In the tiny wardroom, there was Stretch Dirak, the four "car" managers, Fisty Bill Ris—the boss of the opposition brigade, and myself. Stretch greeted everyone, then sat down behind the wardroom table. We all took our seats around the table, then Stretch began. "The Abe Show intends to pull day-and-date with us on Wallabee, so you all know what that means for us. There'll be over billing of our paper, opposition, and depending on how far ahead of us their advance is, the squarers might have difficulty in securing poster space, banner permits—"
Wall-Eyes Oscar, manager of the Cannon Ball, held up a hand, then dropped it on the table. "Stretch, are we going to run the order the way we did on Masstone?"
"For you it'll be the same. I hate to leave you naked, Wall-Eyes, but I figure the Abe Show opposition to hit the last three cars. That's where the paper is." He turned to Fisty Bill. "Fisty, I want twenty roughnecks in Thunder Bird, twenty in Battle Bolt, and the remaining sixty in War Eagle.
The manager of the Thunder Bird shook his head. "Stretch, you know they're going to be waiting for us, and when we start putting up our paper—or over billing theirs—we're going to get opposition. Twenty isn't going to be enough. With my crew and bill-posters, tackspitters, that leaves me with less than eighty men."
Stretch nodded. "I'm going to use War Eagle as a flying attack and reserve brigade." He turned to Six-Chins Ivan, manager of the War Eagle. "In addition to the brigade, you'll still handle the checkers up and the twenty-four-hour man, but most of the time you'll be in the air looking for trouble. If you don't find it, start it," He looked around the table. "I'll be moving between all four cars, and remember to keep the radio net complete at all times. The Governor wants clean victory with each opposition, and I don't ever want the Abe Show to forget that they tangled with
Later, Stretch and I worked the Blitz's research files on Wallabee. Unfortunately, they were pretty skimpy, it being a new stand for the show. The Nithads, the dominant race on the planet, are stooped-over creatures with an overall egg shape. Their backs are armored with a thick, segmented shell, but they do have bipedal locomotion. Their arms and hands extend from under the shell. There are two arms per Nithad, and two opposing fingers per hand.
Since Wallabee is the nearest habitable planet to Pendiia, the history of the planet had been touched on during my education, and I had been following several trends in the interplanetary section of the news chips. The race had a written history over twenty thousand of their years long, and during that period, no wars, revolutions, or even riots had been recorded, leading to such expressions as "having the heart of a Nithad" to denote a peaceful, nonviolent person, and "having the courage of a Nithad" to denote a coward.
Nevertheless, the ruling class of the Nithads had followed a pattern as old as life itself, thought itself threatened, then proceeded to eliminate the opposition by a variety of oppressive measures, including the confinement of political prisoners, elimination of local elections (even though the ruling class had the only qualified candidates), and the total elimination of communications freedom. Following the pattern, the ruling class was outnumbered, and the Wallabee Liberation Front grew into a powerful force almost overnight. Organized rebellion so far had only involved boycotts of ruling-class merchants and compulsory ceremonies, but it had been reported to the Ninth Quadrant Commission on Interplanetary Political Stability (9QCIPS) that the rebels had obtained a quantity of weapons from the Nuumiian Empire. Open hostilities were considered only a matter of time. It was into this atmosphere that O'Hara's Greater Shows and the Abe Show planned to wage their own war.
EIGHTEEN
May 7th, 2144
The Blitzkrieg makes orbit around Wallabee. Stretch assigns me to the number-two car, the Thunder Bird, managed by Razor Red Stampo. The Thunder Bird follows the Cannon Ball by four days. This enables the mediagents and squarers to prepare the way. Cannon Ball makes certain readers are issued to the mass media, and that permission for space to put up paper and banners is obtained. Wall-Eyes Oscar reports back to the Blitz that, although the Abe Show already has paper up, there has been no trouble in obtaining permission for our own displays. Stretch decides to go down to the first stand with the Thunder Bird.
May 11th, 2144
Garatha, on Wallabee. When the Thunder Bird arrived this morning, we found the city papered with the Abe Show's bills. Razor loads down the billposters with hods of newly printed paper and sends them out to cover the enemy paper. Stretch has been walking through the city and has come back with a puzzled expression on his face.
"The Abe Show's paper is the only advertising I've seen in Garatha. The Enemy's hits on buildings is impressive but I don't see where the Nithads advertise. Have to think on it."
Opposition in Garatha. The billposters covering up Abe Show paper on Viula Street have called in for help. A force of ten Abe Show roughnecks has cornered three of our men. Stretch and Razor mount up the twenty-man opposition brigade on cycles and head for the spot. By the time we arrive, half our paper has been recovered. Razor sends out the brigade, and it wades into the Abe Show's opposition. Duckfoot's toothpicks, the four-foot tent stakes, make short work of the Abe Show toughs, and they retire.
While Razor recovers the Abe Show paper, Stretch watches the Nithads that had gathered to watch the fight, none of them are looking at either the Abe Show paper or ours. Instead, after watching the fight, they stooped forwards and wandered off. Stretch examined the buildings around us, looked back at the few Nithad that remained, then hopped on a cycle and sped off toward the Thunder Bird. When I arrived an hour later, Stretch was deep in conversation with the Thunder Bird's lithographer. They were bending over a layout of a poster, and when I peeked around Stretch's arm, I saw that it was our usual poster, except all the type was reversed. Instead of reading the posters from the top down, they had to be read from the bottom up. I could tell that, even though the posters were printed in the Nithad tongue.
In two hours we had the new posters and Stretch called in the billposters and issued new paper and instructions. We were not to cover the Abe Show's paper on the buildings. Let them have the vertical surfaces, he told them. Our posters were to be pasted onto the sidewalks. The Nithad habitually looks down because of his armored back and stooped-over position. Hence, the place he will see the most is the sidewalk. The billposters gathered up their hods of paper and vanished into the city. I, myself, saw an elderly Nithad come to a poster, examine it carefully as he traversed its surface, then rush on to the next poster, all the time ignoring the Abe Show paper covering the wall of the building to the fellow's left.
May 15th, 2144
The Governor has reported back to us that opening night was a sellout, while the Abe Show performed at barely a quarter of its capacity. Almost at the same moment, the Abe Show opposition began contesting our domination of the sidewalks. The War Eagle was kept busy. There was hardly a town, large or small, that did not see a battle between opposition brigades. Paper covered paper, then was itself recovered then overbilled again. Gangs of stake-swinging roughnecks prowled the cities being billed, and it was a rare stand that did not leave half a dozen or more men laid up in the local hospital with mashed faces, broken limbs, or cracked skulls.