Home Fires

by Gene Wolfe

  He glanced at Kent-Jermyn. “Am I running on too long, Sarge?”

  Skip (who had been staring at Achille) said loudly, “Keep talking, Corporal.”

  “Thank you, sir. Okay, they’ve got barricades set up in front of the elevators. Only one or two guys at each barricade, but you’ve got to get over the barricades first, and that was where we lost men. The ones who were watching our barricade started shooting, and the rest came on the run. They don’t watch the ladders much, but anybody who tried to go down those would be a sitting duck. So what I say is that if we’re going to rush them, we’ve got to have at least thirty men with guns. Put ten on each elevator and send all three down at the same time. Give me a gun, and I’ll take one elevator.” He sat down.

  The captain said, “Thank you. Anyone else?”

  A sailor raised his hand. “Most people would take a hour getting down those ladders, sir. Not me and my mates. You’ve seen us on the ratlifts, and I’ve been down there working a hell of a lot. We’d have fifty topmen at the bottom of one of them ladders faster ’n you’d believe.”

  Half a dozen others assented.

  “Thank you.” The captain’s gaze roved the room. “Does anyone else want to propose a plan?”

  No one spoke.

  “All right, then. I’m going to meet with Mr. Grison to discuss one. I want you to stay here. Mr. Valentine has been working on the weapons problem. He’ll share out what he has and talk to the rest of you about arming yourselves now, and after the fighting starts.”

  It was the tearoom, the room in which Skip and Chelle had conferred with the captain and Vanessa earlier. “I can get us coffee if you like,” the captain said.

  Achille nodded with enthusiasm.

  Seeing it, Skip said, “Please. And something to eat, if you can manage that.”

  The captain made a call. When he had hung up, he eyed Achille frostily. “You don’t need an interpreter when you talk to me. Why did you bring him?”

  “Because I realized during the meeting that he had done something that seemed close to impossible. When you sent me down to negotiate with the hijackers, he came with me. He was the one they had sent to tell us about their prisoners, and I thought he might be useful. As he proved to be much later.”

  “He freed your hands? I know you said that.”

  “Correct. Chelle was attacking while I was trying to get loose, and he told me that one of Kent-Jermyn’s men—Angel Mendoza—had escaped and told Chelle about the rest. Just now it struck me that he must have gone back up here while I was lying in the hold in the dark. He hadn’t known that Mendoza had talked to Chelle when he showed me his list of names—he would surely have mentioned it. But he knew it when he freed me. Obviously, he hadn’t been hiding in the hold all that time, which was what I had assumed.”

  Skip turned to Achille. “You were in the freight elevator with me. I went out with my hands up, and that was the last I saw of you. Where did you go?”

  “Up here, mon. Is big drum in elevator.”

  “A big stainless beverage drum. Yes, I remember.”

  “I hide back of him. When they take you away, I go back up. Talk lady.”

  The captain said, “How did you get back down there?”

  “I slide in air pipe, mon.”

  Skip said, “You would have had one hell of a fall if the hold had been empty.”

  Achille shrugged, and the captain said, “It isn’t. We’ve supplies enough to get us to Melbourne even if we run into a good deal of bad weather.”

  “I was hoping,” Skip said slowly, “to get something we could use. As it is…”

  The captain said, “We send ten fighters down in each elevator, and send the topmen down the ladders at the same time. Or we wait until we reach Grenada—and pray to God we don’t run into storms. You want to do the first, and I want the second. That’s what we have to thrash out.”

  Gloomily, Skip nodded. “Thirty armed men and women in the elevators, plus the topmen on the ladders. Say thirty down each ladder. How many guns have we got?”

  “Twenty-one, plus your pistol and your machine gun. So twenty-three altogether.” The captain’s face looked longer than ever. “You’ll be on one of the elevators?”

  “Certainly. You’re counting Chelle’s mother’s little pistol?”

