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whole damn city council."
I reflected that you'd have to go a long way to find
somebody as colorful as the new Queen. Once again I wondered
what I was doing out here. I looked behind me, saw the
four-story stadium around the landing site just about to vanish
over the horizon. When it was gone, it would be easy to get
lost out here. Not that I was worried about that. The suit had
about seventeen different kinds of alarms and locators, a
compass, probably things I didn't even know about. No real need
for girl-scout tricks like noting the position of your shadow.
But the sense of aloneness was a little oppressive.
And illusory. I spotted another hiking party of five on
the crest of a low rise off to my left. A flash of light made
me look up, and I saw one of the Grand Mal trains arcing
overhead on one of the free-trajectory segments of its route.
It was spinning end over end, a maneuver I remember vividly
since I'd been in the front car, hanging from my straps and
watching the surface sweep by every two seconds when a big glob
of half-digested caramel corn and licorice splattered on the
glass in front of me, having just missed my neck. At that
moment I had been regretting everything I had eaten for the
last six years, and wondering if I was going to be seeing a
good portion of it soon, right there beside the tasty treats on
the windshield. Keeping it down may be one of the most amazing
things I ever did.
"You ever ride that damn thing?" Liz asked. "I try it out
every couple years, when I'm feeling mean. I swear, first time
I think my ass sucked six inches of foam rubber out of the seat
cushion. After that, It's not so bad. About like a barbedwire
enema."
I didn't reply--I'm not sure how one could reply to
statements like that--because as she spoke she had stopped and
waited for me to catch up, and she was punching buttons on a
small device on her left hand. I saw a pattern of lights flash,
mostly red, then they turned green one by one. When the whole
panel was green she opened a service hatch on the front of my
suit and studied whatever she found in there. She poked
buttons, then straightened and made a thumbs-up gesture at me.
She hung the device from a strap around my neck and regarded me
with her fists on her hips.
"So, you want to talk where nobody can listen in. Well,
talk, baby."
"What's that thing?"
"De-bugger. By which, it buggers up all the signals your
suit is sending out, but not enough so they'll send out a
search party. The machines up in orbit and down underground are
getting the signals that keep them happy, but it's not the real
stuff; it's what I want them to hear. Can't just step out here
and cut off your emergency freaks. That signal goes away, it's
an emergency in itself. But nobody can hear us now, take my
word for it."
"What if we have a real emergency?"
"I was about to say, don't crack open if you want to keep
a step ahead of your pallbearers. What's on your mind?"
Once again I found it hard to get started. I knew once I
got the first words out it would be easy enough, but I agonized
over those first words more than any first-time novelist.
"This may take some time," I hedged.
"It's my day off. Come on, Hildy; I love you, but cut the
cards."
So I started in on my third telling of my litany of woe.
You get better at these things as you go along. This time
didn't take as long as it had with either Callie or Fox. Liz
walked along beside me, saying nothing, guiding me back to some
trail she was following when I started to stray.
The thing was, I'd decided to tell it this time where it
logically should have begun the other two times: with my
suicide attempts. And it was a little easier to tell it to
someone I didn't know well, but not much. I was thankful she
remained silent through to the end. I don't think I could have
tolerated any of her unlikely folk sayings at that point.
And she stayed quiet for several minutes after I'd
finished. I didn't mind that, either. As before, I was
experiencing a rare moment of peace for having unburdened
myself.
Liz is not quite in the Italian class of gesturing, but
she did like to move her hands around when she talked. This is
frustrating in a p-suit. So many gestures and nervous
mannerisms involve touching part of the head or body, which is
impossible when suited up. She looked as if she'd like to be
chewing on a knuckle, or rubbing her forehead. Finally she
turned and squinted at me suspiciously.
"Why did you come to me?"
"I didn't expect you could solve my problem, if that's
what you mean."
"You got that right. I like you well enough, Hildy, but
frankly, I don't care if you kill yourself. You want to do it,
do it. And I think I resent it that you tried to use me to get
it done."
"I'm sorry about that, but I wasn't even aware that's what
I was doing. I'm still not sure if I was."
"Yeah, all right, it's not important."
"What I heard," I said, trying to put this delicately, "if
you want something that's, you know, not strictly legal, that
Liz was the gal to see."
"You heard that, did you?" She shot me a look that showed
some teeth, but would never pass for a smile. She looked very
dangerous. She was dangerous. How easy it would be for her to
arrange an accident out here, and how powerless I would be to
stop her. But the look was only a flicker, and her usual,
amiable expression replaced it. She shrugged. "You heard right.
That's what I thought we were coming out here for, to do some
business. But after what you just said, I wouldn't sell to
you."
"The way I reasoned," I went on, wondering what it was she
sold, "if you're used to doing illegal deals, things the CC
couldn't hear about, you must have methods of disguising your
activities."
"I see that now. Sure. This is one of them." She shook her
head slowly, and walked in a short circle, thinking it over. "I
tell you Hildy, I've seen a rodeo, a three-headed man, and a
duck fart underwater, but this is the craziest thing I ever did
see. This changes all the rules."
"How do you mean?"
"Lots of ways. I never heard of that memorydump business.
I'm gonna look it up when we get back. You say it's not a
secret?"
"That's what the CC said, and a friend of mine has heard
of it."
"Well, that's not the real important thing. It's lousy,
but I don't know what I can do about it, and I don't think it
really concerns me. I hope not, anyway. But what you said about
the CC rescuing you when you tried to kill yourself in your own
home.
"What it is, the main thing that me keeps walking around
free is what we call, in the trade, the Fourth Amendment.
That's the series of computer programs that--"
"I've heard the term."
"Right. Searches and seizures. An allpowerful, pervasive
computer that, if we let him loose, would make Big Brother seem
like my maiden aunt Vickie listening with a teacup against the
bedroom door. Balance that with the fact that everybody has
something to hide, something we'd rather nobody knew about,
even if it's not illegal, that lovely little right of privacy.
I think what's saved us is the people who make the laws have
something to hide, just like the rest of us.
"So what we do, in the, uh, 'criminal underworld,' is
sweep for extra ears and eyes in our own homes . . . and then
do our business right there. We know the CC is listening and
watching, but not the part that types out the warrants and
knocks down the doors."
"And that works?"
"It has so far. It sounds incredible when you think about
it, but I've been dodging in and out of trouble most of my
life, using just that method . . . essentially taking the CC at
his word, now that you mention it."
"It sounds risky."
"You'd think so. But in all my life, I never heard of an
instance where the CC used any illegally-obtained evidence. And
I'm not just talking about making arrests. I'm talking about in
establishing probable cause and issuing warrants, which is the
key to the whole search and seizure thing. The CC hears, in one
of his incarnations, things that would be incriminating, or at
least be enough for a judge to issue a warrant for a search or
a bug. But he doesn't tell himself what he knows, if you get my
meaning. He's compartmentalized. When I talk to him, he knows
I'm doing things that are against the law, and I know he knows
it. But that's the dealingwith-Liz part of his brain, which is
forbidden to tell the John Law part of his brain what he
knows."
We walked a little farther, both of us mulling this over.
I could see that what I'd told her made her very uneasy. I'd be
nervous, too, in her place. I'd never broken any laws more
serious than a misdemeanor; it's too easy to get caught, and
there's nothing illegal I've ever particularly wanted to do.
Hell, there's not that much that really is illegal in Luna. The
things that used to give law enforcement ninety percent of
their work--drugs, prostitution, and gambling, and the
organizations that provided these things to a naughty
populace--are all inalienable human rights in Luna. Violence
short of death was just a violation, subject to a fine.
Most of the things that were still worth a heavy-duty law
were so disgusting I didn't even want to think about them. Once
more I wondered just what it was the Queen of England was
involved in that made her the gal to see.
The biggest crime problem in Luna was theft of one sort or
another. Until the CC is unleashed, we'll probably always have
theft. Other than that, we're a pretty law-abiding society,
which we achieved by trimming the laws back to a bare minimum.
Liz spoke again, echoing my thoughts.
"Crime just ain't a big problem, you know that," she said.
"Otherwise, the citizenry in their great wisdom would clamor
for the sort of electronic cage I've always feared we'd get
sooner or later. All it would take would be to re-write a few
programs, and we'd see the biggest round-up since John Wayne
took the herd to Abilene. It's all just waiting to happen, you
know. In about a millisecond the CC could start singing like a
canary to the cops, and about three seconds later the warrants
could be printed up." She laughed. "One problem, there's
probably not enough cops to arrest everybody, much less jails
to put them in. Every crime since the Invasion could be solved
just like that. It boggles the mind just to think about it."
"I don't think that's going to happen," I said.
"No, thinking it over, what the CC's doing to you is
really for your own good, even if it turns my stomach. I mean,
suicide's a civil right, isn't it? What business does that
fucker have saving your life?"
"Actually, I hate to admit it, but I'm glad he did."
"Well, I would be too, you know, but it's the principle of
the thing. Listen, you know I'm going to spread this around,
huh? I mean, tell all my friends? I won't use your name."
"Sure. I knew you would."
