by John Varley
"So how much is the new theater going to cost us?" Sparky said.
The accountant, a handsome Latin-lover type who Sparky thought looked like a lawyer, and who was proud of his Indian and Arab heritage, was named Yasser Dhatsma-Bhebey. He shuffled through a stack of papers and drawings, shaking his head slowly.
"Spa... Kenneth, it's hard to say. One man in costing-out reckons there are five different projects here." He shuffled more papers. "Another figures it's at least six, maybe seven. Each of them has several variations."
"Give me a low end and a high end."
"All right. The basic one here, buying an empty theater—and I think there are two available in King City right now—would be about twelve million. Probably a bit more if we have to buy one that's still operating. And then there's this one." He held up the rendering of the theatrical palace in the park, and blew out his cheeks. "Cubic prices being what they are, we'd be looking at upward of eighty, ninety million. Now, I've got someone exploring the possibility of working a deal with the city government for an existing park—"
"Father doesn't like working with governments," Sparky said, firmly. "Forget that one, anyway. He gets carried away, but he'd hate it when it was done. Concentrate on an old place, I don't care if it's empty or not. Pay whatever you have to. The older and grander, the better. I'll sell him on it."
"S... Kenneth," Curly began, then looked guilty. "Sorry."
"Don't worry about it, Curly. I've been called Skenneth, Spakenneth, and Sparky-sorry-I-meant-Kenneth today more than I've been called Sparky or Kenneth." He looked at all of them. "We're just family here. I don't mind if you still call me Sparky."
Debbie Corlet—who had been called Curly so long she usually thought of her real name just once a month, when she signed her paycheck—had been Sparky's closet confidante since Polly's retirement ten years earlier. She was the only one at the studio who knew just how much influence John Valentine had been on the fortunes of Thimble Theater with his biweekly two-billion-mile communiques, full of chatty news she knew to be mostly lies, and helpful suggestions that seldom made it out of this office, much less to a full meeting. In the early days, when they were considering various ideas for a corporate logo, Valentine had suggested using a character from the old Popeye cartoons. Since they were all in the public domain, Sparky had settled on Wimpy taking a bite out of a hamburger. Other than that, Curly couldn't recall Sparky ever taking his father's advice, though he read each letter faithfully.
"Father is not a businessman," he would tell her, before handing her the printouts to be neatly stamped APPROVED, KV and carefully filed in a secret location. She had a staff of six hard at work at that moment, going over the last year's messages, comparing them with reality, and manufacturing paperwork to make it appear that something had actually been done about Valentine's suggestions on the remote chance he would actually look into them. Curly, who vividly remembered John Valentine from his brief, nightmarish stint with the studio, knew the man would never give it another thought.
"Sparky," she said. "I was wondering about maybe morphing the Sparky character. It wouldn't be hard, or expensive, and you'd still pull down your full salary for each episode. Do you think that would appeal to your father?"
Sparky smiled. "Normally, yes. Anything that smacks of putting one over on the producer would usually be an easy sell. Even when we are the producers. But not morphing. He would never allow his image, or mine, to be used that way. He's suspicious of anything computer-generated, and most of all, anything that lessens the opportunities for flesh-and-blood actors to be seen.
"I know that," she said, "but I've never understood it. Ninety percent of the Gang are morphed."
"Over morphing suits," Sparky pointed out. "Never completely generated."
"So what? As for getting his face seen, I know he's played parts where it was impossible to recognize his face."
"That's makeup. He doesn't mind that. Forget it, Curly. This is one we can't win." He leaned back in his chair. "And understand this, all of you. It's not one I want to win. Maybe you're thinking my father pressured me into this decision. He didn't. I'd been thinking about it, but I'm not sure I'd ever have had the guts to do it. I'm not as decisive as he is. But believe me, it's time to put Sparky to rest. Character, and series."
"It's still making great ratings, and returns," the accountant pointed out.
