Bova, Ben The Starcrossed

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He s probably going straight to the lawyers. Or the police, she said.
Starting for the door, Oxnard said, I m going to the American consulate. They can t hold an American
citizen prisoner like this.
No. Wait, Brenda said. Let me handle this.
I don t care how you do it, Gabriel said, but I want out.
Brenda faced him squarely. Ron, that would be the end of everything. The show, the series, the whole
Titanic company..,.
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What do I care? Those bastards have been screwing me....
Ron, please! Now it was Brenda who was pleading, and Oxnard wished he were in Gabriel s place.
I m walking, Gabriel insisted. High school kids in a writing contest . . . making models and sets like
tinker-toys....
I ll straighten things out, Brenda said, as strongly as Gabriel. That s why I m here. That s why you
wanted me here, wasn t it?
Well. . . . He kicked lightly at the suitcase, still on the floor.
Brenda turned to Oxnard. Her eyes are incredibly green, he noticed for the first time. Bill, if I get B.F.
to straighten out Earnest and give you authority to act as science consultant, will you stay?
I ve really got to get back....
She bit her lower lip, then said, But you can come up here on weekends, can t you? To make sure that
the crew s building things the right way?
With a shrug, he agreed, Sure, I suppose I could do that.
Turning to Gabriel again, Brenda went on, And Ron, if I get you complete authority over the scripts and
make Earnest bring in some real writers and a story editor, will you stay?
No.
Why not?
Gabriel scuffed at the suitcase again, like a kid punishing the floor for tripping him. Because these
flatworm-brained idiots are just going to screw things over, one way or the other. They re a bunch of
pinheads. Working with them is hopeless.
But we ll form a team, the three of us, Brenda said.
You head up the writing and creative side, Ron. Bill will handle the scientific side. And I ll make sure
that Titanic does right by you.
Gabriel shook his head.
Listen, Brenda said, with growing enthusiasm. They haven t made a decision on the male lead for the
series.
Suppose I tell B.F. that if we don t get a major star the show will fold. He ll understand that kind of talk.
We can go out and get a big name. That ll force everybody else to live up to the star s level.
Gabriel s eyebrows inched upward. A big name star?
Right. Brenda smiled encouragingly.
Oxnard could see wheels within wheels at work inside Gabriel s head.
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Okay, the writer said at last. You go talk to B.F.
But first ... get Rita Yearling over here. I want to talk with her. About who she thinks would make a
good co-star.
Oxnard looked at Brenda. She understood perfectly what was going on in Gabriel s mind. And she
didn t like it.
But she said, All right, Ron. If that s what you want.
Flat. Emotionless.
She started for the door. Gabriel stooped down and pushed the suitcase under the bed. Oxnard called
out:
Wait up, Brenda. I m going with you.
9: THE STAR
The studio was alive at last. It rang with the sounds of busy workmen: carpenters hammering; electricians
yelling to each other from atop giddy-tall ladders; painters and lighting men and gofers carrying the tools
of their trades across the vast floor of the hangar-sized room.
Four different sets were being erected in the four corners of the studio, fleshing over its bare metal walls
and reaching upward to the girders that supported row after row of lights which seemed to stare down at
the beehive below in silent disbelief.
Ron Gabriel was standing in the middle of the big, clangorous whirl. He wore what had come to be
known over the past few months as his official working costume: a pair of cutoff Levis and a tee shirt
with Star-crossed lettered on front and back. Somewhere in the offices and workshops adjoining the
studio, the art director was dreaming up a special symbol for the show. Gabriel would get Badger or
Titanic to make tee shirts for the entire cast and crew with the symbol on them, no matter who protested
about the cost.
Standing beside him, in a conservative one-piece business suit, was Sam Lipid. He was only slightly
taller than Gabriel, roundish, with a prematurely balding pate. His face was soft and young looking. Lipid
was Production Manager for the show and Gabriel s major point of contact with Badger Films. Gregory
Earnest had given Gabriel a wide berth ever since bouncing off the bed in his hotel room, months earlier.
There had been some talk of a lawsuit, but Brenda got Titanic to pay for a nose job and Earnest wound
up looking better than he ever had before Gabriel socked him.
. . . And here on the turntable, Lipid was saying, will be the planet set. We ll redress it every week
to make it look like a different world.
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Gabriel nodded. Why the turntable?
Lipid s babyface actually pinked sightly with enthusiasm, Oh, we used to use this studio for filming a
musical show, the Lawrence Welk Simulacrum, you know? It was very popular. They had audience
seats along all four walls of the studio and the orchestra rotated at a different speed for each song, in time
with the music.
You re kidding, Gabriel said.
No, they really did it. His face went pinker. That is, until the speed mechanism broke down and flung
all those animated dummies into the audience. It was a terrible scene. That s when they cancelled the
show.
Gabriel chuckled to himself as he and Lipid slowly walked across the noisy studio to inspect the bridge
set. This would be used as the bridge of both starships, with slight redressings to change it from one ship
to the other.
What do you think of it? Lipid asked, over the shouting and hammering.
Gabriel took it in. The two walls of the corner were now lined by desk-type consoles studded with
elaborate keyboard buttons and viewing screens. About them were big observation screens, taller than a
man and many times wider. They were blank, of course, nothing but sheets of painted plastic covering the
studio s bare walls. But with electronic picture matting, they would appear to look out on the vast
universe and reveal stars, strange new worlds, other spaceships of the series. The floor had been turned
into a metalized deck, thanks to judicious spray painting, and there were very modernistic chairs and
crew stations arranged in a semicircle facing the corner.
Nodding, Gabriel admitted, It looks good. Real substantial.
Needs some personalized touches, though.
Lipid quickly agreed. Oh sure. Right. We ve been talking with one of our Ontario vineyards . . . they
might come in as a sponsor for part of the show. One of the captains can have a flask of wine set up at
his command console.
Gabriel said, Just make sure it s a futuristic flask.
We re seven hundred years in the future, remember.
Oh, sure.
Gabriel stood there and tried to visualize how the actors would look on the set. Not bad, he thought. It s [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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