f  it comes to it, you can say I held that on
you the whole time. I won't have  trouble  convincing  a  judge
I've  lost  my  mind.  Anyway, you can be sure Cricket had some
plan of attack in mind, and she improvised when we entered  the
picture. The story's the thing, see? Ask her about it when this
is all over."
     "I don't think she'd talk to me."
     "Why not? She won't hold a grudge. She's a pro. Oh, she'll
be mad,  all  right, and she'll do just about anything to us if
we get in her way again,  but  it  won't  be  for  revenge.  If
cooperation  will  get  the story, then she'd rather cooperate,
just like me. Trouble was, this story is too big  to  share.  I
think we both figured out as soon as we saw each other that one
of us wasn't walking out of that room. I was just faster."
     She was shaking her head. I'd said all I had to say; she'd
either understand it and accept it, or look for another line of
work. Then she looked up, remembering something.
     "What  you  said. I can't let you do that. Take the rap, I
mean."
     I pretended anger, but I was touched again. What  a  sweet
little  jerk  she  was. I hoped she didn't get eaten alive next
time she met Cricket.
     "You  sure  as  hell  will.  Stop  being  juvenile.  First
revenge,  then  altruism.  Those  things  are  for very special
occasions, rare circumstances. Not when they get in the way  of
a  story.  You  want  to be altruistic in your private life, go
ahead, but not on Walter's time. He'll fire  you  if  he  hears
about it."
     "But it's not right."
     "You're  even  wrong  there. I never told you what we were
going to do. You couldn't be held responsible. I went to a  lot
of trouble to set it up that way, and you're an ungrateful brat
for thinking of throwing all my work away."
     She  looked as if she was going to cry again, and I got up
and got a drink. Maybe I wiped my eyes, too, standing there  in
the  kitchen  tossing down a surprisingly bitter bourbon. You'd
think they'd do better at two thousand per night.
     #
     When the Grand Flack had had two hours with nothing moving
to look at but the flickering lights cast on the other walls by
the screen behind his head, I stuck my own head into the  room,
wondering if I could manage to keep it attached to my shoulders
by the time this was all over. He looked at me desperately. His
whole face was drenched with sweat.
     "This series is one of my favorites," he whined.
     "So look at the tape later," I said.
     "It's  not  the same, dammit! I've already heard the story
line."
     I thought it was a bit of luck to have one of his favorite
soap operas  playing  just  when  I  needed  a  lever  to   pry
information  out  of  his  head,  then  I  thought it over, and
realized that whatever was playing at the moment was  bound  to
be his favorite. He watched them all.
     "I missed David and Everett's big love scene. Damn you."
     "Are you ready to answer some questions?"
     He  started  to  shake  his head--he had a little movement
from the neck stump, up and down, back and  forth--and  it  was
like  a hand took his chin and forced it up and down instead. I
guess it was the invisible hand of his addiction.
     "Don't  run  off,"  I  said.  "I've  got  to  get  another
witness."  I  turned around, and bumped into Brenda, who'd been
standing behind me. She wasn't wearing her mask and  I  thought
about  getting  angry about that, but what the hell. She was in
it as an accessory, unless I could make my duress theory  stand
up in court. Which point I hoped never to reach.
     We  pulled  up  chairs  on each side of the big screen and
turned him around so he could see it. I thought this might take
a long time, as his eyes never  left  the  screen,  never  once
looked  at  us,  but he was quite good at watching the show and
talking to us at the same time.
     "For the record," I said, "have you been harmed in any way
since we took you on this little trip?"
     "You made me miss David and Everett's--"
     "Aside from that."
     "No," he said, grudgingly.
     "Are you hungry? Thirsty? You need to . .  .  is  there  a
drain  on  this thing? A waste dump of some kind? Need to empty
the beer cooler?"
     "It's not a problem."
     So I had him answer a few more questions,  name  rank  and
serial  number  sort  of  things,  just  to  get  him  used  to
responding.  I've  found  it's  a  good  technique,  even  with
somebody  who's used to being interviewed. Then I got around to
asking the question this had all been about,  and  he  told  me
pretty much what I'd expected to hear.
     "So  who's  idea  was  it  to assassinate Silvio?" I heard
Brenda gasp, but I kept my eyes on the  Flack.  He  pursed  his
lips  angrily,  but kept watching the screen. When it looked as
if he might not answer I reached for the  patch  cord  and  the
story came out.
     "I  don't  know  who  told  you about it; we kept security
tight, just the inner circle knew what was going to happen. I'd
like his name later."
     I decided not to tell him just yet that  nobody  had  told
me.  Maybe  if  he  thought  he'd  been  betrayed  he'd pull no
punches. I needn't have worried.
