Starship Fall

Two

“You mean to tell me, David,” Maddie said, leaning forward incredulously, “that you hadn’t heard she had moved to Magenta Bay?”

It was late afternoon, and I’d slipped into the Fighting Jackeral for a beer to find Maddie ensconced in a lounger on the verandah, a fruit juice before her on the table. Matt was beside her, contemplating his ice cold beer as a man might a pot of gold.

Maddie stared at me and said, “No, seriously; I mean, you hadn’t heard?”

Matt winked at me and said, “Maddie, the poor man obviously hadn’t. She only moved here a few days ago, after all. Leave him be or tell him, or something.”

I smiled. “Obviously I don’t get out enough. Go on, who is she?”

Maddie sat upright and announced, “Only Carlotta Chakravorti-Luna, is who.”

I blinked. “Sorry, none the wiser. An artist?”

“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.