The Golden Globe

by John Varley

  Could I afford it? Not really, but my reasoning was thus: if this screwball plan doesn't work out I don't have an agent's chance at the Pearly Gates of getting to Luna in time. In fact, if I'm not off this wheel in twenty-four hours or less my chances of being arrested are almost a certainty. So time was more important than money for me. And all I had going for me at the moment was speed, audacity, and charm.

  Actually, that didn't sound so bad to me. I'd stolen out of town many times in the past with less.

  * * *

  They turn the car around before arrival at the Six Arc, so when the deceleration starts you're pressed back into your seat, not jerked out of it. The pilot told us we'd stay weightless for the first ten seconds into the tunnel, so we could turn around and look so long as we remembered to lean back into our seats once we entered.

  I did turn around, for a while, but I found the sight of the approaching arc much more unsettling than the view of the retreating one. You could actually see it grow during the last minute of free fall, swinging down on you like God's croquet mallet. No openings were visible; I knew they were there, but you couldn't see them until the last second. It was hard to resist the notion that you were about to be batted like a long fly ball to the Andromeda Galaxy. I settled in my chair and hugged Toby securely, and closed my eyes. Presently it got dark, instantly, and then I was pressed back into the seat. In no time the doors were opening and we all crowded out into the station. An elevator took us to the floor of Six Arc.

  Which looked pretty much like Noon Arc, with one difference. There were the Chandytowns, sometimes pronounced Shantytowns, also known as Gypsy Penthouses, Rookeries, Bat Mansions, Goddamn Public Nuisances, dangerous eyesores, accidents-in-progress, and many more unflattering terms. They were goofy chandeliers, Christmas ornaments dangling from Gargantua's attic. They were squatters who hung instead of hunkered.

  As usual, oversights like this were the result of lawmakers' negligence and lawyers' cupidity. Seems a bloated plutocrat of a banker, one of the original consortium who financed the early work on Oberon II and whose family came over on the good ship Tax Shelter (think of the Mayflower, with four-star restaurants and a stock ticker), was looking to build a mansion that would make all the other bloated plutocrats gobble with envy. He set his pack of New Harvard jackals on the project, and one came up with the odd fact that no one owned the airspace above the wheel rim. One could, if one had the money and the effrontery, build a castle in the air. The banker had plenty of both, and soon a sort of Xanadu of the Skies was dangling from a five-hundred-mile rope of spider silk, attached to the hub and looming a mile over the peons, a convenient pissing distance.

  What one goony billionaire can create, others are sure to copy. Soon there were a dozen of these unwelcome party favors frowning down on the populace, complete with hanging gardens, pools, driving ranges, hangars, and all the ostentation money could buy. For some reason I didn't get, they were only in Six Arc so far, but rumor had them a-building, waiting to be lowered, over Noon Arc as well.

  These structures were unlike anything humans had up to that point inhabited. Free-fall structures can be fanciful and free-form, but usually ended up in a massive clutter of add-ons, like Brementon. They weren't made to be enjoyed from the outside. Structures on a surface, whether on a planet or under spin, had unforgiving and constant gravity to contend with. Even with the strength of modern building materials, there was a limit to what could be done. The shantytowns lived in a new environment. They didn't have any sort of base to sit on; lower one to the ground, it would crumple like aluminum foil, then fall over on its side like an exhausted top. They were asymmetrical, tending to be wider at the middle than at the top and bottom. One thing was sure: if they were outlawed, as ninety percent of Sixers favored, it was going to be a big problem putting them anywhere else.

  The legal battle had been joined fifteen years earlier, and still raged with no end in sight. So far the only progress had been passage of an ordinance that each had to be suspended from a minimum of three ropes, each capable of supporting the entire building. The tenants had complied with no fuss. Hell, it was cheap and easy to do, and there they still hung.

  Like most tourists, I thought they were sort of pretty, in an overdone, tasteless way. But I could see the point of the people on the ground. Particularly the ones living in the Shadowlands.

