The John Varley Reader

by John Varley

  When the story was to appear I went downtown to Powell’s Books. This store is one of the many reasons to live in beautiful Portland, Oregon. It is by far the largest bookstore I have ever seen, and may be the largest in the English-speaking world. They carry new and used books on the same shelves, and magazines, talking books . . . whatever you want in literature, they’ve got it at Powell’s.

  Except Playboy.

  I was shocked. Frankly, it never occurred to me that the store wouldn’t carry it. When I was young in Port Arthur, Texas, certain magazines were kept either behind the counter or under the counter in the shady bookstores and newsstands that carried them at all. Among them were things like Sunshine & Health, a black-and-white nudist magazine that provided me and my friends some much-needed education: our first basic understanding of female anatomy in those pre-sex education days. Playboy was behind the counter.

  During the sixties all those magazines and many more we couldn’t even have imagined in 1958 came out into the open. They called it the “Sexual Revolution.” Now, in many places, all those magazines have gone back under the counter. Why? Because some people find some or all of their content objectionable. In the case of Playboy, it is the photographs of nude women.

  I’m not going to indulge in a diatribe about political correctness here, though I believe it is one of the more noisome scourges of our age. It just seems ironic, how things have come full circle.

  It used to be that, if caught with a copy of Playboy, one would scoff and say, “Oh, I just buy it for the writing.” Yeah, right. But . . . it could be true. The list of serious fiction writers and essayists and political commentators who have contributed to this magazine over the years would run on for many pages. One science fiction writer contributor who comes to mind is Ursula K. LeGuin. I don’t feel the need to apologize for being in her company.

  And besides, they pay obscenely well.

  GOOD INTENTIONS

  JOSEPH HARDY SAT in the ruins of his congressional campaign early in the morning of the first Wednesday in November and wondered if there was anything more humiliating than having tens of thousands of people reject you and all you stood for.

  Almost a year of kissing babies, eating rubber chicken and guzzling untold car-loads of Maalox, ten thousand doors knocked on, a hundred thousand hands shaken, a marriage in trouble, and it had all come to this: a man alone in a big empty hall littered with squashed cigarette butts, red-white-and-blue bunting drooping to the floor. VOTE FOR HARDY signs nailed to wooden laths lay stacked like Confederate rifles at Appomattox. In one corner two dozen bottles of cheap California champagne sat unopened in galvanized tubs full of melting ice.

  Onto this stage of dashed hopes, as he had so many times before, strode the Devil. Hardy knew at once that this was Satan, though he looked not at all remarkable and though the only commotion created by his appearance was among the caucus of exhausted balloons that squabbled briefly along the floor in his wake.

  Satan stopped a few feet from where Hardy sat, regarded him silently for a time and then nodded slowly.

  “Well, Joe,” he said quietly. “What do you say?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  The Devil simply shook his head and waited.

  “I never wanted this job in the first place. They talked me into it. They said Haggerty was getting too old. It didn’t matter if he carried this district with seventy percent two years ago. ‘We need a young face, that’s what we need, Joe, a young face.’”

  That face smiled at the Devil and Joseph Hardy from a hundred campaign posters taped to the walls. It was a good-looking face, stopping short of Kennedyesque. There was intelligence in it, mercifully not quite Stevensonian. Hardy wore horn-rimmed glasses befitting a college economics professor, which is what he was. He had good teeth.

  “You can’t lie to me, Joe,” Satan said. “Yesterday you wanted it. We all saw your face when the early returns put you ahead. You wanted it more than you’ve ever wanted anything.”

  Hardy put his face into his hands and rubbed it for a long time. Then he looked up, exhausted.

  “Talk to me,” he said.

  The sun was coming up when they reached the final terms.

  “I won’t compromise any of my ideas,” Hardy said. “That’s why I finally said yes. I think I can make a difference.”

  “It won’t be a problem,” Satan said calmly.

  “I’m serious. No swaying with the winds. I don’t care what the polls say, I won’t alter a stand just to get votes.”

