Racers of the Night: Science Fiction Stories by Brad R. Torgersen Read online

She was on the tails of the grid leaders when they came to the first turn complex, and started banking up the wall of the track.

  Ferocious acceleration into the turn and ferocious braking in the middle of the turn left her temporarily in the thick of the leaders as they flirted within dangerous proximity, their bikes sometimes centimeters from catastrophic contact.

  Heads and eyes flicked this way and that, some of the others showing their whites as Jane touched thruster studs and then shook her rump to the side, spinning the Falcon a full 720 as she banked precariously close to the upper lip of the track, past one opponent, then came down across the vertical track wall and edged out a second man, finally coming out face-front into the first prolonged straightaway, upon which she gunned the mains once more.

  “Fancy,” said Bill’s gruff voice in her ears.

  “Hey,” she said, grinning behind the visor of her helmet. “I thought you’d fallen asleep on me. How am I looking?”

  “Reckless,” Bill said. Paused. Then muttered, “But brilliantly so.”

  “You ‘aint seen nothing yet. Second turn complex is coming up. I’ll be out in front of this bunch by the third set of turns. You watch.”

  And she was right.

  By the fourth set of turns—and almost one complete loop around the convoluted track—Jane had gotten a nice lead on the other drivers as they headed into the longest, straightest portion of the course. She set the throttles up to as close to max as she dared, knowing that too much acceleration would leave her unable to compensate when she came back around on the first bunch of turns.

  Jane savored the feeling.

  It wasn’t better than sex. That was a different kind of thrill altogether. But it was probably the next best thing.

  After the second go-round, Jane’s lead on the pack was considerable, and she began pacing herself: one eye to the dwindling fuel gauge and one ear wide open for news from the pit.

  So far, Bill hadn’t said much beyond the formalities of his job. Little naggings about consumption rate and vehicle stress, as relayed to the pit’s tied-in computers. The pit readout told Bill far more than Jane’s display: information which would have been too distracting for her to manage. That was Bill’s role. Jane’s was to jockey for position and build leads. Bill would make sure her machine ran smoothly.

  After five laps, it was time to tank up.

  Seeing nobody behind her, Jane slowed and slid into her pit, the space-suited crew rushing out with the fuel hose and jamming it into the side of the Falcon, which hummed lightly as it floated above the ground. Jane saw Bill through the control window and she tapped her right index and middle finger to the rim of her visor in acknowledgement. Bill just watched her, his arms crossed over his chest and his face expressionless.

  The crew slapped her thigh and gave Jane the thumbs-up, and she applied throttle again just as the pack burst past the mouth of the pit.

  Shortly, Jane was back in the melee, making her way once more up through the grid by guile, skill, and a lot of chutzpah.

  Round and round she went, the faces of the domed-over crowds flashing past again and again and again as the laps flew by.

  Jane was almost beginning to think she’d mastered the Cazetti track, when the Falcon began to vibrate in a most alarming fashion.

  “Bill?” Jane said, hands gone light on the control bars as she felt the machine rattle through the seat of her tight-bottomed vacuum suit.

  “Hold on, we’re checking,” said the old man.

  Seconds, seconds …

  “Bill, I need status,” Jane barked.

  “We’ve got a lubricant pressure spike in Number Two.”

  “Is it red-lined?”

  “Not yet, but it’s gone up five percent just in the time we’ve been talking.”

  “Can we bleed it off?”

  “I already activated the auto-bleed. Look behind you and tell me if you see anything.”

  Jane craned to check behind her on either side of the bike, and saw nothing.

  “Nope,” she said. “What’s happening?”

  “Pressure is up another fifteen,” Bill said. “I’m bringing you in.”

  “It’s too soon,” Jane said. “I don’t need to fuel up for another three laps!”

  “I don’t care,” Bill said. “Bring it in. Now.”

  Jane considered. This was why she’d needed Mike to tell her who she’d do best with. The crew boss wasn’t called a crew boss for no reason. In addition to running the pit, in some ways he also ran the driver—if the driver and the boss had that kind of relationship. And Mike had known Jane would need someone older—who could put his foot down in situations where Jane would want to push things too far.