  First, there was the problem of stuff falling or being tossed over the side. Usually it was plastic champagne glasses, crumpled paper cups, and the butt ends of various smokables. But every once in a while there was a flowerpot, sometimes big enough to hold a potted palm. There had been chairs, oddments of clothing, ceramic tiles loosened by time, shards of glass from broken windows. A few years back a group of drunken revelers had shoved a lavender baby grand piano over the side. There had been one falling body, a suicide. So far no one had been killed on the ground. Injuries were lavishly compensated, and the offender's insurance premium dutifully raised. These were people who could easily afford it.

  The big problem was the one you already thought of. Three cables or not, who wanted to live under the damn things?

  The answer was, people looking for cheap rent. Property values had plummeted faster than a falling baby grand piano in the affected areas, known as Shadowlands. There really was a shadow cast by these things. Without grow lamps, all the tomato and marijuana plants in your window boxes shriveled up and died. Your light bill went up, but your rent went down.

  The Shadowland apartments tended to be occupied by the young, who traditionally didn't have a lot of money, and who didn't really think they could die, anyway. Many residents wore bright red hard hats when on the street. Not really meant for protection, the hard hats were more a way of defiantly thumbing one's nose at fate.

  I saw several of these hard-hatted bohemians on my way into the Shadow-land. Toby sniffed the air as we moved into the twilight. He knew something was wrong, but couldn't figure out what. I doubt the hovering shantytown meant anything to him; it was too big and too distant to be a part of his world.

  We passed a line of people carrying signs and chanting something. The signs said SAVE THE RINGS. I never did figure out what that was all about.

  * * *

  I loitered around the neighborhood for several hours, getting a feel for the place. I'd changed my face a bit, my costume, my walk. Ordinarily I'd pull a few makeovers on a project like this, be several different people during the course of my wait. But no matter what I did, even the most inept observer would take note of those different guys walking with the same dog. Couldn't be helped; I wanted Toby with me. But I'm good at pretending I belong. I can fit in most places, know how to act as if I'm up to something purposeful and innocent.

  It was a quiet neighborhood of working families and college students. The hurly-burly of stampeding skyscrapers was five miles away. People here were more stable, less flamboyant. I'm sure it would have been a very desirable spot for the settled middle class if it wasn't for the hovering monstrosity of the shantytown. Looking up at it, it was impossible to put aside the idea that it was about to drop a massive turd right on your head. There was an irising opening of some sort, probably to admit helicopters or hovercraft, that could easily be seen as a gigantic robot rectum.

  I wondered how they dealt with sewage. I envisioned flying honey wagons buzzing around the big butthole in the sky like angry bees, slopping feculence, spewing effluvia. On second thought, dear, let's go see what's available in the Sunnyside Apartments.

  Seeing no sign of police activity, but far from sure I'd see it if it was there, I plucked up my courage and entered the building. I roamed the hallways with what I hoped was an air of unconcerned innocence, passing her door several times. No one stood around reading a newspad. No games of mumblety-peg were happening in the stairwells. I saw no evidence of cameras having been recently installed, but I knew that if they want to hide the camera from you, you won't find it. I am very good at sniffing out the beaks in ordinary circumstances.
Something about the shoes they wear, and the way they walk. But electronic surveillance was another matter.

  It all depended on what she'd told them, and how much they believed. What I figured was the best thing going for me was simply that few cops would believe a man who could pull off the escape I had would be stupid enough to come here.

  Well, I've proven many times, I'm way stupider than that.

  So I squared up to the door, took a deep breath, and knocked.

  I could tell she was watching me through a low-tech peephole. When she opened the door she had a puzzled frown on her face. My own features were not what she remembered, but it was nagging her. People change their appearance these days, sometimes frequently. Some new recognition skills were evolving, I believed, to deal with that fact. I'm okay at it. Women tended to be better at it than men. There is an identity in the eyes independent of other physical features, things about one's stance, something I think of as stage presence, gestures, possibly even an aura of some sort, that often give you away.

