Full Moon
FULL MOON
THE TIRED Ford van labored slowly up the twisting hilly road. Dave Rankin peered through the sunset gloom at the edifice as he approached: “Either a ally big house or a small castle...,” he mused.
The Carpathians in the Fall are starkly beautiful; they are also ominous, revealing little of their character to the newcomer or casual tourist. The burgeoning petit bureaucracy of the People’s State seemed designed to keep the outlander uncomfortable and offbalance. Border guards had stolidly begun what promised to be an hourslong teardown and search of his truck and motorcycles, until a fifty zloti bribe and ensuing phone call to Piotr Lefescu had brought the harrassment to a grinding halt. Embarrassed apologies and aid in repacking the van had sped Dave on his way in short order. He thought he noticed one of the guards shiver involuntarily as he pulled away from the gatehouse.
Lefescu’s home was four stories high, md festooned with several particularly loathsome-appearing gargoyles. In his mind, Rankin named them each after the European motocross riders who had made the past season on the Continent such a disappointing one for him. A silent retainer opened the massive front doors and directed him to a poorly-lit and drafty living room/library with high arched ceilings so dimly illuminated that Dave could easily have believed that scurrying things lived furtively in the dark corners.
In happy contrast was his host and potential benefactor. Piotr Lefescu warmly pumped his hand and pressed a laden brandy snifter on him.
“Please call me Piotr, or Pete, as my other American friends do. The local brandy is one of the compensations for our rotten climate. Come, sit here by He fire and tell me how you did at Brno...did you manage to place well?”
“No, I can’t say that I did. I rode well, and didn’t tire, but the scooter simply wouldn’t pull or handle with the factory bikes. Japanese spares are hard to come by in Europe, too, and damned expensive.”
“Good—I see that you are now perhaps not so committed to the idea of being a...buccaneer.... ?”
“Privateer, we say in the States,” Dave grinned.
“In any event, I have something I want to show you, to help you make up your mind to join us. Come!”
After a short but confusing walk through dark, narrow passages, Lefescu and Dave came out in what Dave sensed was another building, connected to the main one. The room, a large one, was a curious blend of exquisite machine ools, heliarc welders, tubing benders, plating tanks and other machinery, some of which had no cognate in Dave’s memory; and ancient armor and heraldic devices, which lined the walls above the more modern implements. The room obviously retained its ancient function, that of girding the warriors retained by the family, so that they might do battle on the field of honor.
“Good evening, Count,” said a white-coated mechanic. Or was he a technician...?
“The machines are ready for rider testing. The dynamometer figures on this afternoon’s runs were very encouraging.”
There followed a whispered conference, from which Dave was excluded; not impolitely. Then, beaming, Lefescu strode toward the huge doors set into one wall, and pulled a dust cover from the most beautiful dirt bike Dave had ever seen. His appreciation for its functional beauty was almost sensual, orgasmic. The wheels were cast of some lustrous alloy, in an oddly-triangulated reinforcing pattern. They looked light, but extremely sturdy, and were graced at the hubs by efficient looking disc brakes, fore and aft.
The front forks were shrouded in neoprene gaiters of inordinate length, indicating considerable fork travel. The fuel tank, a one-off, hand-formed alloy miracle, was slender and graceful, and the geometry looked right. A deeply padded seat, and thoughtfully detailed controls, completed the picture. At his host’s unspoken invitation, Dave eased a leg over it, and stood astride. The controls fell easily to hand and foot. His longing to blast it over a rough course was almost sexual.
“It was designed for you, for your measurements and riding style...we had pictures taken of you on your current machine and then taken off in proper scale.”
At Dave’s questioning look, Lefescu said "Oh yes, we decided you were our man months ago. Shortly after we first contacted you. It was obvious even then that you only needed a proper machine to become your country's first truly great competitor. The advertising bene fits of sponsoring the first American World Champion would be great."
