Jack Dann - Dangerous Games

“Come on!” Alena said. “Come on come on come on!”

The Can had been embargoing the status of the teams for an hour, but Glenn knew they were close. They’d made it from dead last to nearly tied with the Paul guy before the Can shut up.

“What can I do?” he asked.

“I don’t know! I was talking to the Kite, not you!”

“I’ll think positive thoughts.”

“Good for you!”

Glenn smiled. And what could he do, other than stay lashed up under the belly of the Kite for minimum aerodynamic drag? Nothing.

The next one they should make more manual, he thought. Human-powered Kites and Wheels. None of this motor crap .

“Look!” Alena pointed.

Glenn strained his eyes. Very far in the distance, he could just catch the glint of metal. “Is that it?”

“Yeah, that’s it! Come on come on come on come on!”

Alena looked at him, and he saw the girl who he’d fallen in love with, the woman he’d proposed to. She was smiling, her color high and eyes flashing. It was impossible not to love her when she was winning.

Where was Paul? If the race was as close as he thought, he should be able to see his Kite, bright white against the pale sky. He scanned from left to right, but saw nothing.

Whoever makes it to the Returns, wins . They were automatic. There was no way to race to orbit.

Another look. No Kite. Was it possible that Paul had run into trouble? Could they really be first?

Karma will get you all the time, he thought.

From ahead of them, a bright flare. The Kite rocked as Alena started violently.

“No!” she said. “No no no no no!”

“Paul,” Glenn said.

“How much longer?” Alena asked.

“A couple of minutes. But it’s…”

“Go faster!”

“It only takes three minutes to orbit!”

“I don’t care!” Her face was twisted into a mask of anguish.

Glenn fell silent and let the only sound be that of the rushing wind and roaring motor. The Return field grew ahead of them, big enough so they could see the remains of Paul’s Kite. He had had a hard landing.

When they landed, Alena scrambled to the nearest Return pod and began the launch prep. But when the prep was still less than halfway done, the voices from the Can came back. This time it was the female PA. She sounded tired.

“We have a winner,” she said. “Keith Paul is now back on board the Mars Enterprise . To our other teams, thank you for a great competition. Please travel safely on your way back. There’s no need to hurry now.”

“No!” Alena wailed. She beat on the low bench of the Return pod. Glenn tried to gather her in his arms, but she pushed him away violently. He tumbled out onto the cold sand and lay for a moment, stunned, staring up at the alien sky.

“Glenn?” Glenn shook his head, but said nothing.

“Glenn?” Frightened.

She came out of the pod and knelt atop him, her eyes red from crying. “Glenn!” she said, shaking him.

“What?” he said.

“Glenn, I can’t hear you! Are you okay?”

“What?” He reached behind him and felt the suit’s radio. It seemed okay. Of course, he could have hit something in his fall… He shrugged and gave her the thumb-and-forefinger “OK” sign.

“I heard you hit and a big hiss and I thought you’d broken your header.” She was crying even more now, big tears hitting the inside of her header and running down toward her chest.

He pushed his header to hers. “I’m okay,” he said.

“I can hear you now.”

“Yeah, old trick.”

She helped him up. The Return pod gaped open like a mouth.

“Let’s go,” she said.

“Wait a minute.” Glenn looked from the Return pods-all four of them-to the sky, and then toward the east, where the Ruiz team was stranded.

Could they? Would it be possible to fly over to the Ruiz team and pick them up? Would they have enough fuel? Could they refuel?

“Alena,” he said. “Do you want to be a real winner?”

She got it. Her eyes got big, and she nodded. She stayed helmet-to-helmet with him as she called the Can.

“Frank,” she said. “Let’s talk about the Ruiz team.”

Evan, again with his presentations. In the darkness of Jere’s office, animated charts showed realtime Viewing Audience, feedback Ratings, inferred Attentiveness, inferred Buyer Motivation, plotted against Neteno’s historicals and an average of other Linear, Free-Access networks.

“We broke the ’Near downtrend,” Jere said. “Broke it hard.”

“We should have charged more for the advertising,” Evan said. “VA times BM is a record for ’Near networks, maybe even interactives.”

“We’re swimming in money.”

“Or we could up the ad rates midcourse. They won’t desert now.”

“Or we could just do another show.”

“Not with the average sequel return at fifty-eight percent,” Evan said.

Jere frowned. That was a big hole. Unless they could keep costs down. And maybe they could. All the development was done, after all…

“Don’t even think it,” Evan said.

“What?”

“Doing another show.”

“I’m not.”

Evan shook his head. “I know that look. That starry-eyed shit that gave us the second Star Wars threequel. The one with that irritating droopy bastard, whatever his name was…”

Jere shuddered. “I know who you’re talking about.”

“Point is, this show ain’t golden. And we aren’t perfect. Leave it now and let them clamor for more.”

“Like Star Trek .”

“Damn right. Don’t come back till they’re jonesing for it.”

Jere nodded. We’re on top, he thought. We’re the magnet. Let the ideas come to us for a while .

And let that be enough.

“I won, right?” Keith Paul said.

“Yeah,” Frank said.

“I’ll get the money?”

“Yeah.”

“So where are the cameras?”

Frank ripped off his earplug and pushed away from the comm board. He grabbed Keith’s shirt with both hands and pulled him close. The momentum took them off the floor, spinning through Mars Enterprise ’s command center.

“There are no cameras!” Frank yelled. His eyes were wide and bright, quivering with that adrenaline-fueled, amped-up look that guys got when they were ready to take you apart with their bare hands. Keith had seen that look a few times in his life, and he knew one thing: he wanted absolutely no part of it.

“Nobody fucking cares about you!” Frank screamed, shaking Keith like he was made out of tissue. “Everyone’s watching the real fucking heroes now! You’ll get your god-damned money, just like you wanted, but don’t expect anyone to care! Now fuck off! I’ve got important things to do!”

Frank gave him one last shove, pushing Keith into the bulkhead above. His head clanged on metal and he saw stars.

“Okay, man, okay,” Keith said, as Frank drifted slowly back down and took his seat.

“Get out of here,” Frank said.

“Look at these showboating dickweeds,” Evan said.

In the hushed velvet darkness of the live feed room, Evan’s words were incredibly loud. Technicians swiveled to look at him, then turned quickly away when they saw Jere and Ron.

They were all looking at the competitive feeds. The slice-and-dice screen showed the story. Fox, Helmers, and the SciFi Channel were all tuned on a crappy little town down in Mexico, where a slim needle was being assembled in a shabby old warehouse. Outside, a makeshift derrick grew from a field of concrete. And some hairy guy wearing a dirty coverall was talking about building a colony ship to send to Mars. He called it Mayflower II .