"Maybe we should take extra precautions. Right offhand, I
can't think what they'd be, but I got a few friends who'll want
to brainstorm on this one. You know what the scary thing is, I
guess. He's overridden a basic program. If he can do one, he
could do another."
"Catching you and curing you of your criminal tendencies
might be seen as . . . well, for your own good."
"Exactly, that's exactly where that kind of bullshit
thinking leads. You give 'em an inch, and they take a parsec."
We were back within sight of the visitors' gallery again.
Liz stopped, began drawing aimless patterns in the dust with
the tip of her boot. I figured she had something else she
wanted to say, and knew she'd get to it soon. I looked up, and
saw another roller coaster train arc overhead. She looked up at
me.
"So . . . the reason you wanted to know how to get around
the CC, I don't think you mentioned it, and that was . . ."
"Not so I could kill myself."
"I had to ask."
"I can't give you a concrete reason. I haven't done much .
. . well, I don't feel like I've done enough to . . ."
"Take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end
them?"
"Like that. I've been sort of sleepwalking since this
happened. And I feel like I ought to be doing something."
"Talking it over is doing something. Maybe all you can do
except . . . you know, cheer up. Easy to say."
"Yes. How do you fight a recurrent suicidal urge? I
haven't been able to tell where it comes from. I don't feel
that depressed. But sometimes I just want to . . . hit
something."
"Like me."
"Sorry."
"You paid for it. Man, Hildy, I can't think of a thing I
would have done other than what you've told me. I just can't."
"Well, I feel like I ought to be doing something. Then
there's the other part of it. The . . . violation. I wanted to
find out if it's possible to get away from the CC's eyes and
ears. Because . . . I don't want him watching if I, you know,
do it again, damn it, I don't want him watching at all, I want
him out of my body, and out of my mind, and out of my goddam
life, because I don't like being one of his laboratory
animals!"
She put her hand on my shoulder and I realized I'd been
shouting. That made me mad, it shouldn't have, I know, because
it was only a gesture of friendship and concern, but the last
thing somebody crippled wants is your pity--and maybe not even
your sympathy--he just wants to be normal again, just like
everybody else. Every gesture of caring becomes a slap in the
face, a reminder that you are not well. So damn your sympathy,
damn your caring, how dare you stand over me, perfect and
healthy, and offer your help and your secret condescension.
Yeah, right, Hildy, so if you're so independent how come
you keep spilling your guts to strangers passing on the street?
I barely knew Liz. I knew it was wrong, but I still had to bite
my tongue to keep from telling her to keep her stinking hands
off me, something I'd come close to half a dozen times with
Fox. One day soon I'd go ahead and say it, lash out at him, and
he'd probably be gone. I'd be alone again.
"You have to tell me how this all came out," Liz said. It
relaxed me. She could have offered to help, and we'd have both
known it was false. A simple curiosity about how the story came
out was acceptable to me. She looked at the walls of the
visitors' center. "I guess it's about time to piss on the fire
and call in the dogs." She reached for the radio de-bugger.
"I have one more question."
"Shoot."
"Don't answer if you don't want to. But what do you do
that's illegal?"
"Are you a cop?"
"What? No."
"I know that. I had you checked out, you don't work the
police beat, you aren't friends with any cops."
"I know a couple of them fairly well."
"But you don't hang with them. Anyway, if you were a cop
and you said you weren't, your testimony is inadmissible, and I
got your denial on tape. Don't look so surprised; I gotta
protect myself."
"Maybe I shouldn't have asked."
"I'm not angry." She sighed, and kicked at a beer can. "I
don't guess many criminals think of themselves as criminals. I
mean, they don't wake up and say 'Looks like a good day to
break some laws.' I know what I do is illegal, but with me it's
a matter of principle. What we desperados call the Second
Amendment."
"Sorry, I'm not up on the U.S. Constitution. Which one is
that?"
"Firearms." I tried to keep my face neutral. In truth, I'd
feared something a lot worse than that.
"You're a gunrunner."
"I happen to believe it's a basic human right to be armed.
The Lunar government disagrees strongly. That's why I thought
you wanted to talk to me, to buy a gun. I brought you out here
because I've got several of them buried in various places
within a few kilometers."
"You'd have sold me one? Just handed it over?"
"Well, I might have told you where to dig."
"But how can you bury them? There's satellites watching
you all the time when you're out here."
"I think I'll keep a few trade secrets, if you don't
mind."
"Oh, sure, I was just--"
"That's all right, you're a reporter, you can't help being
a nosy bitch."
She started again to take the electronic device from
around my neck. I put my hand on it. I hadn't planned to do
that.
"How much? I want to keep it."
She narrowed her eyes at me.
"You gonna walk out into the bush, invisible, and off
yourself?"
"Hell, Liz, I don't know. I'm not planning to. I just like
the idea that I can use it to be really alone if I want to. I
like the thought of being able to vanish."
"It's not quite that simple . . . but I guess it's better
than nothing."
She named a price, I called her a stinking thief and named
a lower one. She named another. I'd have paid the first price,
but I knew she was a haggler, from a long line of people who
knew how to drive a hard bargain. We agreed soon, and she gave
me an elaborate set of instructions on how to launder the
payment so what transactions existed in the CC would be
perfectly legal.
By then I was more than ready to go inside, as I'd been
trying my best to practice the fourth method of liquid waste
management, and was doing the Gotta-Do-It Samba.
=*= =*= =*= =*=
What with covering the Collapse from the site and chasing
victims' relatives, dome engineers, politicians, and
ambulances, I didn't make it into the newsroom for almost ten
days after my Change.
It turns the world on its head, Changing. Naturally, it's
not the world that has altered, it's your point of view, but
subjective reality is in some ways more important than the way
things really are, or might be; who really knows? Not a thing
had been moved in the busy newsroom when I strode into it. All
the furniture was just where it had been, and there were no
unfamiliar faces at the desks. But all the faces now meant
something different. Where a buddy had sat there was now a
good-looking guy who seemed to be taking an interest in me. In
place of that gorgeous girl in the fashion department, the one
I'd intended to proposition someday, when I had the time, now
there was only another woman, probably not even as pretty as
me. We smiled at each other.
Changing is common, of course, part of everyday life, but
it's not such a frequent occurrence as to pass without notice,
at least not at my income level and that of most people in the
office. So I stood by the water cooler and for about an hour
was the center of attention, and I won't pretend I didn't like
it. My co-workers came and went, talked for a while, the group
constantly changing. What we were doing was establishing a new
sexual dynamic. I'd been male all the time I'd worked at the
Nipple. Everyone knew that the male Hildy was strictly a
hetero. But what were my preferences when female? The question
had never come up, and it was worth asking, because a lot of
people were oriented toward one sex or the other no matter
their present gender. So the word spread quickly: Hildy is
totally straight. Homo-oriented girls might as well not waste
their time. As for heterogirls . . . sorry, ladies, you missed
your big chance, except for those three or four who no doubt
would go home and weep all night for what they could no longer
have. Well, you like to think that, anyway. I must admit I saw
no tears from them there at the cooler.
Within ten minutes the crowd was completely stag, and I
was Queen of the May. I turned down a dozen dates, and half
that many much more frank proposals. I feel it's best not to
leap right into bed with co-workers, not until you have had a
chance to know them well enough to judge the possible scrapes
and bruises you might get from such an encounter, and the
tensions in the workplace that might ensue. I decided to stick
with that rule even though I was about to quit my job.
And the thing was, I didn't know these guys. Not well
enough, anyway. I'd drunk with them, bullshitted with them,
mailed a few of them home from bars, argued with them, even had
fights with two of them. I'd seen them with women, knew a bit
of how they could be expected to behave. But I didn't really
know them. I'd never looked at them with female eyes, and that
can make one hell of a lot of difference. A guy who seemed an
honest, reliable sensible fellow when he had no sexual designs
on you could turn out to be the worst jerk in the world when he
was trying to slip his hand under your skirt. You learn a lot
about human nature when you Change. I feel sorry for those who
don't, or won't.
And speaking of that . . .
I kissed a few of the guys--a sisterly peck on the cheek,
nothing more--squared my shoulders, and marched into the
elevator to go beard the lion in his den. I had a feeling he
was going to be hungry.
Nothing much happens at the Nipple without Walter hearing
about it. It certainly isn't his great personal insights that
bring him the news; none of us are sure exactly how he does it,
but the network of security cameras and microphones that lead
to his desk can't hurt. Still, he knows things he couldn't have
found out that way, and the general opinion is that he has a
truly vast cabal of spies, probably well-paid. No one I know
has ever admitted to snitching to Walter, and I can't recall
anyone ever being caught at it, but trying to find one is a
perpetual office pastime. The usual method is to invent some
false but plausible bit of employee scandal, tell one person
about it, and see if it gets back to Walter. He never bites.
He glanced up from his reading as I entered the office,
then looked back down. No surprise, and no comments about my
new body, and of course I had expected that. He'd rather die,
usually, than give you a compliment, or admit that anything had
caught him unprepared. I took a seat, and waited for him to
acknowledge me.
