Gene Wolfe - Free Live Free

The man in the duffel coat bent for a moment as he might have to see if the muffler and tail pipe of a car were dragging. “Try to move her. It should slide over the snow.”

It did.

“Where we taking her?” the waiter gasped.

“Around the far side of the building, then back to the plane.”

Having tested his engines, the pilot had shut them off. The plane stood angular and silent at the beginning of a snowdusted runway, its propellers motionless. The leggy blonde painted on its dark fuselage looked a trifle embarrassed by the folding steps pushed against its side.

The man in the duffel coat motioned for them to stop. “Sweet, Pearson, thank you again, on behalf of this country. Goodbye, and remember that loose lips sink ships.”

They nodded and hurried away.

Kip and Robin stood guard over Candy while the man in the duffel coat and the younger man went inside and brought out Stubb, Barnes, and the witch.

“You’re going to have to carry her onto the plane,” he told them.

“We can’t,” Barnes protested, looking down at her.

“If you don’t,” the man in the duffel coat said, “we’ll shoot you down where you stand.” He raised the Thompson. “And if you do, I’ll tell you what became of your son.”

Wordlessly, Barnes stooped to take Candy’s ankles.

Stubb had knelt in the snow beside her. “We don’t have to carry her,” he said. “She’s awake.”

Her eyes were still closed, but there were tears at the corners. Slowly, one small, plump hand came up to touch the side of her head.

“Where’s Little Ozzie?” Barnes demanded.

Robin said, “You didn’t care so much about him a couple of hours ago.”

Kip added to Stubb, “And you didn’t care so much about her. I saw the way you looked at me. You would have dropped her for me any time I wiggled a finger.”

The man in the duffel coat murmured, “You see, you are all traitors—as are we who betray ourselves.” His mouth twisted in a smile. “It’s the truth. The simple truth.”

“And I?” asked the witch. “Have I been false to any goal, to any promise? I never promised these three anything, nor have I betrayed any of them. You don’t need to lecture us about that poor girl there. We know she would give up Mr. Stubb or any other to follow her belly. But what of me?”

The man in the duffel coat was still smiling. “You’ve remained faithful, you say? To what?”

“To knowledge! To the ideal of ultimate truth.”

“You’ve followed every lying spirit, no matter how wilful or how weak. When you were at the end of your search for the ultimate truth, you were utterly deceived by that silly old man we sent to your King, a few actors in costume, and some colored lights in a hangar.” He paused. “We tried to take all of you down as far as we could. You, Marie, were the only one who never reached a point beyond which we could make you go no further.”

Stubb asked, “Why?” Candy was sitting up in the snow, her legs extended and spread, her paunch in her lap. He crouched monkey-like beside her with an arm about her shoulders.

“Because those were our orders from on top. To test you and send you there. All of you failed, I think. Now we’ve wasted too much time already. Get her on her feet.”

“Wait.” Barnes had taken Candy’s hand. “You said that when we did, you’d tell me about my son.”

The man in the duffel coat nodded. “When you get her up those steps and into the plane.”

Barnes and Stubb pulled; the witch joined them, lifting with all her strength. Candy rose and tottered, and twice nearly fell, but in the end lurched up the little ramp as she had once lurched up the stairs in Free’s house. A young man in a flight jacket stood at the top with a pistol in his hand.

“He got away from us,” the man in the duffel coat called to Barnes.

Stubb got Candy into a seat, where she rocked back and forth rubbing the side of her head. The seats were of metal punched with holes. There was a partition between them and the forward part of the plane. Its door stood open, but the young man had stationed himself there with his gun. Stubb decided he was the copilot; one of the seats in the cockpit was empty. A rectangular patch on the left sleeve of his flight jacket seemed to show a winged propeller, though it was too dark to be sure. It was cold, and the roaring engines outside were deafening.

Slowly and almost clumsily, the plane banked. Lights from the active, commercial parts of the airport showed through the downside windows, seeming very far away. Beyond them lay only snowy darkness. A faint blue light burned toward the rear of the plane, and there was an even fainter light from the instrument panel in the cockpit.

Candy croaked, “Has anybody got a cigarette? Please?”

Stubb shook his head.

“Ozzie, please? Cigarette?” She made smoking motions.

“I’m out,” Barnes told her.

The witch opened her purse, then snapped it shut again. “I have none either. I recall now that I got my last from Mr. Illingworth. You do not know him.”

Stubb said, “Publisher of Natural Supernaturalism and that other one. Sandy’s boss.”

“Look!” Candy pointed out a window. The city seemed to fill the sky, an untidy constellation. “It’s beautiful! My God, isn’t it beautiful?” Her voice was slurred.

“Sure,” Stubb said. He pressed her hand.

“Mr. Illingworth smoked English cigarettes,” the witch continued. “Players. One can buy them everywhere in this country now, but he did not know that. I have always preferred what are called Russian cigarettes, though mine were made in Turkey. But now that I have neither, I find myself wondering if my preference were not a pose, as I am certain his was. I doubt that he either was willing to admit he played the poseur , even to himself.”

Candy asked, “Has anybody got any liquor?”

No one answered.

“Or aspirins. Alka-Seltzer. My head hurts.”

“Mine too,” Stubb told her. “And I can’t even remember to carry Sight Savers.”

Barnes, who had been slumped with his head in his hands, tapped her on the shoulder and pointed toward the young man, who was fumbling under his flight jacket.

“Oh, thank God!”

The young man held them out to her, shouting to make himself heard. “Camels okay, Ma’am?”

“I love’em!” Candy staggered from her seat. Stubb caught her and held her up, bending to peer at the package as she extracted a cigarette.

“Li’l too much wine with dinner,” Candy said. “Sorry.”

The young man nodded. “I know how it is, Ma’am. Sir, if you want one too, take it.”

“I will,” Stubb said. “Thanks.”

When they were back in their seats again, Stubb patted his pockets. Barnes said, “Here,” and extended a folder of matches.

Stubb lit both cigarettes. Candy asked, “Would you like a drag, Madame Serpentina?”

“No, thank you. I shall wait.” She was seated nearest the young man in the flight jacket, and she spoke loudly enough for him to hear. “Unless perhaps—”

“Sure,” he said, and once more held out the pack.

Madame Serpentina took one. “You need not bother, Mr. Stubb. I still have my lighter.”

Stubb was staring at the matches. “Can I hold on to these, Ozzie? Where’d you get them?”

Barnes thought for a moment. “They’re Robin’s, I guess. When they gave me my old clothes back, they switched the stuff in the pockets.”

Stubb stared at the matches. He could think of nothing, nothing but crazy talk he would rather die than utter. The idea that they were in the wrong movie came back to him with unexpected force, but now it seemed to him that they were not actors but a part of the audience. He had flown to California and back once, and both ways had sat in the plane watching a bad film. He wondered who was flying it now. Reagan, he thought. Ronald Reagan in Hellcats of the Navy . But no, that had been on old Ben Free’s TV, Free coming out of the kitchen and switching on the TV, the heavy, old-fashioned tommy gun in his hands.