  She looked down at the dog in the crook of my arm, then back at my face. Recognition dawned.

  By the time I saw the right hook coming, it was way too late. I sat down hard, and put my hand to my nose. Jesus, did it hurt!

  "Can I come in?" I honked, and stared at a handful of blood.

  * * *

  "How could you have the nerve to come here?" she shouted. "After what you did to me. You walked out and left me for that monster!"

  She was pacing up and down the small living room of her apartment. She'd been over this same ground before, dozens of times in the last ten minutes, but I knew she had to get it out of her system. She would, eventually. There had been a moment of quiet as she stared down at me, perhaps a little surprised at what she had done, but a long way from regretting it. She had pulled me up and in, slammed the door behind me, and the tirade began.

  She yelled at me as she shoved me toward the couch, harangued me as she went to the kitchen for a wet rag and some ice, screamed abuse as she hurled the cold pack at me, fumed and muttered as she picked up the ice and wrapped it up again and thrust it at me defiantly.

  I just sat there with my head lowered. The rag was red now, but the bleeding had stopped. My nose throbbed a little, but I didn't think it was broken.

  Toby sat at the other end of the couch, as far away from me as possible, and watched her pace the floor, licking his lips nervously from time to time. By sitting on the couch I think he meant to signal he was still with me in spirit, but by taking the distant ground he was letting me know that, if she gets violent again, Sparky, you're on your own. Toby was an artist, not a pugilist. If I'd wanted a bodyguard, I'd have bought a Rottweiler.

  If you don't intend to resume the violence, you eventually reach a point where most of the anger is burned out of you. There's a lot of different ways to go from there. She might try to throw me out. I wasn't going to let her, but she might try. She might begin to cry. I thought that was likely. What she did, though, was sort of wind down. She paced a few more times, trying to think of more original ways to abuse me, paced slower and slower, and came to a halt looking down at Toby. The faintest of smiles touched her lips.

  "Nice dog," she whispered.

  "His name is Toby," I said. It was the second sentence I'd spoken to her since I found her lying on the bloody bed.

  Toby knows his cues. He bounced down to the floor and stood up on his hind legs and did a little dance, pink tongue hanging out fetchingly. He knows he's cute. He did a back flip, then sat and barked, three times. Poly made a sound halfway between a sob and a laugh.

  "My name isn't Trevor, though," I said. It set her off again. I had pretty much expected it would.

  "Oh, really?" she hooted, voice dripping with scorn. "Imagine my surprise. The police told me Trevor Howard was some kind of old actor, and he'd been dead for two hundred years. Can you imagine how foolish I felt?" She ranted on a little longer, but her heart was no longer in it and she ran down again. This time she sat, and Toby jumped up in her lap and licked her face. Her hand came up absently to pet him, and he curled up in her lap, looking up worshipfully.

  There's this thing about dog people—and Poly was definitely a dog person—that makes us unable to be totally angry, totally sad, or anything but calmed and at least a bit pleased when our hands are stroking a dog's back and scratching behind his ears. Toby played the moment for all it was worth, arching sensually, licking his lips. A cat would have purred, but Toby doesn't need to. A dog's body language is at least as eloquent.

  Perhaps I'd be able to talk now.

  "First, I'd like to say I'd never have left you there if I thought you were in danger from him." She looked over at me dubiously, but said nothing. "I know, you're thinking, 'Then why did he come back?' Well, obviously because, thinking about it a little more, I wasn't sure I was right." I would not point out that coming back was one of the bravest things I ever did. If she could accept that I would do anything brave she would see that for herself. If she couldn't, no amount of pleading my case would do any good. Besides, being silent about one's heroics is the mark of a hero, or so you'd believe if you watched any adventure story. Since most of us get our information about situations of melodramatic heroism from just such stories as that, I hoped her own mind was conditioned to think that way. Myself, I've met people who had done things I thought heroic who never shut up about it. Most people like to crow, hero and coward alike. The strong, silent, ah-shucks type from old western movies is rare indeed. But I knew the role, and I played it.

