Alien Velocity (2 page)

Charlie shook his head, smirked and then blew a knowing kiss to his gorgeous
Bluebird.
There was no way she could lose. A hundred laps of the earth? Chicken feed. Competitive eyes weighed him up from either side. Poor schmucks. Okay, they’d asked for it. After all, staying quiet would only leave him vulnerable to…distracting thoughts…to destructive…memories.

“Hey, little man, where’re you from?” he shouted to the fresh-faced blond youngster to his right. No reply. “Did you hear me, kid? I said where are you from?”

“The name’s Lehmann.”

“Yeah? You think I care? I asked where you’re from.”

“Seattle.”

“Sleepless in Seattle. You come anywhere near me and I’ll you give a lullaby…permanent.” Charlie laughed to himself. Psyching out the greenhorns was always good for a chuckle. They were so…impressionable. “I hope that heap of yours takes diarrhoea, ’cause that’s the only running it’s gonna see, craphole.”

Again no reply, but he could see the lad was squirming. “Only kidding, fella, you’re really the best athlete in this field. Wow, hang on a minute—I forgot this is the adult lineup. Best get Mummy and Daddy to come pick you up. Starting next to Charlie Thorpe-Campbell. Man, that’s rough.”

“Campbell, ease off a bit,” a gruff-voiced man interrupted to his left. Duke Forrester. “It’s the kid’s first time.”

“Yeah? We should probably give him a head start, then. How’s it going, Duke?”

“Rolling. I think this is gonna be my year. Thumbs up from the astrologists—can’t argue with that.” Duke was a wily veteran of orbital racing. The Maltese pro had all but cleaned up in the short-distance events over the last few years, earning vast amounts of prize money, and he’d blown sizeable chunks of it at Charlie’s private casino over the years.

“It’s in the stars, eh?” Charlie faked a yawn.

“Look up, look down, and look out—the stars don’t lie, brother.” Duke stroked his cropped silver hair before turning to give the crowd a wave.

“Be sure to count ’em while you’re waxing my tail.”

“Ha-ha. It is getting a bit wrinkled these days. You know this’ll be the last time I race you in the Tonne.”

“You’re retiring?” Charlie hadn’t heard any rumours, and the Maltese was actually a few months younger than him.

“Only from the big one. If you want to suck
my
wake, you can always try single orbit.”

“Nah. Single orbit’s for wimps. But I’ll wait for you at the finish. Drinks on me?”

“You’re on. Something to drown your sorrows…’cause I’ll be waiting for
you
this time.” Duke flicked him a wink.

Charlie scoffed as the giant mechanical arm lowered from its vertical axis over the vehicles docked equidistantly along the platform. When horizontal, its teeth would adjust to clamp every racer for the great lift into their starting positions away from the station itself. If the vehicles were to launch from where they were now, their rocket thrusters would incinerate the dock.

The countdown had begun. Charlie shouted across to Duke, “You’d better hold the kid’s hand—I hear it gets lonely at the back.”

“No thanks.
Two’s
company,” the youngster replied, then pursed his lips in defiance. Duke arched an eyebrow in surprise, smiled at Charlie while giving a sideways nod to the lad, as if to say,
Who does
this
guy think he is?

The door to each vehicle opened simultaneously, and the moment Charlie locked eyes on his vessel’s cushioned white-and-sky-blue interior, nothing else existed in the universe. The kid…gone. Duke Forrester…never there. The disastrous pre-race interview…ancient history. This was his time. His sport.
His
orbit. The greatest RAM-runner the world had ever seen—in the company of ghosts—on board a legend.

Bluebird.

She was a sleek blue serpent of a spacecraft. Her progenitor, the original
Bluebird
from centuries past, had resembled a blue gecko on wheels, but instead of a tail, myth had followed. Charlie’s vessel adhered to the RAM specifications—sixty feet long, twelve wide, with an artificial gravity revolver twenty feet from the nose, and the exact same antimatter propulsion system as was fitted into every other vehicle in the Tonne Run—but the design, insofar as physics and practicality had permitted, was his, an ode to the speed-makers of his ancestry. Other vehicles in the lineup had their own little quirks and design gimmicks, but none, he was certain, had her sovereignty.

“Hey, sweetheart. Remember me?” He strode in through the only access door, in the right rear panel. “Long time, no see.”

