“Colonel, I suggest you have your inspectors measure the height of the new ride,” said Phule. “You will find that it’s entirely within legal specification.”
“Then you’re guilty of false advertising,” said Mays, He dropped his cheroot on the ground and crushed it under his heel. “Your brochure says the drop on this ride is fifteen meters higher than the law allows! If you can’t deliver on that, we’ll expose you for the fraud you are-and believe me, Landoorans take these things very seriously. The entire management of Dunes Park had to resign several years ago when one of their rides turned out to be ten seconds shorter than advertised.”
“I’ve heard that story,” said Phule. “But take a look-you’ll see that we’ve cut the top ten meters off the framework, to comply with the new laws. But that’s not all.” He beckoned the colonel, and led him over to the work area.
“I’ m afraid you’ll have to put on a helmet to come any closer,” he said, pointing to a rack of hard hats hanging outside the plywood curtain wall surrounding the lower stretches of the Topper’s superstructure. He plopped a helmet on his own head, and waited while the colonel found one that fit. Then he led Mays through a door in the curtain, nodding to the uniformed legionnaire standing guard outside.
Inside, the colonel blinked for a moment as his eyes got used to the dimmer illumination. Then his jaw fell. “This is a travesty! You can’t get around the law this easily!”
“On the contrary, Colonel, we studied the law very carefully before adopting this design,” said Phule. He pointed to the enormous pit into which the tracks descended, adding at least twenty meters to the initial plunge. “The law explicitly limits the height above ground level, but it says nothing about the total height of the drop. This ride is legal, Colonel.”
“You scoundrel. We’ll find some way to stop you,” sputtered the colonel, but Phule continued to smile.
“We want to thank you for making this necessary,” said Phule. “We’ll have a plunge into pitch darkness at the very end of the ride-so they can’t see how far they’re going to fall. We’d never have thought of that without your regulations. Maestro Zipiti considers it his greatest inspiration, all thanks to your government.”
“You’ve won this round, damn you, Captain,” said Mays, snatching off his helmet. “But you haven’t seen the end of us. Good day!” He stomped out of the enclosure, slamming the door behind him.
“Well, wasn’t that special?” said Buster, who’d been watching the tour from a distance. “We’ll see what new wrinkles they come up with now. I reckon we’ve got even more fun in store for us.”
“Buster, you may not believe this,” said Phule, “But there is such a thing as too much fun.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Buster, and he went back to work. Phule sighed, but he knew he’d pay the bills when they came.
A new ride was rising inside security screens at Landoor Park, and the spy cameras had soon reported on its salient features. It copied the Topper’s underground plunge, increasing the initial drop by another three meters. At that point, the excavation hit bedrock-locally, an extremely tough basalt. Phule’s engineers had already determined that going deeper would be prohibitively expensive. The new ride was given the code name, “Monster”. And unless the government decided to rescind its new regulations, it seemed to establish an untoppable record (at least in this district) for the height of the initial plunge.
Maestro Zipiti was livid. “Zey are creeminals, nozzing hot creeminals!” he roared. “Zey zink zey can fix ze law zo zey have ze field to zeirselfs! Pah! Zipiti showing zem!”
“Well, Maestro, you better pull somethin’ pretty triff out’n yer pockets,” said Buster. “They got us beat up and down, and now all we gots to work with is sideways. Got’ny hot ideas?”
“Just you vait!” howled the Maestro. “Ve vill show zem!” But he didn’t offer any triff ideas, and it began to appear that he was not about to.
Okidata cleared his throat. “Well, there is one idea we haven’t used yet,” he said. “I suppose a real ride purist would call it cheating, though, so maybe we shouldn’t…”
“I’m no purist,” said Phule. “Right about now, the only thing I care about is beating those bureaucratic rulemongers. If we can get a better ride than they’re offering, I say we do it whatever it takes. What do you think, Maestro?”
“Vot ess zis idea?” Zipiti said, scowling.
“Antigrav,” said Okidata.
“Oh, zat has been done,” said Zipiti, with a flip of his hand. “Eet vas ze grand sensation, until everybody go on ze ride and discover ees boring. Ze riders, zey vant to feel as if zey are falling, not floating.”
“Right,” said Okidata. “We had a ride here that tried it, back when I was a kid. Flopperoonie. Nobody went on it twice. But they did it like you said-floating instead of falling. There’s another way to use it.”
“Eempossible!” said the Maestro, but nobody was listening to him.
“Go ahead, kid,” said Buster, propping his feet up on the empty chair opposite him. “We gotta top the gov’ment’s ride, and they done rigged the game agin’ us. You got a better idea, I’m itchin’ to hear it.”
“OK, here’s the deal,” said Okidata. “The old way was to use antigrav at the top of a hill, to make the riders feel as if the car was flying off the track. Except it didn’t really work-it was too smooth. The way I think we can use it is subtler. We put it on as the car’s going uphill, just enough so the car doesn’t lose all its speed, That way, we can make the later hills just as high as the first, and we get a lot more really steep drops. And we can keep the ride going longer, ’cause it doesn’t slow down as much. You’re using the antigrav not as an effect, but as an enhancement.”
“It oughta work,” said Buster. ” ‘Course, the proof of the puddin’ is in the tastin’…”
“That’s what our ride-testers are for,” said Phule. “Draw up the design and let’s see it. We’ve got nothing to lose, so let’s give it our best shot.” Privately, he was beginning to wish that the rides could be opened, to help defray the growing cost of construction. But until all the park’s facilities were finished, the gates would have to remain closed-and the bills would continue to mount.
As with any work of art, a ride was nothing without an audience. Until it had rattled down the track (and it had better rattle-too quiet was no good) with riders aboard, it was still an unproven entity. The ride-testers were there to prove that pudding.
The team included Omega Mob’s two hardcore thrill ride addicts, Do-Wop and Mahatma, as well as Tusk-anini, who had an uncanny ability to spot minor imperfections in the trackwork just by riding over it. The Gambolts, especially Rube, also proved to be good testers; if Rube made it to the end without howling, the ride was far too tame. And to lead the group, Phule chose Brandy, who kept the group focused on analyzing the ride, rather than simply enjoying it.
It was shortly after ride-testing the Topper that Mahatma raised his hand and said, “Sarge, may I ask a question?”
“I doubt I’ll get any peace until I let you,” said Brandy. “What is it this time, Mahatma?”
“The reason we’re testing out rides is to find out whether they’re better than the government’s rides, isn’t it?”
“Got it in one,” said Brandy.
“But Sarge, how can you compare two things when you only know one?”
“Say what?” Brandy’s face took on a particular puzzled expression that Mahatma’s questions often seemed to elicit.
“Listen, Sarge,” said Mahatma. “If you want to compare apples and oranges, you have to taste an apple, and then an orange, not so?”
“Nobody can compare apples and oranges,” said Brandy, furrowing her brow. “You can’t do it…”
Mahatma interrupted her. “Then why does everyone say to me always, You’re comparing apples and oranges, if I don’t do it? If I do it, you can’t say nobody does it.”
“Brandy, Mahatma making sense this time,” said Tusk-anini.
“I’m supposed to take your word for that?” scoffed Brandy. Tusk-anini’s intellect was highly respected by the Omega Mob, but his approach to logic didn’t always match the human model.
“Listen, Brandy,” said Tusk-anini. “We only test our rides. How we know if they better than other rides unless we go on other rides?”
“Oh, I get it,” said Brandy. “Well, I guess the question does make sense, after all. Except we can’t go on the government’s rides until they open the park. Which is a shame, come to think of it…”
“Yo, Sarge, I got a great idea,” said Do-Wop.