Starship Fall (9 page)

In turn, I told Carlotta about my childhood in Vancouver, my obsession with space and the starships that crossed the void.

Those few days were a happy period, and the intimacy, the trust of another human being, made me realise what I’d been missing for years.

* * *

A few days later, around eight in the morning, Carlotta jumped out of bed, cursed the clock and told me she had to be in MacIntyre by nine to pick up a delivery from the Telemass station. I offered to drive her, but she said she didn’t want to impose on me. She suggested we meet for drinks and dinner at the Jackeral around six, kissed me and hurried from the villa.

I dressed and made my way home, showered then sat on the balcony of the
Mantis
and ate a leisurely breakfast. I was, to tell the truth, still in a daze, and looked back over recent events as if they were a dream.

I went for a long walk after breakfast, anticipating six o’clock when we would be together again. I could not stop thinking about the woman, and wondered what the future might hold. I found myself considering the film about her ex-lover, Ed Grainger, and I wondered how Carlotta had been portrayed in Starship Fall. On impulse I downloaded the movie from the Net and sat back on the chesterfield with a beer.

The trailer promised an enthralling story of alien adventure, love and tragedy, which was pretty much the tale Carlota had told last night.

The first third of the film was an adventure story set on the movie-maker’s impression of Chalcedony, an exoticised vision of alien fauna and purple mountains I would never have recognised as the real thing. Grainger was portrayed as a monomaniacal adventurer who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. Carlotta was referred to in the first part of the film through the device of Grainger sending voice-messages to her while in space, and gazing longingly at a moving cube image of his dusky-skinned lover, played by an Indian actress.

The story had Grainger meet the aliens, only to become hooked on the bone-smoking ritual, the need to see the future. The film portrayed intrigue between the human and inimical elements of the Ashentay – and even a brief interlude of romantic interest with a native girl, which I assumed was the director’s invention. Another fabrication, I guessed – at least, Carlotta had never alluded to it – was that he stole from the Ashentay a small statue of immense religious significance to the aliens, which he intended to sell in order to subsidise his ongoing explorations. He also appropriated a cache of the alien drug, to satisfy his craving.

The second third of the film was set on Earth, and documented his love for Carlotta interspersed with psychotic episodes. Carlotta came over as nothing more than a love-sick beauty, there merely to provide token romantic and sexual interest. A more sophisticated aspect of the film was the portrayal of his drug-induced visions of the future, which left the viewer guessing which one might come to pass.

In the end, against Carlotta’s tearful protestations, Grainger sailed his ship back to Chalcedony, and in this version of events he rendezvoused with the religious elders in the sacred cavern. In a twist, it was revealed that he didn’t sell the religious statuette as he’d intended, but returned with it as a gift for the Ashentay. In the finale, he partook one final time in the smoking of the bones, and the film closes with alternative endings – two very different visions of the future. The first had him succumbing to an overdose of the alien drug, while in the second he was reunited with Carlotta.

All in all, Carlotta’s assessment of the film as a trite and sentimental was pretty much spot on, and more frustratingly from my point of view it told me nothing about Carlotta herself. Perhaps I was naïve to have hoped it might, but the fact was that I wanted to know more about the woman who, despite myself, I was falling for... or perhaps I was doing no more than falling for the glamorous image of the woman she presented to the world.

I was staring at the end credits when a chime announced that I had a visitor. I wondered if it might be Carlotta, and my heart began a laboured pounding. I turned off the screen – not wanting her to see that I had been watching the film, for fear that she might accuse me of prying into her past… which was ridiculous, I know.

I hurried from the lounge, took the drop-shaft to the entrance and hit the control to open the sliding door.

It was not Carlotta standing on the threshold, I saw with disappointment, but Kee.

And only then did I recall what she’d said as we parted a few days ago, and my curiosity was rekindled.

“Kee, well… this is a surprise. Why don’t you come in?”

She smiled timidly and hurried past me. She wore only a sand-coloured shift, and was barefoot, her arms and legs covered with fine golden hair. We rode the elevator together, but she didn’t meet my gaze.