"I know it. But I'm not. Personally speaking, it's time, it's past time, for me to move on to something else. It's time for me to stretch myself. And as for hiring a stand-in and morphing my face onto him... you know, I'd feel just shitty about that. I think I'd be jealous. And besides, look how long our replacement Peppy lasted, way back when."
Curly didn't bother to point out that reviving a character who had blown his brains out in front of the television cameras had never been Sparky's brightest idea. She realized it was something Sparky had needed to do, to establish his final victory, and final control, of the man. The revived Peppy Show had lasted three months, and never found an audience.
"Oswald," Sparky said. "Tell me, bottom line, how much this Neptune trouble is going to cost me."
Oswald Abugado, chief legal council to Thimble Theater, was a small, bald man whose bookish demeanor always put Sparky in mind of an accountant. Yasser and Oswald, he thought, had been given the wrong job descriptions by fate's central casting office. To distinguish them, Sparky always used an old mnemonic trick his father had taught him: he mentally placed a white barrister's wig on Oswald, and an inky pen behind Yasser's ear. Abugado was a slave, who probably chose to be as small and meek and bald as he was, and who always wore his studded leather collar. Sometimes his mistress brought him to work at the end of a chain. But he was submissive only to his mistress. In court, he was known as the Piranha: a little fucker with a lot of teeth.
His papers were laid out neatly in front of him, on one corner of Sparky's pool-table-size desk. He shuffled through them.
"I can't give you a hard figure yet," Abugado said. "I've got agents exploring the judge in the Oberoni Bond matter; he seems bribable, but he may be expensive. Let's see now, the assault cases... Houghton has settled for L$300,000, and Myers hasn't said no to the same amount. Plaintiff Kowalski is still refusing to deal, which is understandable, I suppose, considering that Mr. Valentine deprived Kowalski of livelihood, marital consortium, and the use of his legs for six months—"
"But Kowalski's a Holy Healer," Sparky said. "If he'd accepted standard treatment, he'd be—"
"Irrelevant," Abugado said. "In Francisco v. Wang the Tritonian courts, which have jurisdiction, ruled that a victim's religious beliefs qua—"
"Never mind. Pay the man."
"We may have to go to court on that one. Now, in the defamation suit... things aren't looking too good there, either. It doesn't matter if the lady gave him a bad review; that article Mr. Valentine wrote in response is clearly libelous. You can't go around calling a citizen a..." He peered at his papers owlishly, muttered. "Oh, my. Well, he must have been crazy when he wrote this. You really should have a lawyer go over anything he intends to have published from now on, Sparky. It will save you a lot of money. Then there's the taxes, and once again, I hate to bear bad news but it is clear he didn't pay them. It wasn't an oversight, considering the... er, diatribes he sent to the tax authorities along with his blank forms. The total there, with penalties and interest, is—"
"Pay it," Sparky said. "Just pay it. Send me the totals later. And, Oswald?"
"Yes." The attorney looked up from his papers.
"Are you happy here? At Thimble Theater, I mean."
"Oh, yes, very happy."
"Have I ever been uncivil to you, or threatened you in any way?"
"Not that I recall." Abugado was beginning to look a little worried.
"Oswald, if I ever hear you refer to my father as crazy again, you will be cleaning out your desk ten minutes later."
"Sparky, I never meant—"
Sparky sat back in his
chair, and waved it away.
"Consider the whole incident forgotten," he said. "You're doing good work on this, Oswald. Don't worry if you aren't able to get us a good deal; we'll pay whatever is necessary."
"On the tax thing," Oswald said, trying to put a good face on matters but feeling as if he were walking through a minefield. "Usually something can be worked out, but it's very difficult with the written evidence that he intended to completely ignore—"
"Don't be nervous, man. He's guilty, no question. My father never pays taxes; he opposes them, on moral grounds. We've been paying his tax bills the whole time he was away."
"I didn't know."
"Of course not. Now, everybody, thank you for coming, and I'd like to be alone for a while. Curly, give me about an hour."