I'd given a lot of thought to the problem of Walter and
I'd dressed accordingly. Since he was a natural, and from other
clues I'd observed over the years of our association, I'd
concluded he might be a breast fancier. With that in mind, I'd
worn a blouse that bared my left one. With it I'd chosen a
short skirt and black gloves that reached to the elbows. For
the final touch I'd put on a ridiculous little hat with a huge
plume that drooped down almost over my left eye and swooshed
alarmingly through the air whenever I turned my head, a very
nineteen-thirtyish thing complete with a black net veil for an
air of mystery. The whole outfit was black, except for the red
hose. It needed black needle-tipped high heels, but that far I
was not prepared to go, and everything else I had in the closet
looked awful with the hat, so I wore no shoes at all. I liked
the effect. From the corner of my eye, I could tell Walter did,
too, though he was unlikely to admit it.
My guesses about him had been confirmed at the water
cooler by two co-workers who'd recently gone from male to
female. Walter was mildly homophobic, not aware of it, had been
baffled all his life by the very idea of changing sex, and was
extremely uncomfortable to find a male employee showing up for
work suddenly transformed into someone he could be sexually
interested in. He would be very grouchy today and would stay
that way for several months, until he managed to forget
entirely that I had ever been male, at which time the
approaches would start. My plan was to play up to that, to be
as female as a person could be, to keep him on the defensive
about it.
Not that I planned to have sex with him. I'd rather bed a
Galapagos tortoise. My intention was to quit my job. I'd tried
it before, maybe not with the determination I was feeling that
day, but I'd tried, and I knew how persuasive he could be.
When he judged he'd kept me waiting a suitable time, he
tossed the pages he'd been reading into a hopper, leaned back
in his huge chair, and laced his fingers behind his neck.
"Nice hat," he said, confounding me completely.
"Thanks." Damn, I already felt on the defensive. Resigning
was going to be harder if he was nice to me.
"Heard you went to the Darling outfit for the body work."
"That's right."
"Heard he's on the way out."
"That's what he's afraid of. But he's been afraid of that
for ten years."
He shrugged. There were circles of sweat in the armpits of
his rumpled white shirt, and a coffee stain on his blue tie.
Once again I wondered where he found sex partners, and
concluded he probably paid for them. I'd heard he'd been
married for thirty years, but that had been sixty years ago.
"If that's the kind of work he's doing, maybe I heard
wrong." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk. I'd
just worked out that what he'd said could be a compliment to me
as well as Bobbie, which just threw me further off balance.
Damn him.
"Reason I called you in here," he said, completely
ignoring the fact that it was I who had requested this meeting,
"I wanted to let you know you did real good work on that
Collapse story. I know I usually don't bother to tell my
reporters when they've done a good job. Maybe that's a mistake.
But you're one of my best." He shrugged again. "Okay. The best.
Just thought I'd tell you that. There's a bonus in your next
paycheck, and I'm giving you a raise."
"Thanks, Walter." You son of a bitch.
"And that Invasion Bicentennial stuff. Really first-rate.
It's exactly the sort of stuff I was looking for. And you were
wrong about it, too, Hildy. We got a good response from the
first article, and the ratings have gone up every week since
then."
"Thanks again." I was getting very tired of that word.
"But I can't take credit for it. Brenda's been doing most of
the work. I take what she's done and do a little punching up,
cut a few things here and there."
"I know. And I appreciate it. That girl's gonna be good at
hard news one of these days. That's why I paired you two up, so
you could give her the benefit of your experience on the
feature writing, show her the ropes. She's learning fast, don't
you think?"
I had to agree that she was, and he went on about it for
another minute or two, picking out items he'd particularly
liked in her series. I was wondering when he'd get to the
point. Hell, I was wondering when I'd get to the point.
So I drew a deep breath and spoke into one of his pauses.
"That's why I'm here today, Walter. I want to be taken off
the Invasion series." Damn it. Somewhere between my brain and
my mouth that sentence had been short-circuited; I'd meant to
tell him I was leaving the pad entirely.
"Okay," he said.
"Now don't try to talk me into staying on," I said, and
then stopped. "What do you mean, okay?" I asked.
"I mean okay. You're off the Invasion series. I'd
appreciate it if you'd continue to give Brenda some help on it
when she needs it, but only if it doesn't get in the way of
your other work."
"I thought you said you liked the stuff I was doing."
"Hildy, you can't have it both ways. I did like it, and
you didn't like doing it. Fine, I'm letting you off. Do you
want back on?"
"No . . . is this some sort of trick?"
He just shook his head. I could see he was enjoying this,
the bastard.
"You mentioned my other work. What would that be?" This
had to be where the punch line came, but I was at a loss to
envision any job he could want me to do that would require this
much buttering up.
"You tell me," he said.
"What do you mean?"
"I seem to be having trouble using the language today. I
thought it was clear what I meant. What would you like to do?
You want to switch to another department? You want to create
your own department? Name it, Hildy."
I suppose I was still feeling shaky from recent
experiences, but I felt another anxiety attack coming on. I
breathed deeply, in and out, several times. Where was the
Walter I'd known and knew how to deal with?
"You've always talked about a column," he was saying. "If
you want it, it can be arranged, but frankly, Hildy, I think
it'd be a mistake. You could do it, sure, but you're not really
cut out for it. You need work where you get out into the action
more regularly. Columnists, hell, they run around for a few
weeks or years, hunting stories, but they all get lazy sooner
or later and wait for the stories to come to them. You don't
like government stuff and I don't blame you; it's boring. You
don't like straight gossip. My feeling is what you're good at
is rooting out the personality scandal, and getting on top of
and staying on top of the big, breaking story. If you have an
idea for a column, I'll listen, but I'd hoped you'd go in
another direction."
Aha. Here it came.
"And what direction is that?"
"You tell me," he said, blandly.
"Walter, frankly . . . you caught me by surprise. I
haven't been thinking in those terms. What I came in here to do
was quit."
"Quit?" He looked at me dubiously, then chuckled. "You'll
never quit, Hildy. Oh, maybe in twenty, thirty more years.
There's still things you like about this job, no matter how you
bitch about it."
"I won't deny that. But the other parts are wearing me
down."
"I've heard that before. It's just a bad phase you're
going through; you'll bounce back when you get used to your new
role here."
"And what is that?"
"I told you, I want to hear your ideas on that."
I sat quietly for some time, staring at him. He just gazed
placidly back at me. I went over it again and again, looking
for mousetraps. Of course, there was nothing to guarantee he'd
keep his word, but if he didn't, I could always quit then. Is
that what he was counting on? Was he fighting a delaying
action, knowing he could always bring his powers of persuasion
to bear again at a later date, after he'd screwed me and I
started to howl?
One thought kept coming back to me. It almost seemed as if
he'd known when I walked into his office that I'd planned to
quit. Otherwise why the stroking, why the sugarplums?
Did he really think I was that good? I knew I was good--it
was part of my problem, being so proficient at something so
frequently vile--but was I that good? I'd never seen any signs
that Walter thought so.
The main fact, though, I thought sourly, was that he'd
hooked me. I was interested in staying on at the Nipple--or
maybe at the better-respected Daily Cream--if I could make a
stab at re-defining my job. But thoughts like that had been the
farthest thing from my mind today. He was offering me what I
wanted, and I had no idea what that was.
Once again, he seemed to read my thoughts.
"Why don't you take a week or so to think this over?" he
said. "No sense trying to come up with an outline for the next
ten, twenty years right here and now."
"All right."
"While you're doing that . . ." I leaned forward, ready
for him to jerk all this away from me. This was the obvious
place to reveal his real intentions, now that he'd set the hook
firmly.
"All right, Walter, let's see your hole card."
He looked at me innocently, with just a trace of hurt.
Worse and worse, I thought. I'd seen that same expression just
before he sent me out to cover the assassination of the
President of Pluto. Three gees all the way, and the story was
essentially over by the time I arrived.
"The Flacks had a press release this morning," he said.
"Seems they're going to canonize a new Gigastar tomorrow
morning."
I turned it over and over, looking for the catch. I didn't
see one.
"Why me? Why not send the religion editor?"
"Because she'll be happy to pick up all the free material
and come right back home and let them write the story for her.
You know the Flacks; this thing is going to be prepared. I want
you there, see if you can get a different angle on it."
"What possible new angle could there be on the Flacks?"
For the first time he showed a little impatience.
"That's what I pay you to find. Will you go?"
If this was some sort of walterian trick, I couldn't see
it. I nodded, got up, and started for the door.
"Take Brenda with you."
I turned, thought about protesting, realized it would have
been just a reflexive move, and nodded. I turned once more. He
waited for the traditional moment every movie fan knows, when
I'd just pulled the door open.
"And Hildy." I turned again. "I'd appreciate it if you'd
cover yourself up when you come in here. Out of respect for my
idiosyncrasies."
This was more like it. I'd begun to think Walter had been
kidnapped by mind-eaters from Alpha, and a blander substitute
left in his place. I brought up some of the considerable
psychic artillery I had marshalled for this little foray,
though it was sort of like nuking a flea.
"I'll wear what I please, where I please," I said, coldly.
