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Toward the downhill side of the blind, Qual set up a miniature vid-eye and portable screen to give them a view of what went on by the water hole. Then they settled down to wait for the game animals he had promised.
The three hunters watched in fascination until they began to realize that almost nothing worth watching was going on down by the water. The only creatures braving the midday sun were too small to be exciting-at least, to humans who have come across several light-years in search of Really Big Game. A xenobiologist might have found the interaction of various Zenobian species--many of which might never have been observed by anyone from off-planet-sufficiently interesting. But it was just under an hour before L. P. Asho set his weapon aside on the blanket next to him, cracked open a beer, and pulled a deck of cards out of the pocket of his shooting jacket. The three humans ordered Qual to alert them if anything worth their while showed up at the water hole, and got down to some serious poker.
"Come on in and take a look at this," said Sushi. "It'll answer a lot of questions."
Phule, Beeker, Rev, and the two lieutenants stepped into the crowded workshop. Most of the space was filled with equipment that, even if its purpose wasn't immediately obvious, was at least made up of recognizable components. But in the middle of a bench toward along the back wall sat a piece of equipment that instantly drew attention to itself.
In fact, Armstrong immediately blurted out, "What in me world is that thing?"
It was a good question. To begin with, nobody could have mistaken it for anything of human manufacture. Its most familiar feature was what appeared to be a display screen similar to that of an Alliance computer, but its shape and proportions-a long oval in "portrait" orientation were clearly different from those of human devices. The material of the case enclosing it was of a rough, mottled texture-more like natural rock than the smooth exteriors human designers favored. And what appeared to be its controls were neither knobs, buttons, nor sliders, but stubby bars that projected at different lengths from the top of the unit.
"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, so
"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 gri
"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 ru
After a few more moments of incomprehensible mayhem and even less coherent commentary, Sushi again changed the controls and brought in another "cha
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 sca
"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 begi