Home Fires

by Gene Wolfe

  On Skip’s left, Oberdorf said, “They’re going to kill us.”

  “These amateurs?” Chelle broke off another kiss to snarl it.

  “I’m no amateur,” Johnson told her.

  “It seems unlikely.” At that moment, Skip felt that he would sell his soul for two acetaminophen tablets and a glass of water. “It seems much more probable that some accommodation can be reached.”

  “I’m going to k-kill you, Mr. Grison.” Susan’s face was tearstained. “Mr. White says I can. That I can be the w-w-one if we decide to.”

  “Do you really hate me that much?”

  “No! Don’t you see?” Her voice shook; so did the hand that gripped her short-barreled revolver. “I’ll k-kill you because I l-love you. It ought to be somebody like me, somebody who l-l-loves you.”

  “I would rather it were nobody at all.”

  The boy, Jerry, moaned. “I just wanna go home.” His face was less tearstained than Susan’s, but the stains were there.

  “You’re going to kill me,” Skip told Susan. “Who’s going to kill this kid?”

  Chelle said, “Oh, for God’s sake! Shut your fuckin’ mouth.”

  “It’s a serious question.” Skip’s attention had never left Susan. “It deserves a serious answer. Because you’re going to have to kill him. He knows who you are and where you are, and I imagine he’s got some idea of what you’re doing. So if you three are going to kill us, you’ll find he’s one of us.”

  Silence, save for Jerry’s sobs.

  At last Johnson said, “You think you can get us to swear you to silence and let you go.”

  “I don’t,” Skip told him, “but I’d like to propose a rational plan that will end this mess without bloodshed. I know the information you wanted from Chelle—I don’t mean that I have it. I don’t. But I know what it was. Have you got it?”

  Johnson nodded. “I’ve got it, and I won’t forget it. I don’t forget.”

  “Good. That makes everything much easier. We’re what? Ten days out of Boswash?”

  The white-bearded man said, “Closer than that. Less than a week.”

  Johnson jogged Susan’s elbow. “Keep your gun on them, darling. Keep it on your boss. He’s dangerous.”

  “Less than a week,” Skip said. Privately, he was trying to place the white-bearded man. “That’s fine. It makes everything easier. There are six of us. You can take hostages. I’d think you’d want two at least, and I’ll volunteer to be one of them. Give us your word that you’ll release your hostages unharmed as soon as you get clear of the ship. If the rest talk, you’ll kill the hostages.”

  “Absurd!” The white-bearded man was fumbling in a coat pocket.

  “Hell, yes!” Johnson turned to face him. “For once I agree with you. We’ve got to kill them, and we’ve got to do it now, while we’ve got the storm to cover the noise.”

  “It will last for hours. Before they die, we need to find out how they found us.” His corncob pipe clenched between his teeth, the white-bearded man rose, gripping the edge of Lieutenant Gerard Brice’s desk. “I questioned the others, Mr. Grison. They told me they didn’t know, that you were the one. So how did you do it? I speak as an unwilling admirer.”

  Vanessa said, “I have some questions for you, too. May I ask them?”

  “Later.” The white-bearded man waved the interruption aside. “Later, madam, or never.”

  Every few seconds the floor heaved beneath them; Susan muttered, “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  The blackthorn pointed at Skip like the barrel of a pistol. “How, Mr. Grison? How, precisely, did you find us?”

  “By good luck, mostly. Achille’s a friend of mine. Do you know him?”

  The white-bearded man shook his head. It seemed to Skip, as it had earlier on deck, that there was something familiar about him.

  “He has no hands. When the hijackers captured him, they took his hooks. Mr. Oberdorf here made him new ones, sharp hooks that he can fight with; they have spikes for stabbing. You may have seen him.”

  “No.”

  Skip shrugged. “Rick and Susan have, I know. Anyway, Achille’s a friend, so when I had volunteers searching the ship for Chelle, he was one of them. He called me and said he thought Mr. Oberdorf might know where Chelle was.”

  Oberdorf interrupted, “I didn’t, and I have no idea why anybody’d say something like that.”

  Skip nodded. “I imagine Achille had been impressed by your knowledge of this ship. It may have been no more than that.”

