Car Sinister

by Robert Silverberg

  We still damped our mufflers—you never know who might be parked—but Ju threw her arms around me and kissed me on the open cheek. It made me feel pretty brave. Then she shooed me ahead.

  I mounted and rolled into the arena. A pro mechanic-doctor came with me and checked my stirrups and ejector and stuff, and said good luck, and stood back. I’d cut things close, to avoid idle chat.

  Then I really began to get Lepidoptera in the viscera. The far end looked five miles off with the stands curving around, and the enemy whippet toy-size—denture-pink and a red tornado on the panels. I’d watched outside Slada’s house: She was mid-thirties but made up to look older, like mud on a moke’s windshield, as if she had more to hide than she really did. That kind’s always proving they’re just as good as ever, which is bad. Another muscly dame. With swords or something, I might have felt different about fighting a woman. But this was like on the road where she’d ditch you to show her peerless skill. Maybe she was a moo-cow at home, but in a zoom her reality came out and you could drive her into a board with a hammer. So, I was going to do all I could to her—if any.

  At the pistol, I sure gave my pro a dust-bath. I wanted to get Slada off balance. She was just flipping a cigarette butt—the old Nonchalant Flair like she’d do whipping in and out of lanes with a kid doin’ Ben Hur on the seat beside her—when I was suddener than she’d expected. You know, when there’s a gap two cars could pass in at a humble speed, and you just head for the middle? The other guy’ll concede! So did Slada, and nearly dumped swerving. And I cleared the end wall by about two feet, and her pro jumped.

  Well, she was madded up at being bluffed by any Young Girl, and began to show her old-hand knowhow, to restore her confidence. She’d wear me (Judy) down till she could lay my (Judy’s) face open good. (And it could have been Judy.) And she sure played rough.

  Still, I could read her far enough ahead to hold her off. And all the time, something was building up in me like those Civil War radio tubes that took hours to get hot. This stuff was great for guys like Pop. (Zowrrr, whacko.) Put ’em in here and let ’em slug it out. (Here she comes.) Or for old-time Indians and Vikings who’d kill anybody for kicks, including themselves. (Zgrrrrunch, whack-crack.) But when those types got too gay, people just abolished them. (Now what . . .?) So why should Judy get her arm crippled or her face ground in the sand? (Whoooom, oofie.) Or even me, dammit?

  I’d planned just to steer and try to bull through. But suddenly it burst on me: In three minutes, she hadn’t nearly touched me; and when I’d bluffed her at the start, she’d crumpled. (Watchit!) And why could I read her? (Vrooom, missed again.) ’Cause I could read Earth traffic, see? (No ya don’t, sister.) These jokers trained for scientific hell. (Zwoooo, Brrrotherrr.) But I’d been trained dirty.

  I wasn’t so proud of it now. But this was the time for it if ever. (Grrrrup.) Show ’em how to really play Russian roulette, and if a dumb little punk like me was champ at it, where was the Glory?

  So when she slowed on a turn, I timed her to a hair, zoom across her bumper (like beating the cross-traffic on a red). I’d have cut her too but she braked so hard she nearly went over her wheel and I only clunked her ka-whack across the helmet. But it sure shook her nerve again, and I got on her tail like a moke who can’t decide to pass, and began clouting her, thunk, whap. Not sportin’? Who cared! To cut her cheek, I’d have had to pull level; but a whip stings and bruises even through leather. And I just glorified! I couldn’t hate my own Pop, but I sure hated her. Show the kids how, huh?

  Then I gave her the Technique. Foo! Any Grampaw, driving to work with his mind on his dyspepsia, can do it by force of habit to score three car-lengths per block. She suddenly slowed to force me ahead, and I surged and cut in front of her, like beating a guy to a red light, and braked so she had to swing to pass me, and I clunked her. I snakehipped her both sides. I crowded her from behind and when she swung away, there I was crowding her on the other side. It’s amazing how much supremacy you can jam into a few minutes.

