Starship Fall (4 page)

 I nodded. “I’m happy.”

“Happiness...” she said, and a faraway look came into her eyes.

I glanced towards the far end of the room. “Ah… who are the other guests?” I asked.

Luna returned to the present with a grim smile. “The three upright and handsome gentlemen are all my ex-husbands, Conway.”

I opened my mouth, tried to think of a suitable response, and failed.

“The blonde Nordic type is Bjorn Hansen, the explorer. I married him when I was far too young, just eighteen, and lived to regret the fool I was. To his right, the balding black man is Rudolph Carter, the banker.” She leaned close to me again. “I was twenty when I made
that
mistake. He was a sadist, and one of the finest. Physical and psychological – an expert. Needless to say, it didn’t last long.”

I stared at the group, aware that there was something strange about them, which I couldn’t quite put my finger on. “And the last one?”

“The tall, dark Latino is Edward Rodriguez, the actor. Another catastrophe. How was I to know he preferred boys, and only wanted me as a trophy?”

The odd thing, I thought, was that while we’d be talking about them, only the length of the room away, not once had they glanced in our direction. Seconds later I realised another odd thing: they all appeared to be roughly the same age, in their thirties – and yet if Luna had married Hansen when she was only eighteen...

Luna trilled a laugh. “I can see that you’re confused, Conway! Come on, I’ll introduce you.” She knocked back her drink and moved, unsteadily, towards the trio of failed husbands. I took her elbow, lest she trip on the plush carpet, and steered her across the room.

She paused before the group. “Now, which one of you... you detestable bastards will admit–” she hiccuped “–that you’re a bunch of self-centred, arrogant, talentless nothings?”

I looked away, knowing that I must have appeared the epitome of embarrassment.

I glanced at the girl, who stood a couple of metres away, demurely nursing a drink – but she failed to return my look. I wondered, briefly, who among the three men was her father: she appeared in her twenties, with raven hair and mocha skin: Rodriguez, then?

I glanced back at the group. Amazingly, not one of Luna’s ex-husbands deigned to be baited.

Luna laughed again, crossed to a small, matte black console mounted on the wall, and touched a sensor panel.

Instantly, the three men winked out if existence.

The girl remained, turning and smiling at Luna.

“Holo-projections...” I said to both of them.

Luna waved, a little drunkenly, at where the trio had stood. “I like to keep them around, Conway, to remind me of my failures – to remind me to be more careful in future, to never act impulsively in matters of the heart, to be... to be wary. Oh, Christ, how I wish I’d had the ability to see into the future, Conway. Wouldn’t that be a blessing?”

I said, uneasily, “I’m not sure. If one could see one’s mistakes, and yet be unable to do anything about them...”

“But,” she said, leaning close to me and almost toppling, “but that’s just it, Conway. If you could see your mistakes before they happened, then you’d be able to stop yourself from making them, yes?”

I hesitated, not wanting to get into a debate about determinism with an unhappy and obviously distraught woman.

As if seeking refuge, I turned to the girl and said, “What do you think?”

The girl stared at me, through me.

Luna laughed again. “She doesn’t think anything, Conway. She is stupid. You see, that’s me when I was twenty-five. I’d just divorced Rodriguez and was at the height of my fame.” She reached for the wall.

And the girl, like all the others, vanished at the touch of a switch.

“And not long after that,” I told my friends the following morning as we drove towards the central massifs, “she collapsed in a drunken heap and I made my escape.”

“And she didn’t explain herself, or apologise?” Maddie asked.

I laughed. “That’s why she invited me over, isn’t it? I’d completely forgotten about that. No, she didn’t say a word about her behaviour on the beach the other morning.”

“She sounds,” Hawk said, from the passenger seat beside Matt, “a sad and tragic woman.”

I nodded. “She’s haunted by who she was, the mistakes she made.”

“But what’s she doing on Chalcedony?” Maddie asked.