"When can I ride it?" "Tomorrow. But first, I want you to spend the evening with my designers and our chief tuner. To be able to extract the maximum from the machine you must understand its workings."
The following morning Dave was served breakfast in his room, on antique china, then he asked directions to the armory-cum-machine shop.
"The Count is waiting for you in his office, sir. It adjoins the service area," the aged butler told him.
After perfunctory and impatient greetings, he almost physically dragged the amused Count into the shop. The machine, obviously gassed and ready, stood at the open double doors. Since he was anxious to put all of the exotic metallurgy and computer-designed tun ing to the test, he shot the Count a questioning look, and was regarded with a glance of approval. Leathers and hel met had been fetched for him and he donned them quickly and prodded the beast to life. It was strangely quiet at idle, a concession, the Count's designer had told him, to the continuing quest for sobriety and decorum imposed by the People's commissars.
Over the muted, loping burble of the engine, the Count said, "One of the minor advantages enjoyed by a national sports hero following a revolution is being allowed to retain some reduced part of the family lands. Go to the bottom of the hill and turn to the right. You will shortly find our test track. As soon as the other machine is ready, I will join you."
Without further words Dave pushed the bike off and gassed it gently. 490cc Df brutal power instantly responded to iis hand, strong even at low rpm. Thifting gently, to get the rhythm of the earbox, he headed for the track.
There followed an hour of the most exhilarating riding Dave had ever experi enced. The bike allowed-commandedthe utmost from him: it would not> accept anything but fullbore, all-out riding from him, and he gave it all that he was capable of. After the equivalent ^f a sustained 30-minute moto, he lally quit for rest, much more tired after he had stopped than when he was moving. Lefescu had joined him, but had leaned his machine against a crumbling brick wall and had been silently working a large stopwatch.
“Four laps before your last you improved on the best time we have ever had by two and a half seconds. It was when the Belgian was here last year. An arrogant boy, but very fast. You are faster.”
Unconsciously, Dave nodded. His decision had been already made for him, it seemed, by his new alloy mistress.
The day wore on with Dave flogging himself and the machine around the track, with Lefescu behind. The Count still retained the skill that had made him a figure in international competition in the late fifties. Only his comparative age and lack of conditioning prevented him from giving Dave a good race. During one of their rest periods Dave noticed an amusing conceit of the Count’s, which had escaped him before. His leathers and helmet both bore a small but ornate heraldic device, which included a wolf with a blood-stained muzzle. The wolf was seemingly held at bay by a sword, argent, and was underscored by the latin motto “Lupus in vir. ” Dead languages having been superseded in Dave’s education by expansion coefficients and other engineering concepts, it meant nothing to him.
The day wore on, and Dave stopped only for an inspection of the machinery by Lefescu’s technicians, who rolled up in midafternoon, in a highly-refined mobile laboratory. Over Gatoraid and some of the local sausages, they all inspected the machines for breakage or fatigue. None was evident, so the technicians changed plugs, tightened and lubed chains, and left.
As the sun was going down, the moon, a beautiful full one, came up. Glancing toward the evening sky, Lefescu said abruptly: “David, go immediately to the castle. Do not wait for me.” He turned his back abruptly and ignored Dave, seemingly unwilling to face him.
Stung, Dave kicked the motocrosser to life and cut narrowly in front of Lefescu, showering him with dirt and gravel. He heard a howl of rage as he went by, and hung the throttle wide open. “Let’s see if that old bastard can ride as well as he can be bitchy,” Dave yelled to the wind.
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Continued from page 93
As he started up the hill toward the castle, something simultaneously hit Dave a glancing blow on the back, and raised the hair on the back of his neck. He glanced over his shoulder quickly, and saw what had hit him. The light of the rising full moon revealed to him his new riding adversary—Lefescu, now transformed by some ancient aberrant genetic mishap into something straight out of Dave’s Lon Chaney-instilled childhood nightmares; a ravening wolf with a man’s body, and seemingly all of a man’s abilities to ride the second prototype.