  “You won’t have to.”

  “And no fat cats. No special interests. I want to limit campaign contributions to one hundred dollars, like Jerry Brown.”

  “Done.”

  “No negative advertising. No character assassination, no mudslinging. No Willie Horton.”

  “You’re taking all the fun out of—All right, all right. Done.”

  “And I get . . . ?”

  “A congressional seat in two years. In six, the Presidency.” Satan waited, asking without words if there were any more points to discuss. Then he went to the phone bank across the room. He punched in his AT&T credit card number and spoke briefly to the party at the other end. In a moment the fax machine began to hum and he pulled out three pages of a contract. Taking out a ballpoint pen, he bent over a table and began marking up the boilerplate.

  Hardy read it twice, folded it, put it into his pocket.

  “I’ll run this past my lawyer,” he said, “but I think we’ve got a deal.”

  “I’ll see you in his office tomorrow at three,” said the Devil. “And in the meantime . . .” He held out his hand.

  Hardy hesitated only a moment, then shook it. The Devil’s hand was warm and dry and firm. He’d been afraid it would be clammy. He hated that.

  “What should I call you?” Hardy asked.

  “ ‘Nick’ will do just fine.”

  “I don’t care much for ‘his immortal soul,’” said the attorney, a worthy named Cheatham. “And what’s this about ‘until the end of time’? The customary term would be ‘in perpetuity.’”

  “It means eternally,” Nick said. “Forever.”

  “Um, yes, yes.” Cheatham frowned. “Frankly, it seems like a long time.”

  “These are my standard terms. The duration is long, granted, but the reward is huge, and the payment . . . frankly, sir, most courts would see it as trivial.”

  “It being difficult to establish a market value for an immortal soul,” Cheatham said, nodding. “I see your point. But look here: ‘To be disposed of in whatever manner pleases the party of the first part.’” He looked owlishly over to Hardy. “It’s all very vague, Joseph.”

  “Let it stand, Mr. Cheatham.”

  “Very well, very well. But I still don’t think that I can sign off on the time element here.” A little palpitation of sparks appeared around Nick’s eyebrows, unseen by the lawyer, who was studying the ceiling as if the solution to the impasse might be written there. And perhaps it was, for he soon looked down and said portentously, “Why don’t we make it a thousand years?”

  Nick laughed.

  “I ask for eternity and you offer a thousand?” he said. Then he leaned forward. “A billion years. My final offer.”

  They settled on 250,000 years, and Cheatham seemed satisfied.

  “I imagine you’ll want to show these amendments to your own attorneys,” he said.

  “No need,” said Nick, hooking his thumbs in his vest. “Harvard Law, class of 1735.”

  While a secretary was preparing clean copies, a bottle of brandy was produced. Cheatham asked Nick what eventuality had led him to read for the law.

  “The legal fees were eating me alive,” Nick admitted. “I saw which way the wind was blowing, and I can’t tell you how handy it’s been.”

  Hardy took a stiff drink when the copies arrived and hardly hesitated before he signed. Nick bent over Cheatham’s desk, then looked up at Hardy with a gleam in his eye.

&nbs
p; “Don’t worry, Joe,” he said. “I know ways of making a hundred thousand years seem like an eternity.” He signed each of the three copies, then straightened and said, “We should get started. How does tomorrow sound? Let’s have lunch.”

  They met at a Chinese place for dim sum. They each stacked half a dozen of the little plates brought to the table by girls pushing carts and finished half a pot of tea.

  “I suppose you’ve been wondering how we’ll go about this,” Nick said.

  “I’ve thought of nothing else.”

  “Simplest thing in the world.” Nick produced a small bottle with a glass stopper and set it on the table. “Concentrated charisma.”

  Hardy picked it up, looked at it, pulled the stopper and sniffed.

  “Try not to spill it,” Nick said. “Pretend it’s thousand-dollar-an-ounce perfume. Just dab some on your face once a day.”

  Hardy applied some and felt nothing.

  “Bit of a letdown,” he muttered.