  Only I forgot she wasn’t a Regular or even a good old Earth moke. And sometimes these Jehuans go even Earth one better, when they’re losing a fight, and do a kamikaze crash. So when she threw her whip away and opened her whippet out full, which is dangerous, I was too terrified to be scared. Geez guys! Those last two minutes were the longest hour I ever lived. We covered a good two miles in tight loops, I swear. Then, twenty seconds to go, she swung too tight, that gooey pink thing toppled, and the ejector threw her, all in one gasp. No time to brake. Left, right—I could just feel that I’d hit her whippet and crash; soft bump and snapping bones. I went between with my head and eyes scronched down.

  I near rammed the wall before I realized neither crash nor bump had happened.

  Marshals came tearing out, zrowww. But Slada was already rolling over. My muscles sort of melted: For once I’d gotten a closeup of how it’d feel to Get It—or Give It. But I hung on and drove slow to Defenders’ End, just as the gate went up.

  Somehow, I’d never figured how to get out of that jam. People were helping me down, patting my back, pulling at my helmet. I bolted for the only possible cover, that Ladies’ Dressing Room. I expected a riot, but nobody realized I was a Him. And in my state of mind, the scenery didn’t matter. Then Mom grabbed me: “Darling! You’re all right?” and started on the helmet. I had to bolt again, for the cubicle she’d come out of.

  But she caught on fast, and I got another high-octane kiss all in the family. Hot coffee too. But she kept saying, “Now, from now on, Judy—I mean Chuck—no more of your father’s nonsense. Now promise!”

  Well, all I wanted was to sit with my hands between my knees, but finally I hove up: “Look, Mom, I don’t need to promise. I’m sick of the adept stuff. Judy’ll promise anything right now, but she’ll get yippee-pills in her tank again because she’s a born show-off. And as for Pop . . .” I just shrugged.

  “Well, if your father isn’t impressed now . . .”

  I said, “Mom, the only cure for Pop is breaking his back or going where he can’t drive.”

  “Well, Chuckie, I did check, and there’s a place called Bolgwalk where Plutomat wants a man, and they have no roads to speak of, just bogs.”

  Well, we both knew Pop’d never ride in any such back seat.

  Just then, Judy burst in. She’d gotten by as “Miss Blaire’s sister.” And as we switched clothes again, she reported that the fight had been a sensation. (She’d watched, though Mom wouldn’t.) Half the audience was wild over the greatest daredevil show in history, and half was honking mad at my unsporting tactics and wanted Slada to rechallenge. (I bet!) Nuts and bolts to both halves.

  Outside, Mom gave the old elbow to a mob of reporters: “Stand back, there. The girl’s exhausted. You can call tomorrow.”

  And there, at the whippet, was Pop. All month he’d been sulking as if the whole deal were a plot to cramp his style. But now he had that quirk smirk like the guy in the ad: “Drive cautiously with our Triple-Threat Modern Storm-Trooperol.”

  The newshounds popped some bulbs, and he said, “Okay, keeds, you whisk along. I’ll handle this.”

  Mom walked at him. “You’ll handle nothing. Get along to the car.”

  He tempered: “What’s this? I thought we’d celebrate for my famous daughter. So . . . you go home in an armored car if you like. Come on, Judy, you’re a sport anyway. You and me, hey?”

  But Ju was still scared, even if it was wearing off, and said “No!” in that spoiled-brat voice he always thought was so cute.

  He sneered like when some moke elbows him in traffic, and swung away, beat us out to Spectator Parking, legged into the car like forking over his cayuse, whammed the door and roared the engine, all in one snappy action. He shot out of his stall with one deft whirl of the wheel, fixing to surge straight ahead out of the lot.

  Maybe if he hadn’t been so mad, even he would have seen the other car. But he felt it first, a crash that knocked his hat off. He and the other guy, with a pass
enger, charged I out to inspect the slaughter.

  Stumblebum had taken it on the rear bumper, but the side of the other looked like a discarded candy-wrapper. Well . . . Pop had hit him. The only good feature was that the other guy, though big, was gray-haired with a high complexion. Pop saw it too and, after they’d all asked couldn’t they look where they were going, he began the old Road Lawyer line: “Well, now, Mister, this isn’t an open street, y’know. How’m I to back blind with you crashing through full speed?”

  The old guy went turkey-red; “Why, look where you hit me! I was half way past you, sir.”