  “Did you hear me?” Bill demanded.

  “Roger that,” Jane said, finally exhaling. She’d have to fight like hell to get back into it on the next pass, assuming the pit crew could identify the problem and fix it fast. If they couldn’t fix it …

  No. Jane wasn’t going to default, not in this the first run of the series.

  She flipped the throttle for Number Two all the way down until it clicked, and the vibration coming up through the saddle, ceased.

  “Two has been powered down,” Bill said, an edge to his voice. “Can you make it back to the pit, or should I signal for a tow?”

  “I’m not coming in,” Jane said. “I can finish this thing on one main engine.”

  “If you burn the engine out, maybe.”

  “Bill, I’m not letting myself get taken out of this heat. Not by a stupid pressure problem. Shunt the lubrication system over to Number One and run it at 150 percent. I can at least try and stay up with the leaders. Make it to the next heat.”

  There was a fuzzy silence.

  “Don’t ever do this again,” Bill said, his voice hot.

  “It’s the reason why everyone buys bikes with two engines now, Bill. Are you with me or not?”

  More fuzzy silence.

  “Fine. You’ve got your shunt. We’ll see what happens.”

  • • •

  What happened was that Jane finished in fourth place.

  Not a tremendously encouraging start to the series, but it at least got her to the next heat, to be held one day later. Since the mechanical issue wasn’t of the spectacular, crowd-pleasing, spinning-out-of-control destruct-o-matic variety, Bill and Jane kept the problem to themselves.

  Though by the time of the next heat, even the best techs on the pit crew couldn’t find the source of the difficulty. Even when running the bike at full-power static.

  Race time for the second heat was therefore met with a decidedly tense atmosphere in the pit.

  “It’s a brand new unit,” Jane argued, her helmet hanging in one hand while two pit crew checked the life systems umbilicals of her suit. They prodded at her back while she and Bill glared at one another, his sunken cheeks flexing with quiet contempt.

  “It’s not the bike,” he said adamantly. “It’s her.”

  His arm pointed to the ceiling, where the transparent glass gave the pit crew a decent view of the starry sky, as well as Sally Tincakes in the far distance, her CAZETTI RACEWAY sign raised proudly over the field.

  The youngsters on the pit crew looked at Bill nervously.

  “You go out there again,” the old man said, “and there’s no telling what might happen this time. First heat was a warning. She doesn’t give warnings, usually. We file a technical disqualifier with the track office, and you get excused without having to take a hit in overall standings.”

  “And no chance at the Armstrong Cup until next year,” Jane said. “No thanks. I’m here to do this thing, now. Not later.”

  Bill’s jaw ground bitterly, then he looked away. Silence, for almost a full minute.

  “Time hack’s in 20 minutes,” he finally said. “Get on the bike and get out of here.”

  • • •

  Second heat, and the mysterious pressure problem did not return. The Falcon performed to perfection, earning
Jane a first-place finish amidst a much tougher group than she’d been up against for the first heat. She got some nice press in the leader board blogs, and an interview with the track rats who split the news feed back to Earth—for those on the mother planet who were sports-junky enough to care about the exotic stuff going on in the rest of the solar system.

  If anyone else noted or cared about the female record of zero finishes and 100 percent fatalities, they didn’t say so. Which was just fine with Jane.

  But it didn’t stop Bill from chastising her again as she prepped for the third of the five total heats.

  “It’s time to put the baby to bed,” Jane said. “We had our one weird problem for the series, and we’re going smooth now.”

  The old man was agitated to the point of fidgeting, his tablet and stylus appearing like foreign objects in his hands as he nervously shuffled them back and forth, one hand to the other.

  “Every time you go back out on that track, you’re just daring her to notice you. It might not happen now, it might not happen tomorrow, but before this series is over …”

  “Enough,” Jane said, sharply. “Quit, and let someone else run the crew. Or shut up and bring me home for the win.”