“That I didn’t get round to discussing.”

Matt laughed. “You can ask her the next time she invites you round for a drink, David.”

I returned his laugh with a hollow version of my own and concentrated on the passing scenery. What I’d neglected to tell my friends was that, immediately after she’d extinguished the ghosts of her past, she had taken my hand and dragged me towards a nearby sofa. There, she’d traced a long finger down my cheek and asked me if I realised what a handsome man I was. Fortunately, as she leaned towards me with predatory lips, she’d lost consciousness and collapsed back against the cushions, and
then
I had fled.

Now I recalled that Hawk had known one of her old lovers. I said, “Did you ever meet Carlotta when you knew... what was his name, the pilot?”

“Grainger,” Hawk said. “No – he talked about her plenty, but I never met the woman. I only knew Grainger briefly. We flew a couple of missions together.” He lapsed into silence.

I watched the shola trees flicker past, thought about last night, and tried to work out my reluctance to get involved with Carlotta Chakravorti-Luna. There was no denying that she was beautiful, and famous, and no doubt rich – and many a man would have fallen at her feet, given the opportunity. But I think I saw her as an unwelcome interruption of a contented life; I was happy for the first time in years, and Luna, with her complicated past and twisted emotional freight, would have been an unnecessary burden.

Beside me, Maddie said, “A penny for them, David.”

I decided to come clean. “Before I left last night, Luna made a pass at me – then collapsed. I was just wondering why I don’t want anything to do with her.”

Maddie regarded me, and with her usual perceptiveness said, “It’s because you haven’t had a relationship for over five years, David, and you’re afraid she’d find you wanting.”

I opened my mouth to protest, then shut it and smiled.

That morning, before setting off, Matt had rung around every car-hire franchise in MacIntyre, asking if they’d rented a vehicle at any time in the past five days to a single female Ashentay. He’d drawn a blank at a dozen places, and then struck lucky. A small firm on the edge of town had hired out an off-road bison to a native, two days ago. Which meant that Kee would have already reached the sacred site.

One hour later we turned off the highway and took a winding minor road through the rucked foothills. Ahead, the central massifs were scintillating facets of purple rock topped by snow, their lower slopes cloaked in jungle.

As we drove, I thought about Hawk and the alien girl. Many human relationships were hard to fathom, but trying to work out the mutual attraction between a fifty-five year-old space pilot and an alien almost half his age was impossible. It was easy to be glib about it and see what Hawk saw in Kee: she was, after all, young and pretty in a fey, elfish kind of way. As to what she saw in him... I’d once asked her about her relationship with Hawk (I was drunk at the time) and she’d merely smiled and said, “Hawk is a good man. In the words of my people, he and I are
k’oto
.” And when I asked what that meant, in English, she had merely smiled again and shook her head gently. “There is no word in English, David.”

But I saw how Hawk and Kee behaved together, and I could not doubt their love.

We climbed. The road became twistier, and the drop to our left took on a frightening aspect. I’d never been good with heights and I tried not to look. This far inland the vegetation was spectacular compared to the littoral flora of the bay. We passed great multi-coloured blooms that looked like fireworks made flesh, riotous fountains of sparkling leaf and bud. The open-top car was flooded with a heady, honeyed scent.

Maddie pointed far ahead, beyond the mountains. Through the mist, we could just make out the effulgence of the Yall’s golden column, the alien construct which, until five years ago and our discovery, had remained one of the Expansion’s greatest mysteries.

Maddie said, “It doesn’t seem like five years, does it? Do you know something, I never thought we’d survive intact, as a group of friends, after all the media interest.”

“What?” I looked at her. “Did you think we’d be lured by all the offers, the money? The fame?”

She smiled. “When Hawk decided to pilot a ship through the column to the stars... I thought that was the start of the break-up. And then the film offers came in.”

“Which we all refused to have anything to do with,” I pointed out.

