Authors: Robert Onopa
"You would have liked the debriefing," I said sardonically. "He was the one who told me that a guy I knew pretty well from the ship—a big, healthy, part-Indian guy named Cooper—killed himself. Told me with a kind of grin."
"He could work for Service Control," she sighs. "Same type. I can just see my next assignment, some dried-up old cheapskate who doesn't need an hour's sleep for two weeks."
"Well, thanks again," I say, kissing her on the cheek and drawing her closer to me in the lush darkness of gold sector local transport.
What I will always owe Erica is this massage. Her hands are strong and confident as she flexes the contours of my neck muscles, straightens something in my back I didn't even know was out of place, cures my headache for good. But I feel a little depressed this morning after, awake again in the middle of the night—I feel as if it's a morning after, that says enough.
Silk sheets again. I don't know if I'm going to be able to sleep on a cot after this. I'd settle instead for my old bunk on the Daedalus, or even a freighter's gravity hammock. Here I have silk sheets and a triple-sized recliner that adjusts to my weight like a lover. I remember the first morning of this trip waking on silk sheets, opening my eyes, and the odor of Collette, so pleased that she hadn't disappeared in my sleep.
Erica is telling me that Tonio is guest-producing a videon special from the Moorish garden tonight. He called this morning to invite us both to the sound stage for the secondary shots he will be setting up all afternoon— says, moreover, that he's dropping the male service he picked up in coming here.
"Go if you want to," I say. "I'm going to do a little more driving."
Erica is pleased that I don't mind. "Just promise you won't get into any trouble," she says, her hands slipping upward on my neck to ease the base of my skull.
"Well, I could lose it in the S's like I did yesterday," I say.
"Keep your
head
down. Drive carefully, will you? I do feel responsible for your health, special instructions or no. Promise?"
The seating tier adjacent to Giroti's pits is virtually empty again today, except for a young, stylish camera crew in the top row and a middle-aged couple who seem to be curious about taping. We are on the very edge of SectorBlue, I think; from the plastic-backed seats of the tier the S's stretch away to the right along the green swath of infield, toward one of the stadiums. When I turn to the gate, the pits obliquely to the left, the line of cars seem like patients in a trauma center linked to electronics consoles and plastic tubes among the stacked tires.
Once through the chain link, I see that Massimo is with someone, a shorter man, I judge automatically from the soft black leather suit; then when I get closer, I realize from the turning profile the someone is a woman— straight forehead, angular chin, fiftyish. They are talking and I stop ten meters away, wave hello to Massimo's mechanic. The woman with Massimo has her hair short-cropped, she is aiming some sort of pointer at the Ferrari's cockpit.
Massimo sees me, calls
"Ciao,
Raoul-lay," his hand comes up in the air to wave me over to the Ferrari. Halfway the engine starts up with a rumble, then a mean crack of revolutions. The smell of nitro exhaust slices through the thick odors of oil and rubber.
The woman seems transfixed by the car—she doesn't even notice my joining them. She hugs herself to the sound of the engine—Massimo has the oddest look on his face; his eyebrows are raised nervously and his cheeks are reddening as if he wants to shout something but knows he won't be heard above the engine.
It shuts down quickly at the wave of his hand.
"Director Steiner," he says to the woman, then turns to me. I can see the smile on his face. He started talking too loud, his voice drops dramatically: "Allow me to introduce a friend, Rawley Voorst. He is pilot and driver. Rawley—Eva Steiner."
Massimo looks at me through his polite laugh, I look at the woman again—her gray eyes take me in without recognition or interest. She nods, then moves next to the Ferrari, putting out her hand. "Feel the heat," she says to herself; "there is nothing like this, nothing."
Of course. Her hair is black, but it's been dyed black. In every other way she fits the description of her personnel readout, though I don't think I would have recognized her. She has a small, straight nose, thin lips. Something's not right about her eyes. There is a glaze to them, or a sheen. Drugs, I think. D-Pharmacon. I look at Massimo, he looks as uncomfortable in her presence as I've become, his smile seems as uncertain as mine.