  I had noticed the last three fingers of her right hand were pink and a little raw looking. They had been the ones severed by Izzy in his brief interrogation. Those fingers were undoubtedly in some compost pile in the bowels of Oberon. The ones she wore now were replacements.

  "At least you'll play the violin again," I said, searching for a positive spin. I knew it was a mistake as soon as I said it, and it was, but not for the reason I had thought. She sat Toby on the couch and stood. Hand up, fingers spread, she shook it at me. The new fingers seemed a little loose.

  "I'm glad you're so pleased about that," she grated. "I'm sure you've never heard anything about 'muscle memory,' since I doubt you've ever had any fingers pulled off."

  I had to admit I hadn't.

  "It works like this. You learn a manual skill—typing, throwing a baseball, playing the violin—the skill gets imprinted in your brain." She tapped her lovely noggin with her uninjured index finger. "The imprinting's still there, even if your arm gets cut off. But you replace the arm, the signals get sent down to your fingers, and the muscles don't know how to respond. They haven't been developed properly to do what you want them to. And they think there's some memory in the muscles, too, so they have to relearn the skill, just like if you'd had part of your brain taken out and some other part tries to take over. This finger right here"—she extended her right ring finger—"is the klutziest digit you own, except for your toes. It takes years to get it able to do the things you need to do to play the violin, even moderately well. This one isn't much better." She was holding up her pinkie. "But the finger I'd really like you to study is this one." She held up her middle finger and extended her hand toward me. "Fuck you, whoever you are. Now get out of my apartment."

  "I just have a few things to say, and then I'll go, if you still want me to." I waited, took her silence as acceptance.

  "The first thing is, my real name is Sparky Valentine."

  She gave me a reaction I'm used to: a blank stare. For a lot of people, saying I'm Sparky is like telling them I'm Mickey Mouse, or the tooth fairy.

  "Crazy," she muttered.

  "There's no way I can prove it to you, but I want you to know I'm being straight with you." It's true, you know. Even wearing my "natural" face, I don't look a lot like little Sparky. I could do the voice, but that would prove nothing. There was a time when every two-bit comic in the system could do Sparky, and most of his gang, too. Many of them were better at it tha
n I was. When I finally grew up, my voice changed just like other people.

  "What I'm here to ask you," I plunged on, "is if you'd like to get back at him. If you'd like to give him one in the eye."

  There was no need to explain who "he" was. I saw wild interest grow in her face at the idea of getting back at him. She leaned forward, intense.

  "Can we kill him?" she whispered.

  Well, that was direct enough. I resolved never to get her angry at me again.

  "I doubt it. I mean, as a practical matter, he's very hard to kill. I've tried three times now, and he's still out there. And personally, my hope is to never be on the same planet with him again, much less close enough to him to take a shot."

  She slumped back on the couch, then sprang to her feet. I thought she was going to resume her tirade against me, but she had a new target.

  "I can do this all right. I can pick my nose, I can feed myself. I'm getting better at signing my name. But Bach? Mozart? Forget it. I can't do a simple arpeggio. I'm back to scales. If there's anything I can do to hurt him, hurt him really bad, I want to hear it."

  "Okay. There's one finger we didn't mention." I stuck up my thumb. "It's the finger of transportation, and maybe we can use it to hitch a ride out of here."

  And I told her my plan.

  * * *

  It all sounds so much better when you're laying it out. Or when I am, anyway. My powers of persuasion are pretty sharp, having been honed over seventy years of getting myself into situations I end up having to talk myself out of. To run a good con, it helps if you can at least partly persuade yourself that you're telling the truth. I know how to tell the mark the parts she wants to hear, and to skim over the problems.

  So it went down well, there in her apartment. She bought it, and so did I. Now, almost half a day later, alone, sober and determined to stay that way, it seemed a very long shot.