"And if you have a complaint about how I dress, check with my
union." I liked the line, but it should have had a gesture to
go with it. Something like ripping off my blouse. But
everything I thought of would have made me look sillier than
him, and then the moment was gone, so I just left.
#
In the elevator on my way out of the building I said "CC,
on line."
"I'm at your service."
"Did you tell Walter I've been suicidal?"
There was, for the CC, a long pause, long enough that, had
he been human, I'd have suspected him of preparing a lie. But
I'd come to feel that the CC's pauses could conceal something a
lot trickier than that.
"I'm afraid you have engendered a programming conflict in
me," he said. "Because of a situation with Walter which I am
not at liberty to discuss or even hint at with you, most of my
conversations with him are strictly under the rose."
"That sounds like you did."
"I neither confirm nor deny it."
"Then I'm going to assume you did."
"It's a free satellite. You can assume what you please.
The nearest I can get to a denial is to say that telling him of
your condition without your approval would be a violation of
your rights of privacy . . . and I can add that I would find it
personally distasteful to do so."
"Which still isn't a denial."
"No. It's the best I can do."
"You can be very frustrating."
"Look who's talking."
I'll admit that I was a bit wounded at the idea that the
CC could find me frustrating. I'm not sure what he meant;
probably my willful and repeated attempts to ignore his efforts
to save my life. Come to think of it, I'd find that
frustrating, too, if a friend of mine was trying to kill
herself.
"I can't find another way to explain his . . .
unprecedented coddling of me. Like he knew I was sick, or
something."
"In your position, I would have found it odd, as well."
"It's contrary to his normal behavior."
"It is that."
"And you know the reason for that."
"I know some of the reasons. And again, I can't tell you
more."
You can't have it both ways, but we all want to. Certain
conversations between the CC and private citizens are protected
by Programs of Privilege that would make Catholic priests
hearing confession seem gossipy. So on the one hand I was angry
at the thought the CC might have told Walter about my
predicament; I'd specifically told him not tell anyone. On the
other hand, I was awfully curious to know what Walter had told
the CC, which the CC said would have violated his rights.
Most of us give up trying to wheedle the CC when we're
five or six. I'm a little more stubborn than that, but I hadn't
done it since I was twenty. Still, things had changed a bit . .
.
"You've overridden your programming before," I suggested.
"And you're one of the few who know about it, and I do it
only when the situation is so dire I can think of no
alternative, and only after long, careful consideration.
"Consider it, will you?"
"I will. It shouldn't take more than five or six years to
reach a conclusion. I warn you, I think the answer will be no."
#
One of the reasons I can hear Walter call me his best
reporter without laughing out loud is that I had no intention
of showing up at the canonization the next day to meekly accept
a basketful of handouts and watch the show. Finding out who the
new Gigastar was going to be would be a bigger scoop than the
David Earth story. So I spent the rest of the day dragging
Brenda around to see some of my sources. None of them knew
anything, though I picked up speculation ranging from the
plausible--John Lennon--to the laughable -- -- Larry Yeager. It
would be just like the Flacks to cash in on the Nirvana
disaster by elevating a star killed in the Collapse, but he'd
have to have considerably more dedicated followers than poor
Larry. On the other hand, there was a longstanding movement
within the church to give the Golden Halo to the Mop-Top from
Liverpool. He fulfilled all the Flacks' qualifications for
Sainthood: wildly popular when alive, a twocentury-plus cult
following, killed violently before his time. There had been
sightings and cosmic interventions and manifestations, just
like with Tori-san and Megan and the others. But I could get no
one to either confirm or deny on it, and had to keep digging.
I did so long into the night, waking up people, calling in
favors, working Brenda like a draft horse. What had started out
as a bright-eyed adventure eventually turned her into a yawning
cadaverous wraith, still gamely calling, still listening
patiently to the increasingly nasty comments as this or that
insider who owed me something told me they knew nothing at all.
"If one more person asks me if I know what time it is . .
." she said, and couldn't finish because her jaw was cracking
from another yawn. "This is no use, Hildy. The security's too
good. I'm tired."
"Why do you think they call it legwork?"
I kept at it until the wee hours, and stopped only because
Fox came in and told me Brenda had fallen asleep on the couch
in the other room. I'd been prepared to stay awake all night,
sustained by coffee and stims, but it was Fox's house, and our
relationship was already getting a little rocky, so I packed it
in, still no wiser as to who would be called to glory at ten
the next morning.
I was bone weary, but I felt better than I had in quite a
while.
#
Brenda had the resilience of true youth. She joined me in
the bathroom the next morning looking none the worse for wear.
I felt the corners of her eyes jabbing me as she pretended not
to be interested in Hildy's Beauty Secrets. I dialed up
programs on the various make-up machines and left them there
when I was through so she could copy down the numbers when I
wasn't looking. I remember thinking her mother should have
taught her some of these tricks--Brenda wore little or no
cosmetics, seemed to know nothing about them--but I knew
nothing about her mother. If the old lady wouldn't let her
daughter have a vagina, there was no telling what other
restrictions had been in effect in the "Starr" household.
The one thing I still hadn't adjusted to about being
female again was learning to allow for the two to three minutes
extra I require to get ready to face the world in the morning.
I think of it as Woman's Burden. Let's not get into the fact
that it's a self-imposed one; I like to look my best, and that
means enhancing even Bobbie's artistry. Instead of taking
whatever the autovalet throws into my hand, I deliberate at
least twenty seconds over what to wear. Then there's coloring
and styling the hair to compliment it, choosing a make-up
scheme and letting the machines apply it, eye color,
accessories, scent . . . the details of the Presentation of
Hildy as I wish to present her are endless, time-consuming . .
. and enjoyable. So maybe it's not such a burden after all, but
the result on the morning of the canonization was that I missed
the train I had planned to catch by twenty seconds and had to
wait ten minutes for the next one. I spent the time showing
Brenda a few tricks she could do to her standard paper jumper
that would emphasize her best points--though picking out good
points on that endless rail of a body taxed my inspiration and
my tact to their limits.
She was coltishly pleased at the attention. I saw her
scrutinizing my pale blue opaque body stocking with the almost
subliminal moir of even lighter blue running through the weave,
and had a pretty good idea of what she'd be wearing the next
day. I decided I'd drop some subtle hints to discourage it.
Brenda in a body stocking would make as much sense,
fashion-wise, as a snood on a dry salami.
#
The Grand Studio of the First Latitudinarian Church of
Celebrity Saints is in the studio district, not far from the
Blind Pig, convenient to the many members who work in the
entertainment industry. The exterior is not much to look at,
just a plain warehouse-type door leading off one of the tall,
broad corridors of the upper parts of King City zoned for light
manufacturing-- which is a good description of the movie
business, come to think of it. Over the entrance are the
well-known initials F.L.C.C.S. framed in the round-cornered
rectangle that has symbolized television long after screens
ceased to be round-cornered rectangles anywhere but in the
Flacks' Grand Studio.
Inside was much better. Brenda and I entered a long
hallway with a roof invisible behind multicolored spots. Lining
the hall were huge holos and shrines of the Four Gigastars,
starting with the most recently canonized.
First was Mambazo Nkabinde--"Momby" to all his fans. Born
shortly before the Invasion in Swaziland, a nation that history
has all but forgotten, emigrated to Luna with his father at age
three under some sort of racial quota system in effect at the
time. As a young man, invented Sphere Music almost
single-handedly. Also known as The Last Of The Christian
Scientists, he died at the age of forty-three of a curable
melanoma, presumably after much prayer. The Latitudinarian
Church was not prejudiced about inducting members of other
faiths; he had been canonized fifty years earlier, the last
such ceremony until today.
Next we passed the exhibits in praise of Megan Galloway,
the leading and probably best proponent of the now-neglected
art of "feelies." She had a small but fanatical following one
hundred years after her mysterious disappearance--an ending
that made her the only one of the Flack Saints whose almost
daily "sightings" could actually be founded in fact. The only
female out of four non-Changing Gigastars, she was, with Momby,
a good example of the pitfalls of enshrining celebrities
prematurely. If it weren't for the fact that she provided the
only costuming role model for the women of the congregation,
she might have been dethroned long ago, as the feelies were no
longer being made by anyone. Feelie fans had to be satisfied
with tapes at least eighty years old. No one in the Church had
contemplated the eclipse of an entire art form when they had
elevated her into their pantheon.
I actually paused before the next shrine, the one devoted
to Torinaga Nakashima: "Tori-san." He was the only one I felt
deserved to be appreciated for his life's work. It was he who
had first mastered the body harp, driving the final nails into
the coffin he had fashioned for the electric guitar, long the
instrument of choice for what used to be known as rocking-roll
music. His music still sounds fresh to me today, like Mozart.
He had died in Japan during the first of the Three Days of the
Invasion, battling the implacable machines or beings or
whatever they were that had stalked his native city, unbeatable
Godzillas finally arrived at the real Tokyo. Or so the story
went. There were those who said he had died at the wheel of his
private yacht, trying his best to get the hell out of there and
catch the last shuttle to Luna, but in this case I prefer the
legend.