  “Wait for it,” Nick said, folding his arms. “The stuff’s hard to come by. I collect it where I can find it. Baptist revival meetings are good; sometimes the stuff drips off the tent walls. You can find a bit around used-car lots, salesmen’s conventions, get-rich-quick real estate seminars. And, of course, every year I get a lot of the stuff at the Oscar ceremonies.” He shrugged. “I have to be out there, anyway, so what the heck.”

  “I thought I recognized you,” someone said, and Hardy looked up to see that two waitresses had converged on the table. They had been serving Joe and Nick for half an hour without incident.

  “Joseph Hardy!” said the other, putting her hand to her mouth. “I voted for you, Joe!”

  “You and about three more,” Hardy said. The waitresses laughed more than the feeble joke deserved.

  “I didn’t vote,” the first one admitted, “but if you run again, I sure will. Here, take this, it’s on the house.” It was some sort of meat-stuffed dumplings.

  Soon a buzz spread through the restaurant. The owner came by and tore up the check, and people began to ask for autographs. Nick sat back and watched, then during a lull reached over and touched Hardy’s sleeve.

  “Tough being in the public eye, eh?”

  “What’s that? Oh, Nick, sure. Why don’t you try one of these dumplings with the spicy mustard?”

  “Far too hot for me, I’m afraid. Joseph, I’ll be going now. You won’t see me for another five years. Look for me at primary time.”

  “What’s that?” Hardy signed another napkin and glanced up. “Oh, sure, primary time. Uh . . . is there anything else I should know? Anything I need to do?”

  “Just stick to your principles. I’ll take care of the rest.” He frowned slightly, taking one more look at his candidate. “Next time, be plain old Joe. And get a hair-cut. See if you can find Dan Quayle’s barber.”

  The next five years passed like a montage in a Frank Capra film based on a Horatio Alger novel.

  Joseph “Call Me Joe” Hardy returned to the campus and immediately his classes began to fill up. Within a term, the administration had twice moved him to a larger hall. The students loved his lectures and said he managed to make economics interesting for the first time ever. Applause was common.

  Strangers approached him on the street to pump his hand. Reporters asked his comments on political issues. The camera loved him, they said. Radio talk-show hosts clamored for him to be interviewed and to field questions from callers. He had a folksy, common touch that showed to good advantage on the local Nightline knockoff, where his face became familiar to everyone in the state.

  Even his marriage improved.

  At the proper time he announced his candidacy for Congress. Party bigwigs couldn’t have been happier. Although his opponent outspent him three to one, the election was never in doubt. Joe Hardy led in the polls from the first, and the only question come election day was the margin of his victory. He was sent to Washington with a stunning mandate and very little political baggage.

  In D.C., he did a passable imitation of Jimmy Stewart for a few weeks, stumbling a few times, making a few mistakes as he got his office organized. But he was neither stupid nor innocent and soon was offering bills and fending off political action committees as if he’d done it all his life.

  His reputation as a straight shooter was quickly established. It could have been a handicap, but Joe Hardy knew when to compromise to get things done and when to stand fast on a matter of principle. He was a man you could do business with, but you couldn’t buy him. He earned the respect of most of his colleagues, grudging at first, genuine soon after.

  There was jealousy, of course, from both parties. It wasn’t every freshman Congressman who had Ted Koppel calling every other week to ask him to debate George Will or Ted Kennedy. Few new faces rated a twenty-minute profile on Prime Time Live. Hardy had an uncanny knack for picking up free exposure worth millions in a reelection campaign. He was returned for a second term by an even larger margin.

  No one was surprised when he threw his hat into the ring for the upcoming presidential race.

  Even a Capra movie must have trouble along the way, and some was brewing. Dark forces were gathering inside the Beltway, powerful forces stirring within think tanks, public relations firms, advertising agencies. Campaign committees representing his rivals from both parties began to circle Joe Hardy, sniffing for blood.