     "You don't care about whose idea it was, though. You don't
care. All you need is someone who'll admit to it. I'm here,  so
I'm  elected  to  break the story, so let's just say it was me,
all right?"
     "You're willing to take the blame?" Brenda asked.
     "Why not? We all agreed it was the thing to  do.  We  drew
lots  to  select  a  culprit  to  stand  up  for the crime, and
somebody else lost, but we can work that out,  just  so  I  get
time to warn them, get our stories straight."
     I  looked  at Brenda's face to see how she was reacting to
this, both the story itself and the blatant engineering of  the
story  between  me  and  the man who bought the hit. What I saw
made me think there was hope for her in the news business  yet.
There  is  a  certain  concentrated,  avid-forblood  look  that
appears on the faces of reporters on the trail of  a  very  big
story  that you'd have to visit the big cat house at the zoo to
see duplicated in its primal state. From the look  on  Brenda's
face,  if a tiger was standing between her and this story right
now, the cat would soon have a  tall-journalist-sized  hole  in
him.
     "What  you  mean  is,"  Brenda  went  on, "you had someone
picked out to go to jail if someone ever uncovered the  story."
Which  meant  she still hadn't completely comprehended this man
and his church.
     "Nothing like that. We  knew  the  truth  would  come  out
sooner  or  later."  He  looked sour. "We'd hoped for later, of
course, so we'd have time to milk it from every possible angle.
You've been a real problem, Hildy."
     "Thank you," I said.
     "After all we've done for you people," he  pouted.  "First
you  get in the way of the second bullet. Serves you right, you
getting hurt."
     "It never hurt. It passed right through me."
     "I'm sorry to hear  that.  Those  bullets  were  carefully
planned.  Something  about penetrating the forehead, the cheek,
something like that, spreading out later and  blowing  out  the
back of the skull."
     "Dum-dums,"  Brenda  said, unexpectedly. She looked at me,
shrugged. "When you got hit, I looked it up."
     "Whatever," the Flack continued. "The  second  one  spread
out  when  it  hit you, and did way too much damage to Silvio's
face, plus getting your blood  splattered  all  over  him.  You
ruined the tableau."
     "I thought it was pretty effective, myself."
     "Thank  Elvis  for  Cricket.  Then,  as if you hadn't done
enough, here you are breaking the  law,  making  me  break  the
story two weeks early. We never thought you'd break the law, at
least not to this extent."
     "So prosecute me."
     "Don't  be silly. That would look pretty foolish, wouldn't
it? All the sympathy would be  with  you.  People  would  think
you'd done a public service."
     "That's what I was hoping."
     "No  way.  But there's still time to get the right spin on
this thing, and do us both a lot of good. You know  us,  Hildy.
You  know we'll work with you to get a story that will maximize
your readership interest, if you'll only give us a  few  things
here and there in the way of damage control."
     There  were  a  few  things  going  on  here that I didn't
understand, but I couldn't  get  to  the  questions  just  yet.
Frankly,  though I've seen a lot of things in my career, done a
lot of things, this one was about to make me gag. What I really
wanted to do was go out and find a baseball/6 field and play  a
few innings using this terrifying psychopath as the ball.
     But  I got myself under control. I've interviewed perverts
before, the public always wants to know about perverts.  And  I
asked  the  next  question,  the  one that, later, you wish you
could take back, or never hear the answer to.
     "What I can't figure . . . or maybe I'm  dense,"  I  said,
slowly.  "I  haven't found the angle. How did the church expect
to look good out of all this? Killing him, that  I  understand,
in  your  terms.  You  can't  have a live saint walking around,
farting and belching, out of control. Silvio should  have  seen
that.  Think  how embarrassed the Christians'd be if Jesus came
back; they'd have to nail the sucker up again before  he  upset
too many applecarts."
     I  stopped,  because he was smiling, and I didn't like the
smile. And for just a moment he let his dreamy eyes drift  from
the  screen  and  look  into  my  own.  I  imagined I saw worms
crawling around in there.
     "Oh, Hildy," he said, more in sorrow than in anger.
     "Don't you oh Hildy me, you coffee-table cocksucker.  I'll
tear  you  out  of  that  box  and shit down your neck. I'll--"
Brenda put a hand on mine, and I got myself back under control.
     "They'll put you in jail for five hundred years," I said.
     "That wouldn't frighten me," he said, still smiling.  "But
they won't. I'll do time, all right. I figure three, maybe five
years."
     "For  murder?  For conspiracy to murder Silvio? I want the
name of your lawyer."
     "They won't be able  to  prove  murder,"  he  said,  still
smiling. I was really getting tired of that smile.