For all that I’d known Kee for five years, and come to like her a lot, she always struck me as being intimidated by my presence; her body language and mannerisms were reserved, shy... though I know I should not ascribe human attributes to an alien people.

We entered the lounge and she sat on her favourite seat by the viewscreen which overlooked the bay. She’d made the seat her own on her many visits with Hawk, Matt and Maddie, and would stare out at the view for ages on end while we drank and chatted away.

“Can I get you something to drink, Kee?”

“A sava juice would be nice, thank you, David.”

I fixed two cold juices and sat opposite Kee. “It’s nice to see you,” I said, somewhat uneasily. “You gave us a bit of a fright the other day, I can tell you.”

Her large-eyed, thin-lipped alien face turned my way, and I wondered what was going on behind those piercingly azure eyes.

I cleared my throat. “You said you needed to see me about something.” I took a sip of juice.

She inclined her head. She employed human gestures tentatively, uncertainly, much as a stranger to the English language might use unfamiliar words.

She said, “The other day I saw the future. Or rather I saw what might be the future, or rather possible futures. Who knows which future might happen in this reality?”

She fell silent.

“And?” I prompted.

“And the difficulty is in knowing which future might happen. Our elders have a theory, perhaps you have heard of this theory? It is that all the futures we see when we smoke the bones will come to happen, in many different realities. Our elders say that we can make the future we want in
our
reality, through guiding events to the desired outcome, and by being virtuous and good.”

I smiled. “Our scientists have a theory that there are a multiplicity of differing words, an infinity of realities,” I told her.

She lifted a hand in an odd gesture, much as a puppet might perform the movement. “I saw three futures, David. Two were vague, while one was more… vivid. According to our elders, the more vivid the vision, the more likely it is to happen in our reality.”

“That makes sense,” I murmured. I hesitated, then said, “And what were these visions?” I stopped myself, and made a performance of hitting my forehead with the palm of my hand. “Sorry. I forgot. You can’t talk about them, can you?”

She smiled at my play-acting, appreciating the humour. “What I said the other day, about not being able to talk about them... I said that because Hawk was there.”

I felt a sudden apprehension. “I don’t see...” I began, though I did see, dimly.

She went on, “I can talk about what I saw, but I do not want to tell Hawk about what I saw. So, please, do not say anything to him. Do you promise?”

“Of course,” I said. “What is it, Kee?”

“I smoked the bones, David, and then I passed out. I experienced… oh, words cannot describe the wonderful feeling. It was bliss, it was… a word Hawk sometimes uses… eu- eu...”

“Euphoric?” I suggested.

She nodded. “Yes, euphoric. I was in a different place, and I was gloriously happy. And then the visions began.” She looked down at her hands, her fingers twisting.

“What did you see?”

She looked up, staring at me with massive eyes. She seemed frightened. “I saw Hawk. He was in the sacred cavern. You were there, and a tall woman with dark hair. I saw Hawk, standing beside the entrance to the chamber, and he was shouting at someone, and arguing...”

She stopped there, shaking her head from side to side as if in disbelief.

“What happened?” I prompted.

“And then... then Hawk was attacked. I think he was stabbed. He fell, holding his chest.” She was crying now, hunched and weeping. She shook her head. “Then the vision changed. I saw myself alone, and weeping.”

“Who attacked him?” I asked.

She shook her head. “The image was vague. I could not make out his attacker...”

I nodded, aware that my throat was dry. I told myself that what Kee had told me was no more than alien superstition, utter nonsense that had no rational bearing on how events in this world would play themselves out. I said, “And the other visions?”

She lifted her shoulders in a quick shrug. “In the other visions I saw me and Hawk, on an alien world, walking hand in hand beside a silver sea… and another vision showed me in old age, with Hawk looking after me...”

I gestured. “Well, there you are, then. Two of the three showed a happy outcome.”

She screwed her pretty face into a mask of anguish. “But the first vision, the strongest vision, showed Hawk dying. This means... this means that this is more likely to happen, unless we work hard so that it will not.”

I nodded, playing along with her. “And how do we do that?”

