Gene Wolfe - Home Fires

“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.

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?

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.”