The John Varley Reader

by John Varley

  And of course it had to happen after Lilli was dressed.

  “Mom, this was the last outfit I had.”

  “Well, if you wouldn’t use them so hard they might last more than three days, and if you didn’t . . .” She stopped before she lost her temper. “Just take it off and go as you are.”

  “But Mom, nobody goes to school naked. Nobody. Give me some money and I’ll stop at the store on—”

  Cleo raised her voice, something she tried never to do. “Child, I know there are kids in your class whose parents can’t afford to buy clothes at all.”

  “All right, so the poor kids don’t—”

  “That’s enough. You’re late already. Get going.”

  Lilli stalked from the room. Cleo heard the door slam.

  Through it all Jules was an island of calm at the other end of the table, his nose in his newspad, sipping his second cup of coffee. Cleo glanced at her own bacon and eggs cooling on the plate, poured herself a first cup of coffee, then had to get up and help Paul find his other shoe.

  By then Feather was wet again, so she put her on the table and peeled off the sopping diaper.

  “Hey, listen to this,” Jules said.“‘The City Council today passed without objection an ordinance requiring—’”

  “Jules, aren’t you a little behind schedule?”

  He glanced at his thumbnail. “You’re right. Thanks.” He finished his coffee, folded his newspad and tucked it under his arm, bent over to kiss her, then frowned.

  “You really ought to eat more, honey,” he said, indicating the untouched eggs. “Eating for two, you know.’Bye now.”

  “Good-bye,” Cleo said, through clenched teeth. “And if I hear that ‘eating for two’ business again, I’ll . . .” But he was gone.

  She had time to scorch her lip on the coffee, then was out the door, hurrying to catch the train.

  There were seats on the sun car, but of course Feather was with her and the UV wasn’t good for her tender skin. After a longing look at the passengers reclining with the dark cups strapped over their eyes—and a rueful glance down at her own pale skin—Cleo boarded the next car and found a seat by a large man wearing a hardhat. She settled down in the cushions, adjusted the straps on the carrier slung in front of her, and let Feather have a nipple. She unfolded her newspad and spread it out in her lap.

  “Cute,” the man said. “How old is he?”

  “She,” Cleo said, without looking up. “Eleven days.” And five hours and thirty-six minutes . . .

  She shifted in the seat, pointedly turning her shoulder to him, and made a show of activating her newspad and scanning the day’s contents. She did not glance up as the train left the underground tunnel and emerged on the gently rolling, airless plain of Mendeleev. There was little enough out there to interest her, considering she made the forty-minute commute to Hartman Crater twice a day. They had discussed moving to Hartman, but Jules liked living in King City near his work, and of course the kids would have missed all their school friends.

  There wasn’t much in the news storage that morning. When the red light flashed, she queried for an update. The pad printed some routine city business. Three sentences into the story she punched the reject key.

  There was an Invasion Centennial parade listed for 1900 hours that evening. Parades bored her, and so did the Centennial. If you’ve heard one speech about how liberation of Earth is just around the corner if we all pull together, you’ve heard them all. Semantic content zero, nonsense quotient high.

  She glanced wistfully at sports, noting that the J Sector jumpball team was doing poorly without her in the intracity tournament. Cleo’s small stature and powerful legs had served her well as a starting sprint-wing in her playing days, but it just didn’t seem possible to make practices anymore.

  As a last resort, she called up the articles, digests, and analysis listings, the newspad’s Sunday Supplement and Op-Ed department. A title caught her eye, and she punched it up.

  CHANGING: THE REVOLUTION IN SEX ROLES

  (Or, Who’s on Top?)

  Twenty years ago, when cheap and easy sex changes first became available to the general public, it was seen as the beginning of a revolution that would change the shape of human society in ways impossible to foresee. Sexual equality is one thing, the sociologists pointed out, but certain residual inequities—based on biological imperatives or on upbringing, depending on your politics—have proved impossible to weed out. Changing was going to end all that. Men and women would be able to see what it was like from the other side of the barrier that divides humanity. How could sex roles survive that?

  Ten years later the answer is obvious. Changing had appealed only to a tiny minority. It was soon seen as a harmless aberration, practiced by only 1 percent of the population. Everyone promptly forgot about the tumbling of barriers.

  But in the intervening ten years a quieter revolution has been building. Almost unnoticed on the broad scale because it is an invisible phenomenon (how do you know the next woman you meet was not a man last week?), changing has been gaining growing, matter-of-fact acceptance among the children of the generation that rejected it. The chances are now better than even that you know someone who has had at least one sex change. The chances are better than one out of fifteen that you yourself have changed; if you are under twenty, the chance is one in three.

  The article went on to describe the underground society which was springing up around changing. Changers tended to band together, frequenting their own taprooms, staging their own social events, remaining aloof from the larger society which many of them saw as outmoded and irrelevant. Changers tended to marry other changers. They divided the childbearing equally, each preferring to mother only one child. The author viewed this tendency with alarm, since it went against the socially approved custom of large families. Changers reported that the time for that was the past, pointing out that Luna had been tamed long ago. They quoted statistics proving that at present rates of expansion, Luna’s population would be in the billions in an amazingly short time.

