The Pleasure Tube Read online

  No, I think, this is not exactly a skid.

  I try to follow the line with my eyes: it weaves twice, then disappears at the thin edge of the crowd. I look beyond at the wreckage from a higher point of the track.

  The flames have abated, but not the smoke. Two of the men in fireproof suits are bringing the body out while the other two ease the creased cockpit with long rods as tall as they are used as levers. The body: limbs hang loose, the flameproof driving suit is streaked with char. For one wild moment I am thinking, Survived, survived, but before I can even move, the ambulance attendants have opened a large dark bag, a body bag. Massimo is laid within, his lifeless body sealed by one of the white-suited figure's long pull of a cord.

  Collette is kneeling on the infield edge of the track, up from her heels as if in prayer. Her body shakes and she sways, shudders. Her hands at her stomach, she leans forward and vomits, not once but again and again and again, shuddering and swaying, again and again and again.

  "Better? Better now?" I am wiping Collette's forehead with linen from the ambulance, soothing her and cooling her face with the wet cloth. Her hair has gone stringy, lipstick gone, we are both of us sweating from the sun and our states at the grass of the infield—she is sitting now, quietly sobbing, her face warm, slightly puffy.

  "This goddamned place," Collette sobs in sudden anger. "I hate this place, I hate this place."

  Her dark clothes are in disarray, she lifts her knees and sobs into her hands. She has long passed the point of caring about herself, her naked legs glistening brown in the sun.

  "You've been through enough," I say. "Come."

  "Oh, Rawley," she sobs.

  "Lean on me," I say. I want to walk her away, but she seems not to want to move. I hold her warm body next to mine—she is pressed against me and clings, I can feel her breasts pressed against me, I can feel her heart beating heavily.

  "I'm through," she says. "I'm going to quit. I don't care what they make me do, this is my last trip. I can't take it any more, I just can't take it. Rawley, I've seen too much of this. I don't want to ever see people destroying themselves again. Never again."

  I wonder. I think about getting on as a commercial pilot somewhere—SoAm, Africa. A different future. Not like this, I've had enough of this, this place, my life since Guam.

  Collette is turning hysterical now, her chest is shuddering with sobs. I hold her tightly, as if to make my strength her own. The smoldering, steaming wreckage, white wisps of chemical fumes, fill me with a sinister chill, anger. Collette is shaking against me. "Oh, God, oh, Jesus Jesus God, woman," she says to herself, "does it have to be this way?"

  I help her up and toward the Lancia, walk her slowly a few steps, and she wants to walk on her own, then leans on me. She is a tall woman, her shoulders only a flat hand lower than mine—my arm around her, she naturally turns into me. Beyond her distress her womanhood bleeds into her walk, her hip rhythm against mine, her breasts palpable through my thin shirt. Her breathing is regular now, the wreckage behind us. Rich liquid red in the hazy sun, the Lancia makes me think of her and Massimo at once, the feel of her warm body, his blood burned black on the legs of his driving suit.

  I could go, I think. I could stash the Lancia, be on the road at first light tomorrow morning and through the perimeter before Taylor was ever awake, long before the office end-processing my appeal could act.

  I wonder what's out there. My impulse is to run south. The location maps I've seen show wide access through the perimeter west of the trans-port, heavy traffic to the adjoining city; once through, just trust my sense of direction and hope for Mexico. I remember stories of a dried-up Rio Grande, a border like Swiss cheese—it excites me wondering what it's like out there.

  At the car I kiss Collette to comfort her, and myself, I suppose; once our lips touch, the kiss becomes deeper, longer, a loss into one another. She whispers that she wants me, more than anything she wants me.

  We make love in a private lounge in the warehouse, lock ourselves in. We hold each other, have sex with a passion that can only come from such close pain. We quietly shower together, and afterward, sitting in the silence of the room, I tell Collette of my idea to bolt from LasVenus once I'm ordered back to Guam tomorrow morning—to stash the Lancia tonight and to take it through the perimeter before Taylor even knows I'm packed.

  As I tell her, her expression changes from loss to determination, and a brightness comes into her eyes. She takes a deep breath. "I'm coming along," she says. "If you'll let me, if you want me, I'm coming along."

  In the middle of the night I wake from a deep sleep, shivering and sweating at once. I've seen something. The vision of the woman suspended in space, arms spread as if crucified, her features indistinguishable, but the void beyond as vividly present as the sink I lean over now, its presence palpable and vast, cold and endless.