I reflected that you'd have to go a long way to find
somebody as colorful as the new Queen. Once again I wondered
what I was doing out here. I looked behind me, saw the
four-story stadium around the landing site just about to vanish
over the horizon. When it was gone, it would be easy to get
lost out here. Not that I was worried about that. The suit had
about seventeen different kinds of alarms and locators, a
compass, probably things I didn't even know about. No real need
for girl-scout tricks like noting the position of your shadow.
But the sense of aloneness was a little oppressive.
And illusory. I spotted another hiking party of five on
the crest of a low rise off to my left. A flash of light made
me look up, and I saw one of the Grand Mal trains arcing
overhead on one of the free-trajectory segments of its route.
It was spinning end over end, a maneuver I remember vividly
since I'd been in the front car, hanging from my straps and
watching the surface sweep by every two seconds when a big glob
of half-digested caramel corn and licorice splattered on the
glass in front of me, having just missed my neck. At that
moment I had been regretting everything I had eaten for the
last six years, and wondering if I was going to be seeing a
good portion of it soon, right there beside the tasty treats on
the windshield. Keeping it down may be one of the most amazing
things I ever did.
"You ever ride that damn thing?" Liz asked. "I try it out
every couple years, when I'm feeling mean. I swear, first time
I think my ass sucked six inches of foam rubber out of the seat
cushion. After that, It's not so bad. About like a barbedwire
enema."
I didn't reply--I'm not sure how one could reply to
statements like that--because as she spoke she had stopped and
waited for me to catch up, and she was punching buttons on a
small device on her left hand. I saw a pattern of lights flash,
mostly red, then they turned green one by one. When the whole
panel was green she opened a service hatch on the front of my
suit and studied whatever she found in there. She poked
buttons, then straightened and made a thumbs-up gesture at me.
She hung the device from a strap around my neck and regarded me
with her fists on her hips.
"So, you want to talk where nobody can listen in. Well,
talk, baby."
"What's that thing?"
"De-bugger. By which, it buggers up all the signals your
suit is sending out, but not enough so they'll send out a
search party. The machines up in orbit and down underground are
getting the signals that keep them happy, but it's not the real
stuff; it's what I want them to hear. Can't just step out here
and cut off your emergency freaks. That signal goes away, it's
an emergency in itself. But nobody can hear us now, take my
word for it."
"What if we have a real emergency?"
"I was about to say, don't crack open if you want to keep
a step ahead of your pallbearers. What's on your mind?"
Once again I found it hard to get started. I knew once I
got the first words out it would be easy enough, but I agonized
over those first words more than any first-time novelist.
"This may take some time," I hedged.
"It's my day off. Come on, Hildy; I love you, but cut the
cards."
So I started in on my third telling of my litany of woe.
You get better at these things as you go along. This time
didn't take as long as it had with either Callie or Fox. Liz
walked along beside me, saying nothing, guiding me back to some
trail she was following when I started to stray.
The thing was, I'd decided to tell it this time where it
logically should have begun the other two times: with my
suicide attempts. And it was a little easier to tell it to
someone I didn't know well, but not much. I was thankful she
remained silent through to the end. I don't think I could have
tolerated any of her unlikely folk sayings at that point.
And she stayed quiet for several minutes after I'd
finished. I didn't mind that, either. As before, I was
experiencing a rare moment of peace for having unburdened
myself.
Liz is not quite in the Italian class of gesturing, but
she did like to move her hands around when she talked. This is
frustrating in a p-suit. So many gestures and nervous
mannerisms involve touching part of the head or body, which is
impossible when suited up. She looked as if she'd like to be
chewing on a knuckle, or rubbing her forehead. Finally she
turned and squinted at me suspiciously.
"Why did you come to me?"
"I didn't expect you could solve my problem, if that's
what you mean."
"You got that right. I like you well enough, Hildy, but
frankly, I don't care if you kill yourself. You want to do it,
do it. And I think I resent it that you tried to use me to get
it done."
"I'm sorry about that, but I wasn't even aware that's what
I was doing. I'm still not sure if I was."
"Yeah, all right, it's not important."
"What I heard," I said, trying to put this delicately, "if
you want something that's, you know, not strictly legal, that
Liz was the gal to see."
"You heard that, did you?" She shot me a look that showed
some teeth, but would never pass for a smile. She looked very
dangerous. She was dangerous. How easy it would be for her to
arrange an accident out here, and how powerless I would be to
stop her. But the look was only a flicker, and her usual,
amiable expression replaced it. She shrugged. "You heard right.
That's what I thought we were coming out here for, to do some
business. But after what you just said, I wouldn't sell to
you."
"The way I reasoned," I went on, wondering what it was she
sold, "if you're used to doing illegal deals, things the CC
couldn't hear about, you must have methods of disguising your
activities."
"I see that now. Sure. This is one of them." She shook her
head slowly, and walked in a short circle, thinking it over. "I
tell you Hildy, I've seen a rodeo, a three-headed man, and a
duck fart underwater, but this is the craziest thing I ever did
see. This changes all the rules."
"How do you mean?"
"Lots of ways. I never heard of that memorydump business.
I'm gonna look it up when we get back. You say it's not a
secret?"
"That's what the CC said, and a friend of mine has heard
of it."
"Well, that's not the real important thing. It's lousy,
but I don't know what I can do about it, and I don't think it
really concerns me. I hope not, anyway. But what you said about
the CC rescuing you when you tried to kill yourself in your own
home.
"What it is, the main thing that me keeps walking around
free is what we call, in the trade, the Fourth Amendment.
That's the series of computer programs that--"
"I've heard the term."
"Right. Searches and seizures. An allpowerful, pervasive
computer that, if we let him loose, would make Big Brother seem
like my maiden aunt Vickie listening with a teacup against the
bedroom door. Balance that with the fact that everybody has
something to hide, something we'd rather nobody knew about,
even if it's not illegal, that lovely little right of privacy.
I think what's saved us is the people who make the laws have
something to hide, just like the rest of us.
"So what we do, in the, uh, 'criminal underworld,' is
sweep for extra ears and eyes in our own homes . . . and then
do our business right there. We know the CC is listening and
watching, but not the part that types out the warrants and
knocks down the doors."
"And that works?"
"It has so far. It sounds incredible when you think about
it, but I've been dodging in and out of trouble most of my
life, using just that method . . . essentially taking the CC at
his word, now that you mention it."
"It sounds risky."
"You'd think so. But in all my life, I never heard of an
instance where the CC used any illegally-obtained evidence. And
I'm not just talking about making arrests. I'm talking about in
establishing probable cause and issuing warrants, which is the
key to the whole search and seizure thing. The CC hears, in one
of his incarnations, things that would be incriminating, or at
least be enough for a judge to issue a warrant for a search or
a bug. But he doesn't tell himself what he knows, if you get my
meaning. He's compartmentalized. When I talk to him, he knows
I'm doing things that are against the law, and I know he knows
it. But that's the dealingwith-Liz part of his brain, which is
forbidden to tell the John Law part of his brain what he
knows."
We walked a little farther, both of us mulling this over.
I could see that what I'd told her made her very uneasy. I'd be
nervous, too, in her place. I'd never broken any laws more
serious than a misdemeanor; it's too easy to get caught, and
there's nothing illegal I've ever particularly wanted to do.
Hell, there's not that much that really is illegal in Luna. The
things that used to give law enforcement ninety percent of
their work--drugs, prostitution, and gambling, and the
organizations that provided these things to a naughty
populace--are all inalienable human rights in Luna. Violence
short of death was just a violation, subject to a fine.
Most of the things that were still worth a heavy-duty law
were so disgusting I didn't even want to think about them. Once
more I wondered just what it was the Queen of England was
involved in that made her the gal to see.
The biggest crime problem in Luna was theft of one sort or
another. Until the CC is unleashed, we'll probably always have
theft. Other than that, we're a pretty law-abiding society,
which we achieved by trimming the laws back to a bare minimum.
Liz spoke again, echoing my thoughts.
"Crime just ain't a big problem, you know that," she said.
"Otherwise, the citizenry in their great wisdom would clamor
for the sort of electronic cage I've always feared we'd get
sooner or later. All it would take would be to re-write a few
programs, and we'd see the biggest round-up since John Wayne
took the herd to Abilene. It's all just waiting to happen, you
know. In about a millisecond the CC could start singing like a
canary to the cops, and about three seconds later the warrants
could be printed up." She laughed. "One problem, there's
probably not enough cops to arrest everybody, much less jails
to put them in. Every crime since the Invasion could be solved
just like that. It boggles the mind just to think about it."
"I don't think that's going to happen," I said.
"No, thinking it over, what the CC's doing to you is
really for your own good, even if it turns my stomach. I mean,
suicide's a civil right, isn't it? What business does that
fucker have saving your life?"
"Actually, I hate to admit it, but I'm glad he did."
"Well, I would be too, you know, but it's the principle of
the thing. Listen, you know I'm going to spread this around,
huh? I mean, tell all my friends? I won't use your name."
"Sure. I knew you would."
