The Golden Globe

"There are three ways you can go about this, Mr. Valentine," the medtech said. "First, we can put you to sleep and have the whole thing over in less than a month."

"I like the sound of that," Sparky said.

"It has its attractions," admitted the tech. "However, when you wake up, you'll be... oh, I'd guess you're going to run six feet, six-one, something in there. You'll be well over twice your current weight. You'll have to learn how to shave."

"That should be easy enough."

"Shaving? No problem. But longer arms and legs will be a big problem. I've followed several cases, and you should expect half a dozen major, painful accidents in the first year. That's not counting the dozens of scrapes and bruises you'll pick up every day, the number of times you'll bang your head on the ceiling."

"I see," Sparky said, thinking it over.

"You'll be the clumsiest man in Luna," he said, with a chuckle. "In the normal course of things, we adjust to our bodies gradually, as they change gradually. In Luna, of course, those bodies are dangerously overpowered. You know how to handle it at your current dimensions and musculature. It would be like letting a baby operate heavy equipment... if you'll pardon the expression."

"That's okay, Doc." Sparky liked the guy. So few people just came right out and laid the truth on the line.

"The second option," the tech went on, "is simply to stop the inhibitors that have kept you prepubescent for twenty years. You'd grow up at the normal rate, reach your full growth in five or six years. This is really the optimum way of doing it."

"I don't have that kind of time."

"No one ever seems to. Why are we all so much in a hurry? We don't even know how long we can live. We're sure three hundred years is possible, perhaps a lot more. All the strides we've made since 'threescore and ten,' and still we rush around, frazzle our nerves, ruin our digestion... and you don't want to hear any of this.

"Third approach. We combine the first two methods. We don't put you to sleep. We can hurry it up and have you fully grown in six months, or stretch it out to more like two years."

"Six months sounds good."

"Why did I know you were going to say that? Six months it is." He made a notation on Sparky's chart, then webbed it off to the machines that would handle the actual treatment.

"You're still go

"Yeah? What about it?"

"Never mind. You might actually enjoy that part."

Sparky laughed. "Doc, I am twenty-nine years old, you know. I know about sex. I've been having sex a long time now."

"Whatever you say."

The treatment itself took only a few minutes. Some mysterious, disgusting brown goo was forced into a vein. He tasted metal in the back of his mouth for a moment, then a violent red brew was pumped into him and the taste went away. His vision blurred; he imagined steam blowing out of his ears, and smiled at the image. Wouldn't that be cool? Then his eyes could roll around in their sockets like slot machine tumblers....

He realized he was roughing out a Sparky routine. No need for that anymore. He felt a strange mixture of loss and relief at the thought.

He left the treatment room and was met by a lovely young woman in the starched whites of the Nurses' Guild. She smiled, and indicated he should follow her.

This was not his regular medical facility, which was in the exclusive Pill Road district. After the decision to fold Sparky, Sparky had realized he no longer had to live his life in a fishbowl. That is, he needn't cater to his fans, something he'd always felt obliged to do before. It had been fun, before. Now he felt the urge for more privacy, and as nothing more than the studio cohead he didn't need to seek the limelight. It was a new idea for him, and one that held a lot of appeal. So he had booked his hormonal adjustment at this ordinary clinic in a middle-class part of town, far from celebrity haunts. He wore a pair of dark glasses and a King City Loonies baseball hat and a pair of denim pants—something "Sparky" had never worn on the show. He'd done it before and got away with it, and back then he'd still had his odd hair and tonsure to conceal. Now it had been whacked off and was growing in brown, a shade he hadn't seen in years.

"Did everything go smoothly?" the nurse asked.

"Sure, no problem."

Sparky almost missed it, kept walking down the hall with the nurse. If they'd kept on talking he probably never would have noticed. But he had a sharp ear for dialogue, and as the line repeated itself in his head it soon began sounding wrong. It was a line that would have been cut in rehearsals. Go smoothly? What was to not go smoothly? Which meant she didn't know anything about the procedure. Which meant she wasn't a nurse. He took another look at her.

"Don't I know you?" he asked her.

"Yeah," she said, giving it up right away. "I'm Hildy Johnson. Reporter? Cornered you in the spaceport when your father returned?"

"I remember. You wanted an interview."

"You said you'd give me one. And you didn't return my calls."

"That was damn inconsiderate of me." They walked a few steps farther, pondering the situation. "You pissed off?"

"What's the point of being pissed off? For you to give me an interview, you're going to have to like me, and why would you like me if I was pissed off? I tracked you down here to ask you again. I can't seem to make it into your office."

"I don't think—"

"And you'd be pissed off if I did."

He smiled. She was right. But there was something else he didn't like.

"You say 'tracked me down.' What you mean is somebody at the studio told you where I'd be."

"You don't think I could have followed you here?"

Sparky thought about it a moment. "No. I don't think so."

She shrugged. "You're right. But I won't reveal my source."

"That's fair enough, I guess."

They turned a corner and at the end of a corridor there was a glass door with a mass of people milling around on the other side. The door must have been locked—there were two security guards standing on the inside—because no one was coming through it, and they certainly would have had it been possible, because this was the traveling shark pack known as the Celebrity Press.

"Looks like they found me, too," Sparky said.

"If you want to avoid them, I know a back way out of here. It's the way I got in."

"Great. Let's go."

"How about that interview?"

"What's the big deal?" Sparky asked. "I'm not little Sparky anymore, and pretty soon I won't even be little."

"Are you kidding? 'Sparky Grows Up!' It'll be the biggest story of my career."

"So what you really want is a series."

"Well, I would have gotten around to that at the interview."

"Okay, Hildy. You get me out of here, you can follow me around till I'm a grown-up. If that ever happens. You can have an exclusive."

"Over this way," she said, touching him on the shoulder. They turned away from the mob at the end of the hall and entered a stairwell. They started to climb.

"I guess the leak in my office is pretty bad," he said.