Steel Beach (40 page)

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 rip-roaring 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 uncompleted 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 chrome-plated 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 high-heeled 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.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Maybe so. But I think I’m right. Changing is almost always more than just re-arranging the plumbing. Other things change, too. So I was caught in the middle, thinking of you as a man who’d do something stupid in the presence of a little pussy, not as the ruthless cunt you’d become.”

“It was never like that with me and Brenda.”

“Oh, spare me. Sure, I know you never screwed her. She told me that. But a man’s always aware of the possibility. As a woman you
know
that. And you use it, if you have any brains, just like I do.”

I couldn’t say she was definitely wrong. I know that changing sex is, for me, more than just a surface thing. Some attitudes and outlooks change as well. Not a lot, but enough to make a difference in some situations.

“You’re sleeping with her, aren’t you?” I asked, in some surprise.

“Sure. Why not?” She took another drink and squinted at me, then shook her head. “You’re good at a lot of things, Hildy, but not so good at people.” I wasn’t sure what she meant by that. Not that I disagreed, I just wasn’t sure what she was getting at.

“She sent you out here?”

“She helped. I would have come out here anyway, to see if I really wanted to put a few new dents in your skull. I was going to, but what’s the point? But she’s worried about you. She said having Silvio die in your arms like that hit you pretty hard.”

“It did. But she’s exaggerating.”

“Could be. She’s young. But I’ll admit, I was surprised to see you quit. You’ve talked about it ever since I’ve known you, so I just assumed it was nothing but talk. You really going to squat out here for the rest of your life?” She looked sourly around at the blasted land. “What the hell you gonna do, once this slum is finished? Grow stuff? What can you raise out here, anyway?”

“Calluses and blisters, mostly.” I showed her my hands. “I’m thinking of entering these in the county fair.”

She poured another drink, corked the bottle, and handed it to me. She drained her glass in one gulp.

“Lord help me, I think I’m beginning to like this stuff.”

“Are you going to ask me to go back to work?”