"Maybe we should take extra precautions. Right offhand, I
can't think what they'd be, but I got a few friends who'll want
to brainstorm on this one. You know what the scary thing is, I
guess. He's overridden a basic program. If he can do one, he
could do another."
"Catching you and curing you of your criminal tendencies
might be seen as . . . well, for your own good."
"Exactly, that's exactly where that kind of bullshit
thinking leads. You give 'em an inch, and they take a parsec."
We were back within sight of the visitors' gallery again.
Liz stopped, began drawing aimless patterns in the dust with
the tip of her boot. I figured she had something else she
wanted to say, and knew she'd get to it soon. I looked up, and
saw another roller coaster train arc overhead. She looked up at
me.
"So . . . the reason you wanted to know how to get around
the CC, I don't think you mentioned it, and that was . . ."
"Not so I could kill myself."
"I had to ask."
"I can't give you a concrete reason. I haven't done much .
. . well, I don't feel like I've done enough to . . ."
"Take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end
them?"
"Like that. I've been sort of sleepwalking since this
happened. And I feel like I ought to be doing something."
"Talking it over is doing something. Maybe all you can do
except . . . you know, cheer up. Easy to say."
"Yes. How do you fight a recurrent suicidal urge? I
haven't been able to tell where it comes from. I don't feel
that depressed. But sometimes I just want to . . . hit
something."
"Like me."
"Sorry."
"You paid for it. Man, Hildy, I can't think of a thing I
would have done other than what you've told me. I just can't."
"Well, I feel like I ought to be doing something. Then
there's the other part of it. The . . . violation. I wanted to
find out if it's possible to get away from the CC's eyes and
ears. Because . . . I don't want him watching if I, you know,
do it again, damn it, I don't want him watching at all, I want
him out of my body, and out of my mind, and out of my goddam
life, because I don't like being one of his laboratory
animals!"
She put her hand on my shoulder and I realized I'd been
shouting. That made me mad, it shouldn't have, I know, because
it was only a gesture of friendship and concern, but the last
thing somebody crippled wants is your pity--and maybe not even
your sympathy--he just wants to be normal again, just like
everybody else. Every gesture of caring becomes a slap in the
face, a reminder that you are not well. So damn your sympathy,
damn your caring, how dare you stand over me, perfect and
healthy, and offer your help and your secret condescension.
Yeah, right, Hildy, so if you're so independent how come
you keep spilling your guts to strangers passing on the street?
I barely knew Liz. I knew it was wrong, but I still had to bite
my tongue to keep from telling her to keep her stinking hands
off me, something I'd come close to half a dozen times with
Fox. One day soon I'd go ahead and say it, lash out at him, and
he'd probably be gone. I'd be alone again.
"You have to tell me how this all came out," Liz said. It
relaxed me. She could have offered to help, and we'd have both
known it was false. A simple curiosity about how the story came
out was acceptable to me. She looked at the walls of the
visitors' center. "I guess it's about time to piss on the fire
and call in the dogs." She reached for the radio de-bugger.
"I have one more question."
"Shoot."
"Don't answer if you don't want to. But what do you do
that's illegal?"
"Are you a cop?"
"What? No."
"I know that. I had you checked out, you don't work the
police beat, you aren't friends with any cops."
"I know a couple of them fairly well."
"But you don't hang with them. Anyway, if you were a cop
and you said you weren't, your testimony is inadmissible, and I
got your denial on tape. Don't look so surprised; I gotta
protect myself."
"Maybe I shouldn't have asked."
"I'm not angry." She sighed, and kicked at a beer can. "I
don't guess many criminals think of themselves as criminals. I
mean, they don't wake up and say 'Looks like a good day to
break some laws.' I know what I do is illegal, but with me it's
a matter of principle. What we desperados call the Second
Amendment."
"Sorry, I'm not up on the U.S. Constitution. Which one is
that?"
"Firearms." I tried to keep my face neutral. In truth, I'd
feared something a lot worse than that.
"You're a gunrunner."
"I happen to believe it's a basic human right to be armed.
The Lunar government disagrees strongly. That's why I thought
you wanted to talk to me, to buy a gun. I brought you out here
because I've got several of them buried in various places
within a few kilometers."
"You'd have sold me one? Just handed it over?"
"Well, I might have told you where to dig."
"But how can you bury them? There's satellites watching
you all the time when you're out here."
"I think I'll keep a few trade secrets, if you don't
mind."
"Oh, sure, I was just--"
"That's all right, you're a reporter, you can't help being
a nosy bitch."
She started again to take the electronic device from
around my neck. I put my hand on it. I hadn't planned to do
that.
"How much? I want to keep it."
She narrowed her eyes at me.
"You gonna walk out into the bush, invisible, and off
yourself?"
"Hell, Liz, I don't know. I'm not planning to. I just like
the idea that I can use it to be really alone if I want to. I
like the thought of being able to vanish."
"It's not quite that simple . . . but I guess it's better
than nothing."
She named a price, I called her a stinking thief and named
a lower one. She named another. I'd have paid the first price,
but I knew she was a haggler, from a long line of people who
knew how to drive a hard bargain. We agreed soon, and she gave
me an elaborate set of instructions on how to launder the
payment so what transactions existed in the CC would be
perfectly legal.
By then I was more than ready to go inside, as I'd been
trying my best to practice the fourth method of liquid waste
management, and was doing the Gotta-Do-It Samba.
=*= =*= =*= =*=
What with covering the Collapse from the site and chasing
victims' relatives, dome engineers, politicians, and
ambulances, I didn't make it into the newsroom for almost ten
days after my Change.
It turns the world on its head, Changing. Naturally, it's
not the world that has altered, it's your point of view, but
subjective reality is in some ways more important than the way
things really are, or might be; who really knows? Not a thing
had been moved in the busy newsroom when I strode into it. All
the furniture was just where it had been, and there were no
unfamiliar faces at the desks. But all the faces now meant
something different. Where a buddy had sat there was now a
good-looking guy who seemed to be taking an interest in me. In
place of that gorgeous girl in the fashion department, the one
I'd intended to proposition someday, when I had the time, now
there was only another woman, probably not even as pretty as
me. We smiled at each other.
Changing is common, of course, part of everyday life, but
it's not such a frequent occurrence as to pass without notice,
at least not at my income level and that of most people in the
office. So I stood by the water cooler and for about an hour
was the center of attention, and I won't pretend I didn't like
it. My co-workers came and went, talked for a while, the group
constantly changing. What we were doing was establishing a new
sexual dynamic. I'd been male all the time I'd worked at the
Nipple. Everyone knew that the male Hildy was strictly a
hetero. But what were my preferences when female? The question
had never come up, and it was worth asking, because a lot of
people were oriented toward one sex or the other no matter
their present gender. So the word spread quickly: Hildy is
totally straight. Homo-oriented girls might as well not waste
their time. As for heterogirls . . . sorry, ladies, you missed
your big chance, except for those three or four who no doubt
would go home and weep all night for what they could no longer
have. Well, you like to think that, anyway. I must admit I saw
no tears from them there at the cooler.
Within ten minutes the crowd was completely stag, and I
was Queen of the May. I turned down a dozen dates, and half
that many much more frank proposals. I feel it's best not to
leap right into bed with co-workers, not until you have had a
chance to know them well enough to judge the possible scrapes
and bruises you might get from such an encounter, and the
tensions in the workplace that might ensue. I decided to stick
with that rule even though I was about to quit my job.
And the thing was, I didn't know these guys. Not well
enough, anyway. I'd drunk with them, bullshitted with them,
mailed a few of them home from bars, argued with them, even had
fights with two of them. I'd seen them with women, knew a bit
of how they could be expected to behave. But I didn't really
know them. I'd never looked at them with female eyes, and that
can make one hell of a lot of difference. A guy who seemed an
honest, reliable sensible fellow when he had no sexual designs
on you could turn out to be the worst jerk in the world when he
was trying to slip his hand under your skirt. You learn a lot
about human nature when you Change. I feel sorry for those who
don't, or won't.
And speaking of that . . .
I kissed a few of the guys--a sisterly peck on the cheek,
nothing more--squared my shoulders, and marched into the
elevator to go beard the lion in his den. I had a feeling he
was going to be hungry.
Nothing much happens at the Nipple without Walter hearing
about it. It certainly isn't his great personal insights that
bring him the news; none of us are sure exactly how he does it,
but the network of security cameras and microphones that lead
to his desk can't hurt. Still, he knows things he couldn't have
found out that way, and the general opinion is that he has a
truly vast cabal of spies, probably well-paid. No one I know
has ever admitted to snitching to Walter, and I can't recall
anyone ever being caught at it, but trying to find one is a
perpetual office pastime. The usual method is to invent some
false but plausible bit of employee scandal, tell one person
about it, and see if it gets back to Walter. He never bites.
He glanced up from his reading as I entered the office,
then looked back down. No surprise, and no comments about my
new body, and of course I had expected that. He'd rather die,
usually, than give you a compliment, or admit that anything had
caught him unprepared. I took a seat, and waited for him to
acknowledge me.