     "Why do you say that?"
     I  felt  Brenda's  hand on mine again. She had the look of
someone trying to break it gently.
     "Silvio was in on it, Hildy," she said.
     "Of course he was," The Grand  Exalted  Stinking  Baboon's
Posterior  said.  "And  Hildy,  if I'd been a vindictive man, I
could have let you run with the first story. I  almost  wish  I
had. Now I'll never enjoy David and Everett's . . . well, never
mind.  I'm  telling  you  as a show of good faith, prove we can
work together again  in  spite  of  your  backstabbing  crimes.
Silvio  was  the  one who suggested this whole thing. He helped
interview the shooter.  That's  the  story  you'll  write  this
afternoon,  and that's the story we always intended to come out
in a few weeks' time."
     "I don't believe you," I said, believing every word of it.
     "That's of little interest to me."
     "Why?" I said.
     "I presume you mean why did he want to die. He was  washed
up, Hildy. He hadn't been able to write anything in four years.
That was worse than death to Silvio."
     "But his best stuff . . ."
     "That's  when he came to us. I don't know if he was ever a
true believer; hell, I don't  know  if  I'm  a  true  believer.
That's  why  we  call  ourselves  latitudinarian.  If  you have
different ideas on the divinity of Tori-san, for  instance,  we
don't  drive you out of the church, we give you a time slot and
let you talk it over with people who agree with you.  We  don't
form sects, like other churches, and we don't torment heretics.
There  are no heretics. We aren't doctrinaire. We have a saying
in the church, when  people  want  to  argue  about  points  of
theology: that's close enough for sphere music."
     "'Hum  a  few  bars  and I'll see if I can pick it up,'" I
said.
     "Exactly. We make no secret of the fact that what we  most
want  from parishioners is for them to buy our records. What we
give  them  in  return  is  the  chance  to  rub  elbows   with
celebrities. What surprised the founding Flacks, though, is how
many  people really do believe in the sainthood of celebrities.
It even makes some sense, when you think  about  it.  We  don't
postulate  a  heaven.  It's  right  here  on the ground, if you
achieve  enough  popularity.  In  the  mind  of  your   average
star-struck  nobody,  being  a  celebrity  is  a thousand times
better than any heaven he can imagine."
     I could see he did believe in one thing, even if it wasn't
the Return of the King. He believed  in  the  power  of  public
relations.  I'd  found  a  point  in  common with him. I wasn't
delighted by this.
     "So you'll play it as, he came to you for  help,  and  you
helped him."
     "For  three years we wrote all his music. We attract a lot
of artists, as you know. We picked three of the best, and  they
sat down and started churning out 'Silvio' music. It turned out
to be pretty good. You never can tell."
     I thought back over the music I had loved so much, the new
things I had believed Silvio had been doing. It was still good;
I couldn't  take  that  away  from the music. But something had
gone out of me.
     This was a whole new world for Brenda, and she was as rapt
as any three-year-old at mommy's knee, listening to  Baba  Yaga
and the Wolves.
     "Will  that  be part of the story?" she asked. "How you've
been writing his music for him?"
     "It has to be. I was against it at first, but then it  was
shown  to  me  that everyone benefits this way. My worry was of
tarnishing the image of a Gigastar. But if it's boosted  right,
he  becomes  a  real  object  of  sympathy,  his cult gets even
stronger. He's still got his old music, which was all his.  The
church   comes  out  well  because  we  tried  everything,  and
reluctantly gave in to his request to martyr himself--which  is
his  right.  We  broke  some  laws  along the way, sure, and we
expected some punishment, but  handled  right,  even  that  can
generate sympathy. He asked us. And don't worry, we've got tons
of  documentation  on  this, tapes showing him begging us to go
along. I'll have all that wired over to your newsroom  as  soon
as  we iron out the deal. Oh, yes, and as if it all wasn't good
enough, now the real musicians who stood behind Silvio all this
time get to come out of the shadows and get their own  shot  at
Gigastardom."
     "Shot does seem the perfect word in this context," I said.
     #
     The  first part of that interview was almost comic, when I
think back on it. There I was, thinking I had  it  all  figured
out,  asking  who had planned to kill Silvio. And there he was,
thinking I knew the whole story already, thinking I was  asking
him  who  had suggested to Silvio that, dead, he could become a
Flack Gigastar.
     Because  Silvio  had   not   come   up   with   the   idea
independently. What he had proposed was his own election, live,
into  the  ranks  of  the Four. It was explained that only dead
people could qualify, and one thing led to another. The council
was against his plan at first. It was Silvio  who  figured  out
the  angle  to  make the church look good. And it was an act of
suicide. What the Grand Flack would go to jail for was a series
of civil offenses, conspiracies, false advertising,  intent  to
defraud,  thing  like  that.  What  sort  of penalty the actual
assassin would get, when found, I had no idea.