  I look up into the mirror, the blood has gone from my face. The mirror reflects the mirrored wall behind me, the back of my head, and I watch the mirror in horror as the room in the room in the room becomes a corridor of infinite regress.

  I sink to my knees, shaking, my hands slipping on the cold rim of the sink. I fight to catch my breath, suck in a draft of chemical air, and vomit into the john.

  DA8//5:42:19 ... 20 ... 21 ... 22— the digits blink from my chronometer as I adjust its strap on my wrist, its grasp the pull of a familiar hand; I have not worn the Seiko since Guam. I awoke twenty minutes ago at first light, Erica facing the window/wall with her back to me, her arm cantered over her face, one knee up and her foot hanging over the edge of the recliner. Collette lies toward me, the flat of her hand on my chest, her breathing almost inaudible, twisted toward me so we lie thigh against thigh—yet her touch is as light as the thin blanket's. Her lips are vaguely pursed in sleep, and as I kiss her, her eyes come open and she slowly, languidly, smiles, then moves against me; the two of us are naked under the satin sheet. We make slow and quiet love without waking Erica, who tosses once, moves with a muffled grunt when we leave the recliner, who lies there still sprawled on her stomach deep in her rest. I feel good now—so much better in general, I think, since I've decided to go. Collette moves toward the kitchen, she wants to put together a basket of chicken, fruit, cheese, wine, and the rest, enough for a few days.

  Erica doesn't know our plans. I agree with Collette that Erica might try to cover for us if she did know. We will tell her that we are going to spend the early morning watching the Grand Prix and boarding theTube for today's late-morning liftoff from there.

  The sun is rising and I go out to the small balcony to look beyond the city as Collette wakes her. The air is still and the haze light as the sun shows a liquid and brilliant line on the rough horizon, its enormous mass tucked behind a range of mountains, the line rising into a dome above them with the incipient thrust of a launch. The atmosphere is shifting from gray to spectral and vivid red. This is the farthest I have been able to see. The city in its low urban fog stretches far into what looks to be scrubby low hills rising to foothills to a mountain range in the east, forming a north-south line of ridge. To the southeast, roadways are obscured in the steel-gray fog, but the land looks ripe for a road laid flat through opening desert country.

  Collette is wearing a pale green bandana, a pale green blouse, and dark shorts, a walking snapshot from a picnic. I tell her to pack some stimulants in case we need them. She already has.

  channel 393//IN IN IN

  sign key 0208//SCHOLE

  telex medium//

  route: Guam Utama Sta.

  Midway

  Honolulu

  SoCal Center

  LasVenus Local (des.)

  debugging rider: erase if intercept//only 393

  ATTN: RAWLEY VOORST

  FIRST//ICARUS ENCODING IS CLEARLY A BLIND. SECOND//SOMETHING IS BREAKING HERE. I THINK SOMETHING HAS CRACKED.

  ALL SCICOM SCREENING TEAMS IN CONFERENCE UNDER SECURITY, NOT MILITARY SECURITY BUT SCICOM'S. YOU REMEMBER THOSE NAZIS.

&
nbsp; BASE CONFINEMENT FOR ALL DAEDALUS CONSOLE PERSONNEL LIFTED BUT NO RUMORS FROM PERSONNEL OFFICE OF LEAVES. SAW KNUTH, HE SAYS ALL FUTURE INTERVIEWS RESCHEDULED.

  OF COURSE I REMEMBER JEANNIE D.

  WERHNER

  "What do you think it means?"

  "I don't know," I tell Collette. "Makes me nervous. I'd like to know before we take off. But I don't think we have a choice about waiting. Wait another hour, maybe." I honestly don't know what to do. I know we'll have to pass a gate on the way out, I have tried to put running it out of my mind. I tell Collette she could always stay. "For what?" she says. "Stay for what?"

  They are just opening the Administrative Center at the Tower when I run up, deep in the bowels of Personnel Section, Military Concourse, Flight Assignment, Force 8A—sleepy uniformed clerks unlocking doors and files, switching on machines, arranging their desks. A minute ago I had a terrible scare: down in the lobby I'm certain I saw Mancek, his shoulders slumped with fatigue, I'm certain he didn't see me. I don't want to be here long—I'll have to disappear until something comes through the line. I wonder if I can talk one of the clerks into a discreet call up to the roof garden, perhaps—I don't want Mancek to see me here. I'm more certain the information about the appeal will have to sit and process here before Taylor sees it.

