Jack the Bodiless (Galactic Milieu Trilogy) (64 page)

He dismounted and immediately fell to his knees and vomited.

Redacting his guts into submission, he forced his body to stop shuddering, slowed his hammering heart and wheezing lungs. The cold air he’d gulped during his panic burned like fire for a few moments, and then he was all right. Apparently no one had seen the near disaster. His bike lights were still out, traffic on Route 302 was minimal, and the river towns flanking the bridge were sunk in late-evening winter torpor.

He got the Honda going again and drove slowly over toward the Vermont shore to retrieve his helmet. The wind froze his sweat-soaked scalp, and he hastened to envelop his head in a psychocreative bubble of warmth. No way was he going to put that frigging hard hat back on! He stowed it in the Honda’s boot and followed his own track back to the bridge to see how close he’d come.

The life-saving skid began less than 20 centimeters from the rough concrete face of the pier.

Marc smiled his one-sided smile. He wouldn’t be using the CE helmet again until he replaced the whole brainboard. Fury and Hydra would have to find a new way to get at him. But they weren’t going to spoil his fun tomorrow. He’d drive the goddam race in manual, and he’d
still
win.

He revved the bike in neutral, settled into the saddle, then sped off down the river toward Hanover and the frat house.

W
E
CAN
DO IT
. I
HAVE A PLAN ALL WORKED OUT.
[I
MAGE.
]

The amplified music of the Dartmouth Marching Band was playing a jump-rock arrangement of the “Troika” from
Lieutenant Kijé
. The crowd cheered as fifty-two ice-cycles rolled slowly around the 200-meter-long oval that formed
the beginning and the finish of the race. The bikes were dangerous-looking things, with their glittering eight-centimeter wheel spikes fully deployed and their colorfully attired young drivers sitting as stiff in their saddles as knights promenading before a tournament joust.

Up in the bleachers, two young-old spectators settled into their seats. Rogi grumbled to Denis that in the old days of the Winter Carnival, an outré so-called sporting event like this one would never have been allowed. And the only reason he was here today, Rogi added self-righteously, was to pray that that damn fool kid Marc wouldn’t kill himself.

Denis only laughed. “The spike-bikes aren’t quite as horrendous as they look, Uncle Rogi. The drivers have to be specially certified before they’re allowed to race, and they’re wearing what amounts to a suit of flexible armor. Ice-cycle racing has been going on in northern Europe for over seventy years. It’s just taken a little longer to catch on over here. And it certainly has become one of the carnival’s most popular events.”

The temporary stands that had been erected along the eastern bank of the frozen Connecticut River were jammed with at least ten thousand people, and there were almost as many on the opposite side of the racecourse, camped out in informal mobs behind the bales of straw and the safety fence, wrapped in blankets and sleeping bags and electric comforters. The sky was a cloudless robin’s-egg blue, the snowy landscape sparkled, the air was still, and the temperature was a brisk – 16 C. Vendors of hot food and drink were doing a roaring trade.

“A guy can still get torn to pieces if one of those damned machines rolls over him the wrong way,” the old bookseller growled. “The last thing Marc needs is to float switch-off in a tank of goo for the next eight months growing a new arm and leg just for the sake of a few cheap thrills and a two-bit trophy.”

The gargantuan viewscreen just south of the finish line, which would depict the remote action on the backstretch downriver, was flashing the names of the contestants and their racing accomplishments in alphabetical order. Raucous cheers and occasional catcalls greeted the stalwarts of the Senior Division, who occasionally responded with farspoken yells or epithets of their own. Most of the Juniors
were given more decorous applause, but Rogi leapt to his feet and gave out an ear-splitting whistle when the screen announced:

[3J] MARC REMILLARD—ROOKIE

He was rewarded with a wave from a black-and-white-clad figure near the procession’s end.

Dropping back into his seat, Rogi was scowling. “Damn shame Paul couldn’t find time to come. I don’t notice the auras of any of the rest of the high-and-mighty Dynasty, either.”

“There’s a big vote coming up Monday in the Assembly,” Denis said mildly. “Some of the magnates have pushed for the establishment of twenty new ethnic planets for the peoples of Africa and Asia just as soon as the probation period ends in the fall. The bill they want to put before the full Concilium would set aside the Milieu’s usual requirement for twenty-percent operants among the founding population of human colonies. There’s a lot of heat being generated and a lot of lobbying going on among the Assembly magnates, since each of them now carries a hundred-vote equivalency over the elected IAs.”