     It scared me, later, that we'd missed  understanding  each
other by such a seemingly trivial point. If he'd known I didn't
know  the key fact before he admitted what he did, I thought he
might have found that little window of opportunity  to  pay  me
back  for  making  him miss his soap opera, some way that would
have ended with Hildy Johnson in  jail  and  the  aims  of  the
church  still  accomplished.  There  might  have been a way. Of
course, there was nothing to really  prevent  him  from  filing
charges anyway, I'd known that going in, but though he might be
devious, he'd never take a chance on it backfiring, knowing the
kind  of power Walter would bring to bear if I ever got charged
with something after bringing him a story like that.
     Brenda wanted to rush right off and get  to  work,  but  I
made  her  sit  down  and  think  it  out, something that would
benefit her later in her career if she remembered to do it.
     Step one was to phone in the confession as recorded by her
holocam. When that was safely at the Nipple newsdesk there  was
no  chance  of  the  Flack  going  back  on  his word. We could
interview him at our leisure, and plan just how to  break  this
story.
     Not  that  we  had  a lot of time; there's never much time
with something like this. Who  knows  when  someone  will  come
sniffing  down  the  tracks  you've left? But we took enough to
carry the head back to the Nipple, where he was put on  a  desk
and  allowed  to  use  his telephone and was soon surrounded by
dozens of gawking reporters listening in as Brenda  interviewed
him.
     Yes,  Brenda.  On  the  tube ride to the offices I'd had a
talk with her.
     "This is all going under your byline," I said.
     "That's ridiculous," she said. "You did all the  work.  It
was your not accepting the assassination on the face of it that
. . . hell, Hildy, it's your story."
     "It  was  just  too perfect," I said. "Right when I picked
him up, it went through my mind. Only I thought they'd set  him
up, the poor chump."
     "Well, I was buying it. Like everybody else."
     "Except Cricket."
     "Yeah.  There's  no  question  of me taking the credit for
it."
     "But you will. Because I'm offering it, and it's the  kind
of  story  that  will  make your name forever and you'd be even
dumber than you act if you turned it down. And because it can't
be under my name, because I don't work for the Nipple anymore."
     "You quit? When? Why didn't Walter tell me?"
     I knew when I had quit, and Walter didn't tell her because
he didn't know yet, but why confuse her?  She  argued  with  me
some   more,   her  passion  growing  weaker  and  her  gradual
acceptance more tinged with guilt. She'd get over the guilt.  I
hoped she'd get over the fame.
     She  seemed to be enjoying it well enough at the moment. I
stood at the back of the room, rows of empty desks  between  me
and  the  excited  group  gathered  around  the  triumphant cub
reporter.
     And Walter emerged from his high tower. He waddled  across
the  suddenly-silent newsroom, walking away from me, not seeing
me there in the shadows. No one present could remember the last
time he'd come out of his office just for a news story.  I  saw
him  hold  out  his  hand  to  Brenda. He didn't believe it, of
course, but he was probably  planning  to  grill  me  about  it
later.  He  was  still  bestowing  his  sacred  presence on the
reporters when I got on his elevator and  rode  it  up  to  his
office.
     His  desk sat there in a pool of light. I admired the fine
grain of the wood, the craftsmanship of the thing. Of  all  the
hugely  expensive  antiques Walter owned, this was the only one
I'd ever coveted. I'd have liked a desk of  my  own  like  that
some day.
     I  smoothed  out  the  gray  fedora hat in my hand. It had
fallen off my head when I jumped onto the stage, into a pool of
Silvio's blood. The blood was still caked on it. The thing  was
supposed  to  be  battered,  that was traditional, but this was
ridiculous.
     It seemed to me the hat had seen enough use. So I left  it
in the center of Walter's desk, and I walked out.

        =*= =*= =*= =*=

        CHAPTER FOURTEEN








     I  had  to go home by the back way, and even that had been
discovered. One of my friends must have been bribed: there were
reporters gathered  outside  the  cave.  None  had  elected  to
actually  enter  it,  not  with the cougar in residence. Though
they knew she wouldn't hurt  them,  that  lady  is  a  menacing
presence at best.
     My  re-arranged  face  almost did the trick. I had made it
into the cave and they all must have  been  wondering  who  the
hell  I  was and what my business was with Hildy, when somebody
shouted "It's her!" and the stampede was on.  I  ran  down  the
corridor  with  the  reporters on my heels, shouting questions,
taping my ignominious flight.