"Director Steiner is a great admirer of all Formula cars—and she has hydroplane, think of that, Rawley," Massimo says, trying to start a conversation, but Eva Steiner is absorbed in the cars—the feel of their metal, their leather interiors, the sound of their engines. She acts as if I'm not there, barely Giroti, and I think he shuts the Ferrari cockpit from her approach for just that reason.
"It was really kind of you to let me come," she says to Massimo. "I should have shipped in my own Formula E—my delicious Formula E. But even that's not quite the same. There's something wonderfully cruel about the Ferrari, don't you think? You should have it painted black—everything black."
Massimo's forehead creases in annoyance. "My country, Director Steiner, you see..." Before he can even begin to explain racing colors, she has moved around to the rear of the car, where she squats down and rubs her hand across the surface of the wide rear tires.
"Very good," she says, stroking.
Massimo is livid. "Would you like to drive the car, Director Steiner? Perhaps then you can get what you came for. Take it on the track, I don't care. Perhaps you can even drive it."
"Can I drive it," she says flatly, rising and flexing her back. "Yes, I can drive it. I've driven Formula E in competition." Then she smiles thinly. "You really are a darling man, Governor Giroti, don't be upset by a... fantasy. I would love to drive it." It is a pointer that she has—or something like one, a thin black cylinder about a half-meter long—and her hand has been gripping it so tightly that her knuckles are white.
Then she relaxes; and I can see Massimo relax, too.
In a few minutes Eva Steiner is checked out in the blood-red Bianco, takes some stimulants, and moves loudly onto the track. My hearing is numbed by the noise and for a minute we can't quite talk.
"I'm sorry I get angry," Massimo begins sheepishly. "I do not like that woman."
"I don't, either. But look, I appreciate your getting her here."
"I find out last night she has a passion for such things," Massimo says. "I tell you she has hydroplane also, can you imagine? She is worse than they say—in this place, yes, she can do these things."
At the rising whistle I look out toward the track and follow a wedged Formula E skittering through the S's.
"But as you say, what a woman this is," Massimo begins in a tone that sounds strange. "Skin the color of life."
"Of death, you mean," I say, turning to see what he is talking about, seeing that he is looking over to the seating tier. Three women dressed in charcoal suits are being seated by an older man dressed in the same style.
"No, not Steiner." Massimo is laughing, beginning really to laugh, "Rawley..." he says.
In profile she is unmistakable—perfect forehead, aquiline nose, full lips that pout a little, skin the color of
cafe latta.
The woman is Collette.
She is staring ahead, oddly inert; when she looks our way from twenty meters distance, her face is slack. She meets my gaze with a blank stare and a faint movement of her lips; doesn't really seem to know who I am.
"Yes, yet it is true, they all look, for this time of day, Rawley,
troppo imbalsamara
—what you say, em-
balmed."
She doesn't seem to know quite who I am even as I point my index finger at her and gently pull the trigger of an imaginary pistol. I hear the low whine and rumble of the Ferrari, look to see the bright red car pounding too high toward us in the S's. Eva Steiner is visible for an instant, fighting the wheel. She skids along the fence dangerously high, makes it down for the first turn, but the Ferrari is pointed sideways, and she has to let the car slide itself up and out into the far curve, almost to a stop, a dead stop, before she is downshifted and fishtailing into the straight, hard after a Formula E that had blown by her in the second turn.
"Porca madonna,'"
Massimo says in disgust. "She thinks she is driving Formula E. My car!"
When I saunter over to the gate, the older man with Collette and the other two women comes over and puts his fingers through the steel links, keeping the gate between us.
"We're just fine," he says. He is older, but he isn't as old as Eva Steiner. His combed black hair is thinning and his complexion is pasty, his eyes watery. "We're all taken care of."