  I have to fill out a tedious form for an inquiry; the yawning clerk who leans over the counter on his elbows to watch me is only eighteen or nineteen. This is taking too long. I look into his slightly glazed, innocent eyes and wonder about an approach. Not money but a favor; he looks decent enough, pink-faced and earnest, to respond.

  "Mmmm," he says as I turn the form around to him. "Appeal. Already filed. You need to enter your local residence... here. And sign line three."

  He laughs at my birth date and says I must have been out on a long one, laughs again. I ask him if he can do a personal favor for me—I need to know the appeal result before SciCom does, it's a problem with my commanding officer, he's going to be pissed when he finds out about this and I want to talk to him in case it's denied.

  The boy scratches his head, says, "Hold on. I think we had some stuff come through in the last hour—you know, time lag from the East. I bet nobody's even picked it up yet."

  He is gone for a minute that seems like forever: 07:33:13... 14... 15. Clerks move papers across their desks in slow motion, I move out of sight of the door, watch the clerk through another wide doorway in the next room reading down a yellow teletype sheet he is picking up from the floor behind the printer.

  He saunters back, still looking sleepy. The counter is cold under my hand.

  "Voorst. Rawley? Codex 02-292. I mean, Captain, sir. Captain Voorst."

  I look at him and the door at the same time.

  "Wanna see for yourself? This is supposed to go through channels, but I don't see any harm in your looking at it, got a local rider."

  He hands me the tear sheet:

  sign category//002

  message category//MILITARY ORDERS/MILITARY ORDERS

  SUBJECT//LEAVE STATUS, VOORST, RAWLEY, SIGN KEY 0202, FLT VANE ENG CLASS TWO, RANK CAPTAIN

  COPIES TO//LOCAL FLIGHT ASSIGNMENT, LASVENUS FLT ASSIGNMENT CENTER, HOUSTON LOCAL SCICOM OFFICE, LASVENUS SCICOM HQ, GUAM BASE

  ORIGINATING OFFICE//FLIGHT PERSONNEL ASSIGNMENT, WASHNGTON

  ORDERS FOLLOW ORDERS FOLLOW ORDERS FOLLOW ORDERS

  APPEAL OF REASSIGNMENT FROM LEAVE TO GUAM SCICOM

  STATUS:

  APPROVED APPROVED APPROVED

  DECISION BASIS/ACCUMULATED LEAVE TIME

  ADVISORY//GUAM SCICOM, PERSONNEL OFFICE

  PREDICTIVE ATTACHED FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES:

  VOORST, RAWLEY, TO REMAIN ON LEAVE FOR THIRTY-DAY PERIOD BEGINNING 7-10 ENDING 8-09. ELIGIBILITY FOR LEAVE EXTENSIONS TOTALING 120 DAYS FLT CREW HNDBK 17.442 REV. #2332.

  ORDERS END////LOCAL RIDER FOLLOWS LOCAL RIDER FOLLOWS

  *********** ADD ADD ADD ADD ADD ADD ADD ADD ADD ADD ADD ADD

  ********** LOCAL RIDER LOCAL RIDER LOCAL RIDER LOCAL RIDER

  COPIES TO//VOORST, RAWLEY

  LASVENUS SERVICE CONTROL ALL CODEX PERSONNEL OFF.

  ORIGINATING OFFICE//PROGRAM OFFICE, CENTRAL

  THEPLEASURETUBE, LASVENUS

  VOORST, RAWLEY, RESTORED TO CLASS ONE PRIVILEGES THEPLEASURETUBE FLIGHT 8 LIFTOFF 1100 7-18//SERVICE RESTORED EFF. 0900 7-18.

  QUESTIONS CONTACT CENTRAL OFFICE/////////

  YOUR PLEASURE IS OUR SERVICE//OUR SERVICE IS YOUR PLEASURE

  I scan back through the appeal result, can barely believe my eyes:

  APPROVED APPROVED APPROVED

  PART III

  NAKED SINGULARITY [=df product of tidally infinite forces manifest within collapsar; condition of irreducibility.]

  Chapter 7

  Moonloop

  Through the window/wall I see the latticework cradle move away, the wisps of preignition float up from beneath the ship.

  "He wasn't angry, then?"

  "No, Taylor was. You should have seen him, talking with his teeth clenched. It was Mancek, the one who looks like a farmer, who didn't say anything; he seemed to enjoy the news in a funny way. I still don't know what to make of it, exactly. Wish I'd hear from Werhner. Something in me isn't going to relax until I find out what's going on at Agana."