     Once inside, I viewed the front door camera. Oh,  brother.
They  were  shoulder  to shoulder, as far as the eye could see,
from one side of the corridor to the other. There were  vendors
selling  balloons  and  hot  dogs, and some guy in a clown suit
juggling. If I'd ever wondered where the term media circus came
from, I wondered no longer.
     The police had set up ropes to keep a clear space for fire
and emergency crews, and so my neighbors could get  through  to
their  homes. As I watched, one neighbor came through, his face
set in a scowl that was starting to look permanent. For lack of
anything else to do, many of the reporters shouted questions at
him, to which he replied with stony silence. I could see I  was
not  going  to  win  any  prizes  at my next neighborhood block
party.  This  whole  thing  was  bound  to  get  petitions   in
circulation,  politely requesting me to find another residence,
if I didn't do something.
     So I spent several hours boxing my possession, folding  up
my  furniture, sticking stamps on everything and shoving it all
in the mail tube. I thought about mailing myself along with it,
but I didn't know where I'd go. The things  I  owned  could  go
into storage; there wasn't that much of it. When I was done the
already-spare apartment was clean to the bare walls, except for
some  items  I'd  set  aside,  some of which I'd already owned,
others ordered and mailed to me. I went  to  the  bathroom  and
fixed my cheekbones, left the nose alone because I'd let Bobbie
do  that  when I could get to him safely. What the hell, it was
still under the ninety-day warranty and there was  no  need  to
tell  him I'd broken it intentionally. Then I went to the front
door and let myself appear on the outside monitor. No way was I
going to un-dog those latches.
     "Free food at the end  of  the  corridor!"  I  shouted.  A
couple of heads actually turned, but most remained looking back
at me. Everyone shouted questions at once and it took some time
for  all  that to die down and for everyone to realize that, if
they didn't shut up, nobody got an interview.
     "I've said all  I'm  going  to  say  about  the  death  of
Silvio,"  I told them. There were groans and more shouts, and I
waited for  that  to  die  down.  "I'm  not  unsympathetic,"  I
continued.  "I  used to be one of you. Well, better, but one of
you." That got me some derisive shouts, a few laughs.  "I  know
none  of  your editors will take no for an answer. So I'll give
you a break. In fifteen minutes this door will open, and you're
all free to come in. I don't guarantee you  an  interview,  but
this idiocy has got to stop. My neighbors are complaining."
     I knew that last would buy me exactly no sympathy, but the
promise  of  opening  the door would keep them solidly in place
for a while. I waved to them, and switched off the screen.
     I told the door to open up in fifteen minutes, and hurried
to the back.
     A previous call to the  police  had  cleared  the  smaller
group  out  of  the  corridor  back  there. It was not a public
space, so I could do that, and the reporters had to retreat  to
Texas, from which they could not be chased out, so long as they
didn't  violate  any  of  the  appropriate  technology  laws by
bringing in modern tools or clothing. That was fine with me;  I
knew the land, and they didn't.
     I came out of the cave cautiously. It was full night, with
no "moon,"  a fact I'd checked in my weather schedule. I peered
over the edge of the cliff and saw them  down  there,  gathered
around  a campfire near the river, drinking coffee and toasting
marshmallows. I shouldered my pack, settled all my other  items
so  they  would  make no noise, and scaled the smaller, gentler
slope that rose behind the cave. I soon came to stand on top of
the hill, and Mexico lay spread out before me in the starlight.
     I started off, walking south, keeping  my  spirits  up  by
envisioning the scene when the hungry hordes poured through the
door to find an empty nest.
     #
     For the next three weeks I lived off the land. At least, I
did as  much  of that as I could. Texas or Mexico, the pickings
could be mighty slim in these parts, partner. There  were  some
edible  plants, some cactus, none of which you'd call a gourmet
delight, but I dutifully tried as many of them as I could  find
and  identify  out  of  my  disneyland  resident's  manual. I'd
brought along staples like pancake batter and powdered eggs and
molasses and corn meal, and some spices, mostly chili powder. I
wasn't entirely on my own. I could sneak into Lonesome Dove  or
New Austin when things started getting low.
     So in the morning I'd eat flapjacks and eggs, and at night
beans  and  cornbread,  but  I supplemented this fare with wild
game.