  “All right. Challenge if you like. My little girl just made a monkey of a better fighter than you’re likely to be.”

  The old guy went beet-red. On Jehu, if an old guy doesn’t want to fight, he better drive real humble. His jaw stuttered, then he grabbed for his fender, and slumped to the ground, and lay there grunting and not even pink.

  A doc jumped to him. But the old guy’s passenger grabbed Pop and jerked him around. He looked like a lumberjack foreman, curly black hair, black-shaved chin, hot black eyes. He snarled, “So now I flay you on behalf of my father, bigmouth.”

  Pop cased the guy’s horsepower, and suddenly he looked all flabby. He did wrench his shoulder loose and try the hard-boiled comeback: “If your father can’t keep his temper, Vm not liable by your code.” (Like he says, what can you lose? And you often win.)

  The guy pushed his face an inch from Pop’s: “Code? Why you hog-trough oaf, twenty witnesses heard you insult him in a discussion of honor. They will strip your back and I, Slam Hollicker, will hack it to the bones. If you ever drive again, you will defer even to old men.” He swung away without even bowing.

  Pop was pinned there till they got old Hollicker into an ambulance and towed away his car. Then, Mom got in the driver’s seat of our car, and Pop got in beside her without a peep, and Judy in the back. So I went for the whippet. It sure looks like we’ll need that.

  Planet Bolgwalk

  Dec. 3, 1987.

  Only we didn’t do anything of the kind.

  I didn’t even pump Judy on what happened on that drive home; you owe your father some fenders to hide behind. But when I came in, Mom said, “Chuck, your father has taken a new job and we’re translating again the day after tomorrow.” So I went to borrow back some stuff and see some guys, but wondering why the overdrive.

  Till I saw Pop. He’d been figuring the percentages.

  Next day he was clearing up at his office. But he was home early, fussing around like a pup in traffic, till the frame-building crew told him to go find a parking-deck. Then indoors, making sure nobody’d forgotten anything to hold us up come morning. Then out trying to bribe the crew to work overtime. Then, when they said the inspector wouldn’t clear it till morning anyway, phoning the inspector to bribe him. Honest, I thought he’d boil his rad.

  The old impetuous spirit got him down at crack of dawn, too, burning toast and eggs till Mom took the kitchen away from him. Which gained us three hours to stall around in while the crew finished the fence under his steely eye—though he didn’t know any more about it than he does about a carburetor. But at half an hour to zero, Mr. Glash arrived and Pop got onto his rear bumper. They were out by the fence and Pop giving with the old Twenty Questions—why this, why that, with no break for answers—when up pranced this guy in a blue-and-white rig and hollered Pop’s name aloud.

  Pop winced. “Hey, tone it down. I can hear you. What’s all this?”

  The guy began reading a paper which boiled down to a demand that Pop desist from running out on his honorable duel. Pop looked like one of these guys who, when they get in a crash, jump out of the car and run. He grabbed Glash. “Hey, this clown can’t stop me moving, can he?”

  Glash drawled, “This ‘clown’ is Herald of the Courts of Honor. But, no, he can’t stop your moving, as long as it’s off Jehu.”

  Pop reinflated slightly. “Well, not that I want to welsh on an obligation. But Mrs. Blaire was so upset about the girl, and I had this offer. And you know how it is with big deals—split-second decisions.”

  Glash fluttered his eyelids. “Oh, yes, everyone knows. And as long as Hollicker feels he’s run you off Jehu he’ll be satisfied. But don’t come back, even for a day for your firm, say. Not healthy.”

  The inspector arriving at last saved Pop answering that one.

  Glash bowed with flourishes to Mom and Judy, and slightly to Pop. He drawled, “It’s been, ah, interesting to know you, as a specimen of the, ah, Earth Regulars. I trust you find Bolgwalk congenial.”

  Then suddenly he turned to me. “From what I hear through, ah, a contact at the Arena, you’ll make a man yet, Charles. Get some education—and get rid of the one you have. Good luck.”

  So we shook hands. Man!

  But who saw through my game and didn’t squeal?