  Soon after his name started coming up as a presidential hopeful, his opponents began their research. It went from his birth to his last vote on the House floor. It was quickly established that he was not an escaped mass murderer, a homosexual, an IRA terrorist or a communist spy. Still, the private detectives reading his grade school reports and interviewing every friend Hardy ever had were not discouraged.

  There were persistent rumors, whispered here and there, of something really big. Some knockout punch, something to blow Joe Hardy out of the race before it’d really begun. The peepers vowed to find it, whatever it was, if they had to track leads straight through hell.

  Which is exactly where the trail led them.

  One by one they had returned, battered, scorched, empty-handed, until one day a tall, thin, pimply fellow walked into the offices of the Elect Peckem Committee and put a smoking document on the chairman’s desk.

  “It wasn’t that tough,” the hacker said smugly. “Old Scratch could use better security software. I was in and out of his hard disks before anybody knew what was happening.”

  JOE HARDY IN PACT WITH LUCIFER screamed the headline of the Manchester Union Leader two weeks before the New Hampshire primary. Next to the damning article was another quoting a CBS-Wall Street Journal poll conducted minutes after the announcement. Joe’s standing had plummeted. He now stood only two percentage points above the chief rival for his party’s nomination, Senator Peckem.

  Nick found Joe secluded in his office. Joe leaped to his feet.

  “How could you do this to me?” he screamed.

  “Calm down, Joe. Just calm down. All is not lost.”

  “The deal was supposed to be confidential!”

  “I know, Joe, and I couldn’t be sorrier. I’ve hired a new security consultant, but the cat’s out of the bag,” he said.

  “So stuff him back in! You’re . . . well, you know who you are. Can’t you do that?”

  “Unfortunately, my powers have limitations, Joe. I can’t change what’s already happened. As for that cat, however”—and now he smiled—“I’ve always preferred to skin it. And I know more than one way.”

  “Tonight Jay’s guests are: From Beverly Hills, 90210, Jason Priestley. Congressman Joe Hardy. And special guest, Satan, Prince of Darkness. And now . . . Jay Leno!”

  It was rough at first, as they’d known it would be. Leno skewered them during the monolog. But when Joe and Nick were finally seated, the tide began to turn. The two of them seemed relaxed, not at all ashamed or defensive, and, well, interesting. The audience wasn’t on their side yet, but they were willing to listen.<
br />
  So when the talk turned serious, Joe offered information about something that hadn’t got much play in the press: the terms of the contract.

  “If I had it to do all over,” Joe said with a pensive frown, “would I? I really don’t know, Jay. But you read it yourself. Of all the candidates in this race, I am the only one guaranteed not to stoop to attack advertising. You saw it there in black and white. I won’t abandon a stand I’ve taken for a cheap political motive. There’ll be no flip-flopping on the issues from Joe Hardy. I won’t say one thing in Boston and something else in Atlanta. I want to be your President, and I want to do it solely with the small contributions of the working class and the middle class of this great country. I can’t do otherwise. It’s in my contract.”

  “And if he were to break it,” Nick said with a devilish grin, “I’d be sure to give him hell.”

  The next day, on The Joan Rivers Show, Nick tackled the question of his role as the Great Adversary with a casual wave of his hand.

  “That’s been blown way out of proportion,” he said. “Remember, He and I used to be good friends. We had a falling out, it’s true, but He did create me, and I’m part of His plan. You might say I’m just doing my job.” The grin on his face as he said this was infectious.

  To Arsenio, Nick said, “I have to say this Lord of Evil business is mostly a bad rap, my friend. Darkness, yes. But that can be cool.”

  Discussing his methods with Regis and Kathie Lee, Nick said, “We both move in mysterious ways, God and me. It’s true, I am out to get your soul and I do send it to hell. But have you been there lately?”

  That’s exactly where Dan Rather went with a television crew. He reported back with footage that suggested a medium-security federal prison. “We saw no fire and brimstone,” Rather said, wearing his Afghan-war safari jacket. “Make of that what you will; we were not given free run of the facilities. Still, all in all, Manuel Noriega doesn’t have it much better than what we were shown.”