The John Varley Reader by John Varley Read Free Book Online

a quick glance at me. She was crying, and her eyes told me: Don’t breathe a word. Let him believe it . She needn’t have worried.
    Then he started coughing. Blood came from his lips, and as soon as I saw it, I passed out. I thought he would literally fall apart and rot into some awful green slime, slime that I could never wash off.
    Halo wouldn’t let me stay out. She slapped me until my ears were ringing, and when I was awake, we gave up. We couldn’t make a meaningful decision in the face of this . We had to give it to someone else.
    So twenty-five minutes later I was over the pole, just coming into range of the CC’s outer transmitters.
    â€œWell, the black sheep return,” the CC began in a superior tone. “I must say you outlasted the usual Nearside stay, in fact . . .”
    â€œShut up! ” I bawled. “You shut up and listen to me. I want to contact Carnival, and I want her now, crash priority, emergency status. Get on it!”
    The CC was all business, dropping the in loco parentis program and operating with the astonishing speed it’s capable of in an emergency. Carnival was on the line in three seconds.
    â€œFox,” she said, “I don’t want to start this off on a bad footing; so, first of all, I thank you for giving me a chance to settle this with you face-to-face. I’ve retained a family arbiter, and I’d like for us to present our separate cases to him on this Change you want, and I’ll agree to abide by his decision. Is that fair for a beginning?” She sounded anxious. I knew there was anger beneath it—there always is—but she was sincere.
    â€œWe can talk about that later, Mom,” I sobbed. “Right now you’ve got to get to the field, as quick as you can.”
    â€œFox, is Halo with you? Is she all right?”
    â€œShe’s all right.”
    â€œI’ll be there in five minutes.”
    It was too late, of course. Old Lester had died shortly after I lifted off, and Halo had been there with a dead body for almost two hours.
    She was calm about it. She held Carnival and me together while she explained what had to be done, and even got us to help her. We buried him, as he had wanted, on the surface, in a spot that would always be in the light of Old Earth.
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Carnival never would tell me what she would have done if he had been alive when we got there. It was an ethical question, and both of us are usually very opinionated on ethical matters. But I suspect we agreed for once. The will of the individual must be respected, and if I face it again, I’ll know what to do. I think.
    I got my Change without family arbitration. Credit me with a little sense; if our case had ever come up before a family arbiter, I’m sure he would have recommended divorce. And that would have been tough, because difficult as Carnival is, I love her, and I need her for at least a few more years. I’m not as grownup as I thought I was.
    It didn’t really surprise me that Carnival was right about the Change, either. In another lunation I was male again, then female, male; back and forth for a year. There’s no sense in that. I’m female now, and I think I’ll stick with it for a few years and see what it’s about. I was born female, you know, but only lasted two hours in that sex because Carnival wanted a boy.
    And Halo’s a male, which makes it perfect. We’ve found that we do better as opposites than we did as boyfriends. I’m thinking about having my child in a few years, with Halo as the father. Carnival says wait, but I think I’m right this time. I still believe most of our troubles come from her inability to remember the swiftly moving present a child lives in. Then Halo can have her child—I’d be flattered if she chose me to father it—and . . .
    We’re moving to Nearside. Halo and me, that is, and Carnival and Chord are thinking about it, and they’ll go,