Home Fires

by Gene Wolfe

  “The one with the wheelgun? Not anymore. Skip fired her.”

  Skip cleared his throat. “I think I’d better set the record straight, Chelle. I didn’t fire her, she quit. Now she’s my secretary again, because I hired her back.” He turned to the white-bearded man. “You told us Marcia had been doing a poor job. That was why you let her go.”

  The white-bearded man nodded.

  “Susan was an excellent secretary. I was stunned when she resigned. And I’d be delighted to have her back in my office, although that wasn’t the reason I rehired her.”

  “What was?” Chelle asked.

  “She’ll be charged when we reach port, probably with first-degree murder. I intend to defend her pro bono—to have Mick or whoever do it, nominally. It’s liable to be an expensive undertaking, one that may drag on for the better part of a year. If she’s no longer an employee, there will be questions. Chet Burton’s not active in the firm these days, but he keeps an eye on things. Ibarra’s junior to me, but he’s just as much a partner as I am. If Susan’s still working for us, that could be the difference. We try to take care of our own.”

  Chelle nodded. “She was lost. I could see that even when she was holding a gun on me.”

  Vanessa reached across the table to touch her hand. “You mustn’t sympathize with them, Chelle darling. It’s an emotional trap.”

  “Well, she was. She was loyal to Rick, but she hated what they were doing.”

  Skip spoke to the white-bearded man. “You came in after they had taken Chelle from the infirmary. Why?”

  He chuckled. “Because I wanted to see Chelle, that’s all. I’d heard she was on board.” He paused, blinking. “She divorced me. You know that. It had been a long time for me, but only a couple of years for her. Frankly, I thought she might hang up on me if I phoned your stateroom, or slam the door in my face if I went there. Then I found out she’d been hurt by the hijackers.” The white-bearded man paused. “You fought them, Mr. Grison. I heard about that, too.”

  Skip nodded.

  “I didn’t. I offered my services and was herded into the second-class dining room with the women and children, and the other old men. I’ve never been a soldier. Neither have you, I dare say.”

  “Correct.”

  “You’re old when your dreams become regrets. Remember that. In time you’ll learn how true it is.”

  Chelle said, “You must have known I was in there.”

  “I did. Your Mr. Grison told me, though he seems to have forgotten it. Did they feed you?”

  Chelle nodded. “I’d been asleep. They made me go to sleep some way. When I woke up there was food. Not much, but some. Rolls and a little butter, and a bowl of cold soup. Crackers. I ate it all.”

  Skip said, “Is this to the point?”

  “Absolutely. You wanted to know how I knew Chelle was in there. I phoned the infirmary, but nobody answered. So I asked Refugio—he’s my steward—to find her for me. He asked somebody else, and that person said that she was up in Signal Three. I didn’t ask how he knew. I simply assumed he’d asked a waiter who’d delivered food there.”

  Skip shook his head. “A moment ago, you said I told you.”

  “I did, and both are quite true. When I heard she was in Signal Three, I assumed she had been discharged by the infirmary and was being welcomed back to the glorious world of health by a dear friend. Had I been right, you would have been enraged, Mr. Grison. You were terrified instead. My dear wife, who failed to recognize me, was clearly very worried. I’d met Lieutenant Jerry Brice, and knew he had been wounded. If he and Chelle were romping between the sheets, both of them had recovered from their wounds with astounding speed. It seemed clear something was amiss, so I went up.”

  Skip nodded. “Go on, please.”

  “There isn’t much more to tell. I walked in on them—your secretary opened the door for me. I saw Chelle with her hands tied and pushed your secretary aside. The man she called Rick wanted to know what I was up to, and pointed a gun at me. After a little fencing, I told him I’d been sent by headquarters. He said he wasn’t supposed to signal, so I said that’s right. Don’t.”

  Chelle said, “You kept telling them not to kill me. I remember that.”

  “Of course I did.” The white-bearded man turned back to Skip. “They were using deeptrance on her. I told him it would be foolish to shoot her. Somebody might hear the shot, and after he shot her we would have to dispose of the body. All he had to do was to put her back under and tell her to forget the whole thing. Deeptrance suggestions last for weeks. Sometimes for a hundred-day, but always for two weeks or more. They use it to cure addicts.”