  There were interviews with changers, and psychological profiles. Cleo read that the males had originally been the heaviest users of the new technology, stating sexual reasons for their decision, and the change had often been permanent. Today, the changer was slightly more likely to have been born female, and to give social reasons, the most common of which was pressure to bear children. But the modern changer committed him/herself to neither role. The average time between changes in an individual was two years, and declining.

  Cleo read the whole article, then thought about using some of the reading references at the end. Not that much of it was really new to her. She had been aware of changing, without thinking about it much. The idea had never attracted her, and Jules was against it. But for some reason it had struck a chord this morning.

  Feather had gone to sleep. Cleo carefully pulled the blanket down around the child’s face, then wiped milk from her nipple. She folded her newspad and stowed it in her purse, then rested her chin on her palm and looked out the window for the rest of the trip.

  Cleo was chief on-site architect for the new Food Systems, Inc., plantation that was going down in Hartman. As such, she was in charge of three junior architects, five construction bosses, and an army of drafters and workers. It was a big project, the biggest Cleo had ever handled.

  She liked her work, but the best part had always been being there on the site when things were happening, actually supervising construction instead of running a desk. That had been difficult in the last months of carrying Feather, but at least there were maternity pressure suits. It was even harder now.

  She had been through it all before, with Lilli and Paul. Everybody works. That had been the rule for a century, since the Invasion. There was no labor to spare for babysitters, so having children meant the mother or father must do the same job they had been doing before, but do it while taking care of the child. In practice, it was usually the mother, since she had the mil
k.

  Cleo had tried leaving Feather with one of the women in the office, but each had her own work to do, and not unreasonably felt Cleo should bear the burden of her own offspring. And Feather never seemed to respond well to another person. Cleo would return from her visit to the site to find the child had been crying the whole time, disrupting everyone’s work. She had taken Feather in a crawler a few times, but it wasn’t the same.

  That morning was taken up with a meeting. Cleo and the other section chiefs sat around the big table for three hours, discussing ways of dealing with the cost overrun, then broke for lunch only to return to the problem in the afternoon. Cleo’s back was aching and she had a headache she couldn’t shake, so Feather chose that day to be cranky. After ten minutes of increasingly hostile looks, Cleo had to retire to the booth with Leah Farnham, the accountant, and her three-year-old son, Eddie. The two of them followed the proceedings through earphones while trying to cope with their children and make their remarks through throat mikes. Half the people at the conference table either had to turn around when she spoke, or ignore her, and Cleo was hesitant to force them to that choice. As a result, she chose her remarks with extreme care. More often, she said nothing.

  There was something at the core of the world of business that refused to adjust to children in the board room, while appearing to make every effort to accommodate the working mother. Cleo brooded about it, not for the first time.

  But what did she want? Honestly, she could not see what else could be done. It certainly wasn’t fair to disrupt the entire meeting with a crying baby. She wished she knew the answer. Those were her friends out there, yet her feeling of alienation was intense, staring through the glass wall that Eddie was smudging with his dirty fingers.

  Luckily, Feather was a perfect angel on the trip home. She gurgled and smiled toothlessly at a woman who had stopped to admire her, and Cleo warmed to the infant for the first time that day. She spent the trip playing games with her, surrounded by the approving smiles of other passengers.

  “Jules, I read the most interesting article on the pad this morning.” There, it was out, anyway. She had decided the direct approach would be best.

  “Hmm?”

  “It was about changing. It’s getting more and more popular.”

  “Is that so?” He did not look up from his book.

  Jules and Cleo were in the habit of sitting up in bed for a few hours after the children were asleep. They spurned the video programs that were designed to lull workers after a hard day, preferring to use the time to catch up on reading, or to talk if either of them had anything to say. Over the last few years, they had read more and talked less.

  Cleo reached over Feather’s crib and got a packet of dopesticks. She flicked one to light with her thumbnail, drew on it, and exhaled a cloud of lavender smoke. She drew her legs up under her and leaned back against the wall.

  “I just thought we might talk about it. That’s all.”

  Jules put his book down. “All right. But what’s to talk about? We’re not into that.”

  She shrugged and picked at a cuticle. “I know. We did talk about it, way back. I just wondered if you still felt the same, I guess.” She offered him the stick and he took a drag.

  “As far as I know, I do.” he said easily. “It’s not something I spend a great deal of thought on. What’s the matter?” He looked at her suspiciously. “You weren’t having any thoughts in that direction, were you?”

  “Well, no, not exactly. No. But you really ought to read the article. More people are doing it. I just thought we ought to be aware of it.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that,” Jules conceded. He laced his hands behind his head. “No way to tell unless you’ve worked with them and suddenly one day they’ve got a new set of equipment.” He laughed. “First time it was sort of hard for me to get used to. Now I hardly ever think about it.”

  “Me, either.”

  “They don’t cause any problem,” Jules said with an air of finality. “Live and let live.”

