Home Fires

by Gene Wolfe

  The longer the jury stays out, the better the chance for an acquittal. It’s an old rule; but like so many of the old rules, it still holds.

  * * *

  How many times have I paced my office, trying out this line of argument and that on Susan? Groping and listening, waiting for her to say, “Then she’s really innocent after all! I wasn’t sure.”

  There has always been something tragic about Susan, and I believe I’ve come to understand what it is. It’s the tragedy of the second-rate, the helper, the sidekick, the supporting actor, the horse nearest the door. Susan is a superb secretary, but she would fail as the employer of a secretary.

  We slept together twice a week for years. How many times all told? Not a thousand. No, not so many as that. Eight hundred perhaps. Eight hundred, and so I ought to know. She was a fine partner, tender and eager. Yet time after time I found myself imagining that I was with someone else.

  Usually, Chelle. When I’ve been with Chelle I have never imagined another; nor do I think I ever will. But what of her? Whom does she picture now, in order that she may achieve orgasm? Is it Don or Jerry or Mick? Or all three?

  Susan, I know, thought only of me. There was no Don with Susan. Only Skip. Or more likely, only Mr. Grison; Susan was always ill at ease when I made her call me Skip.

  11. RIGHT AND LEFT

  “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”

  Vanessa was sobbing in Skip’s arms, and Rick Johnson was cursing, his voice low and savage. Skip was not sure who had spoken. Possibly it had been Susan, but quite possibly it had been Skip himself.

  Three sailors arrived with fire extinguishers and began to spray the smoking ruins with foam. Almost idly, as one sees things in a dream, Skip saw a wristless hand in the wreckage. That’s a woman’s hand, he thought; there was crimson polish on the nails.

  “What was it?” Johnson coughed and backed away. When no one answered, he added, “What did they blow up? I’m new here.”

  Skip only shrugged, his arm around the weeping Vanessa.

  “That woman went into the hold with us. She and this other woman here.”

  Susan said, “Yes, we did. They asked for volunteers, for women particularly. Skip and the captain did.”

  “I was there,” Johnson told her. “I volunteered too.”

  “A black woman volunteered, but they didn’t take her. They took this woman, though. And they took me.”

  Skip said, “I want Mick Tooley, Susan. Find him for me. Try your phone to start with. There’s a classroom on G Deck. I’m not talking about the big meeting room on E Deck—a smaller room on G Deck. It could be Room Twelve. Tell Mick to meet us there as soon as he can.”

  He turned to Johnson. “I know your name, but who are you?”

  “I can tell you, but you’ll have to do a lot of snooping around to verify it.” Johnson had taken out his wallet. “Here my driver’s license, with my picture on it, if that interests you.”

  Skip shook his head.

  “Right. Come to think of it, I’ve got something better—a little better, anyhow. My gun license.” He slipped it out of his wallet and handed it over. “Look under training, and you’ll see ex-military.”

  Skip did, nodded, and handed the license back.

  “I was West Point, and after graduation I got stuck in Military Intelligence. They sent me off—I can’t tell you where—and by the time I got home to Earth I’d put in over twenty years. You know how that works, I’m sure.”

  Skip smiled. He had relaxed a trifle.

  Susan said, “Lieutenant Colonel, right? You look it.”

  “Don’t I wish!” Johnson grinned. “I was a captain, Ms. Clerkin, but a captain with twenty years’ service. I took my leave. I assume Mastergunner Blue’s doing that.”

  Skip said, “She is.”

  “After that I tried a desk job here. That lasted…” Johnson paused to think. “Two hundred-days or so, about half a year. It bored the shit out of me, so I applied for a discharge and got it. I’ve been knocking around trying to find something worth doing ever since. Mick Tooley works for you, Mr. Grison?”

  “He’s a junior member of my firm, yes.”

  “Well, Tooley put out a call on one of the mercenary sites. I thought it sounded interesting, and the money was good. So—”

  Susan coughed. “I texted Mr. Tooley, asking him to meet us on G Deck, and I hate looking at this. Can’t we please go up there now?”