  He turned back to the white-bearded man, who was still erect, still grasping the edge of the desk to keep from falling. “It didn’t sound like much, but we had no other leads. Trinity here and Chelle’s mother had been searching with me, and we decided we ought to follow this one up.”

  “Admirable.” The blackthorn was laid across the arms of the chair.

  “So we trooped down to M Deck, meeting Mr. Oberdorf on his way up here. He told us he had no idea where Chelle was and didn’t have time to talk. Lieutenant Brice had lost the card to his stateroom; the lock would have to be reprogrammed so he could give Brice a new card.” Skip smiled. “After that I had an idea, whether Mr. Oberdorf did or not.”

  “Elucidate.”

  Johnson snapped, “He’s grinning. Can’t you see he’s about to put something over?”

  “I’m not,” Skip told him. “It’s just that your boss seems—”

  “He’s not my boss!”

  “Reasonable. And if he’s reasonable, he won’t kill us. Or let you do it.”

  “I refuse to be diverted,” the white-bearded man said, “just as your explanation becomes interesting. Continue, please.”

  “You see, we hadn’t searched the officers’ staterooms. The officers were in and out of them several times a day, and an absent officer would have been noticed immediately; so there seemed no point in looking there. But Lieutenant Brice was in the infirmary, and now his card was missing. Someone had taken Chelle out of the infirmary. It seemed entirely possible that the people who had taken her had taken Brice’s card, too. Mr. Oberdorf told us he would have to open the door to reprogram the lock, so we tagged along. After that, well, I seem to have been shot in the head; but you’ll have to tell me about that—I can’t tell you.”

  Chelle said, “Dammit!” and her embrace tightened.

  “The cry of a guilty conscience,” Johnson murmured.

  “You were shot,” the white-bearded man explained, “by Mr. Johnson here. You can hardly blame him for it, since you were shooting at him at the time. You missed. He did not. At first, we thought you dead. When we realized you were not, Ms. Clerkin here put that tape over your wound to stop the bleeding.”

  “She’s soft,” Johnson said. “I’m soft on her, but she’s soft on everybody.”

  “I suppose she is.” For a moment, the white-bearded man struggled to regain his balance. “I let her because you were making a dreadful mess. Though no physician, I can offer an opinion concerning your wound. Do you wish to hear it?”

  “Yes,” Skip said. “Very much.”

  “I believe Mr. Johnson’s bullet struck your skull and was deflected by it. It appears to have traveled about three and one half inches between skull and scalp before exiting. You are fortunate to be alive.”

  “He won’t be lucky much longer,” Johnson said.

  The white-bearded man shrugged. “Who is to say the living are luckiest?”

  Chelle took her arm from Skip’s shoulders and lifted his hand from her left leg. “I’m not going to let this go on. Skip loves me and he lied for me. I love him, and I’m not going to let him.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Right. Mom threw a little party for us vets, and I went. I could’ve brought Skip, but I didn’t. I went alone and met Jerry Brice there. We made out, and Skip caught us at it.”

  The white mustache twitched. “My, my!”

  “Yeah. He caught us, and Jerry beat it—grabbed his clothes and ran. He left his shoes,
but they were black and I shoved them under the bed. They were on my side, which was damned lucky.”

  “Chelle, darling, don’t you—”

  “Shut up!” She turned to Skip. “They’re going to kill us, and I don’t want to die with this on my chest. I don’t give a fuck who else knows, but you’ve got to. It’ll hurt you and I’m sorry, but I’m going to die clean. I met Jerry again the next day, and he gave me a card to this room. I stuck it in my pocket thinking maybe I’d use it sometime and maybe I wouldn’t.”

  Skip nodded.

  “When these motherfuckers came in and shot the medics, they grabbed me and my clothes. They went through my clothes before they made me put them on, and they found that card. This was in the theater on D Deck, backstage. They figured nobody was going to put on a show after the hijacking, but Jerry’s room looked even better. If it seemed like he was going to get out of the aid station, they’d shoot him again.”

  “You have a conscience,” the white-bearded man said. “I have none—they’re damnably inconvenient—yet I admire yours. May I, too, set the record straight?”