  “I’m counting everything, including my own gun. We gained thirty-one in the initial fighting—I’m including your machine gun. I had six in the arms chest in my cabin, making thirty-seven. Your Chelle and Virginia had two more, making thirty-nine. We lost eight when that sergeant and his men went into the hold without authorization, leaving thirty-one. We lost eight more when your Chelle went down as well, leaving twenty-three.”

  “Chelle had her own gun,” Skip said wearily.

  “I’m counting that. She took seven other soldiers and former soldiers with her, giving the hijackers another eight guns.”

  When Skip said nothing, the captain added, “So twenty-three people who can shoot will have guns, if we follow your plan. That’s what Valentine is telling the group right now. The rest will have knives and clubs, and they will be told to try to pick up guns as the fighting progresses. You may like that picture—”

  “I don’t.”

  “Nor do I. We could turn out their lights down there. That might help. I don’t know.”

  “It might hurt more than it helped,” Skip said. “I think it would.”

  “We could block their ventilators, too. That would at least make them uncomfortable.”

  “After which they would threaten to kill Chelle if we didn’t—”

  There was a knock at the door.

  “That’ll be our coffee,” the captain said, and added loudly, “Come in!”

  The young officer who opened the door had no coffee. “There’s a boatload of Mexicans alongside, sir,” he said. “They say they’ve come to rescue us.”

  REFLECTION 9: A New Plan

  That was the wrong meeting. Nothing of importance was decided. Nothing happened. The one that mattered was the meeting we held after Mick and Soriano came aboard with their men—with their men and one woman. That was the meeting that mattered, but I was so exhausted by that time that I can’t remember who said what or even just what part I played in the discussions.

  I know we shaped our plan in that meeting—my plan. I suggested it first and Soriano seized it, adding details. We’d need the best fighters, and a few good-looking women who would fight. We would not have to have me, Soriano said. I could remain on the deck above, I could wait for them on M Deck in safety.

  I knew I had to go. My guts melted to slush while I argued with them, and it was all I could do to keep my voice steady and meet their eyes. I spoke just the same, knowing how bad I looked and how bad I sounded. “I’ve got to go.” I repeated that over and over. “I’ve been down there and I escaped from them. You’re going to need me. You’ve got to bring me along, dammit. Got to!”

  It brought out the angels. Angel Mendoza was first. When I admitted I knew no Spanish, he said he’d go with me, tied up just like I would be, and interpret for me. Mick was standing beside me before Angel had finished. He was going to go, too, he said, leading the anglos he’d enlisted in the scant hours before his plane left Boswash.

  I said we’d take only those who volunteered. A dozen of Soriano’s men volunteered at once; he said he’d make thirteen, an unlucky number, and in the end we took only ten. We’d need more, I said, more prisoners, and Soriano agreed. Don and Joe volunteered at once, with Sergeant Kent-Jermyn. After that, it was like pulling teeth. It was after we had gotten a few more men, all of them crew, that Soriano said we ought to have women, a few good-looking women that the hijackers would ache for. Vanessa’s hand shot up. There were tears in her eyes; one caught the light, and I’ll never forget it. The poor woman! The poor, poor woman!

  We made her stand up and come up front with us so the rest could see her; and Soriano, who cannot have known her, hugged her.

  A tall
man’s hand was up then. He was one of Mick’s anglos, a lanky man with a handsome, pale face. He smiles easily, as I have seen since that meeting; but he was not smiling then. Mick said, “That’s the way! Come up here, Rick.”

  It wasn’t until Rick Johnson had left his seat that I saw Susan behind him. I’ve never been more stunned. Owen Speidel told me quite casually that he had been guilty an hour after I’d gotten him acquitted, and this was like that, like being hit with a ball bat. I saw how frightened Susan was, and felt sure she’d seen how frightened I was. I’d loved her for years; but I’d never loved her half as much as I did then, when Chelle had returned to me and I no longer wanted Susan.

  I never loved her half as much as I did when her hand went up and she came up to stand next to Vanessa. She had a short-barreled revolver holstered on the belt of her jeans. All Mick’s people had guns, handguns or long guns, and so did Mick. Later I learned that Mick had paid for them with money that Luis Ibarra had authorized, and that Soriano had introduced Mick to the people who had sold them. Luis had recommended Soriano to Mick, and Luis had been right. Luis had also told Soriano that Mick was on the way, and could be trusted.