"I didn't ask," I say. Collette and the other two women are staring ahead at the track. "What are their names?'
"Private party." He smiles. "That's just the way it is."
"Oh, I'm just looking." I smile back amiably. "I see they're all dressed the same way. Attractive, really attractive."
"They're all named Max, actually," he tells me with a smile, moving aside a little to show the women off.
"Max?"
"That's what Eva calls them," he says, putting himself in my way again, the nervousness returning to his smile.
An irony compounds itself; Max is what we used to call Maxine. Up in the stands the film crew has a telephoto trained on the chute to the S's, I hear the Ferrari, turn to see. Eva Steiner is too high again. She loses a tenth coming in, two tenths in the way she sets up for the next curve, she still doesn't quite have the feel of the car.
Collette never takes her eyes off the track—but it doesn't look as if she's following any of the cars, either. Or maybe it's me; when she seems to start to turn my way, I avoid her. She knew all along, I think, she knew all along. Collette looks like heaven in a waiting room of hell.
When the rumbling Bianco del Guidici eases into the pits, Eva Steiner is peeved, her face wet with perspiration, her makeup smeared. She grants the Ferrari its balance but claims the car is too light, says so even as she is climbing from the cockpit.
"I prefer Formula E," she states once her helmet is off and she drinks some ice water—she scoffs at her lap times, the last few of which weren't that bad. "It is a matter of power over style. I prefer the power of Formula E to this relic."
I think Massimo, who has been looking with worry at the Ferrari, has had about enough from Eva Steiner. I can smell the car now—the sharp, overripe odor of nitrogasoline, the heat of it. There is a long, embarrassed silence, Massimo is simply refusing to speak, looking past Eva Steiner's smile and mocking eyes.
"I could beat you in the Ferrari," I say evenly. "I don't think it's the car."
The space between us for a moment turns electric. Eva Steiner raises her eyebrows, Massimo falls a step back and looks at me with surprise. Eva Steiner says she considers my remark a challenge; her nostrils flare slightly as she says that.
"I don't know." I shrug, thinking, Push this woman, not knowing quite where this is going to go. "I don't have much time for games."
"Men only say that when they're not very good at... games," she snaps. "I think, with the Governor here as a witness, you're obliged to prove what you say or retract it. Apologize."
"I don't see I have to do either," I say, rubbing the back of my neck.
Now Massimo's jaw has gone slack, he is looking at me in wonder—and I'm wondering again what I'm going to say next. If anything is going to happen, it had better be soon.
"Not interested," she sneers. "Not much of a man, either."
"Well, what's at stake here?" I say. "Let's get this straight. If you'd like to race, fine—that's about a twenty-five-second handicap I've offered you, each lap. But there had damned well better be something on the line. I don't race for kicks."
"Ah,
straordinario, fantastico!"
Massimo exclaims. "I forget I am in LasVenus, yes—there is something in the air of this place!"
"Perhaps you'll wind up as one of my slaves," Eva Steiner scowls at me.
"Or you one of mine," I answer even as I am trying to be certain I've heard what she's said.
The silence of our circle is filled with the noises from pit crew and track, but it is a silence that is charged and palpable. Eva Steiner is appraising me, looking me over from my forehead to my flight shoes, looking straight into my eyes with a slight squint to her own. "I didn't know you were so inclined," she says slowly, her pale lips curling into a thin smile.
I say nothing, only raise my eyebrows slightly to suggest that she hasn't begun to guess the range of my inclinations.
"Very well," she says, reddening slightly. "I can have a decent car here in two hours. Governor Giroti, I would be pleased if you'd act as our witness. The young man has named the stakes. The loser will become the winner's slave for a day—until theTube lifts off. Those are my terms. We'll race one lap from a flying start. Acceptable?' she asks. "You've named the stakes," she says without really waiting for my answer, verging on anger. "We'll see who can drive."