  "Just be thankful for good news." Collette grins, adjusting the last buckle of my liftoff rig, patting my stomach. "The next few days will take your mind off beige uniforms, you'll see." She kisses me with wet, big lips.

  "What service," I tease her. I've been teasing her because she's still on the job after all.

  She laughs along with me. "Today we celebrate," she says. "I've got a surprise for you once we're in orbit. And then I've already got the whole day planned. Notice anything different?"

  I look around the bright cabin, the familiar brown couch, the deep brown rug with its faint hexagonal pattern. Collette's sagging leather flight bag is stacked alongside the divider to the kitchen/bar; the other velvet lounging chair is reclined as her liftoff rig. "What do you mean?" I ask. The light from the LasVenus trans-port illuminates the Rubens behind her to a glow, warms the soft brown walls. Now I notice a halo around the painting, a rainbow halo.

  "Just a drug." She grins, easing into the lounging chair, strapping in. "We're going to be high until tomorrow, higher than we are. Consider that an invitation to a party."

  A thunderous shake wallows through the ship, modulates into a sustained roar. The dusty LasVenus pads begin to slip away, low hills and desert form on the horizon to the sound of fine tinkling of equipment in the unit. A gravity grows in my blood, intensifies in the flesh of my forehead, chest, groin—the continent begins to shape itself, receding, and at the very center of the growing weight itself I begin to feel the sweet freedom of flight.

  RESIDUAL ITINERARY,

  RE.// FIRST-CLASS PASSAGE// Prog. 2ndCoord.

  DA8/ //UKIYOE FLYAWAY bid 1/O-1100

  DA9 MOONLOOP//SENS SEVEN SPEC bid i/f-cont

  DA10 VIETAHITI bid i/f-cont

  DA11 SINS SEVEN SPEC//AQUAPLEASE bid i/f-cont

  DA12 HOLD PROG//MICROSSAGE bid i/f-cont

  DA13 TOTAL HOLOGRAM//

  TRIP TO THE SUN bid i/f-cont

  DA14 TRIP TO THE SUN4 bl- i/f——

  CONTINUOUS VIDEON PROGRAMMING

  THEPLEASURETUBE IS AN EXPERIENCE//INDIVIDUAL VARIATIONS ARE COMMON AND PRECISE DESTINATIONS VARY//

  CONSULT YOUR SERVICE FOR DETAILS

  4, MEDICAL CLEARANCE REQUIRED

  VIETAHITI VENTURES'/PLAN YOUR LONGDAY NOW

  //SOPAC TROPICAL RESERVE

  //AQUAPLEASE SPECTACULAR

  NEW FIRST-CLASS OPTIONS EVERY HOUR//CONSULT YOUR SERVICE FOR DETAILS

  Our service is pleasure//Your pleasure our service

  @ thePleasureTube corp.

  The recliner doubled, the window/wall a spectacular view of deep space, Collette and I are playing shamelessly. I had a few moments of real depression when we came on, thinking of Massim
o, how he would have appreciated the luck I've had using my military status, it's the only thing that ever used to work, how he would have enjoyed another launch. But Collette's been making me forget. I am on my stomach now, she is massaging my back after we've made love while the ship has been in preorbit maneuvers. Her fingers are working into the tight base of my skull.

  "Let's see," she says. "If you understood these curves, you'd understand why you have back trouble. First, your spine curves in for seven vertebrae," she says, tracing them with her stiff fingers. "This one's your neck bump. Then your spine curves out, along the ribs, then in again at the lower back. And finally out again at the pelvis," she continues, giving my butt a slap. "Twenty-four moving parts, the discs like little waterbeds between them. Your trouble might be spondylolythesis. Mmmm. Let me recommend treatment."

  I laugh. "That word. Look, I barely know you," I say to Collette. "Watch what you say."

  She laughs, too, a quiet, low, sultry laugh. "I've known you forever, known these curves, these places," she tells me, now running her hands up my sides, running them up along my bare muscles to hold me under my arms. Then she puts weight on my lower back, leans with the ship.

  I laugh again, this time at myself, turn on my side, and trace a line on her body, from her chin down through her breasts to the flat surface of her stomach. I stop at her navel, touch it playfully. Sweet God, there is something so familiar about her now, the counterpart in a woman to some habits of mine, to a sense of touch and odor that I am only half aware of. "I feel I've known you," I say, poking my finger into her navel, "right from the start."