     What I'd had in mind was venison. There are plenty of deer
and antelope  playing  around  my  home,  even  a  few  buffalo
roaming.  Buffalo  seemed a bit extreme for one person, but I'd
brought a bow and arrow hoping to bag a pronghorn or small buck
deer. The discouraging word was, those  critters  are  hard  to
sneak up on, hard to get in range of, if your range is as short
as  mine.  As  a  resident of Texas, I was entitled to take two
deer or antelope each year, and I'd never bagged even one.  I'd
never  wanted  to.  You  can use firearms for this purpose, but
checking them out of the disneyland office  was  a  process  so
beset  with  forms  in triplicate and solemn oaths that I never
even considered it. Besides, I wondered, in passing, if the  CC
would  allow me such a lethal weapon in view of my recent track
record.
     I  was  also  allowed  a  virtually  unlimited  quota   of
jackrabbits,  and that's what I ate. I didn't shoot any, though
I shot at them. I set snares. Most mornings I'd find one or two
struggling to get free. The first one was hard to kill and  the
killing  cost  me my appetite, but it got easier after that. It
was just as I "remembered"  it  from  Scarpa.  Before  long  it
seemed natural.
     I  had  found  one  of the very few places in Luna where I
could hide out until the Silvio story cooled off. I  calculated
that  would  take  about  a  month.  It would be a year or more
before the whole thing was old news, but I was sure my own part
in the travesty would be largely forgotten sooner than that. So
I spent my days wandering the length and  breadth  of  my  huge
back  yard.  There  wasn't  a  lot  to do. I occupied myself by
catching rattlesnakes. All this takes is a  certain  amount  of
roaming  around,  and  a bit of patience. They just coil up and
hiss and rattle when you find them, and can be captured using a
long stick and a bit of rope to loop around their necks. I  was
very  careful  handling them as I couldn't afford to be bitten.
That would mean either  returning  to  the  world  for  medical
treatment,  or surrendering myself to the tender mercies of Ned
Pepper. If you call up an old Boy Scout  manual  and  read  the
section on snakebite, it'll curl your hair.
     Once  a  week  I'd creep up on the entrance to my old back
door. By the second week there was no one there. I went over to
my unfinished cabin and counted the  reporters  camped  nearby.
They  had  figured  out where I was, in a general way. I'm sure
somebody in town had reported my stealthy  shopping  trips.  It
stood  to  reason that, having abandoned my apartment, I'd show
up at the cabin sooner or later. And they  were  right.  I  did
plan to return there.
     At  the  end  of  the  third week there were still a dozen
people at the cabin. Enough was enough, I decided. So I  waited
until  long  after  dark,  watching  them  forlornly  trying to
entertain each other without benefit of  television,  saw  them
crawl  into  sleeping bags one by one, many riproaring drunk. I
waited still longer, until their fire  was  embers,  until  the
surprising  cold  of the desert night had chilled the snakes in
my bag, making them dopey and  tractable.  Then  I  stole  into
their camp, silent as any red Indian, and left a rattler within
a few feet of each of the sleeping bags. I figured they'd crawl
in to get warm, and judging from the screams and shouts I heard
about an hour before sunrise, that's just what they did.
     Morning  found  them  all  gone. I watched from a distance
through my field glasses as I made my breakfast of pancakes and
left-over rabbit chili as they drifted back one  by  one  after
having been treated by autodocs. The sheriff showed up a little
later and started writing out citations. If anything, the cries
were  even  louder  when the reporters found out the price they
would have  to  pay  for  non-resident  killing  of  indigenous
reptiles.  He  wasn't impressed at all by their pleas that most
of the snakes had been killed by accident, in the  struggle  to
get out of the sleeping bags.
     I thought they might post a guard the next night, but they
didn't.  City  slickers,  all  of them. So I crept in again and
left the remainder of my stock. After my second raid, only four
of the hardiest returned. They  were  probably  going  to  stay
indefinitely,  and  they'd  be alert now. Too bad they couldn't
prove I'd sicced the snakes on them.
     I walked up to the cabin and started changing my  clothes.
It  took  them  a  minute  or  two  to notice me, then they all
gathered around. Four people can hardly be called  a  mob,  but
four  reporters  come close. They all shouted at once, they got
in my way, they grew angrier by the minute. I treated  them  as
if  they  were unusually mobile rocks, too big to move, but not
worth looking at and certainly not something to talk  to.  Even
one word would only serve to encourage them.
     They  hung  around  most  of  the day. Others joined them,
including one idiot who had  brought  an  antique  camera  with
bellows, black cape, and a bar to hold flash powder, apparently
hoping  to  get  a  novelty  picture  of some kind. There was a
novelty picture in it, when the powder slipped down  his  shirt
and  ignited  and the others had to slap out the flames. Walter
ran the sequence in his seven  o'clock  edition  with  a  funny
commentary.
