Gene Wolfe - Home Fires

“What about Don?” To hear her, Skip had to bend until his ear was almost at her lips “Don Miles? Does anybody know about Don?”

Outside, a shrill new voice argued with the nurse: “But she’s my daughter!”

An explosion shook the ship.

When did I see her first? I really have no idea. There’s the secretarial pool, normally of five girls. The juniors have secretaries only when they require them, drawing a girl from the pool at need. Someone—was it Hal Hutchins?—drew Susan, and she straightened out a mess that ought to have taken a week in half a day.

I marked her then, serious, short and a little plump, blond and attractive. Mrs. Rosso got pneumonia, and I got Susan to fill in for her; by the time Mrs. Rosso came back, Susan was better than Mrs. Rosso had ever been. The UEA had been after us to hire more people, so I kept her on as Mrs. Rosso’s assistant.

She has a mind for detail, which is what I’ve always needed, and is (or was) loyal to a fault. I took her out to lunch at first, a reward for good work—then out to dinner. She must have sensed that I was attracted to her; I’ve never known whether she was attracted to me.

Apparently she was. Just now, I saw how she looked at Rick Johnson; and I wondered whether she had ever looked at me like that. There was a time …

I remember it now. I’d been writing something. I sent it, and saw Susan watching me from the doorway, her face expressionless and her eyes full of dreams. It frightened me a little, but it took me years to understand why.

* * *

All the women knew before I did. Una Quin’s secretary told Una, and Una told me. I can still see her, grinning over her coffee cup. “You must like blondes.”

I said I did, and that she must have seen the picture on my desk.

“Well, blondes like you.” She winked. “That ought to be a lot more fun.”

I knew who she meant at once, said I didn’t believe it, and as soon as I had said it wondered whether I could be wrong. On one hand, it seemed impossible that any woman could be attracted to me, an attorney nearing—no, let’s be honest. Just a middle-aged lawyer, not quite tall, with little enough to offer any woman beyond a quick mind.

Yet I had learned in court to speak directly to the female members of the jury. (How many men must have died at the end of a rope when juries were all male!) Look them in the eye, move from one to the next, and linger longest with the least attractive.

Passion and conviction will win the case. They always do.

Chet and I sitting in the courtroom with the accused between us. Chet looking at his watch and winking. “We’ll adjourn at five.” I nodding and grinning, knowing that at five, when our client had caught a cab, Chet and I would go to the Front Office and he’d buy me a vodka-and-tonic.

Knowing too that when I had finished my summing-up, two jurors had looked back at me. Knowing that the smiles had been friendly. Middle-aged women, both of them; women I had talked to like a lover as I paced back and forth in front of the jury box. Telling them about the flaws in the prosecution’s case, warning them that the police, too, want a conviction and describing the kinds of things the police do to get one.

The longer the jury stays out, the better the chance for an acquittal. It’s an old rule; but like so many of the old rules, it still holds.

* * *

How many times have I paced my office, trying out this line of argument and that on Susan? Groping and listening, waiting for her to say, “Then she’s really innocent after all! I wasn’t sure.”

There has always been something tragic about Susan, and I believe I’ve come to understand what it is. It’s the tragedy of the second-rate, the helper, the sidekick, the supporting actor, the horse nearest the door. Susan is a superb secretary, but she would fail as the employer of a secretary.

We slept together twice a week for years. How many times all told? Not a thousand. No, not so many as that. Eight hundred perhaps. Eight hundred, and so I ought to know. She was a fine partner, tender and eager. Yet time after time I found myself imagining that I was with someone else.

Usually, Chelle. When I’ve been with Chelle I have never imagined another; nor do I think I ever will. But what of her? Whom does she picture now, in order that she may achieve orgasm? Is it Don or Jerry or Mick? Or all three?

Susan, I know, thought only of me. There was no Don with Susan. Only Skip. Or more likely, only Mr. Grison; Susan was always ill at ease when I made her call me Skip.

“Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”

Vanessa was sobbing in Skip’s arms, and Rick Johnson was cursing, his voice low and savage. Skip was not sure who had spoken. Possibly it had been Susan, but quite possibly it had been Skip himself.

Three sailors arrived with fire extinguishers and began to spray the smoking ruins with foam. Almost idly, as one sees things in a dream, Skip saw a wristless hand in the wreckage. That’s a woman’s hand, he thought; there was crimson polish on the nails.

“What was it?” Johnson coughed and backed away. When no one answered, he added, “What did they blow up? I’m new here.”

Skip only shrugged, his arm around the weeping Vanessa.

“That woman went into the hold with us. She and this other woman here.”

Susan said, “Yes, we did. They asked for volunteers, for women particularly. Skip and the captain did.”

“I was there,” Johnson told her. “I volunteered too.”

“A black woman volunteered, but they didn’t take her. They took this woman, though. And they took me.”

Skip said, “I want Mick Tooley, Susan. Find him for me. Try your phone to start with. There’s a classroom on G Deck. I’m not talking about the big meeting room on E Deck—a smaller room on G Deck. It could be Room Twelve. Tell Mick to meet us there as soon as he can.”

He turned to Johnson. “I know your name, but who are you?”

“I can tell you, but you’ll have to do a lot of snooping around to verify it.” Johnson had taken out his wallet. “Here my driver’s license, with my picture on it, if that interests you.”

Skip shook his head.

“Right. Come to think of it, I’ve got something better—a little better, anyhow. My gun license.” He slipped it out of his wallet and handed it over. “Look under training, and you’ll see ex-military.”

Skip did, nodded, and handed the license back.

“I was West Point, and after graduation I got stuck in Military Intelligence. They sent me off—I can’t tell you where—and by the time I got home to Earth I’d put in over twenty years. You know how that works, I’m sure.”

Skip smiled. He had relaxed a trifle.

Susan said, “Lieutenant Colonel, right? You look it.”

“Don’t I wish!” Johnson grinned. “I was a captain, Ms. Clerkin, but a captain with twenty years’ service. I took my leave. I assume Mastergunner Blue’s doing that.”

Skip said, “She is.”

“After that I tried a desk job here. That lasted…” Johnson paused to think. “Two hundred-days or so, about half a year. It bored the shit out of me, so I applied for a discharge and got it. I’ve been knocking around trying to find something worth doing ever since. Mick Tooley works for you, Mr. Grison?”

“He’s a junior member of my firm, yes.”

“Well, Tooley put out a call on one of the mercenary sites. I thought it sounded interesting, and the money was good. So—”

Susan coughed. “I texted Mr. Tooley, asking him to meet us on G Deck, and I hate looking at this. Can’t we please go up there now?”

Skip nodded, and led Vanessa away. The air of the corridor seemed clear, but there was enough smoke in it to sting his eyes. Feeling foolish, he blinked back tears. Johnson was asking Susan what had been blown up, and Susan was saying she had no idea.