"There's a story meeting in thirty minutes."
"Reschedule it. Or buy them all a drink, on me, and have them wait."
When Sparky was alone he kicked back in his chair and studied the ceiling for a long time. When he looked down, Elwood had parked his elongated body in the chair Curly had been sitting in. "Feeling a bit frisky today?" he asked.
"Don't start."
"No, really, I thought you handled that real well. You were about to say 'You'll never work in this town again,' weren't you? Do you suppose anybody ever had the stones to make that true?"
"Louis B. Mayer, maybe."
Elwood thought that one over. "Well, I know the son of a bitch would have if he could have. But I never heard him say it. And the trouble is, if he did, whoever he said it to would know he could trot his behind over to Columbia, and Harry Cohn would hire him just to stick it in L.B.'s ear."
"Or Jack Warner. Or Hal Roach. Or Thomas Edison."
"Don't know about Edison. He was a little before my time."
"Heck, Elwood, I thought you helped him build his first camera."
"Met him once. With Henry Ford. They were tight, you know. Edison was old Henry's hero. You know, your father's not really crazy."
"Didn't I just say that?"
"No, you told Oswald never to call your father crazy. And the way you said it, the man knows you really do think he's crazy."
"This is silly. He's crazy, he's not crazy. I know he does foolish things sometimes. But we've got to stick together. I can't allow him to sit there and make accusations. His job is to get my father out of trouble, and he can keep his goddam opinions to himself. Father wouldn't let anyone say bad things about me and get away with it."
"Yeah, but he's crazy."
Sparky burst out laughing, and Elwood chuckled along with him. Then he sobered, and looked Sparky in the eye.
"My old friend," he said. "The last thing I want to do is come between a boy and his father. I've never tried to tell you I like him much, because I don't. But I've never told you what I really think of him, either."
"I don't want to hear this."
"But you can't get rid of me, so you will hear it. I don't think of John Valentine as crazy. Crazed, maybe. Full-grown, he's more impulsive than you were when you were five. Has no more control of himself. He's the most egomaniacal man I've ever seen, and I've seen some doozies. He never does anything in a small way. He loves you, and that means he loves you in a big way, too."
Elwood raised an eyebrow, waiting for Sparky to comment. Sparky kept his silence, frowning at Elwood.
"We never talk about it, but you know I had to save your behind once."
"Oh, is that what this is about?" Sparky fumed. "All this time I thought you were my conscience."
"That's why you call me Jiminy Stewart sometimes. I am your conscience."
"So now you want a second job. Guardian angel."
Elwood shrugged. "You may be needing one soon."
"Well, you're neither one. You're a figment, that's what you are. You want to talk crazy? How about me? I'm the one who's been hearing voices most of my life."
"Just the one voice," Elwood pointed out.
"So what? Does that make me only borderline schizophrenic? Isn't one voice enough?"
"I'm not a headshrinker; I don't know. It's safe to say you're not in the pink of mental health, I guess."
"That's what you are. A symptom!"
"No," Elwood drawled. "I'm the best friend you have. The best friend you will ever have, because I don't have anything else to worry about but you. I'm here if you want to talk—"
"Or if I don't want to talk."
"Then, too. I'm here to offer advice—"
"Even when I don't ask for it."
"You don't have to follow it. But it's been good in the past, and you know it. Sparky, I'm here for a lot of things a friend can do for a friend. I just wanted you to know that, from now on, I'm here for something else, too."
"And what would that be?"
"You said it. Guardian angel."
"Elwood, that's all in the past. I'm grown up now. I know he made some mistakes when I was younger, but after... that time, he never laid a hand on me."
"He didn't have a lot of chance to," Elwood pointed out. "And that's all I want to say about it, anyway. Let's hope you're right and I'm wrong."
"Just forget about it," Sparky said. "That's over with. We're going to be a team now."
"Great," Elwood said, then leaned forward, intense. "But the thing that worries me when I watch him, when I listen to him... it seems to me he still thinks you're eight years old."