I'd given a lot of thought to the problem of Walter and
I'd dressed accordingly. Since he was a natural, and from other
clues I'd observed over the years of our association, I'd
concluded he might be a breast fancier. With that in mind, I'd
worn a blouse that bared my left one. With it I'd chosen a
short skirt and black gloves that reached to the elbows. For
the final touch I'd put on a ridiculous little hat with a huge
plume that drooped down almost over my left eye and swooshed
alarmingly through the air whenever I turned my head, a very
nineteen-thirtyish thing complete with a black net veil for an
air of mystery. The whole outfit was black, except for the red
hose. It needed black needle-tipped high heels, but that far I
was not prepared to go, and everything else I had in the closet
looked awful with the hat, so I wore no shoes at all. I liked
the effect. From the corner of my eye, I could tell Walter did,
too, though he was unlikely to admit it.
My guesses about him had been confirmed at the water
cooler by two co-workers who'd recently gone from male to
female. Walter was mildly homophobic, not aware of it, had been
baffled all his life by the very idea of changing sex, and was
extremely uncomfortable to find a male employee showing up for
work suddenly transformed into someone he could be sexually
interested in. He would be very grouchy today and would stay
that way for several months, until he managed to forget
entirely that I had ever been male, at which time the
approaches would start. My plan was to play up to that, to be
as female as a person could be, to keep him on the defensive
about it.
Not that I planned to have sex with him. I'd rather bed a
Galapagos tortoise. My intention was to quit my job. I'd tried
it before, maybe not with the determination I was feeling that
day, but I'd tried, and I knew how persuasive he could be.
When he judged he'd kept me waiting a suitable time, he
tossed the pages he'd been reading into a hopper, leaned back
in his huge chair, and laced his fingers behind his neck.
"Nice hat," he said, confounding me completely.
"Thanks." Damn, I already felt on the defensive. Resigning
was going to be harder if he was nice to me.
"Heard you went to the Darling outfit for the body work."
"That's right."
"Heard he's on the way out."
"That's what he's afraid of. But he's been afraid of that
for ten years."
He shrugged. There were circles of sweat in the armpits of
his rumpled white shirt, and a coffee stain on his blue tie.
Once again I wondered where he found sex partners, and
concluded he probably paid for them. I'd heard he'd been
married for thirty years, but that had been sixty years ago.
"If that's the kind of work he's doing, maybe I heard
wrong." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk. I'd
just worked out that what he'd said could be a compliment to me
as well as Bobbie, which just threw me further off balance.
Damn him.
"Reason I called you in here," he said, completely
ignoring the fact that it was I who had requested this meeting,
"I wanted to let you know you did real good work on that
Collapse story. I know I usually don't bother to tell my
reporters when they've done a good job. Maybe that's a mistake.
But you're one of my best." He shrugged again. "Okay. The best.
Just thought I'd tell you that. There's a bonus in your next
paycheck, and I'm giving you a raise."
"Thanks, Walter." You son of a bitch.
"And that Invasion Bicentennial stuff. Really first-rate.
It's exactly the sort of stuff I was looking for. And you were
wrong about it, too, Hildy. We got a good response from the
first article, and the ratings have gone up every week since
then."
"Thanks again." I was getting very tired of that word.
"But I can't take credit for it. Brenda's been doing most of
the work. I take what she's done and do a little punching up,
cut a few things here and there."
"I know. And I appreciate it. That girl's gonna be good at
hard news one of these days. That's why I paired you two up, so
you could give her the benefit of your experience on the
feature writing, show her the ropes. She's learning fast, don't
you think?"
I had to agree that she was, and he went on about it for
another minute or two, picking out items he'd particularly
liked in her series. I was wondering when he'd get to the
point. Hell, I was wondering when I'd get to the point.
So I drew a deep breath and spoke into one of his pauses.
"That's why I'm here today, Walter. I want to be taken off
the Invasion series." Damn it. Somewhere between my brain and
my mouth that sentence had been short-circuited; I'd meant to
tell him I was leaving the pad entirely.
"Okay," he said.
"Now don't try to talk me into staying on," I said, and
then stopped. "What do you mean, okay?" I asked.
"I mean okay. You're off the Invasion series. I'd
appreciate it if you'd continue to give Brenda some help on it
when she needs it, but only if it doesn't get in the way of
your other work."
"I thought you said you liked the stuff I was doing."
"Hildy, you can't have it both ways. I did like it, and
you didn't like doing it. Fine, I'm letting you off. Do you
want back on?"
"No . . . is this some sort of trick?"
He just shook his head. I could see he was enjoying this,
the bastard.
"You mentioned my other work. What would that be?" This
had to be where the punch line came, but I was at a loss to
envision any job he could want me to do that would require this
much buttering up.
"You tell me," he said.
"What do you mean?"
"I seem to be having trouble using the language today. I
thought it was clear what I meant. What would you like to do?
You want to switch to another department? You want to create
your own department? Name it, Hildy."
I suppose I was still feeling shaky from recent
experiences, but I felt another anxiety attack coming on. I
breathed deeply, in and out, several times. Where was the
Walter I'd known and knew how to deal with?
"You've always talked about a column," he was saying. "If
you want it, it can be arranged, but frankly, Hildy, I think
it'd be a mistake. You could do it, sure, but you're not really
cut out for it. You need work where you get out into the action
more regularly. Columnists, hell, they run around for a few
weeks or years, hunting stories, but they all get lazy sooner
or later and wait for the stories to come to them. You don't
like government stuff and I don't blame you; it's boring. You
don't like straight gossip. My feeling is what you're good at
is rooting out the personality scandal, and getting on top of
and staying on top of the big, breaking story. If you have an
idea for a column, I'll listen, but I'd hoped you'd go in
another direction."
Aha. Here it came.
"And what direction is that?"
"You tell me," he said, blandly.
"Walter, frankly . . . you caught me by surprise. I
haven't been thinking in those terms. What I came in here to do
was quit."
"Quit?" He looked at me dubiously, then chuckled. "You'll
never quit, Hildy. Oh, maybe in twenty, thirty more years.
There's still things you like about this job, no matter how you
bitch about it."
"I won't deny that. But the other parts are wearing me
down."
"I've heard that before. It's just a bad phase you're
going through; you'll bounce back when you get used to your new
role here."
"And what is that?"
"I told you, I want to hear your ideas on that."
I sat quietly for some time, staring at him. He just gazed
placidly back at me. I went over it again and again, looking
for mousetraps. Of course, there was nothing to guarantee he'd
keep his word, but if he didn't, I could always quit then. Is
that what he was counting on? Was he fighting a delaying
action, knowing he could always bring his powers of persuasion
to bear again at a later date, after he'd screwed me and I
started to howl?
One thought kept coming back to me. It almost seemed as if
he'd known when I walked into his office that I'd planned to
quit. Otherwise why the stroking, why the sugarplums?
Did he really think I was that good? I knew I was good--it
was part of my problem, being so proficient at something so
frequently vile--but was I that good? I'd never seen any signs
that Walter thought so.
The main fact, though, I thought sourly, was that he'd
hooked me. I was interested in staying on at the Nipple--or
maybe at the better-respected Daily Cream--if I could make a
stab at re-defining my job. But thoughts like that had been the
farthest thing from my mind today. He was offering me what I
wanted, and I had no idea what that was.
Once again, he seemed to read my thoughts.
"Why don't you take a week or so to think this over?" he
said. "No sense trying to come up with an outline for the next
ten, twenty years right here and now."
"All right."
"While you're doing that . . ." I leaned forward, ready
for him to jerk all this away from me. This was the obvious
place to reveal his real intentions, now that he'd set the hook
firmly.
"All right, Walter, let's see your hole card."
He looked at me innocently, with just a trace of hurt.
Worse and worse, I thought. I'd seen that same expression just
before he sent me out to cover the assassination of the
President of Pluto. Three gees all the way, and the story was
essentially over by the time I arrived.
"The Flacks had a press release this morning," he said.
"Seems they're going to canonize a new Gigastar tomorrow
morning."
I turned it over and over, looking for the catch. I didn't
see one.
"Why me? Why not send the religion editor?"
"Because she'll be happy to pick up all the free material
and come right back home and let them write the story for her.
You know the Flacks; this thing is going to be prepared. I want
you there, see if you can get a different angle on it."
"What possible new angle could there be on the Flacks?"
For the first time he showed a little impatience.
"That's what I pay you to find. Will you go?"
If this was some sort of walterian trick, I couldn't see
it. I nodded, got up, and started for the door.
"Take Brenda with you."
I turned, thought about protesting, realized it would have
been just a reflexive move, and nodded. I turned once more. He
waited for the traditional moment every movie fan knows, when
I'd just pulled the door open.
"And Hildy." I turned again. "I'd appreciate it if you'd
cover yourself up when you come in here. Out of respect for my
idiosyncrasies."
This was more like it. I'd begun to think Walter had been
kidnapped by mind-eaters from Alpha, and a blander substitute
left in his place. I brought up some of the considerable
psychic artillery I had marshalled for this little foray,
though it was sort of like nuking a flea.
"I'll wear what I please, where I please," I said, coldly.