  Funny how Pop’s adjusted to Bolgwalk; he fulfills his bull-man ego by betting on the planetary whiffle-ball games. He usually loses but it’s comparatively cheap. Judy could be on an asteroid, for all she cares now, if it had boys on it. No cars—but they make out. Mom treats me real man-to-man.

  But now I’ve gotten over being a professional Teener, I think I’ll take Mr. Glash’s advice. They say the High Vacuum Navy gives you wonderful training. And you can take chances in the line of duty . . . without scooping in civilians.

  THE GREATEST CAR IN THE WORLD

  By Harry Harrison

  European car-makers found willing markets in the United States at both ends of the price spectrum—at the lower end, with products like the Volkswagen and Toyota; and at the other extreme, with luxury cars like the Rolls-Royce and sports models like the Jaguar. It wasn’t just a matter of having something exotic—many European models had (and have) superior transmissions, brakes, etc., to go along with their superior craftsmanship.

  Now American manufacturers have copied the European Mercedes-style “touring car” to the point of overkill. Competition between American and foreign builders has always been keen, but not (to the best of our knowledge) to the extent here related by Harry Harrison.

  Ernest Haroway’s nerve was beginning to fail and he clasped his hands together to stop their shaking. What had seemed such a wonderful idea back in Detroit had become strange and frightening now that he was in Italy—and actually on the grounds of the Castello Prestezza itself. He controlled an involuntary shiver as his gaze rose up the gray and age-seared walls of the castle to the grayer and even more ancient palisade of the Dolomite Alps that loomed behind. The courtyard held a hushed and almost sacred stillness, broken only by the rustle of pine needles brushed by the late afternoon breeze, and the tacking of the cooling engine of his rented car. His throat was dry and the palms of his hands were wet. He had to do it!

  With a convulsive motion he threw the door open and forced himself out of the car, stopping only long enough to grab up his briefcase before he crunched across the gravel toward the stone-framed and iron-bound portal of the castle.

  There was no sign of bell or knocker on the dark wood of the door, but set into the stone at one side was a carved bronze gorgon’s head, now green with age, with a rounded knob over its mouth. Haroway tugged at this knob and, with a grating squeal, it reluctantly came out about a foot on the end of the iron rod, then spasmodically returned to its original position when he released it. Whatever annunciatory mechanism it operated appeared to be functioning, because within a minute there came a dreadful rattling from behind the door and it swung slowly open. A tall, sallow-faced man in servant’s livery stared down the impressive length of his nose at the visitor, his eyes making a precise—and unimpressed—sweep the length of Haroway’s charcoal gray, drip-dry, summer-weight suit, before fixing on his worried face.

  “Sissignore?” he said through cold, suspicious lips.

  “Buon giorno . . .” Haroway answered, thereby exhausting his complete Italian vocabulary. “I would like to see Mr. Bellini.”

  “The Ma
estro sees no one,” the servant said in perfect English with a marked Oxford accent. He stepped back and began to close the door.

  “Wait!” Haroway said, but the door continued to swing shut. In desperation he put his foot in the opening, a maneuver that had served him well during a brief indenture as a salesman while in college, but was totally unsuited to this type of architecture. Instead of bounding back, as the lightweight apartment doors had done, the monstrous portal closed irresistibly, warping the thin sole of his shoe and crushing his foot so tightly that the bones grated together. Haroway screamed shrilly and threw his weight against the door, which ponderously stopped, then reversed itself. The servant raised one eyebrow in quizzical condemnation of his actions.

  “I’m sorry . . .” Haroway gasped, “but my foot. You were breaking all the bones. It is very important that I see Mr. Bellini, the Maestro. If you won’t admit me you must take this to him.” He dug into his jacket pocket while he eased his weight off the injured foot. The message had been prepared in advance in case there were any trouble in gaining admittance, and he handed it over to the servant, who reluctantly accepted it. This time the great door closed completely and Haroway hobbled over to one of the stone lions that flanked the steps and sat on its back to ease his throbbing foot. The pain died away slowly and a quarter of an hour passed before the door opened again.

  “Come with me,” the servant said. Was it possible that his voice was just a shade warmer? Haroway could feel his pulse beating in his throat as he entered the building. He was in—inside the Castello Prestezza!