Dragon's Teeth

by Mercedes Lackey

  Illegal as hell, and more than illegal—dangerous. Dora bit her lip, wondering if they really knew just how dangerous.

  Halfway through the race, and already the kid had more than earned his pit-pass. Porsche was out, bullied into the wall by the Ford flying-wedge, in a crash that sent the driver to the hospital. Ferrari was out too, victim of the same crash; both their LMCs had taken shrapnel that had nicked fuel-lines. Thank God Paul’d been close to the pits when the leaking fuel caught fire. The Ferrari had come in trailing a tail of fire and smoke and the kid was right in there, the first one on the scene with his fire-bottle, foaming the driver down first then going under the car with the nozzle. He’d probably prevented a worse fire—And now the alliances in the pits had undergone an abrupt shift. It was now the Europeans and the independents against the Ford monolith. Porsche and Ferrari had just come to her—her, who Porsche had never been willing to give the time of day!—offering whatever they had left. “Somehow” the race officials were being incredibly blind to the illegal moves Ford was pulling.

  Then again . . . how close was Detroit to Wisconsin?

  It had happened before, and would happen again, for as long as businessmen made money on sport. All the post-race sanctions in the world weren’t going to help that driver in the hospital, and no fines would change the outcome of the inevitable crashes.

  The sad, charred hulk of the Ferrari had been towed, its once-proud red paint blistered and cracked; the pit-crew was dejectedly cleaning up the oil and foam.

  On the track, Jimmy still held his position, despite two attempts by one of the Ford wedges to shove him out of the way. That was the advantage of a vehicle like the Bugatti, as she and the engineers had designed it for him. The handling left something to be desired, at least so far as she was concerned, but it was Jimmy’s kind of car. Like the 550 Porsche he drove for pleasure now, that he used to drive in races, she’d built it for speed. “Point and squirt,” was how she often put it, dryly. Point it in the direction you wanted to go, and let the horses do the work.

  The same thing seemed to be passing through Paul’s mind, as he watched Jimmy scream by, accelerating out of another attempt by Ford to pin him behind their wedge. He shook his head, and Dora elbowed him.

  “You don’t approve?” she asked.

  “It’s not that,” he said, as if carefully choosing his words. “It’s just not my kind of driving. I like handling; I like to slip through the pack like—like I was a fish and they were the water. Or I was dancing on the track—”

  She had to smile. “Are you quoting that, or did you not know that was how they described my French and Monte Carlo Grand Prix wins?”

  His eyes widened. “I didn’t know—” he stammered, blushing. “Honest! I—”

  She patted his shoulder, maternally. “That’s fine, Paul. It’s a natural analogy. Although I bet you don’t know where I got my training.”

  He grinned. “Bet I do! Dodging bombs! I read you were an ambulance driver in Italy during the war. Is that when you met Ettore Bugatti?”

  She nodded, absently, her attention on the cars roaring by. Was there a faint sound of strain in her engine? For a moment her nerves chilled.

  But no, it was just another acceleration; a little one, just enough to blow Jimmy around the curve ahead of the Mercedes.

  Her immediate reaction was annoyance; he shouldn’t have had to power his way out of that, he should have been able to drive his way out. He was putting more stress on the engine than she was happy with.

  Then she mentally slapped her own hand. She wasn’t the driver, he was.

  But now she knew how Ettore Bugatti felt when she took the wheel in that first Monte Carlo Grand Prix.

  “You know, Bugatti was one of my passengers,” she said, thinking aloud, without looking to see if Paul was listening. “He was with the Resistance in the Italian Alps. You had to be as much a mechanic as a driver, those ambulances were falling apart half the time, and he saw me doing both before I got him to the field hospital.”

  Sometimes, she woke up in the middle of the night, hearing the bombs falling, the screams of the attack-fighters strafing the road— Seeing the road disintegrate in a flash of fire and smoke behind her, in front of her; hearing the moans of the wounded in her battered converted bread-truck.