  Johnson spun around. “All right, keep talking if that’s how you want it. While you’re talking, I’ll be shooting. And guess where I’ll—”

  His final word was lost in a clap of thunder.

  “You shut your own mouth!” Trinity was on her feet. “He older than you! Smarter, too!”

  Johnson shouted in return, his gun in her face. She caught his wrist, jerked the gun to her left, and closed with him.

  “You’re shaking like a leaf,” the white-bearded man told Susan. “Give me that.” With one smooth motion, he took her revolver, raised it to eye level, and shot Rick Johnson in the back.

  REFLECTION 14: Much Later, While Watching the Atlantic

  Why should storms provoke violence? Why must our moods reflect the weather? We leave the winter cities and travel to warm southern lands because winter exhausts us. We have huddled in the brightly lit apartments for too long; we know the night waits outside, and feel it even when our drapes hide us. We want warmth and a natural breeze. Most of all, we want sunlight.

  Would Rick Johnson have been shot without the storm? I don’t believe he would, because he wouldn’t have been so anxious to kill us without it. Had he not been so anxious to kill us, his life might have been spared, at that time at least.

  Might have been, but would it really have been? He said he had Chelle’s secret, which was once Jane Sims’s. Susan says she does not have it, and I believe her. Should I believe Rick as well?

  To what degree was Rick really Rick? How much of the man who went from West Point to Johanna was left? What did the Os take away, and what did they leave behind? Does anyone, any wise man or woman, any supercomputer concealed beneath a mountain, really understand the Os? We do not even understand ourselves. The proper study of mankind is man, they say: nosce te ipsum. But what do the Os say?

  Did Susan know what was coming when she surrendered her gun? I have not dared to ask her and will not so dare. I have brought her near to suicide already. I must not—and will not—do that again.

  The suicide ring must be destroyed and destroyed utterly, not only for Virginia’s sake but for Susan’s. Virginia might be protected; what measures could protect Susan from herself?

  What of the shooter? What of Charles? Did he plan from the beginning to kill Rick? Did he fear that we, with the Os’s model before us, would do as they did?

  I would have. Silent leges enim inter arma. In order that Earth survive, our rulers would gladly render Earth not worth saving.

  Was he unarmed? He’s surely working for somebody, but for whom?

  And why?

  15. FORMAL NIGHT

  The flash and bark of Susan’s revolver were lost in the blue fire that roared from Rick Johnson’s back, blinding and gone. As it vanished, he collapsed like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

  The white-bearded man puffed away an invisible wisp of smoke from the muzzle, his mustache twitching. Susan shrieked and wailed. Chelle and Vanessa scrambled to help Trinity, who had fallen.

  Skip went to Rick Johnson, wrestling Johnson’s gun from a hand that death had locked around the grip.

  “You won’t need that,” the white-bearded man told him. “But if it makes you feel better, you may keep it.”

  Susan gasped, “I’m going to be sick,” and stumbled away; a moment later Lieutenant Brice’s bathroom door clicked behind her.

  Trinity moaned and writhed. Her face was burned, her hair scorched and smoking. Skip and Oberdorf got her to her feet and walked her to the elevator, preceded by Chelle and Jerry, who had pushed the button before they got there.

  No one spoke as the elevator descended save Jerry, who said, “Wow!” His voice soft and almost reverent. A moment later he got out on C Deck.

  Achille was waiting for them when the elevator doors opened on J Deck. “You have bad day, mon.”

  “I want to talk to you later,” Skip said. “Chelle, we move pretty slowly. Will you go to the infirmary and tell them we’re coming?”

  She nodded and hurried away.

  “That’s quite a woman,” Oberdorf said.

  “Too much woman for me, I’m afraid, but I’m very proud of her.”

  Trinity coughed, retched, and spat.

  “Left my tools up there. I’ll have to go back for ’em.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Skip told him. “I don’t think you’ll need me, but I need to talk to that old man. To Chelle, too.”

  “What about this guy I made new hooks for?”

  “Him, too. He was with us when we went up to the signal deck, but gone when I recovered consciousness. I want to ask him about it. Before I do, I’d like to get something for my headache. Will you wait?”