     Even  reporters  will give up eventually if there's really
no story there. They wanted  to  interview  me,  but  I  wasn't
important  enough  to  rate  a come-and-go watch, supplying the
'pad with those endlessly fascinating shots of a person walking
from his door to his car,  and  arriving  home  at  night,  not
answering the questions of the throng of reporters with nothing
better  to do. So by the second day they all went away, gone to
haunt someone else. You don't give  assignments  like  that  to
your top people. I'd known guys who spent all their time staked
out  on this or that celebrity, and not one could pour piss out
of a boot.
     It felt good to be alone again.  I  got  down  to  serious
work, finishing my un-completed cabin.
     #
     Brenda  came  by  on  the second day. For a while she said
nothing, just stood there and  watched  me  hammering  shingles
into place.
     She looked different. She was dressed well, for one thing,
and had done some interesting things with make-up. Now that she
had some  money,  I supposed she had found professional advice.
The biggest new thing about her was that she was about  fifteen
kilos  heavier.  It  had  been  distributed  nicely, around the
breasts and hips and thighs. For the  first  time,  she  looked
like a real woman, only taller.
     I  took  the  nails  out of my mouth and wiped my forehead
with the back of my hand.
     "There's a thermos of lemonade by the  toolbox,"  I  said.
"You can help yourself, if you'll bring me a glass."
     "It's  talking,"  she  said. "I was told it wouldn't talk,
but I had to come see for myself." She had  found  the  thermos
and  couple  of  glasses,  which  she inspected dubiously. They
could have used a wash, I admit it.
     "I'll talk," I said.  "I  just  won't  do  interviews.  If
that's  what  you  came  for, take a look in that gunny sack by
your feet."
     "I heard about the snakes," she said. She was climbing  up
the  ladder to join me on the ridge of the roof. "That was sort
of infantile, don't you think?"
     "It did the job." I took the glass  of  lemonade  and  she
gingerly  settled  herself beside me. I drained mine and tossed
the glass down into the dirt. She was wearing brand  new  denim
pants,  very  tight to show off her newly-styled hips and legs,
and a loose blouse that managed to hide  the  boniness  of  her
shoulders,  knotted  tight between her breasts, baring her good
midriff. The tattoo around her navel seemed out of  place,  but
she  was  young.  I fingered the material of her blouse sleeve.
"Nice stuff," I said. "You did something to your hair."
     She patted it self-consciously, pleased that I'd noticed.
     "I was surprised Walter didn't sent you out here," I said.
"He'd figure because we worked together, I  might  open  up  to
you. He'd be wrong, but that's how he'd figure it."
     "He  did send me," she said. "I mean, he tried. I told him
to go to hell."
     "Something must be wrong  with  my  ears.  I  thought  you
said--"
     "I  asked  him  if  he  wanted  to  see  the hottest young
reporter in Luna working for the Shit."
     "I'm flabbergasted."
     "You taught me everything I know."
     I wasn't going to argue with that, but I'll admit  I  felt
something  that  might  have  been a glow of pride. Passing the
torch, and all that, even if the  torch  was  a  pretty  shoddy
affair, one I'd been glad to be rid of.
     "So  how's  all  the notoriety treating you?" I asked her.
"Has it cost you your sweet girlish laughter yet?"
     "I never know when you're kidding." She'd been gazing into
the purple hills, into the distance, like me.  Now  she  turned
and faced me, squinting in the merciless sunlight. Her face was
already  starting to burn. "I didn't come here to talk about me
and my career. I didn't even come to thank  you  for  what  you
did.  I was going to, but everybody said don't, they said Hildy
doesn't like stuff like that, so I won't. I  came  because  I'm
worried about you. Everybody's worried about you."
     "Who's everybody?"
     "Everybody.  All  the people in the newsroom. Even Walter,
but he'd never admit it. He told me to ask you to come back.  I
told  him  to  ask you himself. Oh, I'll tell you his offer, if
you're interested--"
     "--which I'm not."
     "--which is what I told him. I  won't  try  to  fool  you,
Hildy.  You  never  got close to the people you worked with, so
maybe you don't know how they feel about you. I won't say  they
love  you, but you're respected, a lot. I've talked to a lot of
people, and they admire your generosity and the  way  you  play
fair with them, within the limits of the job."
     "I've  stabbed  every one of them in the back, one time or
another."
     "That's not how they feel. You  beat  them  to  a  lot  of
stories,  no question, but the feeling is it's because you're a
good reporter. Oh, sure, everybody knows you cheat at cards--"
     "What a thing to say!"
     "--but nobody can ever catch you at it, and I  think  they
even admire you for that. For being so good at it."
     "Vile calumny, every word of it."