The
Bluebird
answered with a gentle, rising hum of affection as he powered up the antimatter propeller located in her tail. He then walked the full length of the cyclic conveyor, ignoring the Latigo company logo on both side panels, and finally knelt to kiss the track twenty feet from the nose. That was where he would do the bulk of his running, as it would be directly inside the revolver’s artificial gravity field—the jog spot. For now, the giant space dock provided gravity for him. Very soon, his entire world would be under her control.

“All right, sweetheart, why don’t you give me a full systems report?” He pressed the appropriate button on the keypad on his right-hand windowsill. While she went through the automated checklist, he grabbed his towel from the sill and hung it on the coat hanger near the door. He then took a quick sip apiece from the two flexi-straws dangling from the ceiling near the rear. Hmm, Lucozade and diluted blackcurrant—perfect.

The air-conditioning kicked in as he shut the door, sealing himself in. A sweet, cool breeze caressed his face, and he closed his eyes. Yes, any time he needed to take a breather, to recoup a bit of energy, this was the place to be, “in the shade.” He could just fall back and let the lower gravity and simple refreshments take a load off.

A clear voice rang out over the com-link. “Attention, runners. Countdown has commenced. Artificial gravity revolvers starting now.”

Charlie limbered up as the space dock’s outer window retracted right to left, and the giant dock arm clamped down over the vehicles. He felt a slight tug—butterflies in his stomach—as the gravity field spread its wings. He made his way to the jog spot. The message on the monitor read
All systems nominal.
Along the concave baby-blue panels on either side, a narrow strip of window injected pinpoints of starlight from deep space. Charlie couldn’t care less. The race lane was in medium orbit, a hundred and ten miles up. Whatever existed inside or outside the circuit could go to hell until he crossed the finish line.

The Tonne Run. One hundred laps of the earth. “It’s all ours,” he whispered. No nerves, just a slight giddiness when the giant arm pivoted a hundred and eighty degrees outward, while the individual clamps counter-rotated to maintain the vehicles’ upright postures. The arm extended two hundred and fifty feet so the starting jets could ignite safely away from the space dock. Charlie felt the judder as it stopped. The whole operation lasted less than five minutes.

His pulse had quickened. Fists of adrenaline tightened his extremities, so he limbered up some more. At least his feet were still cool. The coolant regulating the cyclic conveyer against friction would keep them that way for the duration of the race.

He reached up and roved his palm across the mechanism’s solid yet supple silicone surface above him. Its complete loop stretched the entire length of the
Bluebird.
In its simplest terms, it was a giant treadmill, yet the locomotive technology used in the RAM-racer had completely revolutionized space travel. Distant planets and neighbouring solar systems had been reached thanks to RAM propulsion. A new explorative era for mankind, ushered in by sports manufacturers.

But no matter how much Charlie ran with the future, his past had always managed to keep up.

* * *

It had been his first ever trip to the ice moon, Europa. At eight years old, Charlie was all nervous steps and one-word answers and completely devoted to his hero—Reginald Thorpe-Campbell, his father. The record attempt had been advertised for months in advance. Though Reginald had held the solar system land speed record eight times previously, someone else had always come along to snatch it from him. The latest, Dan Giannakopoulos, had reached Mach 8—5,280 mph—in his state-of-the-art trimaran
Jagged Edge
. Now it was Reginald’s turn to reclaim the throne in his
Bluebird.

The thin air had remained remarkably still all afternoon at Camp Shackleton, thirty-eight miles from Europa’s north pole. Charlie held his father’s glove tightly as they trekked out over the vast, flat plateau, their crampons crunching the ice under their feet. Breathing was easy in the thin spacesuit, as was every type of movement. The most difficult part was pretending not to be nervous. On such an important day for his dad, Charlie knew his obligations well—to radiate enthusiasm, hang on every word, and whatever happened, no dumb mistakes. Everything must run smoothly, his dad must have nothing to worry about…if Charlie wanted him to make it back alive.

Charlie had heard of many a record attempt ending in disaster at Camp Shackleton. He swallowed hard as the looming
Bluebird
grew large enough to appear dangerous—her exposed rivets, her spiked wheels barely showing beneath the shield guard, her shiny metallic paintjob and the two sharp wings ready to steady her while she cut her way through the freezing air. Being sapphire blue, she already looked an icy bitch.

