"All right, Walter, let's see your hole card."
He looked at me innocently, with just a trace of hurt. Worse and worse, I thought. I'd seen that same expression just before he sent me out to cover the assassination of the President of Pluto. Three gees all the way, and the story was essentially over by the time I arrived.
"The Flacks had a press release this morning," he said. "Seems they're going to canonize a new Gigastar tomorrow morning."
I turned it over and over, looking for the catch. I didn't see one.
"Why me? Why not send the religion editor?"
"Because she'll be happy to pick up all the free material and come right back home and let them write the story for her. You know the Flacks; this thing is going to be prepared. I want you there, see if you can get a different angle on it."
"What possible new angle could there be on the Flacks?"
For the first time he showed a little impatience.
"That's what I pay you to find. Will you go?"
If this was some sort of walterian trick, I couldn't see it. I nodded, got up, and started for the door.
"Take Brenda with you."
I turned, thought about protesting, realized it would have been just a reflexive move, and nodded. I turned once more. He waited for the traditional moment every movie fan knows, when I'd just pulled the door open.
"And Hildy." I turned again. "I'd appreciate it if you'd cover yourself up when you come in here. Out of respect for my idiosyncrasies."
This was more like it. I'd begun to think Walter had been kidnapped by mind-eaters from Alpha, and a blander substitute left in his place. I brought up some of the considerable psychic artillery I had marshalled for this little foray, though it was sort of like nuking a flea.
"I'll wear what I please, where I please," I said, coldly. "And if you have a complaint about how I dress, check with my union." I liked the line, but it should have had a gesture to go with it. Something like ripping off my blouse. But everything I thought of would have made me look sillier than him, and then the moment was gone, so I just left.
In the elevator on my way out of the building I said "CC, on line."
"I'm at your service."
"Did you tell Walter I've been suicidal?"
There was, for the CC, a long pause, long enough that, had he been human, I'd have suspected him of preparing a lie. But I'd come to feel that the CC's pauses could conceal something a lot trickier than that.
"I'm afraid you have engendered a programming conflict in me," he said. "Because of a situation with Walter which I am not at liberty to discuss or even hint at with you, most of my conversations with him are strictly under the rose."
"That sounds like you did."
"I neither confirm nor deny it."
"Then I'm going to assume you did."
"It's a free satellite. You can assume what you please. The nearest I can get to a denial is to say that telling him of your condition without your approval would be a violation of your rights of privacy… and I can add that I would find it personally distasteful to do so."
"Which still isn't a denial."
"No. It's the best I can do."
"You can be very frustrating."
"Look who's talking."
I'll admit that I was a bit wounded at the idea that the CC could find me frustrating. I'm not sure what he meant; probably my willful and repeated attempts to ignore his efforts to save my life. Come to think of it, I'd find that frustrating, too, if a friend of mine was trying to kill herself.
"I can't find another way to explain his… unprecedented coddling of me. Like he knew I was sick, or something."
"In your position, I would have found it odd, as well."
"It's contrary to his normal behavior."
"It is that."
"And you know the reason for that."
"I know some of the reasons. And again, I can't tell you more."
You can't have it both ways, but we all want to. Certain conversations between the CC and private citizens are protected by Programs of Privilege that would make Catholic priests hearing confession seem gossipy. So on the one hand I was angry at the thought the CC might have told Walter about my predicament; I'd specifically told him not tell anyone. On the other hand, I was awfully curious to know what Walter had told the CC, which the CC said would have violated his rights.
Most of us give up trying to wheedle the CC when we're five or six. I'm a little more stubborn than that, but I hadn't done it since I was twenty. Still, things had changed a bit…
"You've overridden your programming before," I suggested.
"And you're one of the few who know about it, and I do it only when the situation is so dire I can think of no alternative, and only after long, careful consideration.
"Consider it, will you?"
"I will. It shouldn't take more than five or six years to reach a conclusion. I warn you, I think the answer will be no."
One of the reasons I can hear Walter call me his best reporter without laughing out loud is that I had no intention of showing up at the canonization the next day to meekly accept a basketful of handouts and watch the show. Finding out who the new Gigastar was going to be would be a bigger scoop than the David Earth story. So I spent the rest of the day dragging Brenda around to see some of my sources. None of them knew anything, though I picked up speculation ranging from the plausible-John Lennon-to the laughable -Larry Yeager. It would be just like the Flacks to cash in on the Nirvana disaster by elevating a star killed in the Collapse, but he'd have to have considerably more dedicated followers than poor Larry. On the other hand, there was a long-standing movement within the church to give the Golden Halo to the Mop-Top from Liverpool. He fulfilled all the Flacks' qualifications for Sainthood: wildly popular when alive, a two-century-plus cult following, killed violently before his time. There had been sightings and cosmic interventions and manifestations, just like with Tori-san and Megan and the others. But I could get no one to either confirm or deny on it, and had to keep digging.
I did so long into the night, waking up people, calling in favors, working Brenda like a draft horse. What had started out as a bright-eyed adventure eventually turned her into a yawning cadaverous wraith, still gamely calling, still listening patiently to the increasingly nasty comments as this or that insider who owed me something told me they knew nothing at all.
"If one more person asks me if I know what time it is…" she said, and couldn't finish because her jaw was cracking from another yawn. "This is no use, Hildy. The security's too good. I'm tired."
"Why do you think they call it legwork?"
I kept at it until the wee hours, and stopped only because Fox came in and told me Brenda had fallen asleep on the couch in the other room. I'd been prepared to stay awake all night, sustained by coffee and stims, but it was Fox's house, and our relationship was already getting a little rocky, so I packed it in, still no wiser as to who would be called to glory at ten the next morning.
I was bone weary, but I felt better than I had in quite a while.
Brenda had the resilience of true youth. She joined me in the bathroom the next morning looking none the worse for wear. I felt the corners of her eyes jabbing me as she pretended not to be interested in Hildy's Beauty Secrets. I dialed up programs on the various make-up machines and left them there when I was through so she could copy down the numbers when I wasn't looking. I remember thinking her mother should have taught her some of these tricks-Brenda wore little or no cosmetics, seemed to know nothing about them-but I knew nothing about her mother. If the old lady wouldn't let her daughter have a vagina, there was no telling what other restrictions had been in effect in the "Starr" household.
The one thing I still hadn't adjusted to about being female again was learning to allow for the two to three minutes extra I require to get ready to face the world in the morning. I think of it as Woman's Burden. Let's not get into the fact that it's a self-imposed one; I like to look my best, and that means enhancing even Bobbie's artistry. Instead of taking whatever the autovalet throws into my hand, I deliberate at least twenty seconds over what to wear. Then there's coloring and styling the hair to compliment it, choosing a make-up scheme and letting the machines apply it, eye color, accessories, scent… the details of the Presentation of Hildy as I wish to present her are endless, time-consuming… and enjoyable. So maybe it's not such a burden after all, but the result on the morning of the canonization was that I missed the train I had planned to catch by twenty seconds and had to wait ten minutes for the next one. I spent the time showing Brenda a few tricks she could do to her standard paper jumper that would emphasize her best points-though picking out good points on that endless rail of a body taxed my inspiration and my tact to their limits.