  But Susan with a revolver on her belt!

  We think that we know a man or a woman, when so much of what we know is actually that man’s or that woman’s situation, his or her place on the board of life. Move the pawn to the last row and see her rise in armor, sword in hand.

  10. RESCUE

  Angel Mendoza, his hands wrapped with rope, stood beside Skip to interpret; Skip’s hands were wrapped as well.

  “He says they’ve got many more prisoners,” Mendoza whispered. “We are the most important, but just a sample. He’s got to exhibit us to the boss of all hijackers. Then the boss will understand what he’s come to say, and there will be an agreement and no shooting. If there’s shooting, he says, they will win. They will kill all the hijackers and keep all the money, but to join forces is better. There are beautiful women topside, and they throw the stick whenever they wish. If no partnership, they have gas. They’ll use it to kill everybody down here.”

  Skip whispered, “Do they believe him?”

  Mendoza shrugged. “They don’t shoot.”

  Crates were moved aside, the barricade demolished. Skip hung back as though frightened, and was prodded (as he expected) with the barrel of a riot gun. A well-remembered passage, scarcely wider than a hand truck, ran down the center of the hull. For a short time that seemed long, they trudged between bulging cliffs restrained by cargo nets, with armed hijackers before and behind them and Soriano (whose Spanish Mendoza had been interpreting) swaggering in the lead. A long machete dangled from Soriano’s belt, a belt into which two stag-gripped pistols had been thrust. To Skip, who kept his head down as he stumbled along, they seemed very like Chelle’s—the new pistol, she had told him, recently adopted by the Army but in such short supply that almost nobody below the rank of colonel had one.

  The little office near the freight elevator had not changed; they crowded into it: Soriano, Llanes, and Garcia; Skip and Mendoza; Mick Tooley; and the handsome, worried-looking man Tooley had introduced as Rick Johnson. All the rest—more than a dozen “prisoners” including Vanessa and Susan, and the rest of Soriano’s mercenarios—had to wait in the dimly lit passage with eight hijackers. There were introductions and handshakings.

  Soriano addressed the older hijacker who had struck Skip, and Mendoza interpreted: “You see this man? Now he is the leader of those who defeated you and locked you up down here. Their captain fights us to his death, but this man surrenders and lives. These others we bring you, too. This man, he is your prisoner before we came?”

  “Yes, he is an eel.”

  “I give him to you again, Señor Ortiz, if you wish him.” Soriano twisted the tip of his black mustache. “This I do to show I am an honest friend. You desire to beat him? Do it! He is yours.”

  “You have taken the ship?”

  “We have. We shall return it to its owners, and for that they must pay very much.”

  “Then you have no need of me, Señor Soriano. Nor of my men. Set us ashore, us and our prisoners. We will not fight you.”

  “I could do this, but I will do more. Join us and you will be one with us. You tried to take this ship. You may have it and share our joy.”

  “You are a man of much heart. It is not pleasant that I take advantage of you. No! Set us ashore, shake my hand in parting and wish us well, and when next we meet it shall be as friends.”

  “Alas, señor, you shame me. I must confess that I—even I, whom men call the victorious and the crippler of his foes—require your assistance. I have the ship, and this you comprehend, but I have not mariners sufficient to work it as I would wish. Join us—”

  Grunting, the older man pointed to Skip and Mendoza. He rose, left his desk, and cocked his fist. When he was almost near enough to strike, Skip let the rope that had looped his hands fall and Soriano’s arm hooked the older man’s throat from behind. The older man gasped.

  Skip’s pistol joined Mendoza’s, thrust into the older man’s face. “We’ve twenty-one here already, and a hundred more on M Deck waiting for the sound of a shot. Tell your men to lay down their guns.”

  * * *

  Skip and Vanessa found Chelle bruised, bloodstained, and half naked, and freed her. Her first words were, “I think I need to see a dentist.”