  “Yeah.” Cleo smoked in silence for a time and let Jules get back to his reading, but she still felt uncomfortable. “Jules?”

  “What is it now?”

  “Don’t you ever wonder what it would be like?”

  He sighed and closed his book, then turned to face her.

  “I don’t quite understand you tonight,” he said.

  “Well, maybe I don’t either, but we could talk—”

  “Listen. Have you thought about what it would do to the kids? I mean, even if I was willing to seriously consider it, which I’m not.”

  “I talked to Lilli about that. Just theoretically, you understand. She said she had two teachers who changed, and one of her best friends used to be a boy. There’s quite a few kids at school who’ve changed. She takes it in stride.”

  “Yes, but she’s older. What about Paul? What would it do to his concept of himself as a young man? I’ll tell you, Cleo, in the back of my mind I keep thinking this business is a little sick. I feel it would have a bad effect on the children.”

  “Not according to—”

  “Cleo, Cleo. Let’s not get into an argument. Number one, I have no intention of getting a change, now or in the future. Two, if only one of us was changed, it would sure play hell with our sex life, wouldn’t it? And three, I like you too much as you are.” He leaned over and began to kiss her.

  She was more than a little annoyed, but said nothing as his kisses became more intense. It was a damnably effective way of shutting off debate. And she could not stay angry: she was responding in spite of herself, easily, naturally.

  It was as good as it always was with Jules. The ceiling, so familiar, once again became a calming blankness that absorbed her thoughts.

  No, she had no complaints about being female, no sexual dissatisfactions. It was nothing as simple as that.

  Afterward she lay on her side with her legs drawn up, her knees together. She faced Jules, who absently stroked her leg with one hand. Her eyes were closed, but she was not sleepy. She was savoring the warmth she cherished so much after sex; the slipperiness between her legs, holding his semen inside.

  She felt the bed move as he shifted his weight.

  “You did make it, didn’t you?”

  She opened one eye enough to squint at him.

  “Of course I did. I always do. You know I never have any trouble in that direction.”

  He relaxed back onto the pillow. “I’m sorry for . . . well, for springing on you like that.”

  “It’s okay. It was nice.”

  “I had just thought you might have been . . . faking it. I’m not sure why I would think that.”

  She opened the other eye and patted him gently on the cheek.

  “Jules, I’d never be that protective of your poor ego. If you don’t satisfy me, I promise you’ll be the second to know.”

  He chuckled, then turned on his side to kiss her.

  “Good night, babe.”

  “G’night.”

  She loved him. He loved her. Their sex life was good—with the slight mental reservation that he always seemed to initiate it—and she was happy with her body.

  So why was she still awake three hours later?

  Shopping took a few hours on the vidphone Saturday morning. Cleo bought the household necessities for delivery that afternoon, then left the house to do the shopping she fancied: going from store to store, looking at things she didn’t really need.

  Feather was with Jules on Saturdays. She savored a quiet lunch alone at a table in the park plaza, then found herself walking down Brazil Avenue in the heart of the medical district. On impulse, she stepped into the New Heredity Body Salon.

  It was only after she was inside that she admitted to herself she had spent most of the morning arranging for the impulse.

  She was on edge as she was taken down a hallway to a consulting room, and had to force a smile for the handsome young man behind the desk. She sat, put her packages on the floor, a
nd folded her hands in her lap. He asked what he could do for her.

  “I’m not actually here for any work,” she said. “I wanted to look into the costs, and maybe learn a little more about the procedures involved in changing.”

  He nodded understandingly, and got up.

  “There’s no charge for the initial consultation,” he said. “We’re happy to answer your questions. By the way, I’m Marion, spelled with an ‘o’ this month.” He smiled at her and motioned for her to follow him. He stood her in front of a full-length mirror mounted on the wall.

  “I know it’s hard to make that first step. It was hard for me, and I do it for a living. So we’ve arranged this demonstration that won’t cost you anything, either in money or worry. It’s a nonthreatening way to see some of what it’s all about, but it might startle you a little, so be prepared.” He touched a button in the wall beside the mirror, and Cleo saw her clothes fade away. She realized it was not really a mirror, but a holographic screen linked to a computer.

  The computer introduced changes in the image. In thirty seconds she faced a male stranger. There was no doubt the face was her own, but it was more angular, perhaps a little larger in its underlying bony structure. The skin on the stranger’s jaw was rough, as if it needed shaving.

  The rest of the body was as she might expect, though overly muscled for her tastes. She did little more than glance at the penis; somehow that didn’t seem to matter so much. She spent more time studying the hair on the chest, the tiny nipples, and the ridges that had appeared on the hands and feet. The image mimicked her every movement.

  “Why all the brawn?” she asked Marion. “If you’re trying to sell me on this, you’ve taken the wrong approach.”

  Marion punched some more buttons. “I didn’t choose this image,” he explained. “The computer takes what it sees, and extrapolates. You’re more muscular than the average woman. You probably exercise. This is what a comparable amount of training would have produced with male hormones to fix nitrogen in the muscles. But we’re not bound by that.”