  Skip nodded. “I’m surprised you know.”

  “I read a lot. Any more questions?”

  “Yes, several.”

  The white-bearded man poured himself a fresh glass of champagne. “Fire away.”

  Skip began, “Do you really expect us to believe—”

  He was interrupted by the arrival of two waiters. The junior, who carried a tray and a folding table, handed each salad to the senior, who placed it before the appropriate diner.

  Vanessa said, “I have a question of my own, Charles. If Skip gets so many, surely I ought to get one. Or two. Possibly two. Are you still in business? And if you are, can you tell us what business you’re in?”

  The white mustache twitched. “Shall I anticipate the rest? It will be my pleasure. Am I making a lot of money? And—oh, yes—how much have I got now?”

  “I would never be so rude!”

  The white-bearded man winked at Skip. “You see how it is, Counselor. I have wished for a wife much younger than myself, a comfort to my old age. Our Divine Master, whose exquisite sense of fun provides Him and us with so much entertainment, has granted my wish. Here aboard the Rani, I find my wife, a lovely lady to whom I’m already wed, and lo and behold! She is—miraculously—much, much younger than I. The angels harp louder than ever in order that we not hear His chuckles.”

  “I was thinking of contracting,” Vanessa said. She struck a pensive pose, endeavoring to look thoughtful. “You are going to ask me to contract again, aren’t you, Charles darling?”

  The white-bearded man turned to Chelle. “You must have questions, too.”

  “Thanks.” She nodded. “You didn’t buy a ticket on this cruise just because I was here. Was it Mother?”

  “It was neither of you. I’m an old man, much older than any of you, and certainly much, much older than you are. My wife voided our contract long ago, and even longer ago my only child divorced me. As old men so often are, I’m alone in the world. On a cruise, I hoped to make a few friends, and possibly even one special friend, someone who might eventually become more than a friend to me.”

  Vanessa said, “As you have.”

  The white-bearded man ignored it. “You may laugh at an old man clinging to romantic dreams, honey. I know it’s foolish and am not offended. We cling to those dreams the way we do because we have so little left. You’ll never understand that, nor will my beloved wife. Mr. Grison may. He will, in fact, if he lives long enough.”

  “I understand already,” Skip said. “Are you retired? Completely?”

  The white-bearded man nodded. “I’ve been retired for some years.”

  “Rick Johnson shot me when the door of that stateroom opened. Did you shoot at me, too?”

  “No. You are wondering whether I might have fired the shot that wounded you. I, in place of poor Rick. I did not. I can’t vouch for your secretary, but I don’t believe she fired. If Chelle and I had been armed we would’ve shot Rick and your secretary before you came. We weren’t.”

  Chelle’s left hand found Skip’s knee and tightened around it.

  “Before Chelle and I dressed for dinner,” Skip said slowly, “I questioned Susan in the infirmary.”

  “She’ll recover, I hope.”

  “I’m sure she will. I made one simple statement to her, and she said I had made one mistake already. Would you like
to hear the statement?”

  Vanessa laid her salad fork aside. “I would. Do you remember?”

  “I said that there had been three people in Brice’s stateroom holding Chelle, Mr. Blue.”

  “Please call me Charles.”

  “Thank you. After that I said you had no gun, proved by your taking Susan’s to shoot Rick. Shortly after I made those statements, Susan told me that I’d made one mistake already.”

  “As do I,” the white-bearded man said. “I was only feigning assistance, while I tried to free Chelle. No doubt your secretary observed it.”

  Skip shook his head. “I don’t think that was it. For one thing, you’re too good an actor. Chelle says you were trying to free her, and I believe you were; but I don’t believe that was what Susan meant. Didn’t you say a moment ago that you had no gun? That you were unarmed?”

  “Indeed I did.”

  “If you’d had a gun, you could have shot Rick Johnson without taking Susan’s revolver. But if you had done that, there would be a good chance Susan would shoot you.”