  All too well, she remembered those frantic moments when getting the ambulance moving meant getting herself and her wounded passengers out of there before the fighter-planes came back. And for a moment, she heard those planes—No, it was the cars returning. She shook her head to free it of unwanted memories. She had never lost a passenger, or a truck, although it had been a near thing more times than she cared to count. Whenever the memories came between her and a quiet sleep, she told herself that—and reminded herself why she had volunteered in the first place.

  Because her brother, the darling of the Metaphysical set, was hiding from the draft at home by remaining in England among the blue-haired old ladies and balletomanes who he charmed. Because, since they would not accept her as a combatant, she enlisted as a noncombatant.

  Some noncombatant. She had seen more fire than most who were on the front lines.

  Bugatti had been sufficiently impressed by her pluck and skill to make her an offer.

  “When this is over, if you want a job, come to me.”

  Perhaps he had meant a secretarial job. She had shown up at the decimated Bugatti works, with its “EB” sign in front cracked down the middle, and offered herself as a mechanic. And Bugatti, faced with a dearth of men who were able-bodied, never mind experienced, had taken her on out of desperation.

  “It was kind of a fluke, getting to be Bugatti’s driver,” she continued, noting absently that Paul was listening intently. “The driver for that first Grand Prix had broken an ankle, right at starting-lineup, and I was the only one on the team that could make the sprint for the car!”

  Paul chuckled, and it had been funny. Everyone else was either too old, or had war injuries that would slow them down. So she had grabbed the racing-helmet before anyone could think to object and had taken the man’s place. In her anonymous coverall, it was entirely possible none of the officials had even noticed her sex.

  She had made the first of her famous “Duncan Dives” into the cockpit; a modified grand jete that landed her on the seat, with a twist and bounce down into the cockpit itself.

  “I can still hear that fellow on the bullhorn—there was no announcer’s booth, no loudspeaker system—” She chuckled again. “And coming in third—Isadora Duncan?”

  The next race, there had been no doubt at all of her sex. She had nearly died of heat-stroke behind that powerful engine, and she had been shocked at what that had done to her judgment and reflexes. So this time, she had worn one of her old dancing costumes, a thick cotton leotard and tights—worn inside-out, so that the seams would not rub or abrade her.

  The other drivers had been so astounded that she had gotten nearly a two-second lead on the rest of them in the sprint—and two seconds in a race meant a quarter mile.

  For her third race, she had been forbidden to wear the leotard, but by then she had come up with an alternative; almost as form-fitting, and enough to cause a stir. And that had been in France, of course, and the French had been amused by her audacity. “La Belle Isadora” had her own impromptu fanclub, who showed up at the race with noisemakers and banners.

  Perhaps that had been the incentive she needed, for that had been her first win. She had routinely placed in the first three, and had taken home to Bugatti a fair share of first-place trophies. The other drivers might have been displeased, but they could not argue with success.

  Bugatti had been overjoyed, and he had continuously modified his racing vehicles to Isadora’s specifications: lighter, a little smaller than the norm, with superb handling. And as a result of Isadora’s win, the Bugatti reputation had made for many, many sales of sportscars in the speed-hungry, currency-rich American market. And it did not hurt that his prize d
river was an attractive, American lady.

  But in 1953 she had known that she would have to retire, and soon. She was slowing down—and more importantly, so were her reflexes. That was when she had begun searching for a protege, someone she could groom to take her place when she took over the retiring crew-chief’s position.

  She had found it in an unlikely place: Hollywood. And in an unlikely person, a teenage heartthrob, a young, hard-living actor. But she had not seen him first on the silver screen; she had seen him racing, behind the wheel of his treasured silver Porsche.

  He had been torn by indecision, although he made time for her coaching and logged a fair amount of time in Bugatti racing machines. She and the retiring crew chief worked on design changes to suit his style of driving to help lure him. But it was Hollywood itself that forced his choice.