She said, “You must tell our friends, Matt and Maddie, tell them what I saw, tell them that Hawk must never again visit the scared cavern, yes?”

I nodded seriously. “Of course I’ll do that.”

“You see, if he does not go to the cavern, then he cannot be stabbed, can he? He will live, and I will be happy with him beside the silver alien sea, and we will live to old age together, which is what I want more than anything in the world.”

“I’ll go and see Matt and Maddie,” I promised. “I’ll tell them what you saw, okay?”

She smiled with relief. “But you must not tell Hawk that I have been to see you, David. Do not tell him about the vision, yes?”

“I won’t say a word to him, Kee.”

She smiled, and the expression lighted her face. “Thank you, David. I knew I could trust you.”

She finished her sava juice and looked down at the glass. “I feel better now. I will go back to the yard. Hawk is working on one of his ships, as usual.” She stood up.

“I’ll show you out,” I said, leading the way from the lounge to the drop-chute. We crossed the foyer and I slapped the sensor panel to open the sliding hatch, and Kee turned to me, stood on tip-toe and kissed my cheek.

“Goodbye, David,” she said, and turned.

She stopped dead, as if yanked back on puppet strings, and stared at my approaching visitor with wide eyes.

Carlotta stood before the ship, adopting an expression of superior amusement. Kee moved around Carlotta, watching her intently, then hurried away around the ship and out of sight.

And I suddenly recalled what she’d told me, minutes ago:
You were there, and a tall woman with dark hair.

Carlotta turned to me and raised an expressive eye-brow. “And who’s your little girlfriend, David?”

I smiled, hiding my confusion. “That’s Kee, Hawk’s girlfriend. You know – Hawk, the pilot.”

“She seemed... shocked to see me, David?”

I shrugged. “She’s an odd creature,” I temporised. “She’s often uneasy around humans.”

“But not around you, I see.”

I decided to tell her the reason for her visit, omitting mention of the tall, dark woman.

“Kee underwent the bone-smoking ritual last week,” I said. “And me and a few friends followed her, hoping to find her before it began. Look, why don’t you come inside and I’ll tell you all about it.”

She nodded. “You didn’t mention this before, David.”

I led her into the ship and to the lounge. I poured her a sava juice and sat beside her on the chesterfield. “I’ve had other things on my mind, Carlotta,” I said. “Hey, you’ve stopped calling me Conway.”

She reached out and stroked my cheek. We kissed. She said, “Tell me about the sacred cavern.”

So I gave her the story, doing my best to describe the cavern, the aliens, and the strange ritual, or rather as much of it as we’d witnessed. She hung on my words, and I could see that she was imagining her ex-lover, the pilot Grainger, going through the same ritual.

“But why did the girl come to see you?” Carlotta asked. She opened her mouth in a silent, “Ah...” then went on, “It was about what she saw, yes?”

I nodded, and described what Kee had told me, editing the ‘dark woman’ from the account. I knew, rationally, that this could not refer to Carlotta, but even so I thought it best not to confuse the issue by mentioning it.

“And she said that Hawk’s death was the strongest image?”

“She did. Not that I hold much credence in it–”

Carlotta was looking at me oddly. “We scoff at mysteries we do not understand at our own expense, David. From what I know of the drug... well, there’s something in it.”

I stared at her. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

She nodded. “There were times, after Ed had smoked drug, when he’d make a decision that would turn out to be spectacularly correct.”

I laughed. “Intuition,” I said. “He had a drug-induced vision, believed in it so much that his strength of will brought about the desired result.”

She tipped her head, her lips screwed to one side in a
maybe
gesture. “Or perhaps the drug did grant him a foretaste of the future.”

I hesitated, then said, “When you smoked the stuff... you believed what you saw?”

“I told you what I saw – myself, alone… and it was enough to make me believe, and to beg Ed not to go...”

I smiled and shrugged. “Anyway, to be on the safe side we’ll make sure that Hawk doesn’t visit the sacred cavern in a hurry.”

She nodded seriously. “I’d do that, David. Now,” she said, with a lascivious smile, “I thought that kiss earlier was going to lead to something more.”