Free Look Out For Space (Seven For Space) by William F Nolan Page B

hot. But they had no way of proving it. Not until they ran a tech check on me — and I was going to make sure that never happened.
    Let the geeps mutter and blink.
    To hell with 'em.
    My job was nailing Wrenhurst.

Fourteen
     
    It was good to be at speed again.
    Until now, I hadn't realized just how much I missed the old swamp-busting days on Venus. There's no real way to describe the feeling inside your nog when you're out there at full-throttle, with a fast rig under you and the curves coming at you and the crowd cheering you.
    And, by now, they were cheering me. I was the thousand-to-one shot, the off-planet underdog, the guy nobody figured could do much of anything against Wrenhurst and his top monkeys. But here I was, going like the hammers, riding fifth with half the race to go. Every time I buzzed past start-finish the crowd went dingo for me, yelling and jumping and waving.
    On the next lap I moved up to third, skimming Irmaline down the straight under full atompower, and passing two more boats before taking the curve.
    The geeps were really upset — fluttering their pin feathers at me as I whisked past them.
    Now only Wrenhurst and a tentacled, orange-skinned fleek from Mercury in a custom sander were ahead of me, and I was already moving up fast on the fleek.
    Five laps to go.
    I was on the fleek's tweeter going into the dog leg. A mistake. I'd been warned.
    His fantail blinded me.
    In the rolling billow of gritty Moondust I couldn't see the turn. Everything was a kind of milky gray-white in front of my goggles.
    I braked hard, falling back, telling myself: This one's on instinct, Sam! You take it blind, and you hope your line's correct, cuz if it isn't, you're into the rocks for sure.
    Slipping, sliding, scraping bottom, I made it around the dogleg okay. Barely.
    All right, you big lummox! Do it right. Take him on the straight.
    I did.
    Which made me second.
    Now, with just three laps to the flag, I was closing on Mr. Big himself. His streaking Kingfisher , glinting gold under the lasers, was a full half-lap ahead of me, but I wasn't worried about catching him. The king was about to lose his crown.
    On the straight I gave Irmaline full juice and made up a quarter lap. Skimming the next five turns, I picked up more.
    Wrenhurst was directly ahead. Not too close to him, I warned myself. Stay clear of his fantail. But I had him now and he knew it. His Moonies had been waving pitboards at him each time he lapped with FASTER! scribbled on them.
    He couldn't. I had the power and he didn't.
    The crowd was going out of its mind. One fat lizardman from Capella got so excited he fell tail-first into a cluster of Venusian tripleheads, causing a hell of a riot in the watchstands.
    They all wanted to see me beat the king.
    Wrenhurst twisted his head around to see just where I was as we entered the dog leg. His mouth was snarling and I could see he wasn't exactly delighted about the raw amateur riding his tweeters.
    I threw him a big, toothy smile. And a little wave. He was so mad his boat wobbled.
    Horray for Space!
    Last lap. Two more curves, then the straight, and the final sweep under the checker at start-finish. A wrap.
    I held back a little on the curves, riding easy, making sure nothing went wrong.
    On the straight I did two things: I passed Wrenhurst and I removed a nitropac from my zipsuit, which I set for full destruct.
    I'd win, but my boat wouldn't be around for anybody to inspect.
    Poor Irmaline .
    End of the straight. Around the last turn. Headed for the flag. Wrenhurst well back. (My burst of speed on the straight had put him far behind me.)
    The flag whipped down.
    Winner!
    I zinged past the stands, with everybody up and cheering, a rolling wave of sound. Then I hit the brakes to get my speed down to a point where I could safely bail out. I knew I was riding a time bomb.
    But suddenly I had big problems: the brakes weren't doing their job. They were at half-power, and I wasn't stopping fast enough. I'd overused