  Skip was on his knees beside her. “There may be one on the ship, Seashell.”

  “And a psychiatrist.” Her voice was weak. “I’ll tell you about that later. Have you got my gun?”

  He shook his head.

  “You have to help me look for it.”

  Vanessa smiled, “Do you know, I’ve never given you two anything? Not even a toaster. Do either of you know about weddings? It’s like contracting, only in church and not legally binding.” The ship heeled and seemed for a moment to tremble, and she added, “What was that?”

  “We’re going about.” Skip rose as he spoke. “Heading for home. With control of the rudders, there’s no reason not to.”

  “Lovely! You and Chelle can have a proper wedding. Do you want one?”

  “I certainly do.” He helped Chelle stand; her right arm hung limp.

  “One gives gifts.” Vanessa opened her purse. “There should be contract gifts, too. Don’t you agree? I haven’t any birdseed to throw, but I have a gift. Perhaps I should save it for the wedding.” Her eyes sparkled as she drew a corner out: mottled polymer.

  “My gun!” Chelle held out her left hand; her right still dangled at her side.

  “Well, certainly. Skip caught that horrible Ortiz and marched him off without a word. Only there was a man with Skip who made me uncomfortable. Possibly it was because of his tweed jacket. Who could stand tweed in this heat? So I stayed behind and went through the horrible man’s desk, looking for papers and so forth. I didn’t find any but I found this, and I knew you’d want it back.”

  “You…” Chelle hesitated. “You came down to rescue me, Mother? To try to?”

  “I don’t think I understand this gun at all. The bottle-shaped bullets and everything. I wanted to try it, but it didn’t seem safe. What’s that funny thing on the trigger? Don’t hold your hand out like that, Chelle darling, it’s not polite and I’m not going to give it back to you until you ask nicely.”

  “¡A la puñeta!”

  Vanessa smiled. “That was a favorite expression of Charles’s, and I never understood it. Now you can explain it to me.”

  Chelle gave Skip a painful smile as he lifted her right arm into the sling he had knotted from his shirt. “Please kick the shit out of my goddamn mother, so I can hug her—that’s if she really came down here for me.”

  Skip said, “She did.”

  “Yeah, she must have if she went through that desk. Why did you let her do it?”

  “Various reasons.” He adjusted the sling. “For one thing we wanted people who looked like harmless captives but could and would
fight, if fighting were needed. For another—”

  “And you thought Mother would?”

  “No. I knew she would. As long as the hijackers had you, she’d fight like a tigress to get you back. I haven’t known her long, but—”

  Mick Tooley had come in. “You found her, sir.”

  “Indeed he did.” Vanessa looked demure. “Guided by a mother’s love, he could scarcely fail.” She spoke to Skip. “Perhaps you should introduce us?”

  Swaying, Chelle said, “Give me my goddamn gun before I knock you down.” Skip tried to steady her.

  “Please, Chelle darling. Not in front of strangers.”

  Tooley stepped back. “If you’d rather I’d leave…”

  “Stay,” Skip told him. “Your presence may prevent a murder.”

  “Mine.” Vanessa’s eyes were bright with tears.

  “Virginia,” Skip said, “this is Michael Tooley. You may remember that I gave you his number when Chelle and I were planning our cruise. Chelle, this is Mick Tooley. He’s the sort of young lawyer I was when you left Earth.”

  Chelle offered her left hand. “It’s a pleasure, Mick. I’m your boss’s contracta. From this point on, a part of your job will be to convince him he’s not too o-old for me. Think you can do it?”

  “I’ll try,” Tooley promised, “and I believe I have a clean handkerchief big enough to go around your head.”

  * * *

  Susan was waiting in the sitting room of Stateroom 23C when Skip opened the door. She rose, smiling. “It’s good to see you. To see you in private, I mean. I’ve been seeing a lot of you in public.”

  “I understand. Why don’t you try the big leather chair? It’s a bit more comfortable.”

  Susan remained standing. The smile remained as well. “Aren’t you going to ask me how I got in here?”