“I say let the Chinks and the black folks have their planets,” Rogi declared stoutly. “Anybody crazy enough to want to leave good old Earth and pioneer some godforsaken corner of the Galaxy deserves all the help they can get.”

“That’s just the problem, Uncle Rogi. Supporting colonies until they become self-sufficient and eventual economic assets to the Galactic confederation costs a lot of money. The Milieu’s exotic races pay most of the tab, and they have a vested interest in promoting the increase of
operant
citizenry because of the way Unity works. Nonoperants aren’t particularly desirable as planet colonists because they’re less likely to be highly motivated to follow Milieu statutes and accept its operant-oriented policies. You might recall what a happy shock it was to us back in the early days of the Proctorship that the Human Polity was permitted to have
any
nonoperant colonists.”

“Since I never considered shipping out, I never really paid much attention to it … Hey! The Juniors are heading for the starting line! And lookit there—Marc’s got a position right in the front row. Hot damn!”

Denis’s face wore a sly, boyish grin. “I. thought you only came here to pray, tu vieux schnoque.”

“Ferme ton clapet, ti-merdeux.” Rogi surged up as the starting pistol fired and the brass section of the band brayed a discordant U.S. Cavalry “charge” call. “They’re off!”

The eighteen riders of the Junior Division, whose post positions had already been determined by time trials held that morning, took off in a scream of turbines and a great smoky cloud of chipped ice. The portion of the outbound course in front of the bleachers featured a short slalom, a single jump, and then a longer slalom. All of the front-runners negotiated these obstacles successfully as the fans yelled and cheered. The rear guard was less lucky. On the second in-and-out, two of the riders collided and slid out of control into the straw bales. Unhurt, they remounted and continued on behind the others.

Once the bikes reached the part of the course beyond the bleachers, called the Long Stretch, the attention of most of the spectators shifted to the big screen and the announcer commenting on the distant action over the PA system. The operant fans having the ability to farsee were able to follow the racers with their mind’s eye, but they tended to zero in on their favorites and ignore most of the rest of the field.

Rogi stayed with Marc. The boy was in a solid third-place position behind nonoperant Rusty Ragusa, an eighteen-year-old who was last season’s Junior winner, and front-running Miko Kitei, a young female head who was also a rookie and had given the largely male Junior Division a nasty shock when she ranked first in the time trials. The three of them stayed neatly strung out as they took the next pair of single jumps and the first double. Then Marc began to overtake Rusty, and the two of them sailed side by side over the next pile. The fourth-place rider, Augie Schaumberg, then began to come up fast. The next jump was a tricky double humper made of a rather soft snow-ice mixture that Miko had already deeply scored with her spikes. Marc, Rusty, and Augie launched into it almost hip to hip—but Marc, on the outside right, had the misfortune of hitting Miko’s trench. He slewed out, his skid throwing a tall rooster-tail of white, and when he regained control and started into the second slalom series he was a distant fourth, with the rest of the pack howling on his tail.

“Batège,” moaned Rogi. “What a rotten piece of luck!”

“It’s only the beginning of the race,” Denis pointed out. He sipped his container of hot tea and watched the monitor screen, which was now focused on the very difficult triple jump marking the midway point of the Long Stretch. The triple was a frighteningly short distance from the last pole of the slalom, and Miko showed all her skill as she recovered swiftly from the final turn, gunned her bike until it shrieked—and took all three hills in a single soaring vault. The approving yells of the crowd changed to groans of dismay as she landed much too heavily and it seemed that her fishtailing machine would throw her as it veered wildly from side to side. The following drivers altered course to avoid colliding with her, and she managed to recover, but not before Rusty overtook her and seized the lead. Marc had to swerve far out of the way to avoid striking Augie, and this allowed another back-runner, Voli Kotewayo, to shoot past and join the leaders. Over the next sequence of single-single-double-single-single, Marc ran fifth, with Voli, Augie, Miko, and Rusty ahead of him. Two other up-comers were nipping at his heels, and if Marc faltered again he was likely to slip even farther behind.