Home Fires

by Gene Wolfe

  “Their names? Amelia and Polly. I don’t recall their last names.” Skip fell silent, remembering. “I talked to one of them once. First on the phone, then in her office—in the social director’s office. They worked for her.”

  “Virginia? I met her, oh, a few days ago. Before the hijacking. That seems like a long time ago now.”

  “Correct. Virginia Healy. Amelia and Polly were her assistants. Susan wanted to kill Virginia, but Virginia wasn’t there when the bomb went off. The assistants were. Now I wish I knew which one I talked to.”

  “You’re contracted with a girl named Chelle. Chelle Blue.”

  “Correct.”

  “A moment ago, you indicated that you and my patient had been, ah…”

  “Together. Yes. For nine years.”

  “Did she think you left her for Virginia?”

  Skip sighed. “I see what you’re getting at. No, I left Susan for Chelle. I … Chelle and I contracted just out of college. She had gotten her bachelor’s and joined the Army, and I had completed law school. When she came back from outsystem duty, I went to meet her. I thought she might want to void our contract.”

  “She didn’t?” Dr. Ueda looked uncomfortable.

  “No. And I certainly didn’t. She had divorced her parents before she went in. She hated her mother, or said she did. I thought it would be the same thing for me. We would terminate our contract by mutual agreement, and I’d contract with Susan.”

  “You wanted that?”

  Skip shook his head. “I wanted Chelle. She is all I’ve ever wanted, really. I was overjoyed when she didn’t want to terminate our contract.” He paused. “I think—no, I know—that Susan had already joined a suicide ring by then.”

  “Oh you gods!”

  “Correct. Virginia is the senior member. It’s the others’ duty to kill her, and Susan came to do it.” Skip rose. “That was why those two young women died. Which was what you wanted to know. Have you heard enough?”

  “She joined the ring before you dumped her?”

  “Correct.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, and I’d like to. I could offer three or four guesses, but they would be of no value to you or anyone. Guesses rarely are. If you find out, will you tell me?”

  “That will depend on what the reason is,” Dr. Ueda said.

  * * *

  The first-class dining salon was a paradise of gold and ivory three decks high, with opulent balconies for A and B Decks. “We’re to meet another couple,” Skip explained. “An elderly man with a beard, and your social director. Have they come already?” He was stiff and sweating in dinner jacket, formal shirt, and black tie.

  The headwaiter awarded him a superior smile. “I really wouldn’t know, sir. Their reservation would be under the name of…?”

  Chelle said, “Blue.”

  “Healy,” Skip announced firmly. “It should be in the name of your social director, Virginia Healy.”

  “Blue,” the headwaiter said. He was looking at his screen. “Table for four. Follow me, please.”

  Table seventeen was near an open window and well away from the kitchen, the piano, and the center of the room. At present, it was unoccupied. Skip held Chelle’s chair (outpointing the headwaiter) before taking a seat himself. “I thought this was your mother’s party.”

  “It is. She must’ve made the reservation in my name.”

  “You said ‘Blue.’ ”

  “Right. She told me that.” Chelle looked thoughtful. “Maybe it’s because she works here. Maybe employees can’t make them.”

  It seemed best to change the subject. “How is your arm?”

  “Lots better. I know what you’re worried about, and we can. Just as long as you don’t grab my arm, we should be fine.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of that,” Skip said.

  “Uh huh.”

  He changed the subject. “I passed out, didn’t I? I fainted. We were in that stateroom on A Deck—in Jerry Brice’s stateroom where Rick Johnson had been shot—and I must have lost consciousness. Did I fall down?”

  Chelle nodded.

  “But you were conscious. You saw and heard whatever went on afterward.”

  “Sure.”

  “What did? Will you tell me about it? Please?”

  “Sure, but there isn’t a lot to tell. With two good arms I could’ve picked you up and helped carry you back to the doctor, but with one arm busted there was no way. I phoned, and she sent up two guys with a stretcher. They carried you back down to the infirmary, and I went with them. The doctor checked you over, said you needed a CAT scan, and kept you there overnight. They can’t do CAT scans here.”