  The white bearded-man’s mustache twitched. “Or that I would have had to shoot Susan as well. All this is merely hypothetical, you understand.”

  “I do. Here’s another. Let’s say, hypothetically, that you have a gun. You might have to throw it over the side before we reach port. I, hypothetically again, might be able to get it past customs. I would return it to you later, of course. You may wish to consider that.”

  “If I had a gun, I certainly would.”

  Chelle said, “We’re on your side, Charlie, Skip and me both. You went in there to save my life. It makes you one of the good guys.”

  “I’d like to think so, honey. I’m not sure Mr. Grison agrees.”

  Vanessa looked up. “Good evening, Captain Kain! Would you care to join us?”

  “Only for a moment.” The captain took a chair from an empty table, positioning it at the corner between Chelle and the white-bearded man. “We’ll be taking a pilot aboard tomorrow, if the wind holds.” He cleared his throat. “The forecast says it will, and I’ll be busy. Very busy.”

  Vanessa said, “All of us understand that, I’m sure.”

  “Good. I wanted to say goodbye. To Mr. Grison here, particularly. We, well—there was a time when he watched my back and I watched his.” The captain held out his hand.

  Skip accepted it, and the two men shook hands across the table. Neither smiled.

  “I’d like to ask you a few questions,” the captain continued. “If you don’t feel you can answer, just say so. I’ll understand. If you send me a bill later, I’ll pay it if I can.”

  “That will depend on the questions,” Skip told him.

  “I’ll start with the worst one. If the answer’s bad, there won’t be any more. You folks are waiting for your food?”

  Vanessa said, “Please don’t tell us that was the worst question.”

  “No, I … Well, never mind.”

  Chelle muttered, “Shut up, Mother.”

  “Your firm saved us, Mr. Grison. Mick Tooley is a subordinate of yours? That’s what he says.”

  “He’s a junior member of my firm. I’m a partner, the managing partner.”

  “He came to save us. He enlisted mercenaries and volunteers, chartered a boat, and so on. The result was another battle. People died, and there was damage to the vessel. It’s conceivable that the line will sue your firm over his actions.”

  “For saving you?” The white-bearded man sounded amused.

  “Conceivable, I said. The lawyers aren’t seamen, and if they advise it…” The captain shrugged.

  “They’d lose,” Skip told him. “I can’t guarantee it, but that’s my professional opinion. I wouldn’t take their case.”

  “If they do,” the captain continued, “you’ll certainly counter-sue. Am I right?”

  “Probably. I’d want to sleep on it and have my people research similar cases. But we probably would.”

  The captain nodded, his long, sun-tanned face worried. “If you accuse me of negligence and make those accusations credible, my career will be effectively over. I hope you realize that.”

  “I hadn’t thought that far,” Skip said.

  “It will be. A ship’s officer has to get his master’s ticket to make decent money. I got mine six years ago.”

  Vanessa said, “You’re contracted, aren’t you? Someone told me that. Children?”

  The captain nodded, his face expressionless. “Three.”

  “I envy you,” Skip said. “Shall I put this to rest? Now? I believe I can.”

  The captain nodded again.

  “If your company decides to sue us, you’ll be deposed. At some point, as the case proceeds, we will read your deposition. How hard we are on you will depend, largely though not entirely, on how hard you are on us.”

  “I won’t be hard on you at all. I’ll say you saved us, which is the truth.”

  “In which case, it’s your company you have to worry about, not us.”

  The captain rose. “If they blame me, they can’t go on blaming you. Or not as much.”

  “Correct. Furthermore, they will be blaming their own agent. The chance that they’ll do it is minute. They may threaten to fire you, however. Threaten, I said. If they are foolish enough to do it, you’ll have grounds for a suit of your own. Your attorneys would show that your professional reputation has been damaged beyond repair by your company’s negligence and subsequent actions. They would ask compensatory and punitive damages. Twenty or thirty million, I would think.”

  Chelle murmured, “I smell blood in the water.”