He wanted his dad to win back the record, but what he really wanted, needed so much it hurt inside, was for him to return safely afterward. Nothing else mattered in the universe. The gentle
crunch, crunch
of his crampon boots kept perfect rhythm with his dad’s. Charlie made sure of it. Not so much for superstition as…staying close.

“Well, what do you think of her, Charlie? Isn’t she something?” his dad asked over the com-link.

“She’s cool.”

Reginald smiled and patted the back of his son’s helmet. “Want to hop in for a second? Get a feel for her? She’s gonna make history in a few minutes.”

“Yeah.”

Twenty-five feet from nose to rocket exhaust, the
Bluebird
had cost Reginald tens of thousands of credits to modify into the sleekest slip of a racer Europa had ever seen. The others had all been a good four feet wider for maximum stability, but the new
Bluebird
was “built for speed, not for caution.” Her two stabilizers barely protracted from her sides in an arrowhead formation. Many engineers had dubbed the design highly unstable, but Reginald and his team had insisted on waiting for one of Europa’s safest gravitational windows, when its eccentric orbital path brought it far enough away from the influences of Jupiter and sister moon Io, to prove them wrong.

He hoisted Charlie into the cockpit, onto the latex-covered seat. The sapphire steering wheel was shaped like the Batman symbol. Charlie nervously fingered its smooth edges and hoped his dad wouldn’t have to use it during the run itself. Not at those speeds. No one could steer a land vehicle at Mach 8, even if the ice was flat. No, it would be locked into position until he decelerated at the end.

“How do you speed up, Daddy?”

“Okay, there are two red buttons at the top of the steering wheel—one on each wing grip. The left button is for speeding up, the right is for slowing down. You operate them using your thumbs, like this.” He demonstrated the correct grip. “As soon as you break the sound barrier, the skis come down and the wheels retract, so you can really fly. All you have to do is hold on tight. Cool, eh?”

“Yeah, very.”

“All right, son, it’s almost time. Come on, out you come.”

Charlie loved being picked up by his dad. It felt…important. But as he rose from the seat, his sleeve snagged on the end of the steering wheel. He glanced down as something small and metallic tore loose from his glove and fell onto the floor. He watched in horror as it bounced into a small grid-like opening at the foot of the right-hand panel. What the hell was that grid for? Where did it lead?

He thought about telling his dad, but what if the only way to retrieve the metal object was to take the entire
Bluebird
apart? His cheeks, neck and the tips of his ears grew as hot and red as beetroot stew. He decided to stay quiet. The whole of Earth, Mars and every colony outpost in the system would be watching. The idea of him being the cause of ruining his dad’s big day, being seen on interplanetary TV as the screw-up of the universe, froze every thought. He’d be the centre of it all.

No, the object was too small to cause any damage, and the grid didn’t even lead anywhere important. If it did, having a grid there in the first place would be pretty dumb. He felt heavy as titanium as his dad lifted him down, yet light as helium on the ground.

“Wish me luck, Charlie.”

The boy trembled in his suit. Squid tentacles squirmed in the pit of his stomach. “Good luck. Daddy, I—”

“Ah, the photographers are here. Just a couple of quick pictures, son. Here we go, smile now.”

It was the fakest smile Charlie had ever given. Before he knew it, his dad’s personal assistant, Phoebe Watts, had her arm over his shoulders and was leading him back to the ice station while his dad, now all alone, threw him a wave.

“But, Daddy, I—”

“Stay close to me, Charlie,” Phoebe reassured him in her usual excited, shrill voice. “I’ve got a nice cosy spot all picked out for us.”

In that moment, he knew everything would be all right. This was the adult world, not his. What could he do that could possibly interfere with a million-credit racing machine on Jupiter’s icy moon? He checked the wrist of his glove. One of the stud fasteners had fallen off, that was all. It was no bigger than a thumbnail. He chuckled at how silly he’d been.

Hundreds of pairs of fixed binoculars mounted on tripods lined the observation wing of Camp Shackleton’s main building. Inside, the air was warm and growing warmer, with too many bodies close by giving off too much heat. He fidgeted in his green pullover and black corduroy trousers until his stance became comfortable—slightly stooped, with one leg standing on the windowsill. He adjusted the binoculars until the view was crystal clear. High magnification. The image stuttered, though, so he rotated the lenses for a lower zoom. Perfect. Full
Bluebird,
and no stuttering.