  Oberdorf nodded.

  After treating Trinity, Dr. Ueda provided two white tablets, stitches, and a transfusion.

  * * *

  When Skip, Chelle, and Gary Oberdorf returned to the signal deck, there was a seaman with a holstered pistol guarding Lieutenant Gerard Brice’s door. Seeing Skip, he touched his forehead and stood aside. Oberdorf’s toolbox remained where he had left it. Rick Johnson was the sole occupant of the stateroom, and Rick Johnson had been blown in two.

  “He looked so human,” Chelle said.

  “He was a cyborg.” Skip was on his knees examining him. “If we had weighed him we would have known something was wrong.”

  “Or if we’d made him take off his clothes.”

  “Right.” Skip rose. “As it was, your mother noticed that he wore a wool jacket in this tropical heat without perspiring. She told me, but I didn’t pay much attention to it. I should have.”

  “They did things to me. Hypnotized me or something.”

  “Correct,” Skip said.

  * * *

  When he woke, that “correct” was the last thing he remembered saying. Someone had taken him back to the stateroom he shared with Chelle, removed his clothes, and put him to bed. An Oriental woman, small and no longer young, had leaned over him, perhaps, and given him an injection. Certainly he had been made to swallow pills.

  He sat up; and Chelle, who had been shooting energy thieves on his laptop, said, “How are you feeling?”

  “Not bad.” He considered. “I don’t think I ought to stand yet.”

  “I’ll get your cane,” Chelle said. “Do you know where it is? I haven’t seen it around.”

  He shook his head. “We were searching and searching, and I was very tired. I may have left it someplace.”

  “Then I’ll buy you one. It may not be a nice one like your old one—I don’t think they’ll have those on the ship. But there’s a drugstore place, and they might have aluminum canes.”

  “I don’t want one,” Skip said.

  “It’s whether you need one, soldier. If you need one I’ll get you one, only I doubt—” Her phone played and she cursed.

  A moment later she said, “It’s for you. I turned yours off, so
Mother called me.”

  He accepted her phone. “Virginia?”

  “Vanessa please, Skip. I’m very happy being Vanessa just now.”

  He tried to think of something gracious to say.

  “We wish to invite you and our lovely Chelle to dinner tonight. Chelle already knows, this is merely the formal invitation. It would have been nice to have cards printed, but—you know. You’ll come, won’t you? We’ll be terribly disappointed if you don’t.”

  “I’m a little disoriented right now, Vanessa. I need to find my feet.”

  “Roast lamb, Skip. Nothing facilitates orientation like roast lamb with mint jelly. I’ll see to it.”

  Chelle whispered, “Say yes.”

  “I … We’ll come of course. It’s very kind of you. If I sound strange, I just woke up. I seem to have slept for hours.”

  “You regained consciousness,” Vanessa told him. “Do you remember what day it was when that horrible cyborg shot you? What day of the week?”

  “Yes. Wednesday. Wednesday evening, I believe.”

  “Wednesday night. This is Saturday, Skip. It’s, um, eleven thirty-one. There were … complications. Chelle knows more about all that than I do, and she’ll tell you everything, I’m sure. Will you come to dinner? Please? We’ve been so worried!”

  “Certainly. We’ll be delighted. I think I already said that.”

  “You did. I just wanted to make sure. It’s Formal Night. Isn’t that just marvelous? We get a Formal Night before we make port. Richard wants to show everybody that things are finally back to normal, even if he does have to cut the cruise short. You won’t mention Richard tonight? Promise? Nothing about Richard and me?”

  “Promise,” Skip said. “May I ask how you knew I was no longer in a coma?”

  “I didn’t, really. I talked to Chelle about an hour ago—inviting her, you know—and she told me you were beginning to stir. She suggested I call back in an hour because you might be well enough for dinner tonight. The first-class dining room? Twenty hundred? Would that be convenient?”

  “Yes, fine.”

  “Charles desires to explain, Skip, and I’ve told him he ought to retain you as his attorney. I think he may face criminal charges, even though it was just a cyborg he killed. Richard isn’t confining him, which I think truly noble of him. Don’t you?”