  Skip shook his head. “It probably won’t happen—they’d be fools to do it. If they do, however, almost any attorney would take your case on contingency. Do you know any good lawyers?”

  “I know one very good one,” the captain told him, and left as the waiter’s assistant began collecting the salad plates.

  “That was my boss,” Vanessa told the white-bearded man. “He’s a bit too straitlaced for his own good, but it’s terribly easy to do much, much worse.” Her tone was merely conversational.

  As the waiter himself distributed their entrées, Skip waved to Mick Tooley. “Over here. Were you looking for us?”

  “For your beautiful contracta, sir.” Tooley grinned. “For a few days she was giving me daily bulletins on your progress—on your lack of it, far too often. I’m going to miss her.”

  Chelle smiled in return, an amazingly warm smile that Skip found he associated with swirling leaves—brown, red, and gold—and young men in sweaters throwing footballs. “I’m not gonna disappear into some dress designer’s salon forever, Mick. I bet there’s a company Christmas party.”

  “Until then,” Tooley told her, “and if you’ll come, I’ll bring the doughnuts.”

  Skip gestured toward the chair that the captain had vacated. “Sit down. We don’t want to lose you so soon.”

  Vanessa said, “Really now! We can’t eat in front of him while he has nothing.”

  “Please go right ahead,” Tooley told her.

  Skip put a half his entrée on his bread plate and set it before Tooley. “I’m sure there must be other attorneys on the ship, but most will be corporate. Very probably you and I are the only ones with backgrounds in criminal law.”

  Tooley nodded. “As far as I know.”

  “The gentleman to your right shot and killed a cyborg called Rick Johnson. He was one of your volunteers, wasn’t he?”

  “Rick? He was the best of them, my right-hand man.”

  “He was also a spy. The gentleman next to you says for the Os.”

  The white-bearded man said, “That was what I gathered from a remark of his. It’s not iron-clad.”

  Tooley said, “Do you remember the remark? It could be important.”

  “Not precisely.” The white-bearded man paused. “It was something about his superior not understanding humans.”

  “When the captain was here,” Skip told the
white-bearded man, “he got me thinking about the actions, and the failures to act, that might be brought up in court. One of them was his failure to confine you. He must know that you killed Rick Johnson; Chelle says she told him.”

  Chelle said, “He does. He also knows that Rick had kidnapped me and killed the doctor and his nurse. Mick saved this ship and everybody on it, but it was my dad who saved me.”

  “Your ex-dad,” the white-bearded man muttered.

  “Yeah. I divorced you. Don’t rub it in.”

  Tooley stood up. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your dinner. Skip and I will see each other in the office, but I wanted to say goodbye to you and now I have. You’ve got one hell of a woman there, Skip.”

  He nodded and smiled. “I know.”

  When Tooley had gone, Vanessa said, “There was something odd about that.”

  “He’s a friend,” Chelle told her. “He just wanted to say goodbye.”

  “He wanted something else, Chelle darling, and he got it. I’d love to know what it was.”

  “He wasn’t even looking for us, Mother. Skip waved him over.”

  “He was, but he hadn’t seen us. That was why Skip waved.”

  “How the hell do you know that?”

  “We social directors know these things.” Vanessa smiled down from a height of years. “We must, and I do. I don’t suppose you’ve ever given a party. I’ve given … Oh, twenty.”

  “Fifty,” the white-bearded man muttered.

  “You’re counting small gatherings, Charles.”

  Chelle’s good hand struck the table hard enough to make the plates jump. “Don’t look so damn smug!”

  “I wasn’t, darling. Just because I’ve got my man and you’re losing yours? No indeed! I looked sympathetic.”

  A handsome young man too informally dressed for Formal Night was approaching their table. Chelle turned, and as she did, her expression became one that Skip had never seen before. Her eyes were larger and seemed, somehow, darker; her mouth was tremulous. “D-Don? You’re Don, aren’t you?”

  He nodded.

  Chelle rose, taller than he. “You knew I was in here. How did you know, Don?”

  “I loved you, sweet thing. You’re gone and I can’t see you again ’til it’s all over. I needed to tell you.”