* * *
Hal used a word during our conversation in the spa that I didn't like much, and that word was hijack. didn't think much of it at the time, but it kept coming back to me.
During my life I've broken all the Ten Commandments, if you don't count coveting my neighbor's ox. If I ever have a neighbor who has an ox, I guarantee you I will covet it. I've coveted plenty of my neighbors' asses.
I've broken more temporal laws than I can count. Sometimes it was because they were stupid laws. Sometimes the laws were inconvenient. I didn't have many qualms about breaking them. From time to time I've broken a law I thought was a good law, prohibiting something that ought not be done. I'm not happy about that, but I'm still here, still alive, still not in jail. There is a line, there are things I won't do, even if it means death, or jail.
But hijacking? Somehow, when you use that word, it puts it into a whole different category of stealing. Stealing a spaceship is piracy.
We were pirates, Poly and I. Imagine that.
I'm not saying I felt guilty about it. After all, the pirated object seemed happy to be away from its legitimate owner... or in this case, renter. I like to see myself as a quixotic Robin Hood, stealing only from those too rich to miss it, too stupid to notice it is missing, or too mean to deserve it. Izzy Comfort was certainly mean, and the Charonese were certainly rich. As for giving it to the poor, I think I qualify in that regard. Why pass the profits on to other poor people? They'd probably only squander it on things like shoes for the children, or clothing they didn't really need.
The Halley was by far the finest thing I ever nicked. It would be remiss of me to go on at this point without giving you a short tour. Just the high points; it would take all day to enumerate her luxurious appointments.
I skipped a few things from the end of acceleration to my dip in the spa, because I wanted to clear up that cliffhanger business as soon as possible. You probably noticed, since I could only float in a pool if there was some gravity, or a facsimile. And no rich man is going to spend months in a ship in free fall.
The Halley provided spin gravity by detaching the power plant from the living quarters and moving them far apart, tethered by a strong cable. Then spin was applied. Since the engines were ten times as massive as the life support, the center of gravity was very close to the engines, which moved slowly. The quarters zipped around at a much higher speed. Think of an Olympic hammer thrower, twirling around almost in place, while the end of the hammer goes extremely fast. We were twirling fast enough to feel one-third gee.
I do recall checking Toby before hobbling to the sp
a. He seemed chipper enough, when we got spin and his cage retracted. Hal later told me Toby had been sedated and was unlikely to remember anything. Dogs are pretty happy-go-lucky, anyway; once something unpleasant is gone, it is forgotten.
Poly and I both dozed for a time after my conversation with Hal. I recall waking up once at the gentle sound of a bell, to find a floating breakfast tray had found me. On it was a steaming mug of coffee, a huge glass of orange juice, a Bloody Mary, and a bowl of what looked like oatmeal. Trying not to look at the oatmeal, I downed all the beverages and went right back to sleep.
The next time I opened my eyes, Toby was standing beside the pool, and he was coughing up blood.
Poly says I came out of the pool slick as a seal, just seemed to sort of levitate. I don't recall it, but I do know that two seconds earlier I'd have sworn I couldn't walk, much less levitate. Somehow I found myself kneeling beside Toby, gently probing, saying soothing words in baby talk, like most of us do when dealing with dogs. His mouth, muzzle, and chest were dripping with blood. And his belly was swollen, taut as a grape. It didn't add up.
Toby seemed perky as could be, licking my hands, trying to jump up and lick my face. When I settled down a little, I saw it was not blood he had coughed up, but bloody meat. Either he was heaving his poor little guts out, or there was a much simpler explanation.
"Is he hurt bad?" Poly was kneeling beside me. I became aware we were both naked, and slippery wet. She caught my double take, and a frown line appeared between her eyebrows. Even in my debilitated state, she was a lovely sight. But she probably thought me callous.
"He's found something to eat," I said. "The little pig ate too much, and now he's throwing it up. He'll be fine."
"Are you sure?"