Starship Fall (Starship Seasons, #2)(3)

“You are a sad specimen, David Conway,” Maddie said.

Matt came to my defence. “To be honest, David, I only heard of her last week when Maddie said she was moving here.”

Maddie leaned forward. “And you’ve actually met her, David. Lucky you! What was she like?”

“Lucky me? I don’t think so. She was positively… Well, I don’t know how to describe her. Arrogant, dismissive – and probably drunk and drugged, or both.”

“Tell me again exactly what happened?” Maddie asked like a sensation-seeking teenager.

So I recounted the meeting again, this time describing the little I’d seen in the woman’s lounge.

“Apparently she has a holo-deck playing all the time,” Maddie said. “She’s obsessed. The gossip writers say it’s pathological.”

“I don’t understand–” I began.

“Luna is – was – a big holo star on Earth, back at the turn of the century. She’s the daughter of the famous Indian director, Ramesh Chakravorti, and the Italian actress Gina Luna–” Maddie stopped suddenly and stared at someone standing behind me.

I turned.

Carlotta Chakravorti-Luna stood over me, appearing at least seven feet tall from my seated perspective. She looked stunning in a scarlet dress, with midnight hair falling over one eye. She had a hand lodged on one hip and her bearing was imperious.

If she’d heard Maddie, she had the grace not to let on. Instead she nodded to Maddie and Matt, then looked at me. “Conway, I do think I owe you an apology. The way I behaved this morning was way beyond decency, and I owe you not only an apology, but an explanation. If you are free some time…?” She let it hang.

I spluttered something like a callow juvenile.

“Come round to the villa one evening, for drinks. Would tomorrow suit? Eight, say?”

And with another nod at Matt and Maddie, Carlotta Chakravorti-Luna swept from the verandah, sashayed through the main bar of the Jackeral and exited at the front.

Maddie was watching me, eyes the size of moons, her jaw halfway to her knees. Matt merely leaned over, jabbed me playfully in the ribs, and winked.

I sat back, wondering how I felt about the summons to the villa of a once famous but still ravishing holo star.

“So… tell me more about Carla Chakrawhatever-Lunacy,” I said.





The next day, I strolled around the bay to Matt and Maddie’s place. They lived on the southern headland opposite mine, in a two-storey beachfront dome backed by pines. Last night, before last orders, Matt had invited me over to take a look at what he was working on. It was mid-afternoon and hot when I arrived. Maddie was sitting on the verandah overlooking the bay, reading a novel I had loaned her.

She looked up and shaded her eyes when I climbed the steps. “And might the footsore traveller be in need of a beer, by any chance?”

“You’re a mind-reader, Maddie.”

She fetched me an ice cold bottle from the cooler and escorted me through the dome to Matt’s studio.

“Isn’t it tonight you have the assignation with Magenta’s biggest celebrity?” Maddie asked with a sly smile.

“Hardly an assignation, Maddie.”

“I’m not so sure. If you want my opinion, I think she has the hots for you.”

I laughed. “Come on! Is that likely?” I think I coloured as she grinned at me.

“I don’t know. You’re quite a catch, David. Lean, fit, personable. And famous, in your own right.”

I snorted. “And you know what I think about fame,” I said.

We came to the studio, a light-filled space on the dome’s ground-floor. Matt was wearing only a pair of baggy shorts, his preferred attire when working. He stood over a computer keypad and played it like a musician.

He looked up when we entered and nodded at my beer. “Good idea, sir.” He moved to a cooler in the corner of the room. “Maddie?”

“I don’t want to feel left out,” she said. “How’s it coming on?”

Matt passed her a beer and we sat on folding chairs in the middle of the studio. I looked around. Other than stacked crystal boards, old canvases and the odd unfinished sculpture, there was nothing on show to indicate his latest project.

“Almost finished, and I think it’s okay. Should be ready in a few days.” He looked at me. “I’m having a private viewing here in a couple of weeks, if you’d like to come along.”

“Try keeping me away,” I said. “What are you working on?” He was notoriously reticent about work-in-progress, as if to talk about his work might dissipate the creative impetus.

“Seeing as how it’s almost done...” He leaned over and tapped a few keys on the com-pad. “I wanted to get away from what I’ve doing lately – the emotion crystals. I felt I’d done enough in that medium for the time being. I was getting stale–”

“That’s not what that New York critic said about your last exhibition,” Maddie put in.

Matt snorted. “What do critics know? Anyway, I thought I’d try something completely different.”

In the air at the far end of the dome, I saw two figures materialise. They were naked, though abstract; that is, it was impossible to identify the man and woman: they stood as representative, perhaps, of the human race.