As Dave screwed the throttle on tight and coursed past the castle turnoff, it began to dawn on him, aided by the muted wail of the second bike’s expansion chamber and other, more ominÄ| wails, that the Count’s aging physicP? no longer troubled him; he now, literally, had the strength of an animal, one of the premier long distance chasseurs of the European mountains. The two were equal in almost all respects. The Count’s blood lust was equalled in its speed-promoting qualities by Dave’s unbridled fear.
The minutes sped, and Dave lost track of the time....had no idea how long the chase had gone on. Only the razor sharp instincts and habit patterns developed from his early enduro years in the California deserts kept him in front of the ravening beast that wanted his blood. Ironically, Dave remembered that Lefescu had once “silvered” at the ISDT....I could use some silver right now...Dave thought, thinking of the open flaunting of his family secret on Lefescu’s crest. Then, suddenly, a p<^^ ble means of salvation occurred to Dave. He headed up an open, hilly meadow and, the Count right on his tail, planted a foot and did a magnificent, powersliding turn back downhill. The Count followed, shrieking.
As he raced for his van, Dave tried frantically to remember where he had put his younger brother’s sword. Until the last 30 seconds, it had just been another piece of memorabilia. Rob had won it in Southern California, as the low scoring young rider at a trial held to raise money for sending American trials riders to European events.
The donor, who had business and family connections in Spain, had explained that it was a very old ceremonial sword, with a high silver content in the metal, to keep it from rusting. When Robby died in Viet Nam, their grievms mother had sent it to Dave, for unfá^p omable reasons. He had carted it all over Europe, and felt troubled at times when it reminded him of Rob...God only knows if there’s enough silver in that paperknife to do the job, but it’s all I ithink of...he thought.
Iddly, his concentration on the sword had settled his nerves and improved his speed; he now held a more comfortable 100-yard lead on his adversary. A dim plan formed in his mind as he came into a blind right-hander. As soon as he felt he was out of the Count’s sight, he clamped on the brakes, slowed, and then did a quick, footdown, pivot turn. Estimating the Count’s closing speed, he gunned for the inside of the turn, heading back the way he had come. As the Count came around the turn, bellowing his rage, Dave cut inside him and fleetingly planted a size thirteen on the Count’s hip and sent him sprawling to the outside of the turn, face down. Dave didn’t wait to survey the damage, but headed, shaking all over, as fast as he could for the castle.
pulled up in the darkened courtleapt from his machine and ran frantically for the garage where he had seen his truck parked. After an agonizing flash told him that he had left the door key in his pants in the shop, he stooped almost without thinking and heaved a large rock from an ornamental garden border through the door glass of his ancient Ford.
Reaching behind the seat, he yanked the sword from the rag he had rolled it in and ran for the front door of the castle. Before he made half the distance the Count’s bike came ripping around the side of the castle and cut off his escape route. Lefescu bore down on him, wide open in second, and launched himself off the pegs, straight at Dave’s face. Now enraged himself, and shaking with fatigue, Dave swung the small ornamental weapon at Lefescu with a tÄpendous double-handed blow. The s^ord went through Lefescu’s shoulder and came out white hot.
In the dying glow of the blade, Dave saw the bestial features fade slowly from the Count’s face. There remained only a sad, puzzled look on the face of the dying man.
“It was a good race, my friend....The contract is in my breast pocket...sign it and ride for us....and tell them nothing....the blade will leave no marks.... and they will call it a heart attack. Say now that you will ride....”
The Carpathian gloom closed in on Dave as he went to tell the servants and the engineers that there would be no World Championship for the Lefescu works that year. The servants could not understand why Dave Rankin would not relinquish the small sword to their safekeeping when he went to bed that ^nt. He did not explain, and in the morning, speaking to no one, he drove away.