  When a near-fatality on a lonely California highway left his Porsche a wreck, his studio issued an ultimatum. Quit driving, or tear up your contract. We don’t cast corpses.

  He tore up his contract, took the exec’s pipe from his mouth, stuffed the scraps in the pipe, slammed it down on the desk and said “Smoke it.” He bought a ticket for Italy the same day.

  “Miss Duncan?” Paul broke into her thoughts. “We have company.”

  She turned, to see the crew chiefs of Ferrari, Mercedes, Lola, and a dozen more approaching. Her first thought was—What have we done now?

  But it was not what she had done, nor her crew, nor even Jimmy.

  It was what Ford had done.

  “Isadora,” said Paul LeMond, the Ferrari crew chief, who had evidently been appointed spokesman, “we need your help.”

  Ten years of fighting her way through this man’s world, with no support from anyone except Bugatti and a few of her crew had left her unprepared for such a statement.

  She simply stared at them, while they laid out their idea.

  This would be the last pit-stop before the finish, and Dora was frankly not certain how Jimmy was going to take this. But she leaned down into the cockpit where she would not be overheard and shouted the unthinkable into his ear over the roar of his engine. How the crews of every other team still on the track were fed up with the performance of the Ford drivers—and well they should be, with ten multi-car wrecks leaving behind ruined vehicles and drivers in hospital. The fact that one of those wrecks had included one of the Ford three-car flying wedges had not been good enough.

  “So if Ford is going to play footsie with the rules, so are we,” she shouted. “They think you’re the best driver on the track, Jimmy. The only one good enough to beat cheaters. So every other driver on the track’s been given orders to block for you, or let you pass.”

  She couldn’t see Jimmy’s expression behind the faceplate, but she did see the muscles in his jaw tense. “So they’re going to just give me the win?” he shouted back.

  That was not how Jimmy wanted his first Grand Prix to end—and she didn’t blame him.

  “Jimmy—they decided you’re the best out there! Not only your peers, but mine! Are you going to throw that kind of vote away?” It was the only way she would win this argument, she sensed it. And she sensed as his mood turned to grudging agreement.

  “All right,” he said finally. “But you tell them this—”

  She rapped him on the top of the helmet. “No, you listen. They said to tell you that if you get by Ford early enough, they’re going to do the same for Giorgio with the old Ferrari and Peter for Citroen. And as many more as they can squeeze by.”

  She sensed his mood lighten again, although he didn’t answer. But by then the crew was done, and she stood back as he roared back out onto the track.

  When he took the track, there were ten laps to go—but five went by without anyone being able to force a break for Jimmy, not even when the Ford wedge lapped slower cars. She had to admit that she had seldom seen smoother driving, but it was making her blood boil to watch Jimmy coming up behind them, and being forced to hold his place.

  Three laps to go, and there were two more cars wrecked, one of them from Citroen. Two laps. One.

  Flag lap.

  Suddenly, on the backstretch, an opening, as one of the Ford drivers tired and backed off a little. And Jimmy went straight for it.

  Dora was on the top of the fire-wall, without realizing she had jumped up there, screaming at the top of her lungs, with half the crew beside her. Ford tried to close up the wedge, but it was too late.

  Now it was just Jimmy and the lead Ford, neck and neck—down the backstretch, through the chicane, then on the home run for the finish line.

  Dora heard his engine howling; heard strain that hadn’t been there before. Surely if she heard it, so would he. He should have saved the engine early on—if he pushed it, he’d blow the engine, he had to know that—

  He pushed it. She heard him drop a gear, heard the engine scream in protest—

  And watched the narrow-bodied, lithe steel Bugatti surge across the finish-line a bare nose ahead of the Ford, engine afire and trailing a stream of flame and smoke that looked for all the world like a victory banner.

  Dora was the first to reach him, before he’d even gotten out of the car. While firefighters doused the vehicle with impartial generosity, she reached down and yanked off his helmet.

