Home Fires (28 page)

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?”

“Yes. Yes, indeed.”

“It’s all settled then. Just the four of us, and we’ll have a nice talk. Twenty hundred. Dinner jacket. You do have a dinner jacket, don’t you, Skip? If you don’t, I can—”

“I do.” Skip said. A moment later he hung up.

“We’ll have a wonderful time,” Chelle told him. “Family! There’s nothing quite like family.”

“A great deal seems to have happened while I was ill.”

“Not really. Things got back to normal, that’s all.” Chelle went to him and kissed his forehead. “Everything was fixed, and you were the one who fixed it. We’ve still got the hijackers locked up and we’ve got wounded on board, but—”

“Including you.”

“Sure, only my arm’s mending nicely, so Dr. Ueda let me go. She let you go, too.…”

“Because I was healing nicely?”

Chelle shook her head. “She didn’t say this, but I think it was really because she couldn’t do anything more for you. She said you might need brain surgery—that isn’t what she called it, but that’s what she meant.”

“I hope you’re joking.”

“And she wasn’t qualified. She’s a pediatrician. Do you really want to hear all this?”

“Absolutely.”

“Aren’t you hungry? You can’t have eaten since Wednesday. I could order something.”

“No. Tell me.”

“You had a blood clot on your brain. That’s what put you in the coma. She gave you some stuff she said might dissolve it, and I guess it did. Only if it didn’t you’d need a brain surgeon.”

“According to a pediatrician.”

“Right. Only she seemed to know what she was talking about. She told me about a patient of hers. He fell off a swing.”

“And tonight I’m going to dinner. Who’s Charles?”

“Smokin’ shit! Don’t tell me she’s found a new guy! Wait a minute.” Chelle’s phone had played again, and she flipped it open. “Hello. What is it? That’s right, he’s fully conscious, sitting up and talking. He’s doing great.” She grinned at Skip. “Okay. As soon as I can get there. Bye.”

“Who was that?”

Chelle rose. “Nothing important. Now listen. You’re supposed to get an intravenous feeding, only they haven’t been in here yet. They’re terribly shorthanded. So order yourself something to eat. And eat it.”

“Chelle—”

“Gotta see a man about a mine. I’ll be back soon.” She breezed out.

Tentatively, he swung his feet over the edge of the bed. For a moment, it seemed that the ship was pitching as it had in the storm, but the moment passed. He felt a little light-headed, his two-cocktails-at-lunch feeling; otherwise, things were quite normal. He shaved, and well before he had finished discovered that he was ravenous. First-class dining would open for lunch at twelve thirty, assuming that “Richard” had really returned the ship to normal.

He showered, and decided he would go down to lunch alone if Chelle had not returned. He could leave her a note.

His gun was beneath the clothing that someone (almost certainly Chelle) had heaped on a chair. It reminded him of his submachine gun. It was under the bed. He—they—would be permitted to take no weapons ashore with them. Chelle would certainly try to smuggle her gun out, and would presumably be arrested for it.