  “You really think you’re good enough?” Bill said. “I was full of beans in my day, and even I couldn’t make it past the third heat.”

  “Maybe that’s your problem,” Jane said, letting the techs check her vacuum suit’s fittings. “Because you haven’t climbed this particular mountain to the top, you’re afraid it can’t be done?”

  Bill’s face flushed brightly.

  “I’m a lot of things, lady, but I ‘aint a jealous man.”

  “Prove it. Put the curse in the trash where it belongs, and make some good things happen.”

  Bill didn’t look convinced as she went out the airlock for the third heat, but he did look relieved when she came back two hours later, a second-place finish notched.

  • • •

  The fourth heat meant press both before and after the run. The competition was down to 80 drivers now, and after the day was done, there would be only 20 remaining for the final, championship heat—and the crowning of the Armstrong Cup winner. As the only female in the bunch, Jane got more than her share of attention, including several in-depth interviews during which the inevitable history of the track—the five female deaths, the dearth of female competitors overall—came to the surface.

  Jane blew it off. Bravado was a prerequisite for all drivers. But by the time she was suiting up for the heat, she had to admit even she’d been rattled. They’d showed her some of the old footage of the accidents from the past—news people generally having no clue whatsoever about what’s appropriate to show a person right before they’re about to do something hazardous.

  Jane laughed her way through it, but was quiet during the race prep.

  “Not so funny when you see what’s possible, is it?”

  Jane glared at Bill.

  “I noticed they didn’t even censor the footage of your daughter’s death,” she said.

  “Those bastards don’t care about me now, if they ever did in the first place. It’s ratings. Crash movies are part of what make the sport fun for the crowds. Money. All that bull.”

  Jane nodded, and went back to checking her wrists and ankles for complete air seals.

  “It’s not too late—” Bill began.

  But Jane cut him off.

  “Oh yes it is. I’m not going to go down as the woman driver who chickened out. Everyone’s paying attention to me now.”

  Bill took a step back, his face gone suddenly white.

  The stylus and tablet hit the floor, albeit gently in the lunar gravity.

  “What?” Jane said.

  “That’s exactly what Ellen said to me, before …”

  Jane literally bellowed, her helmet clenched in one fist.

  When she stopped, everyone was blinking and looking strangely at her.

  “No more!” she said. “I can’t take one more word!”

  She looked to one of the young techs. “Is my Falcon ready?”

  “Yes ma’am,” he said, gulping.

  “Then let’s go!”

  • • •

  The fourth heat was by far the most competitive. All of the inexperienced and tentative drivers had been pruned away, leaving the calculating, the experienced, the determined, and the creatively diabolical—to challenge each other for the coveted final 20 spots on the championship grid.

  Facing these odds, Jane scrapped through all but the final two laps—just a couple of minor brushes with opponents’ vehicles, and the certain knowledge that she’d be wringing a gallon of water out of her undersuit when all was said and done.

  Second to last lap, and Jane was in a familiar spot with the leaders at the front of the pack. Having gamed her way into the elite group—same strategies and tactics as always—she’d almost considered her advancement to the final heat to be a foregone conclusion, when one of the other drivers from the middle of the pack made a particularly dangerous—and gutsy—move. Trying to copy Jane’s technique as they entered a turn, the man began spinning out of control, first pinballing off one bike, then another, then a third, until suddenly the track was alive with wildly spinning bikes, their riders trying desperately to regain control—overcorrecting—and then either smashing down into the safety barriers nearest the domed-over crowds, or pinwheeling up and off the track altogether, arcing out across the sun-blasted regolith, legs and feet come loose, flailing.

  Jane experienced a moment of surreal calm, where all sensation ceased and she could see clearly all the other riders around her, as if in extreme slow motion. Then her Falcon was being smashed down into the safety barriers, the metal grinding on the lunar rock for just an instant.

  The controls were frozen as Jane tried to steer up off the wall. She was pinned by her neighbor, who’d nosed into her T-bone style, and was having no success reversing course. They looked at each other for a split second, raw panic passing between them, and then the bikes were flipping, and Jane was thrown high into the airless sky.