  Skip nodded, and led Vanessa away. The air of the corridor seemed clear, but there was enough smoke in it to sting his eyes. Feeling foolish, he blinked back tears. Johnson was asking Susan what had been blown up, and Susan was saying she had no idea.

  Vanessa murmured, “Polly’s dead. So is Amelia. I know they are.”

  Skip wanted to say that one or the other might have survived; but he knew it would sound as false as he felt it to be, and kept silent.

  “I killed them.” Vanessa stepped in front of him and clutched his shirt. “I killed them when I volunteered, but I didn’t mean to.”

  He said, “I doubt that the hijackers did this,” and managed to get her to the stairs. The stairwell, closed off as it was by massive watertight doors, had purer air, and G Deck, when they reached it, better air still. The door to the conference room was not locked; Skip and Susan opened the portholes, welcoming a warm breeze from the sea.

  “You want to have a conference?” Johnson was not sweating, Skip noticed, despite the climb and his tweed jacket. “Are you sure you want to include me?”

  Skip nodded and flipped open his mobile phone. “Give me the second-class bar, please. I don’t know the number.” After a second or two, he said, “Thank you.”

  Susan asked, “Collecting more people, Mr. Grison?”

  “Trying to. Yes.”

  “I might be able to help.”

  “I know, and I may have to call on you.” Skip dropped into the nearest chair and spoke into his phone. “My name is Skip Grison. Could I have yours?”

  Susan gave Vanessa a package of facial tissues.

  “There are soldiers on this ship, Marlon. Men on leave or recently discharged. I’m sure you know them.”

  Skip listened intently.

  “Correct. I’m trying to find Corporal Donald Miles. Do you know him?”

  Johnson said, “He was in that first group they talk about.”

  Skip nodded, and spoke into the mobile phone. “If you see him within the next hour or so, please ask him to come to Compartment Twelve on G Deck. Tell him I’m anxious to speak with him.” He snapped his phone shut.

  Susan said, “I could get coffee. Probably some sweet rolls or something. Would you like me to do it?”

  Mick Tooley came in, tired and worried. “There’s been an explosion on I Deck. Do you know about that?”

  Skip nodded. “We were there. Sit down, please.”

  The chairs were large and black, and reluctant when it came to moving across the soft Lincoln-green carpet.

  “You already know Chelle’s mother. I may not have told you that she’s the ship’s social director.”

  “No one did,” Tooley said. “I had assumed she was a passenger.”

  “This is pro forma,” Skip said. “Susan, did you know that this lady, on this ship her name is Virginia Healy, is the ship’s social director?”

  “No, sir. I didn’t know who Virginia Healy was, sir. Just that the bomb—can we stop calling it the explosion?”

  Skip nodded. “You’re right, it was almost certainly a bomb.”

  “Just that the bomb killed two of her friends, or she thinks it did.”

  Skip turned to Rick Johnson. “What about you? Did someone tell you that Virginia was our social director?”

  “No. No one told me.”

  “But you heard someone tell someone else. Please tell us everything you can. It’s important.”

  “I can see that, but I don’t have a lot of information to give you. It was in that meeting when you and Mick here, and Soriano, were recruiting peop
le to go down into the hold with you.”

  Skip nodded. “Go on.”

  “She volunteered, and somebody behind me whispered, ‘Who’s that?’ Somebody else whispered, ‘She’s the social director.’ ”

  Tooley said, “Did you recognize their voices? Either one of them?”

  Johnson shook his head.

  “You don’t know who they were?”

  “I have no idea. I—to tell you the truth I was trying to decide whether I would volunteer. I raised my hand just after they spoke, I think. I heard the question and the answer, but I paid very little attention to them.”

  Skip said, “Yours wasn’t one of the first hands to go up, as I remember.”