  Skip nodded.

  “Next day she called and said there wasn’t anything she could do there that couldn’t be done in our room. I got Joe and Angel to carry you, and Achille and I went down with them. The doctor told me how to take care of you and promised people would come around.” Chelle paused. “They have, sometimes. We thought—I think everybody thought—you’d still be out when we docked.”

  “I’m trying to remember who was present when I lost consciousness for the second time. Was your mother there?”

  “No. I think it was just that mechanic and me. There was nobody in the cabin when we got there.”

  “Where was your mother?”

  “I don’t know.” Chelle shrugged. “Does it matter?”

  A waiter asked whether they were ready to order. Skip explained that they were waiting for another couple, and Chelle ordered a bottle of champagne.

  “The man with the beard shot Rick Johnson,” Skip said when the waiter had gone.

  “Right.” Chelle nodded. “He grabbed the woman’s gun. I told the captain about it.”

  “Rick blew when he was shot. He was a cyborg.”

  “I remember you saying something about that. I guess the bullet hit his reactor or whatever.”

  “Not necessarily, but that’s not to the point. The flash burned Trinity. She fell down, and you and Virginia went to help her.”

  Chelle nodded again.

  “She’s a big woman, and you couldn’t get her on her feet. Gary Oberdorf and I got her up with your help and walked her to the elevator. I believe I can name all the people who were on that elevator with us. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

  “Your memory’s probably better than mine,” Chelle said. “Who do you think?”

  “Gary Oberdorf, Jerry, and Trinity herself.”

  “You’re right. I’d forgotten the kid, but he was there.”

  “Who wasn’t there?” Skip’s forefinger doodled on the immaculate table cloth.

  “Everybody else in the world. What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “Who wasn’t on the elevator whom you would expect to be there?”

  There was a long silence. The champagne arrived, Skip sampled it and nodded, and the waiter poured a glass for each of them. Chelle sipped hers twice before she spoke. “Mother. Mother wasn’t there.”

  Skip nodded.

  “When Rick blew up, he was damn near in Trinity’s face. She got burned. Her clothes were on fire a little bit. Remember?”

  “No,” Skip said. “I’d forgotten that.”

  “They were, smoking and a little flame. Mother and I had to slap them out. So Trinity was hurt pretty bad, and we were worried about her.” Chelle hesitated. “Trinity was on that elevator going to the doctor.”

  “So were you. On the elevator, I mean.”

  “Yeah, I was. I’m her daughter and those spies had been holding me. Did you know they were spies?”

  “I guessed it.”

  “Good for you. Someday you’re going to have to tell me how. But they’d been holding me, her daughter, and she’d been helping you look for me. Is that right? Or were you helping her?”

  “I enlisted her help.”

  “So why wasn’t she with me? And Trinity? Why wasn’t she there with us?”

  “Because she didn’t want to be, obviou
sly.”

  Chelle put down her glass. “You’re going to have to explain that. I think somebody grabbed her.”

  Skip sighed. “And I think that’s rubbish. Shall we quarrel?”

  “No. I’d win, but what good would that do? Why wasn’t she grabbed?”

  “Who was in that room with you before we came? Name them.”

  “I don’t know the blonde’s name. Maybe somebody told me once, but I’ve forgotten.”

  “Susan.”

  “Okay, she was there. Rick, of course, and the guy with the white whiskers.”

  “Now it’s my turn. When our party started up to A Deck, it consisted of Achille, Oberdorf, Jerry, your mother, and me. Rick shot me as soon as the door opened. Achille was gone when I recovered consciousness. Do you know anything about that?”

  “I don’t think I even saw him.”

  “Then I have another question, one I think you can answer. Why is this a table for four?”

  “The captain?”

  Skip shook his head. “Your mother talked to me on your phone in our stateroom. Remember? She asked me, quite specifically, not to mention the captain during dinner.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “No. I named the people who came with me. When the stateroom door opened, who was in there? I remember nothing after that, but you had been in there for some time. Who were they?”