  She seized both his ears and gave him the kind of kiss only the notorious Isadora Duncan, toast of two continents, could have delivered—a kiss with every year of her considerable amatory experience behind it.

  “That’s for the win,” she said, as he sat there, breathless, mouth agape and for once completely without any kind of response.

  Then she grasped his shoulders and shook him until his teeth rattled.

  “And that’s for blowing up my engine, you idiot!” she screamed into his face.

  By then, the crowd was on him, hauling him bodily out of the car and hoisting him up on their shoulders to ride to the winner’s circle.

  Dora saw to it that young Paul was part of that privileged party, as a reward for his fire-fighting and his listening. And when the trophy had been presented and the pictures were all taken, she made sure he got up to the front.

  Jimmy recognized him, as Jimmy would, being the kind of man he was. “Hey!” he said, as the Race Queen hung on his arm and people thrust champagne bottles at him. “You made it!”

  Paul grinned, shyly. Dora felt pleased for him, as he shoved the pass and a pen at Jimmy. “Listen, I know it’s awful being asked—”

  “Awful? Hell no!” Jimmy grabbed the pen and pass. “Have you made up your mind about what you want to do yet? Acting, or whatever?”

  Paul shook his head, and Dora noticed then what she should have noticed earlier—that his bright blue eyes and Jimmy’s were very similar. And if he isn’t a heartbreaker yet, she thought wryly, he will be.

  “I still don’t know,” he said.

  “Tell you what,” Jimmy said, pausing a moment to kiss another beauty queen for the camera, “you make a pile of money in the movies, then go into racing. Get a good mentor like Dora.”

  And then he finished the autograph with a flourish—and handed it back to the young man.

  To Paul Newman, who can be my driver when I take over the chief mechanic slot from Dora, best of luck.

  And the familiar autograph, James Dean.

  NOTE:

  Just as a postscript—yes, Paul Newman was doing dinner-theater and summer-stock in the Midwest in the 1950s. He did drive dirt-track, as well as going into professional auto racing. And James Dean was considered by his peers to be an excellent race-driver with great potential in the sport.

  And in case you don’t happen to be a dance-buff, Isadora Duncan was killed when the long, trailing scarf she wore (about twelve feet worth of silk) was caught in the wheel-spokes of a Bugatti sportscar in which she was riding, breaking her neck.

  This story was for Mike Resnick’s Alternate Heroes. While T. E. Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia, another historical favorite of mine) was really a her
o, I wondered what would have happened if a certain life-shattering experience he had at Deraa had come out a bit differently . . . .

  Due to the actual historical details this story is rather a stiff one at the beginning, and definitely NC-17.

  Jihad

  Mercedes Lackey

  Pain was a curtain between Lawrence and the world; pain was his world, there was nothing else that mattered. “Take him out of here, you fools! You’ve spoiled him!” Lawrence heard Bey Nahi’s exclamation of disgust dimly; and it took his pain-shattered mind a moment to translate it from Turkish to English.

  Spoiled him; as if he was a piece of meat. Well, now he was something less than that.

  He could not reply; he could only retch and sob for mercy. There was no part of him that was not in excruciating pain.

  Pain. All his life, since he had been a boy, pain had been his secret terror and obsession. Now he was drugged with it, a too-great force against which he could not retain even a shred of dignity.

  As he groveled and wept, conversation continued on above his head. There were remonstrations on the part of the soldiers, but the Bey was adamant—and angry. Most of the words were lost in the pain, but he caught the sense of a few. “Take him out—” and “Leave him for the jackals.”

  So, the Bey was not to keep him until he healed. Odd. After Nahi’s pawing and fondling, and swearing of desire, Lawrence would have thought—

  “You stay.” That, petulantly, to the corporal, the youngest and best-looking of the lot. Coincidentally, he was the one who had been the chiefest and most inventive of the torturers. He had certainly been the one that had enjoyed his role the most. “Take that out,” the Bey told the others. Lawrence assumed that Nahi meant him.