Home Fires (9 page)

“You mean they didn’t know that I’m me?”

“No, I mean they don’t care. Do you think it would make any difference to them?”

“Why, I have no idea!”

“I don’t think it would. They’d have to assume that Reanimation will reclaim you eventually, wipe you, and replace you with the employee’s scan. When it does, the person they fear will be back. I say ‘they’ because I think it was the man who stabbed you. The woman must have told him who you were. My guess is that he jumped up to follow you. You didn’t see his face?”

Vanessa shook her head. “His back was toward me. The woman was facing him.”

“He will have followed you, I think, and stabbed you when he felt he had a chance to get away afterward. Your wound’s at the shoulder blade. That indicates a tall man holding his knife under his hand and stabbing down. It can’t have been a big knife, or he’d have done more damage, but presumably it was all he had. That means he wasn’t a pro. Can you describe the woman?”

Vanessa pursed her lips.

“Think back.”

“I only saw her for a second or two. Wait. Round face, not bad-looking, thirtyish. Brown-blond hair over her forehead. Heavy, I think.”

“She was sitting down when you saw her?”

“Yes, that’s why I can’t be sure how tall she was. But she was eating something white, and it was probably mashed potatoes. So heavy. Besides, girls with round faces are usually fat.”

Skip nodded. “Or vanilla ice cream, but I suppose that would be the same thing.”

“I should be getting back to my office. Goodness only knows what’s been going on there.”

“One last question.” Skip held out the slim brown shaver. “Why did you have this?”

Vanessa screamed.

*   *   *

Back on deck, in a yellow deck chair flanked by empty chairs, Skip spoke into his mobile phone. “I want the Z man to check something out for me. A woman was stabbed on Seventy-second Street two weeks ago. She was taken to a hospital. Her name may be Vanessa Hennessey or Virginia Healy. It could also be something else. I want him to find which hospital and what address she gave, assuming she gave one. Have him talk to the investigating officer and find out as much as he can. If he can’t get a look at the weapon, tell him to get the officer to describe it.”

Tooley said,
“They’ll think we’re going to defend the offender, sir. Are we?”

“No. Absolutely not. Tell him we want the offender caught as much as the police do, but we can’t reveal our connection yet. Soap him.”

“Got it. Anything else?”

“Not now,” Skip told him, and hung up.

The prow was supposed to be off limits to passengers, but he went there anyway, finding a spot where few of those on deck could see him. A warm breeze toyed with the straw hat he had brought to ward off the sun, whispering in his ears and ruffling his shirt. Below him, the sharp prow split the self-healing sea. Beyond him, the tapered steel bowsprit, up-tilted and longer than many a street, pointed south. High overhead, two-score sailors labored, their cries no louder than the mewing of the gulls. Behind him, before him, and above him, the sails did their work in silence, urging the immense square-rigger
Rani
south.

Ever south.

*   *   *

He tried the door at 23C, which opened to his cabin card. Opening the bedroom door as well gave him the briefest glimpse of a naked man who sprang from the bed, scooped a bulky bundle off the floor, dashed out onto the veranda, and vaulted over the rail. Like late applause, something fell with a crash, knocked over by his swift passage.

Skip shut the outer door and bolted it, then closed the veranda door and bolted that, too.

“Sorry.” Chelle sounded sleepy. “I was supposed to lock you out. I forgot.”

“That’s good. I need a place to sleep.”

He had switched his mobile phone to
VIBRATE
, and it did. The tiny phone-pic showed Vanessa with shoulders bare and the end of a strip of tape barely visible.
“Have you been looking for me? I’m in ten ninety-one J. I thought you might have forgotten.”

“No,” Skip said, “but thank you for the offer. I do appreciate it.”

“It would give me a chance to apologize.”

“That’s hardly necessary,” he said, and hung up.

Chelle yawned. “Who was that?”

“Just a friend.” He sat down and took off his shoes.

“I already know.”

“In which case there’s no need to cross-examine me, and no need for me to lie.”

“Aren’t you going to ask who I was sleeping with?”

Skip unbuttoned his shirt. “If you want me to, yes. Not otherwise.”

“You should be concerned. We’re contracted.”

“I am concerned, but it doesn’t follow that I have to ask.
Non sequitur
.”

“That’s good, because I’m not sure I can tell you. There was a party for us vets. Mother cooked it up for my benefit, I think. She must have pull with somebody.”

“She doesn’t need it. She’s the social director.”

“Really? She peeked in for a minute.”

“Just doing her duty.”

Chelle yawned again. “Anyway, I met a lot of people, and he was one of them. Just one of the guys.”

“I see.”

“I wasn’t looking for a reason to lock you out, if that’s what you think. If I had been, I wouldn’t have forgotten to bolt the door.”

“That’s not what I think.”

“Good. There’s booze in our little refrigerator. Can I get you to fix me a drink?”

“Certainly.” Skip was taking off his trousers. “What would you like?”

“Anything and soda. Anything and water, if there’s no soda.”

There were three bottles of club soda. After striving vainly to recall her preferences of twenty-odd years earlier, he mixed club soda with the rum in a miniature bottle.

“This is good. What is it?”

He told her.

“I know I’ll be hung over in the morning, but I’d rather not be tonight. Rum because of where we’re going, right?”

“Right.”

She finished it, set the glass on the floor beside the bed, and lay down again. “That was either Jim or Jerry, I’m pretty sure, only I’m not sure which. They looked a lot alike, and I kept getting them mixed up.”

“Natural enough.”