  “Susan. I said that.”

  Skip nodded.

  “Plus Rick, the old man, and me.”

  “That was what I had assumed; all four of you were present when I returned to consciousness. When we left to take Trinity to the doctor, Jerry and Gary Oberdorf went with us. Rick was dead. Susan was in the lavatory slicing her arms with broken glass.”

  Chelle winced.

  “Exactly. But who could have grabbed your mother? Only the old man, and even then she would have had to linger. I think he must have said something that made her remain behind. Something I didn’t hear.”

  “I didn’t either. I wasn’t paying attention to them. What was it?”

  “I think I know,” Skip said, “but we may be able to ask them in a minute or two. Or we may learn it without asking.” He nodded slightly in the direction of the couple threading their way through the tables toward them, and stood up.

  REFLECTION 16: Couples

  Here they come, he tall and very straight despite his age, she a full head shorter in the highest of high heels. Her arm’s through his; she is in possession. In her free hand, a tiny bag bright with synthetic gems, a little gold bag that speaks loud for her, telling the world she won’t have to pay, that a handkerchief, a lipstick, and a mirror are all she’ll need tonight.

  There’s a bond between them stronger than Vanessa’s frail arm, or stronger (as I should say) than the arm that she has been loaned by the woman named Edith Eckhart. In this world, it is the invisible things that are strongest.

  What forges that bond?

  Not intercourse, though it is tempting to say it is. It forms, sometimes, between couples who have not so much as kissed, and once formed is stronger than steel, a bond that cannot be broken, though it can rust away.

  There was, God knows, such a bond between Susan and me. I doubt that there was a person in our office who failed to sense it. I was Skip—when I was alone. Alone, she was Susan. Put us in the same room, be it as big as a banquet hall, and we became SkipandSusan.

  Sometimes SusanandSkip. I should not forget that because it is as true as a human thought can be. In that infirmary room we were SusanandSkip, though Dr. Ueda was not there long enough to sense it—or I don’t think she did.

  Look! Here in the air between us, Dr. Ueda. That is the bond, still bright, though others are brighter. Not yet red with rust, though it is rusting. It had begun to rust last year, in fact.

  And now I know, or think I know, why Susan joined the suicide ring.

  Can I have meant more than life to her? It seems incredible, but without me what did she have? No daughter and no son, because I never gave her any.

  Virginia waves, and Chelle waves back. Do they sense the bond between Chelle and me?

  Is there any bond there to sense?

  17. THE DOUBLE AGENT

  Vanessa waved. “We’re late, and it’s all my fault. I was silly as a girl, trying on dresses and shoes. I wanted to wear this, but my shoes didn’t match. Charles took them away from me—why are you staring, Chelle dear?”

  “I—I didn’t recognize Charlie. All the time we were in that room…”

  The white-bearded man pulled out a chair for Vanessa. “It’s the beard, of course. The beard and the simple fact that you haven’t seen me for almost three years that have been nearer twenty-three for me.” He sat. “I’m a great deal older, even if you’re not. A great deal older and a good deal thinner.”

  Vanessa said, “I wanted to make it a big surprise, darling, but Charles thought it might be unpleasant and fall ever so flat. So we didn’t.”

  The white-bearded man said, “Is it unpleasant, honey? You divorced me, so I’m no longer your father. Will you accept me as a friend of your mother’s?”

  “She isn’t. I divorced her, too. You—you’re just a couple I know now. You’re her date.”

  The white mustache twitched.

  “I’m trying to get used to that, I guess. I—I’ve been calling her Mother, and she was waiting for me when I came dirtside. Her and Skip. We—we’re contracted, Skip and me. But…”

  “But she was there,” the white-bearded man prompted. “She was there waiting for you.”

  “Yeah. She was and we hugged and all that. I … Oh, dammit! I was glad to see her. It was wonderful.”

  Vanessa smiled at Skip. “You see? I know I was a nuisance.”

