He was coming, the message strip said, on August 24, the day that Wheel Days opened, because he was sure we’d be there for Wheel Days. He was on his way in-system for a management seminar, with his wife Joyce and their three kids. They wanted to see us and would be there sometime during Dayshift. Even in hard copy from a radio relay, Ernest’s usual accusing tone was coming through. And by this time they were four days out from Central Station One (the Company’s own headquarters colony, as he made sure we knew), and there was no way I could stop them. That’s what I got for not reading that message the month before.
I called Peg, and she reacted about how I expected. She’s often said she married someone as unlike her brothers as possible. I held the earphone a foot away until she calmed down a little.
“We can hide out in the Wheel Days confusion,” she suggested finally.
“They know where we live; they’ll just camp outside the door.”
“We could stay with Lisa…”
“Lisa’s already having company, remember?” So were we, for that matter, and Peg and I both said, “What about the Harrisons?” at the same moment.
“I can’t tell them not to come,” Peg wailed. “I want to see them. We have fun together. Not only that… we won’t have room.”
“I’ll find Ernest’s bunch a room somewhere else,” I said, but I was worried. We really haven’t built our tourism industry up where we’d like to see it, Wheel Days filled the hotels—overfilled them—and by this time I doubted I could find anything but the most expensive suites still available.
“They are not coming here,” Peg said, with a hint of Brother Ernest’s heavyhanded determination. Then she hung up. Murray came to tell me that Conway had rejoined the Jinnits, but had gotten drunk in the ship on its way from Gone West and given his ex-wife two black eyes. She wasn’t filing charges, but the ship’s captain was, and wouldn’t release him without a guarantee from an employer: the ship’s captain was a Neo-Feminist, and wouldn’t tolerate spouse (or ex-spouse) abuse. The band didn’t count, because apparently the captain considered them a contributing influence, and had already fined them. And of course without Conway, the Jinnits wouldn’t sound like the Jinnits, and our main stage attraction would be no attraction at all. Murray wouldn’t meet my eyes, even though it wasn’t his fault, and we both knew it. But everyone also knew that he was why we had the Jinnits at all.
By the time I’d straightened that out, it was six hours later and the last hotel room was long gone, at any price. I leaned a little on Bennie Grimes, manager of the Startowers, but he knew and I knew that the favors he owed me weren’t worth kicking a corporate executive out of his room and alienating the entire company. And no one I knew—no one—had room at home. Everyone with spare rooms invited guests or rented them out; the last of the home-rentals had cleared the computer weeks ago.
That left the Campground, and I knew exactly what Ernest was going to say about that. You can’t run a festival by turning people away, so when rooms were full we signed transients into the Campground… a vast, barren storage bay aired up for a week (it takes that long to get it above freezing), and divided into “campsites” with bright plastic streamers. For about the cost of a cheap room in town, we rent bubbletents, furnished with cheap inflatable seats and sleepsacks. Big tents, too—bigger than the rooms you’d get in most hotels, plenty of room to sleep the whole family. It’s kind of a long walk from the Campground in toward the core, so we have some extra entertainment out there. A few clown/juggler acts, a little carnival with rides for the kids, that sort of thing. And we have one day of the games right next to the Campground: the penny toss, the ring-dunk, the disk golf tournament.
Some people even prefer the Campground, and reserve a favorite spot (“Aisle 17, lot D, next to the big bathroom with the sunken tubs”) year after year. You can be sure you’ll be next to friends. The traffic isn’t as bad. It’s less expensive than anything but the cheapest Portside hotels. One group of old-timers from Wish & Chips holds reunions there; they say it’s like going back to the old days before the shells were built up, and they sit around singing sentimental pioneer ballads.
But Ernest in the Campground… we’d never live it down. Yet it was that or have him and his family crammed into our place with us and the Harrisons and only two toilets. The memory of my fortieth birthday, when instead of a long, relaxed bath and bed with Peg I ended up defending the right of independent investors to organize savings & loan associations, while Ernest’s kids tore into Gordie’s things and trashed his carefully organized Scout files, hardened my resolution. I reserved the best space I could find (Aisle 26, lot X), and paid the advance on a deluxe camping outfit so that it would be set up and waiting. I didn’t figure that having a two-room inflated habitat with full cable connections would really soothe Ernest down, but it was the best I could do. I also recorded a message for him and left it in the Port message center. It would tell him where to go, and apologize for this inconvenience.
Then I went back into battle with Simmons Sewer Service. Our contract predated the one they had with the shipbuilders, I said firmly, and they had no valid legal reason to back out. We went back and forth awhile, and came up still three complete sets of porta-potties short (eighteen units: three grav levels, both sexes) even after they said they guessed they could haul some on tomorrow’s oreloader from Teacup 311, where they had just finished a contract. At least I’d originally ordered more than last year, so we weren’t behind as far as it seemed.
Then it was only two days to go. By this time, of course, the main structure is in place. Anything that isn’t is lost, and you can’t change it till next year. Main Parade was still a little skimpy, a bare sixty entries with those seven (by now) marching units, but we usually picked up a few extras the last day, as people came in and saw the competition. In fact, we kept three or four blank floats set up in storage, ready for last-minute spray-painting and decoration as desired. The Kiddy Parades always had problems, but none you could anticipate, since any child who showed up at the beginning could join the parade: that was the rule. All the ribbons and trophies for the games had arrived on schedule.
The candidates for Miss LaPorte-Centro-501 were even now being interviewed by the judges for poise and personality; we had enough entrants for a good pageant, and plenty of contracts for the losers to ride floats representing distant colonies (which keeps losers happy; and unlike some colonies, we don’t let outsiders haggle over our girls: we have them draw lots for the available contracts). The Scoutmasters had their assignments for traffic control and information booths. We’ve found that strangers will accept direction from a neatly uniformed kid when they’ll argue with an adult cop. We started that about ten years ago, and now most colonies use the kids as traffic control and guides during their festivals.
Going through all this and checking what still had to be done took several hours, interrupted by calls from everyone who could find a line. Or that’s what it seemed like, with people asking things like “When are the opening ceremonies?” (on the flyers, not to mention broadcast on video!) and “What are you going to do about the construction mess behind the middle school on Alpha Helix?” which had nothing to do with us, or the festival, and was the sole responsibility of the Alpha Helix School Board. It did look tacky, but it wasn’t my fault. Peg’s a Board trustee, not me. I gave that caller her work extension, and went on to someone who demanded to know why the official garbage pickup was two hours late.