  Again, a moment of surreal calm: the track, passing swiftly underneath, and the crowd, faces upturned and mouths open wide with astonishment.

  Many drivers and bikes spinning, rolling, whirling. One or two skating ahead of the scrum, their drivers raising their fists and pumping them.

  Somewhere, Bill’s voice was screaming.

  Jane started to come down. In the moon’s gravity, it wasn’t as fast as it might have been on Earth, but with the velocity imparted to her by her bike, there was more than enough kinetic energy to kill her when she hit. Jane caught a glimpse—just a tiny glimpse—of Sally Tincakes: the rocket booster over the statue’s head, the exaggerated bustline, the glamour model smile, and then Jane was smashing down into the regolith beyond the track.

  • • •

  All was white. Jane sat in the ready room. No pit crew. Not even the noise of the crowd reverberating through the walls. Her helmet was clutched in one hand, her elbows on her knees. It was time to go. She felt it in her bones. The race was on. And yet, not. Standing up, she started towards the door to the pit—and stopped short as someone else walked in from the door on the opposite side.

  The visitor wasn’t in coveralls. Instead, she wore a vintage evening gown styled like those worn by glamour models at the tail end of the previous century: slit high on one thigh, strapless, low-cut, and strategically boned so as to create a gravity-defying silhouette with plenty of cleavage. The dress’s satin fabric was embedded with fiber optics that swirled and rippled in various tints and hues of bright blue light.

  “Sally,” Jane said softly.

  The ex Mrs. Cazetti smiled, but didn’t say anything. She walked skillfully on a set of platform heels across the ready room to the opposite wall, turned, and leaned against it.

  Recent memory swirled: the Falcon had been pinned, then flipped, followed by a long, frantic parabola over the tra
ck towards the surface of the Moon just beyond …

  Jane felt herself begin to tremble as she stared at the silent apparition whose likeness had towered over Cazetti Raceway since before Jane had been born.

  Death—the possibility of it—had always haunted Jane as long as she’d driven the lunar tracks. Yet at the same time, somehow, it never bothered her. She’d been too busy winning. Victory upon victory, each purse growing a little larger. Each season, her horizons broadened a little bit more.

  But now …

  “Why?” Jane said at Sally, slamming her helmet to the white floor. “I was going to do it. I was going to take the Armstrong Cup. I was going to win.”

  Sally seemed untroubled by the outburst. Her artfully shadowed eyes glanced past Jane’s shoulder, in the direction of the pit door.

  Jane glared at her nemesis, fuming, then slowly turned her head as a second figure entered the ready room.

  Like Jane, the second visitor was clad in a racer’s suit. Its colorful vacuum-tight fabric hugged the racer’s athletically feminine body, in spite of frumpy insulation and hoses.

  The other racer looked whisperingly familiar, but in a way Jane couldn’t quite put her finger on.

  The racer’s free hand jerked a thumb towards the pit door behind her.

  Time to go.

  “I know, I know,” Jane said, but couldn’t move. Her eyes remained locked on the racer’s face. So similar to someone Jane knew. Yet, different too.

  “Ellen,” Jane finally breathed. The racer had Bill’s nose, and his prominent cheek bones. She was younger than Jane, and had a bit of cockiness in the way she stood, her eyes staring sympathetically down at Jane’s confused and angry face.

  Ellen jerked her thumb over her shoulder a second time.

  Jane looked to the pit door, which remained open. Then back at Ellen, who had begun to stare at Sally across the ready room. A coldly invisible beam of acknowledgement seemed to pass between the two—opposed ghosts conjured for Jane’s benefit, or peril. It was crazy, but it also made perfect sense too. Somehow, it all made perfect sense. Like a waking dream.

  Jane felt questions tickling at the back of her tongue, but her mouth made no sound. She simply watched the two spectral women. They stared forcefully at one another for several long, agonizing seconds. Then Ellen walked purposefully to where Jane stood, bent to the floor, and retrieved Jane’s helmet.