“You mean I was hammered. I wasn’t. I’d had two or three drinks, but I wasn’t even close to it. I remembered our cabin number, didn’t I?”

“Obviously.” Skip slid between the sheets.

“Do you remember what we were fighting about?”

He shook his head. “Not at the moment.”

“Me neither.” Chelle snuggled closer. “I’ll remember in the morning, but it’s gone now.”

Much later, when she was sleeping, he heard her say, “Don? Don?… Kiss me, Don.”

Then, “Where’s Don?”

REFLECTION 4

Winds

The wind has risen and the ship rolls. I don’t want to think of Chelle stumbling down that carpeted, cream-colored corridor with him, but the image returns each time I wipe it away. The roll throws them against one wall, then the other. Chelle giggles, and I know a deep despair.

Some of his clothes may still be here. If they are, his passport may be in them, in a jacket pocket, if he wore a jacket. Certainly his wallet will be in a hip pocket. It will have forms of identification, possibly a driver’s license. The Army must give its soldiers a picture ID, or so I would think. I shall know his name and face, but what good will that do? He fought bravely for us—for me and all humanity—and found a beautiful, willing comrade on this ship. Of what is he guilty? Were he guilty as sin, I would forgive him.

And did I really believe that a man of forty-nine could satisfy a girl of twenty-five? In daydreams, yes. Dreams have value, but they are not to be believed.

Could Tim satisfy Vanessa? For one night, perhaps. Perhaps if she really wanted love, and perhaps she did. Wanted it, and wanted a protector. Women must have a reason, men only want a place.

Chelle’s reason was…?

Anger might do it. She was angry at me and wanted to hurt me, as she did. That fits with the unbolted door. Or she longed to cling to the familiar, to men who were dirty of tongue and clean of heart—to the soldier’s world. She was drunk. How drunk? And forgot to bolt the door.

What does sex matter when you may be killed tomorrow?

Vanessa wants me, or perhaps only wants to free her daughter from me. Or both. Who are those officers? Two were attractive, she said, but taken. Am I not taken? I know nothing of this ship’s officers. Do they really work their seamen like slaves, those officers?

Wage slaves. What is any employee but a slave? When we contacted the agencies to get a flunky for Dianne, we got … What was the number? A thousand applicants? Two thousand? Susan told me.

One child per family in Greater Eastasia. One per family, and a male generation so that foreign women must be bribed or stolen.

Should we do that, too? Women from where, or would we abort boys? Another law, and decent men and women dragged into court for the second child they concealed and the lies they told on paper to make that forbidden child someone else’s, the legacy of a dead cousin, the child of a soldier fighting the Os.

Fighting as Chelle did.

How happy I would be to defend them! But what would the law do? Kill the second child? Surely not. Upload another’s mind into it, perhaps. Replace a legal child who had died.… We meddle and meddle, and wonder why it does not make us happy.

What of the woman whose body Vanessa wears? Who was she? Boris couldn’t get it, but the Z man might; and if Vanessa’s attackers were really after that nameless woman it could be important.

Suppose a woman wanted to hide? To disappear? Not as so many have, a new apartment and a new name, a new search for a new job they’ll never get.

A search for any job, brain surgery or blues singing because they’ll never get it, will never have to prove they can do it or even that they know something about it. No, not just that, but to vanish in such a way that the most dedicated searcher could never find her.

How many such people come to Reanimation?

Why did this one want to hide?

5

DAY TRIP

Vanessa’s voice filled the ship, at once authoritative and chatty.
“… finally, let me say that no one is required to go ashore. It’s strictly voluntary. If you remain aboard, please check the
Bulletin
for today’s activities before calling the social director’s office.

“Now permit me to recap…”

“Okay, I’m ready,” Chelle said.

“We don’t have to.” Skip had watched her preparations morosely.

“You require no special papers. Show your cabin card if you’re asked for ID. You don’t have to change money. Noras are accepted everywhere. Food in restaurants should be safe, but do not buy food from street vendors unless…”

“You don’t.” She got into her backpack. “I’m going to do some shopping. If you want to stay here on the ship, that’s okay.”

“Take sunscreen. If your pocket is picked or your purse stolen, report it to the local police. We can’t help you.…”

“I’m going if you’re going.” He rose.

“Do not give to beggars.”

She turned to face him. “To tell you the truth, I wish you wouldn’t.”

“I’m going with you.” It had hardened his resolve.

“All staterooms, and cabins with two-digit numbers, can board now. Go to Main Deck, port-side…”

Chelle hurried away, with Skip in her wake. The door of their stateroom closed silently behind them.

By the time they reached the Main Deck, the line was already long; a steward was going along it checking cabin cards.

“I’ve got a question,” Chelle said. “Please don’t tell me you don’t have an answer.”

“I may have to.”

“Why do you feel you have to go with me?”

Skip shrugged. “Because you may need my help.”

“In other words, you’ve got more money.”

“I hadn’t thought of that, but I suppose I do.” He was silent for a moment; then he said, “You’re young and very brave. It can be a bad combination.”

“You don’t want to see what there is to see ashore?”

He shook his head.

“Okay, you don’t. But I’m going to see it just the same, and I’m going to make you see it.”

The line shuffled forward. A young man in a brilliant Hawaiian shirt came to stand beside Chelle. “Hey, that was some party last night, wasn’t it? I’m glad you came.”

“Me, too,” Chelle said. “I had a blast.” Her smile vanished. “Skip, this is my buddy
(mumble)
. This is my contracto, Skip Grison.”