Ben Bova - The Starcrossed

“…and here on the turntable,” Lipid was saying, “will be the ‘planet’ set. Well redress it every week to make it look like a different world.”

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 finally starting to shape up .

“You like it?” Lipid asked. His voice went a little squeaky, like a kid who’s desperately anxious for a word of approval.

“It’ll do, I guess. At least we got rid of that damned steering wheel.”

Lipid blushed. “Oh. That. I didn’t understand what you needed. Dr. Oxnard straightened me out on that.”

“He’s been a help,” Gabriel said.

Lipid stared down at his sneakers. “You don’t like it, do you? What’d we do wrong?”

“I like it,” Gabriel said. “It’s okay. Nothing’s wrong.”

Looking up at him, the Production Manager said, “But you’re… well, you’re not excited by it. It doesn’t really raise your metabolism.”

With a weary smile, Gabriel said, “Listen kid. I’ve been going flat out for more than three months now. I’ve been trying to get the scripts in shape, working with high school kids and every amateur playwright north of Saskatoon. I haven’t seen a single script or story treatment that I didn’t have to rewrite from start to finish. I’m hoarse from talking to these bean-brains and going blind from reading and typing twenty-eight hours a day. My ass hurts from sitting and my feet hurt from running and my gut hurts from fighting. So don’t expect me to flip handstands and start swinging from the rafters. Okay?”

Lipid’s face glowed with awe. “Oh sure, Mr. Gabriel. I understand. There’s been a lot of talk around the studio about how hard you’ve been working on the scripts.”

“Okay,” Gabriel said. Then, looking at Lipid’s trembling lower lip, he added, “And call me Ron. I don’t like this Mr. Gabriel shit.”

“Oh… okay, Mr. Ga… uh, Ron.”

Gabriel forced a smile and they started for the next set, in the next corner of the studio.

Lipid asked as they walked, “Uh, Ron… can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.” They had to detour around a burly guy carrying a long plank on his shoulder. Laurel and Hardy would have a field day in here , Gabriel thought.

“Why do you do it?” the Production Manager asked, his voice filled with admiration and wonder.

“Do what?”

“Why do you put up with us? I mean, you could be working with the bigtime outfits down in Hollywood. Or writing books. I’ve been reading your sci-fi books since I was a kid…”

Gabriel winced. Twice.

But Lipid didn’t notice it. “You’re a famous writer. You’ve won a lot of awards. Why are you putting up with this cheap outfit? I mean, this is the best job I can get right now. But you… you can do a lot better.”

Gabriel looked at him. The kid means it. He’s not putting me on.

Without breaking stride, he said gruffly, “This is my show. Comprend? Mine. I created this idea; it came out of my brain. I may have to deal with shitheads at Titanic and beaver-brains at Badger, but that doesn’t matter. I want this show to be good, man. Not pretty good. Not good enough to get some sponsors. Not good enough to get renewed after the first thirteen weeks.”

His voice was rising and the heat was building up inside him. Months of anger and frustration were bubbling close to the surface.

“I want it to be good! Good enough to satisfy me. Good enough for any one of us to point at with pride. I want you and me and every carpenter and electrician in this crazy cave to be proud to have worked on ‘The Starcrossed.’ I want even assholes like Earnest—and Finger back in his padded room in California—to feel proud of this show. They won’t, because they haven’t got the capacity. But we do, you and me. That’s what I want. Pride of accomplishment”

“Wow,” gasped Lipid. “What commitment.”

And the money helps , Gabriel added silently. And the fact that nobody else in town would touch my work hecause Mongoloid idiots like Finger convinced everybody I’m too tough to get along with. And I’m broke. And this is the only decent idea I’ve had in the past year. And if I don’t make some money out of this I’ll have to give up my house.

As they stopped and looked over the next set, Gabriel realized that even those eminently practical reasons that didn’t sound so good when you voiced them, even they didn’t go deep enough.

I’m staying because she’s here , he admitted to himself. Rita’s close enough to touch and so beautiful that she’s driving me crazy. She smiles and says all the right words to me, but she never gets within arm’s reach.

He laughed silently, sardonically, at himself. They do articles in magazines about me, one of the ten most available bachelors in Hollywood. I have all the women I want. I spend half my Blue Cross getting cleaned up from them. And this one goddamned girl just smiles at me and I’m all putty inside.

His mind completely detached from his physical surroundings, Gabriel wondered where Rita Yearling was at that precise moment. Getting her costumes fitted? Taking color tests with the new camera system? Talking on the three-dee phone Finger gave her? Talking to him? Planning to go back to L.A. for the weekend to be with him?

Gabriel grimaced inwardly. I haven’t been writing fiction , he realized. I know exactly how Romeo felt.

Rita Yearling did not go to Los Angeles that weekend. Bernard Finger came to Toronto.

Gabriel was standing on the balcony of his hotel room, looking out disconsolately at the park-like front grounds of the hotel and beyond to the towers of the city that blocked what had once been a decent view of Lake Ontario. There wasn’t much smog in Toronto, since the Canadians used nuclear energy to a large extent. But the lake was still a fetid cesspool of industrial wastes.