  “To whom I was rude,” Skip said. “I apologize.” He turned to the white-bearded man. “You were with your daughter when she was captured. Captured on your order?”

  “I was not, and she was not.” The white-bearded man picked up his menu. “I was in the room with her after she was captured, but I did not order her capture. Will this cross-examination survive the arrival of our food?”

  “It isn’t a cross-examination,” Skip said. “I’m just curious. Rick Johnson was plainly a spy. Do you know who he was spying for?”

  “Certainly. The Os. I suppose you’ll need to prove that in court if I’m put on trial. The roast beef’s good here—”

  “I haven’t said I’ll take your case.”

  Vanessa surprised everyone by asking, “What about the hijackers, Charles? Can you tell us who they were working for?”

  “With certainty?” The white-bearded man shook his head. “The EU, probably, but I’m not sure of it. I was about to say that the roast beef’s good. My doctor tells me I’ve got to eat fish, but I tried the roast beef last night and found it delicious.”

  Chelle said, “Have you had the yam and macadamia crusted red snapper?”

  The white-bearded man appeared to study her over the top of his menu. “No, I haven’t, honey. I might try it tonight, though.”

  “You two were contracted. You and Mother.” Chelle glanced at Skip.

  The white-bearded man’s nod was barely perceptible.

  “Yes, we were,” Vanessa put in.

  “Only you broke up, didn’t you?”

  The white-bearded man glanced at Vanessa. “That was none of my doing. Ask your mother.”

  Vanessa smiled. “He means your biological mother, Chelle darling. The woman who carried you in her womb. He’s aware that you and I are divorced.” She turned the smile on Skip. “That was none of my doing, Counselor. She sicced the Army’s lawyers on me.”

  Chelle said, “You voided your contract with Charlie, though.”

  “I did. We’re still married, however.”

  Chelle looked puzzled.

  “It’s religious, darling. Not law. They separated the two, oh, a long time ago. If I’d divorced Charles, we’d no longer be married. But it seemed like such a bother. Just
voiding our contract cost a lot.”

  The white-bearded man muttered, “You hoped I’d do it.”

  “I did not!”

  A waiter arrived to take their orders. Vanessa asked for roast lamb, and the white-bearded man for filet mignon. Chelle said, “What are you having, Skip?”

  “A hard time imagining what went on in Jerry Brice’s room.”

  “Shouldn’t we talk about it in private?”

  “The part that you mean, yes. The part that I mean, no.”

  The waiter cleared his throat.

  Chelle asked him, “What’s good tonight?”

  “I’d try the filet of sole, ma’am.”

  “Fine. I’ll have that. Rice pilaf and spinach. Tossed salad, vinegar and oil.”

  The waiter wrote.

  Skip told him, “Lamb and mint jelly.”

  When the waiter had gone, the white-bearded man said, “What puzzles you, young man? I feel quite certain I can put all your doubts to rest.”

  “A great many things. And thank you for that ‘young man.’ ”

  “My pleasure. You may not credit my answers, of course. You’re of a skeptical turn of mind.”

  “We’ll see. I believe you implied that you were not there at the time Chelle was brought in.”

  “He wasn’t,” Chelle said, “and I was scared to death. Then he came in, and he was probably hoping I’d recognize him, but I didn’t.”

  “That you would recognize me,” the white-bearded man told her, “and keep your knowledge to yourself.”

  “I didn’t recognize you either, Charles,” Vanessa said.

  “Now you will demand that I establish my identity,” the white-bearded man told Skip. “Let’s get that out of the way at once. I cannot.”

  “You’re asking me to take you on faith?”

  “No, sir. On the testimony of my wife and my former daughter. Do you recall the Old College Inn? You and I had dinner there one evening.”

  Chelle said, “I was there, too, Charlie. You told us about firing Marcia.”

  “Indeed you were.” The white-bearded man nodded. “I talked about it for Skip’s sake, though. You’ll never have a secretary, honey. Or if you do, it will be some kind of dodge. The blonde was Skip’s secretary.”