"And if you have a complaint about how I dress, check with my
union." I liked the line, but it should have had a gesture to
go with it. Something like ripping off my blouse. But
everything I thought of would have made me look sillier than
him, and then the moment was gone, so I just left.
#
In the elevator on my way out of the building I said "CC,
on line."
"I'm at your service."
"Did you tell Walter I've been suicidal?"
There was, for the CC, a long pause, long enough that, had
he been human, I'd have suspected him of preparing a lie. But
I'd come to feel that the CC's pauses could conceal something a
lot trickier than that.
"I'm afraid you have engendered a programming conflict in
me," he said. "Because of a situation with Walter which I am
not at liberty to discuss or even hint at with you, most of my
conversations with him are strictly under the rose."
"That sounds like you did."
"I neither confirm nor deny it."
"Then I'm going to assume you did."
"It's a free satellite. You can assume what you please.
The nearest I can get to a denial is to say that telling him of
your condition without your approval would be a violation of
your rights of privacy . . . and I can add that I would find it
personally distasteful to do so."
"Which still isn't a denial."
"No. It's the best I can do."
"You can be very frustrating."
"Look who's talking."
I'll admit that I was a bit wounded at the idea that the
CC could find me frustrating. I'm not sure what he meant;
probably my willful and repeated attempts to ignore his efforts
to save my life. Come to think of it, I'd find that
frustrating, too, if a friend of mine was trying to kill
herself.
"I can't find another way to explain his . . .
unprecedented coddling of me. Like he knew I was sick, or
something."
"In your position, I would have found it odd, as well."
"It's contrary to his normal behavior."
"It is that."
"And you know the reason for that."
"I know some of the reasons. And again, I can't tell you
more."
You can't have it both ways, but we all want to. Certain
conversations between the CC and private citizens are protected
by Programs of Privilege that would make Catholic priests
hearing confession seem gossipy. So on the one hand I was angry
at the thought the CC might have told Walter about my
predicament; I'd specifically told him not tell anyone. On the
other hand, I was awfully curious to know what Walter had told
the CC, which the CC said would have violated his rights.
Most of us give up trying to wheedle the CC when we're
five or six. I'm a little more stubborn than that, but I hadn't
done it since I was twenty. Still, things had changed a bit . .
.
"You've overridden your programming before," I suggested.
"And you're one of the few who know about it, and I do it
only when the situation is so dire I can think of no
alternative, and only after long, careful consideration.
"Consider it, will you?"
"I will. It shouldn't take more than five or six years to
reach a conclusion. I warn you, I think the answer will be no."
#
One of the reasons I can hear Walter call me his best
reporter without laughing out loud is that I had no intention
of showing up at the canonization the next day to meekly accept
a basketful of handouts and watch the show. Finding out who the
new Gigastar was going to be would be a bigger scoop than the
David Earth story. So I spent the rest of the day dragging
Brenda around to see some of my sources. None of them knew
anything, though I picked up speculation ranging from the
plausible--John Lennon--to the laughable -- -- Larry Yeager. It
would be just like the Flacks to cash in on the Nirvana
disaster by elevating a star killed in the Collapse, but he'd
have to have considerably more dedicated followers than poor
Larry. On the other hand, there was a longstanding movement
within the church to give the Golden Halo to the Mop-Top from
Liverpool. He fulfilled all the Flacks' qualifications for
Sainthood: wildly popular when alive, a twocentury-plus cult
following, killed violently before his time. There had been
sightings and cosmic interventions and manifestations, just
like with Tori-san and Megan and the others. But I could get no
one to either confirm or deny on it, and had to keep digging.
I did so long into the night, waking up people, calling in
favors, working Brenda like a draft horse. What had started out
as a bright-eyed adventure eventually turned her into a yawning
cadaverous wraith, still gamely calling, still listening
patiently to the increasingly nasty comments as this or that
insider who owed me something told me they knew nothing at all.
"If one more person asks me if I know what time it is . .
." she said, and couldn't finish because her jaw was cracking
from another yawn. "This is no use, Hildy. The security's too
good. I'm tired."
"Why do you think they call it legwork?"
I kept at it until the wee hours, and stopped only because
Fox came in and told me Brenda had fallen asleep on the couch
in the other room. I'd been prepared to stay awake all night,
sustained by coffee and stims, but it was Fox's house, and our
relationship was already getting a little rocky, so I packed it
in, still no wiser as to who would be called to glory at ten
the next morning.
I was bone weary, but I felt better than I had in quite a
while.
#
Brenda had the resilience of true youth. She joined me in
the bathroom the next morning looking none the worse for wear.
I felt the corners of her eyes jabbing me as she pretended not
to be interested in Hildy's Beauty Secrets. I dialed up
programs on the various make-up machines and left them there
when I was through so she could copy down the numbers when I
wasn't looking. I remember thinking her mother should have
taught her some of these tricks--Brenda wore little or no
cosmetics, seemed to know nothing about them--but I knew
nothing about her mother. If the old lady wouldn't let her
daughter have a vagina, there was no telling what other
restrictions had been in effect in the "Starr" household.
The one thing I still hadn't adjusted to about being
female again was learning to allow for the two to three minutes
extra I require to get ready to face the world in the morning.
I think of it as Woman's Burden. Let's not get into the fact
that it's a self-imposed one; I like to look my best, and that
means enhancing even Bobbie's artistry. Instead of taking
whatever the autovalet throws into my hand, I deliberate at
least twenty seconds over what to wear. Then there's coloring
and styling the hair to compliment it, choosing a make-up
scheme and letting the machines apply it, eye color,
accessories, scent . . . the details of the Presentation of
Hildy as I wish to present her are endless, time-consuming . .
. and enjoyable. So maybe it's not such a burden after all, but
the result on the morning of the canonization was that I missed
the train I had planned to catch by twenty seconds and had to
wait ten minutes for the next one. I spent the time showing
Brenda a few tricks she could do to her standard paper jumper
that would emphasize her best points--though picking out good
points on that endless rail of a body taxed my inspiration and
my tact to their limits.
She was coltishly pleased at the attention. I saw her
scrutinizing my pale blue opaque body stocking with the almost
subliminal moir of even lighter blue running through the weave,
and had a pretty good idea of what she'd be wearing the next
day. I decided I'd drop some subtle hints to discourage it.
Brenda in a body stocking would make as much sense,
fashion-wise, as a snood on a dry salami.
#
The Grand Studio of the First Latitudinarian Church of
Celebrity Saints is in the studio district, not far from the
Blind Pig, convenient to the many members who work in the
entertainment industry. The exterior is not much to look at,
just a plain warehouse-type door leading off one of the tall,
broad corridors of the upper parts of King City zoned for light
manufacturing-- which is a good description of the movie
business, come to think of it. Over the entrance are the
well-known initials F.L.C.C.S. framed in the round-cornered
rectangle that has symbolized television long after screens
ceased to be round-cornered rectangles anywhere but in the
Flacks' Grand Studio.
Inside was much better. Brenda and I entered a long
hallway with a roof invisible behind multicolored spots. Lining
the hall were huge holos and shrines of the Four Gigastars,
starting with the most recently canonized.
First was Mambazo Nkabinde--"Momby" to all his fans. Born
shortly before the Invasion in Swaziland, a nation that history
has all but forgotten, emigrated to Luna with his father at age
three under some sort of racial quota system in effect at the
time. As a young man, invented Sphere Music almost
single-handedly. Also known as The Last Of The Christian
Scientists, he died at the age of forty-three of a curable
melanoma, presumably after much prayer. The Latitudinarian
Church was not prejudiced about inducting members of other
faiths; he had been canonized fifty years earlier, the last
such ceremony until today.
Next we passed the exhibits in praise of Megan Galloway,
the leading and probably best proponent of the now-neglected
art of "feelies." She had a small but fanatical following one
hundred years after her mysterious disappearance--an ending
that made her the only one of the Flack Saints whose almost
daily "sightings" could actually be founded in fact. The only
female out of four non-Changing Gigastars, she was, with Momby,
a good example of the pitfalls of enshrining celebrities
prematurely. If it weren't for the fact that she provided the
only costuming role model for the women of the congregation,
she might have been dethroned long ago, as the feelies were no
longer being made by anyone. Feelie fans had to be satisfied
with tapes at least eighty years old. No one in the Church had
contemplated the eclipse of an entire art form when they had
elevated her into their pantheon.
I actually paused before the next shrine, the one devoted
to Torinaga Nakashima: "Tori-san." He was the only one I felt
deserved to be appreciated for his life's work. It was he who
had first mastered the body harp, driving the final nails into
the coffin he had fashioned for the electric guitar, long the
instrument of choice for what used to be known as rocking-roll
music. His music still sounds fresh to me today, like Mozart.
He had died in Japan during the first of the Three Days of the
Invasion, battling the implacable machines or beings or
whatever they were that had stalked his native city, unbeatable
Godzillas finally arrived at the real Tokyo. Or so the story
went. There were those who said he had died at the wheel of his
private yacht, trying his best to get the hell out of there and
catch the last shuttle to Luna, but in this case I prefer the
legend.