“Yes, and how I loved you all for telling the money men to go stuff themselves!” Maddie said. “Little did we realise that the unauthorised film would be so terrible…”

Hawk turned in his seat. “But how do you think the experience
did
change us?”

“Well,” I said, “we all learned something about ourselves, didn’t we? We grew. I think we became stronger. Happier. I know I did.”

Maddie reached forward and mussed Matt’s hair. “And I found the man of my dreams, didn’t I, deary?”

Matt just laughed.

“And I found I could pilot again,” Hawk said. “Strange thing was, after a few trips out-there, that was enough. To know that I could do it. What mattered was what I had here on Chalcedony, my friends, and Kee.”

At this he lapsed into silence again, and our thoughts returned to the alien girl.

An hour later Matt slowed to a stop and indicated the screen on the dashboard. “Dar is twenty kilometres south-west of here,” he said. “There are no metalled roads indicated, and the track isn’t shown on this.” He shrugged. “Any idea where it might be, Hawk?”

“Let’s drive a little further and keep a look out,” Hawk suggested.

Matt started the engine and we drove south-west, keeping our eyes peeled for a break in the jungle to our right. Thirty minutes later Maddie called out, “There!”

A sandy track, little wider than the car itself, interrupted the wall of vegetation. “And look,” she went on, pointing.

A series of saddled hills could be seen beyond the treetops, and kilometres away, nestling in a green clearing between two rearing peaks, stood a collection of huts. Smoke drifted vertically, undisturbed by wind. I made out the tiny stick-figures of alien natives.

“Dar,” Hawk said.

Matt eased the car right, squeezing between the trees. Fronds whipped by, lashing at us. The jungle panoply closed in and the sunlight diminished. We bucked along the uneven track at walking pace.

Matt said, “When we reach the village – if we reach the village – we’ll have to leave the car and continue on foot. How far did you say the sacred site was from Dar?” he asked Hawk.

“Roughly ten kilometres.”

“Hell of a walk,” I said.

The jungle opened out as we climbed, and the track widened. We no longer had to dodge the attention of lashing branches and fronds. Matt picked up speed. I gazed up at the tranquil view of the sequestered alien village and wondered how the locals might receive us – how indeed they might view our quest to retrieve the alien girl before she indulged in what the Ashentay saw as a valid cultural ritual?

I voiced my concern.

Hawk said, “We won’t tell them we want to stop her. We’ll just say we need to find her. The Ashentay aren’t a curious people. They won’t ask questions. It’ll help that I can speak a little of their language. Thing is, we might be too late.”

Maddie said, “Even if we are, Hawk, then look at it realistically – chances are that Kee will be okay.”

“I know, statistically. But even so…”

I said, “But if we find her before she’s taken part in the ritual, how will she react to us barging in and saying she shouldn’t do it?”

Hawk grunted a laugh. “Kee’s stubborn. But I’ll tell her that what she’s doing will hurt me, pain me, and that might make her think again.”

“But,” Matt pointed out, “she’s obviously doing it for a reason. She’s a sensitive person, Hawk; she’ll have thought through the consequences.”

Hawk nodded. “I know, I know. And that’s what makes it all the more painful.” He stopped there, then said, “I’d just like to know why she feels she has to go through with it, is all.”

We had no answer to that, and we fell silent as the car rocked and careered along the pot-holed track.

Ten minutes later Matt slowed down and said, “Look.”

“Jesus,” Hawk said.

A hundred metres ahead, to our right, sunlight glinted off the roof of a bison. It had gone off the track, into the ditch, and fetched up against the thick bole of a palm. It all depended, I thought, on how fast the vehicle had been travelling when it impacted with the tree.

It occurred to me that if she had crashed the vehicle a couple of days ago, injured herself and was still in there... She was a slight creature, almost childlike. I felt my pulse increase as we approached.

Hawk was leaning forward, and I was glad I was unable to make out his expression.