     "Whatever. I promised myself I wouldn't stay long, so I'll
just say  what  I  came  here  to  say.  I don't know just what
happened, but I saw that Silvio's death  wasn't  something  you
could  just  shrug  off.  If  you  ever  want to talk about it,
completely off the record, I'm willing to listen.  I'm  willing
to  do  just about anything." She sighed, and looked away for a
moment, then back. "I don't really know if  you  have  friends,
Hildy.  You  keep  a part of yourself away from everyone. But I
have friends, and I need them. I think of  you  as  one  of  my
friends.  They can help out when things are really bad. So what
I wanted to say, if you ever need a friend, any  time  at  all,
just call me."
     I didn't want this, but what could I do, what could I say?
I felt  a  hot lump in the back of my throat. I tried to speak,
but it would get into entirely too much if I ever started, into
things I don't think she needed or wanted to know.
     She patted my knee and started to get down off the roof. I
grabbed her hand and pulled her back. I kissed her on the lips.
For the first time in many days I smelled a human  smell  other
than  my  own sweat. She was wearing a scent I had worn the day
we kidnapped the Grand Flack.
     She would have been happy to go farther but it  wasn't  my
scene  and  we  both  knew it, and both knew I'd had nothing in
mind other than to thank her for  caring  enough  to  come  out
here.  So  she  climbed  down  from the roof, started back into
town. She turned once, waved and smiled at me.
     I worked furiously all afternoon, evening,  and  into  the
night, until it grew too dark to see what I was doing.
     #
     Cricket  came  by  the next day. I was working on the roof
again.
     "Git  down  off'n  that  there  shack,  you  cayuse!"  she
shouted.  "This  here  planet  ain't big enough fer the both of
us." She was pointing a chromeplated  six-shooter  at  me.  She
pulled  the  trigger, and a stick shot out and a flag unfurled.
It said BANG! She rolled it up and put the gun back on her  hip
as I came down the ladder, grateful of the interruption. It was
the hottest part of the day; I'd taken my shirt off and my skin
shone as if I'd just stepped out of the shower.
     "The hombre back in the bar said this stuff would take the
hide off  of  a  rattlesnake," she said, holding up a bottle of
brown liquid. "I told him that's what  I  intended  to  use  it
for."  I held out my hand. She scowled at it, then took it. She
was dressed in full, outrageous  "western"  regalia,  from  the
white  Stetson  hat to the highheeled lizard boots, with many a
pearly button and rawhide fringe in between. You  expected  her
to  whip  out a guitar and start yodeling "Cool Water." She was
also sporting a trim blonde mustache.
     "I hate the soup strainer," I said, as  she  poured  me  a
drink.
     "So  do  I,"  she admitted. "I'm like you; I don't care to
mix. But my little daughter bought it for me for  my  birthday,
so  I  figure  I  have  to  wear it for a few weeks to make her
happy."
     "I didn't know you had a daughter."
     "There's a lot you don't know about me. She's at that  age
when  gender  identity starts to crop up in their minds. One of
her friend's mother just got a Change, and  Lisa's  telling  me
she  wants  to have a daddy for a while. Hell, at least it goes
with the duds." She had been  digging  in  a  pocket.  Now  she
flipped out a wallet and showed me a picture of a girl of about
six,  a sweeter, younger version of herself. I tried my hand at
a few complimentary phrases, and became aware she  was  curling
her lip at me.
     "Oh,  shut  up,  Hildy,"  she said. "You being 'nice' just
reminds me of why you're doing it, you louse."
     "Did you have any trouble getting out of the Studio?"
     "They roughed me up pretty  good.  Knocked  out  my  front
teeth,  broke  a couple of fingers. But the cavalry arrived and
got pictures of the whole thing, and right now they're  talking
to  my lawyers. I guess I got you to thank for that; the timely
arrival, I mean."
     "No need to thank me."
     "Don't worry, I wasn't going to."
     "I was surprised it was so easy to get the drop on you."
     She brought out two shot glasses and poured  some  of  her
rattlesnake-hide  remover in each, then looked at me in a funny
way.
     "So am I. You can probably imagine, I've been thinking  it
over.  I  think  it was Brenda being there. I must have thought
she'd slow you down. Jog your elbow in some way  when  it  came
time  to do the dirty deed." She handed me a glass, and we both
drained them. She made a face; I was a little more used to  the
stuff,  but  it  never  goes  down easy. "All subconscious, you
understand. But I thought you'd hesitate, since it's so obvious
how much she looks up to you. So while I was waiting  for  that
window  of vulnerability I made the great mistake of turning my
back on you, you son of a bitch."
     "Bitch will do."
     "I meant what I said. I was thinking of the male  Hildy  I
knew, and he would have hesitated."