  “You’re right. It wasn’t. If there had been more hands raised, I wouldn’t have raised mine at all. You had said it was going to be very dangerous, and I felt sure you were right—that it was something just short of a suicide mission. Off Earth…”

  Vanessa went to him. “If you know anything, anything at all that might help, please, please tell us! You didn’t know Amelia or Polly. I understand that. But they worked for me, they were nice girls, and they tried to do a good job, both of them. Amelia had been a champion diver, and—and…”

  Skip had risen. He put his arm around her.

  Johnson cleared his throat. “I didn’t want you to think I was bragging, that’s all. I told you I was in intelligence, and I was. Maybe you thought it meant I had a desk job, and if that’s what you thought I wanted to leave it right there.”

  “I did,” Skip said. “I take it I was wrong.”

  “I went into some very tight places, Mr. Grison. I did it because it was my duty. It didn’t seem to me that it was my duty to volunteer, and I had to think things over. I did, and went into another tight place, this time with you, and I’d like to know what’s going on.”

  “So would I.” Skip cleared his throat. “I need to fill in some details. Virginia will already know much of what I’m going to say—perhaps all of it. I apologize for boring her, and for boring Mick, at least a little bit. But everyone here needs to understand where we stand in this.”

  He paused, and Susan said, “Go on, sir.”

  “Virginia is Chelle’s mother, as I said a moment ago. That’s why—”

  Vanessa said, “A bad mother. You know my name and I know you went down into that dreadful warehouse place with me, but I don’t remember yours. Will you forgive me? I’ve had a terrible shock. I lost … l-lost—”

  Skip intervened. “This is Susan Clerkin, Virginia. She’s my confidential secretary, and she joined Mick Tooley here after Mick set out to rescue us. We’re indebted to her, and to Rick, too.”

  Johnson said, “I probably know less than anybody about what’s been happening on this ship. I know Susan pretty well and know the ship was hijacked, but that’s as far as I go.”

  “Virginia’s had some memories wiped,” Skip told him. “You were in Military Intelligence, so you probably know more about that than anyone here.”

  Johnson shrugged. “We don’t like to do it and don’t do it unless we have to. If you’re asking whether I’ve done it myself—”

  “I’m not.”

  “The answer is that I was never authorized. Medical personnel only. If you’re asking whether I myself have been wiped, the answer is no. There are no blanks in my memory.”

  Susan said, “How is it done?”

  “You should ask a doctor, not me. Roughly, then. You can record a person’s memories and personality by picking up minute electronic impulses in the brain and recording them. You stimulate all the parts of the brain until you have everything in digital form. When you’ve got it, you wipe the forebrain by countering its impulses. After that you edit the record you made, generally by searching out words and images. Maybe you look for Operation Grief, for example, then for mental images of an armed drone. When you find things you want forgotten, you delete.”

  Susan said, “And then you upload the data back into the brain?”

  “Exactly.” Johnson paused, looking troubled. “It’s not perfect, you understand, and it’s highly dependent on the skill of the operator. Sometimes this bit or that bit escapes, so to speak.”

  Skip said, “I didn’t know that.”

  Johnson shrugged. “Most people don’t, but it happens. I know you’re an attorney. Susan and I talked a lot on the boat, and she told me quite a bit about you. Let’s say we’ve got you and we want to wipe everything related to a conference you had three years ago with a Ms. Smith. We know more or less what Ms. Smith must have told you, and what you must have told her. We search for that stuff in your record and delete it. We look for mental images of her and delete those, too.”

  Skip nodded.

  “Swell, but suppose that while she was with you, she asked to use your private restroom. You said yes, and thought over what she’d been saying while she was gone. When you thought about it, you felt certain emotions. Okay, after you were uploaded and released as wiped, you might have a memory you couldn’t quite place, a memory of sitting alone in your office and feeling certain emotions while hearing a toilet flush.”

  Tooley asked, “Are you saying that something like that could be dangerous? A serious failure?”

  Johnson nodded. “Suppose there were things on your desk then, a picture of an old man and a clock showing date and time.”

  Tooley nodded. “I’ve got it.”

  “When I signed with you, I told you about the patrols—that we were sent out to take prisoners.”

  “Right.”

