to vanish into the created black hole. He got about ninety percent
there when it overloaded. Poor design math. Poor guy. But it blew the
remainder of the solid stuff out past the atmosphere. And there you
had this hollow sphere of air diffusing off into space. It
contracted, and then the B-ball shut down, and it all just diffused.
Seen against the star, it was most impressive. Quite breathtaking.
Class as it wasn't intended. Divine error.
"But most of these knuckle heads think
Kaboom! And off everything scatters, and they feel puffy proud.
Idiots. You gotta be stupid or something to think that these guys
know what their doing. The instructors that are assigned to them
never blew a planet. Twenty eight of us old pros left, and not a one
of us veterans got so much as 'would you like the job?' They couldn't
get rid of us fast enough to keep our pensions as small as possible.
Now, they're rolling in the dough. For them, it was smart. They're
popular, they're saving money hand over fist, and everybody wants to
be a part of what they've got.
"Be a big star, and kick a planet's
behind, and own one of your very own. Fred Knitling was the brain
child. He's going to regret it some day. One of the days, they'll let
a real moron slip past them on the wrong planet. Not something for
amateurs to be doing. Some of those baby's are dangerous, especially
if treated wrong. I saw one idiot take out three other planets in the
same stellar system because he saw no problem in punching a pipe down
the pole of this one rogue that had the ecliptic and equator on the
same plane. Completely wrecked the biosphere of the planet that the
rogue was threatening. Kill the patient to prevent the possible
illness. They paid for that one. Fortunately, no one got wind of the
scandal. rocess. The discoverer of the
hot rogue never lived to tell about it. They still haven't been able
to get with five parsecs of the region, it's so hot a background.
"I remember having to take one out. In
a star cluster in Puppis. NGC 2451. How? Not easy You have to play a
galactic billiards game. If it has a moon, all the easier. Place a
near surface charge in the moon facing the planet. Set it off. The
part that blows away is your reaction mass. You get most of it to
burn off if there is an atmosphere. If there isn't an appreciable
one, you get a bit of a leak. Only minor, though. When the energy is
expended, the gravity pulls them back together, and if you do it
right with corrective charges, you slow the orbit when they collide,
and the planet falls starward. Since it's a stray and not in stable
orbit, it doesn't take that much to dump it into the sun. And it's
right at home in the star nuclear furnace. But you have to do it just
right. You don't get a second chance with a moon.
"But these guys don't know nothing
about that. They couldn't tell a hot from a cheese puff. Huh? That's
a planet with no core. Yeah, lots of them. Dullsville. You got no
metals to flare. Just a bunch of rock. Only sight you get out of
those are the resulting meteor showers on other planets in the
system. Or craters, but that is years and lifetimes later. Have to be
careful there to break it up fine enough. A core is good for
pulverizing the stone with its density. Get fewer big craters in the
system with a planet with a metal core.
"But these guys don't know any of
this. All the instruction they get are shaped wedges and cross
section of the major faults. Any more, and they have to ask about it
to be told. And they don't know enough to ask. Heck, we even offered
to make a handbook, but the EC refused us the right to any royalties
because it was about their tourney. Only place anybody can blow a
planet these days, even if we didn't mention them once. They
threatened law suits out the rear if we published a word. That's the
kind of people running this thing. Stupid people. Stupid people run
it. Stupid people participate in it. Stupid people advise for it. And
something this dangerous should be left in the hands of people who
know what they're doing.
"You'd have to be stupid to want to
have anything to do with it. One of these days, something is going to
go wrong. I guess that's why I come to watch them on live screen. I
want to know if it's time to haul butt. And there are the few that
show talent. Us guys like to make contact with them, let them know
the score. One of these days, they're going to want us back to do the
job right, once they wind up with egg on their face. Most of the
contestants are pretty young. Us pros are getting on in years. Got to
put our knowledge somewhere, in case it comes later, rather than
sooner. But there will be a day when this folderol dies in
embarrassment. Sooner or later, the tourney will end up being a
tragedy too big to live down. Then the pros will be needed again.
