Ben Bova - The Starcrossed

They ended in the model shop, where a half dozen intense young men and women were putting together a fourmeter-long plastic model. It lay along a table that was too short for it, overlapping both ends. To Oxnard it looked something like a beached whale in an advanced stage of decomposition.

“The latest and most modern modeling techniques,” Earnest told Oxnard. “Straight from Korea. No secondrate stuff around here.”

“I see,” Oxnard said.

“Americans always think that we Canadians are behind the times,” Earnest said. “But we’ve learned to survive in spite of Yankee chauvinism. Like the flea and the elephant” His voice had an irritating nasal twang to it.

Oxnard replied with something like “Uh-huh.”

His main interest was focused on the modeling team. They were buzzing around the long cylindrical model that rested on the chest-high worktable. They had a regular bucket brigade system going: two girls were taking tiny plastic pieces from their packing boxes and using whirring electrical buffers to erase the Korean symbols painted on them. Another woman and one of the men took the clean pieces and dabbed banana-smelling plastic glue on them. Then the remaining two men took the pieces, walked around the model slowly and stuck pieces onto the main body.

At random, apparently , thought Oxnard.

“Hand craftsmanship,” exuded Earnest; “The mark of true art.”

Still watching the team at work, Oxnard asked, “What’s it supposed to be?”

“The model? It’s one of the starships! For the series, of course.”

“Why does it have fins on it?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

Ignoring the business-suited executive, Oxnard stepped between the two gluers and asked one of the stickers:

“What’re you using for a blueprint?”

The youth blinked at him several times. “Blueprint? We don’t have no blueprint.”

One of the young women said with a slightly French sneer, “This is artistry, not engineering.”

Oxnard scratched at his nose. The banana smell made him want to sneeze. “Yes,” he said mildly. “But this, model is supposed to be a starship, right? It never flies in a planet’s atmosphere… it stays out in space all the time. It doesn’t need aerodynamic fins.”

“But it looks smash-o with the fins!” said one of the other young men.

“It looks like something out of the Nineteen Fifties,” Oxnard replied, surprised at the sudden loudness of his own voice. “And out of Detroit, at that!”

“Now wait a moment,” Earnest said, from well outside the ring of workers. “You can’t tell these people how to do their jobs…”

Oxnard asked, “Why? Union rules?”

“Union?”

“We don’t have trade unions.”

“Lord, that’s archaic! ”

Earnest smiled patiently. “Trade unions were disbanded in Canada years ago. That’s one of the many areas where our society is far ahead of the States.”

Shaking his head, Oxnard said, “All right. But a starship can’t have wings and fins on it. What it does need is radiative surfaces. You can change those fins from an aerodynamic shape…”

They listened to him with hostile, sullen countenances. Earnest folded his arms across his chest and smiled, like an indulgent uncle who would rather let his oddball nephew make an ass of himself than argue with him. Oxnard tried to explain some of the rationale of an interstellar vehicle and when he saw that it wasn’t penetrating, he asked the crew if they’d ever seen photos of spacecraft or satellites. “They don’t look like airplanes, do they?”

They agreed to that, reluctantly, and Oxnard had to settle for a moral victory.

For the time being , he thought.

When Earnest showed him the set they were constructing for the bridge of the starship, it was the same battle all over again. But this time it was with Earnest himself, since the carpenters and other contractors were nowhere in sight.

“But this looks like the bridge of a ship… an ocean liner!” Oxnard protested.

Earnest nodded. “It’s been built to Mr. Finger’s exact specifications. It’s a replica of the bridge on his ship, the Adventurer .”

Oxnard puffed out an exasperated breath. “But a starship doesn’t sail in the ocean! It wouldn’t have a steering wheel and a compass for godsake!”

“It’s what Mr. Finger wants.”

“But it’s wrong!”

Earnest smiled his patient, infuriating smile. “We’re accustomed to you Yanks coming here and finding fault with everything we Canadians do.”

And no matter what Oxnard said, the Badger Studios executive dismissed it as Yankee imperialism.

Brenda met him for lunch and drove out to one of the hotel restaurants, away from the studio cafeteria.

“I’m beginning to see what you’re up against,” Oxnard told her. “They’re all going every which way with no direction, no idea of what the show needs.”

“That’s right,” Brenda agreed.

“But where’s Ron? Why isn’t he straightening this out? He knows better…”

“After lunch,” Brenda said, “I’ll take you to Ron’s place… if the guards let us through, that is.”

She wasn’t kidding.

Two uniformed security police flanked the door of Gabriel’s hotel suite. One of them recognized Brenda, asked her about Oxnard, then reluctantly let them both through.

The foyer of the suite looked normal enough, although there was an obviously broken typewriter on the floor next to the door. Its lid was open and it looked as if someone had stomped on its innards in a rage of frustration.

The sitting room was a mess. Wadded up sheets of paper were strewn everywhere, ankle deep. The sofas and chairs were covered with paper; The chandelier was piled high with it. The paper crackled and scrunched underfoot as they walked into the room. Invisible beneath the wads lay a luxurious carpet. Two more typewriters sat on two separate desks, near the windows. A huge pile of papers loomed over one of the typewriters.

“Ron?” called Brenda.

No answer.

She looked into the bedroom on the right, as Oxnard stood in the middle of the paper sea feeling rather stunned.

“Ron?” Brenda called again.

With a worried expression on her face, she waded through the litter and went into the other bedroom.

“Ron?” Her voice sounded panicky now.

Oxnard went into the bedroom after her. The double bed was rumpled. Drawers were hanging out of the dresser. The TV—a flat, two-dimensional set—was on and babbling some midday women’s show.

The window was open.

“My god, he escaped!” Brenda shouted. “Or jumped!”

She ran to the window and peered down.

Oxnard pushed open the door to the bathroom. The floor was wet. Towels were hanging neatly beside the tub. The shower screen was closed.

Almost as if he were a detective in a mystery show, Oxnard gingerly slipped the shower screen back a few centimeters, wondering if he ought to be careful about fingerprints.

“Brenda,” he said. “Here he is.”

She hurried into the bathroom. “Is he…”

Gabriel lay in the tub, up to his armpits in water. His eyes were closed, his mouth hung open. There was several days’ stubble on his chin. His face looked awful.

Brenda gulped once and repeated, “is he…”

Without opening his eyes, Gabriel said, “He was asleep, until you two klutzes came barging in here.”

Brenda sagged against Oxnard and let out a breath of relief.

Within a few minutes they were all sitting in the sitting room, Gabriel with the inevitable towel draped around his middle.

“They’ve had me going over these abortions they call story treatments for six days straight! They won’t let me out of here. They even took out the goddamned phone! I’m a prisoner.”