  “I made arrests, too, and questioned the people I’d arrested. That was the main thing I did, keep tabs on suspects, sweat them after they’d been arrested, and report what I’d learned. Let’s leave the Os out of this. They don’t think the way we do, and they don’t do any wiping. Greater Eastasia does a lot of it. They send in spies who’ve forgotten they’re spies, people who do certain things when the time comes without knowing why they do them. We looked for indications of that. Once you suspect somebody, you can download his mind and run searches. Swell, but the equipment’s costly and delicate—we had two setups and one was usually out of service—and the whole thing can take a day or longer. So guys like me look for subjects whose minds might be worth searching, and try to find out enough to give the people who would do it some direction.”

  “We need to do some searching ourselves now,” Skip said. He took out his pistol and laid it on a small table at the front of the room. “I think everybody here is armed. I know most of you are. Get out your guns, please, put them on this table with mine, and go back to your chairs. I ask it as a gesture of good faith.”

  Johnson said, “What if we won’t comply?”

  “Then you’ll be asked to leave.”

  Johnson nodded, took out a pistol that looked very much like Chelle’s, and laid it on the table beside Skip’s.

  Skip said, “Susan?”

  She nodded, rose, and laid her snub revolver there; her hand shook a little. Susan’s revolver was followed by Mick Tooley’s big, dark green semiautomatic.

  Vanessa was pushing up her sleeve. Skip said, “Do me a favor, Virginia. Just take off that wrist holster and put the whole affair on the table.”

  Vanessa did.

  “Most of you will have observed Virginia’s arm. It’s badly scarred, and the scars are fresh.”

  Vanessa had pulled her sleeve back down. “I try to keep them covered up. I mean, at dinner people wouldn’t … You understand, I’m sure.”

  “I do.” Skip smiled, making it reassuring. “How did you get them?”

  “I have no idea.”

  He nodded.

  Johnson said, “You didn’t do that business with our guns just so we could see this poor lady’s arm.”

  “No. I wanted to watch your faces as you handled your guns. Someone tried to kill Virginia before she boarded. Mick knows about it. A man with a steak knife came up behind her and stabbed her in the back.”

  Johnson g
ave a low whistle.

  “I have reason to believe—reasons I won’t go into now—that she had seen her attacker from behind. She saw him only briefly as he sat eating in a restaurant.”

  “Eating steak,” Johnson said.

  “She didn’t see what he was eating, but you’re probably right. Whatever it was, a third person saw her and told her attacker. He got up—I don’t know this, but it seems very probable—and followed her, having filched the steak knife from the restaurant. He may have hidden it in a newspaper. Some of the witnesses to the stabbing say her attacker had one.”

  “Do you have a good description?”

  “No,” Skip said. “Mick?”

  Tooley shrugged. “Everything, sir?”

  “Yes. What you told me, and anything else you may not have said. Empty the bag.”

  “Okay. Two described him as tall and thin. One said he was average height. Two said white and one Latino. Good clothes—they all agreed on that. One thought he was carrying a newspaper, one thought it was an attaché case, and one didn’t notice that he was carrying anything.”

  Johnson said, “Go on.”

  “That’s it, except for the knife. The police have it, but a man who works for us got to see it. It was a steak knife, he said, just as Mr. Grison told you. Slightly curved blade, serrated edge, sharp point. A black handle of some kind of synthetic.” Tooley turned to Skip. “I had our friend check restaurants within walking distance of the attack. He found two that used knives like the one the cops showed him. Do you want them?”

  Skip shook his head. “After she was stabbed, Virginia was taken to a hospital. She left it in the morning, went to her apartment, packed in a hurry, and fled. She was afraid, obviously, that the man who had stabbed her would track her down and try again.”

  Tooley and Johnson nodded.

  “I went to her apartment soon after she left, as I told Mick earlier. I found an object on the floor there, an object that’s in my pocket now. I don’t want to take it out and hold it up because it terrified Virginia when I showed it to her earlier. I’ll pass it to anyone who wants to see it, asking that you hold it so that she can’t see it.”