"Oh, I'm not really bitter. I know
I'll have the last laugh. Huh? No. I've never bought a ticket. None
of the others have either. We get paid to bust planets, not the other
way around. And one day the glitter will be gone from the list of
contestants and winners. One day, things will go wrong and the honor
will be tarnished. They'll go from being envied to being idiots for
being a part of it. They will be the bitter ones. Not us pros. We're
just biding our time.
"Hey. We've warned them until we're
blue in the face. They don't want to listen to the only people that
really know what can go wrong. They don't want to know. They are
making too much profit. Platinum mine. Huh? No, I feel sorry for the
poor people duped into it. Taken for a ride with smiles all the way.
Most are just ordinary folks that don't know better, looking for
thrills and the competition. We used to have little contests of our
own. Not for worlds. Heck, I could have claimed over four hundred
worlds. Still could. Why waste my money? Unless you head an
organization interested in colonizing, or a mining company, a world
will do you no good, unless you wind up with a real fluke that has
something of value that no other world has. But that takes more than
a lifetime to exploit. First you have to discover this special
resource, which means being there long enough to find it, providing
you can recognize it when you see it. Years of isolation on your own
ball of mud. Not my lifestyle, I tell you.
"And the red tape. Fees, quarantine
when you leave, all kinds of hassles. Owning a world is just a status
symbol. May as well wear a pendant. There are so many worlds out
there. Millions and millions. They want to give them away. Reduces
their chance of being liable for accidents where worlds are involved.
'That wasn't neutral space. It belongs to so and so. Sue him, not
us.' Big racket, I tell you. Not worth the risk, not to mention the
fees involved if you win. They get you coming and going, right down
to the core of you wallet.
"You don't pay, and they put a lien on
your planet and harass you until you pay. They threaten you with
expensive court fights, but no one has seen a judge yet. They've got
a good thing going, and they don't want to share it with another
branch of government. It's all a scare tactic. Not so with us pros.
They'd love to get us in court to take away benefits they rightfully
still owe us. We have a contract with them that they'd love to break,
if we were to give them a chance. That's the reason the tourney came
about in the first place. They wanted us to make concessions in our
salary and benefits. So they thought up the tourney instead. Or
Knitling did, and the others jumped on the bandwagon faster than you
could blink.
"And you can be sure that there is
plenty of skimming going on. You ask any of the contestants and see
if they got receipts for all the money they forked over. And
incidental expenses from the budget. Ha. Pure scam. The whole thing
is rotten, I tell you, and they paint it up so shiny and clean on the
surface. They are laughing all the way to the bank. A shining example
of governmental ingenuity. But you just wait and see. Hey, let me
freshen that drink for you. No, no problem. I never squandered my
earnings like some spacers do. I'm living off of interest on what I
earned during my years of duty.
"Yeah. We got paid well. So do
surgeons. We do a precise job, like it should be done. None of that
hit and miss stuff from us. Not many can come anywhere near being as
clean as we are on the job. We did the job right. And in the long
run, EC is going to find out that it's the cheapest way. They will
blow it big time one of these days, and all that financial advantage
will go right down the tubes. They will end up worse off than if they
had just kept right on using us. Some people are just plain blind to
common sense.
"Hey, here comes the next one up on
the screen. I always get this feeling the next one just might be the
one that brings them down. Uuup. Not this one. Very mediocre. I can
tell from the first few seconds. This guy won't win a planet. Oh,
well. Saved by the odds again. It will come, let me assure you. My
bet is that it won't come during the tourney. I believe that just the
scheduling is the thing that will get them. They'll fail to get to a
rogue in time. The delay of logging the planet and putting it on the
roster, and then waiting for some lottery winner to pick that planet
as target. One of these days, I think that they won't get one in
time, and that will cause the big stink. Then an investigation will
come into their scheduling procedures, and that will open their can
of worms.
"Well. Mediocre it is, my friend.
Another full twenty minutes gone, wasted in anticipation. Well,
another hour before the next detonation. A bunch of the guys are
getting together. A few of them have hired high dollar call girls.
Nice, let me tell you. I got to see their pictures. I'm going to run
over there and see if I can't get in line early this time. Not much
fun when you're tenth in line.
"And a word of advise. Forget buying
the lottery tickets. I mean, you'd have to be stupid or
something."