Gene Wolfe - Home Fires

But that dinner … What was it Mick wanted? He got it, Virginia said, whatever it was. Whatever information or confirmation he was after.

One possibility is that he wanted to find out whether I blamed him for bringing Rick. Another, and this one’s my favorite, is that he wanted to see how complete my recovery was. Certainly he seemed happy when he left. And then there’s the real reason, about which he was quite wrong.

Hooked up now, a suggestive phrase. The Rani moves slowly through the water, sidewise. The gulls wheel and shriek, the rowers strain at their oars, and we move—how fast? Two hundred meters per hour, perhaps. Certainly no more than that.

So much to think about, and so little to reason with. Coal is black and Mr. Blue was Mr. White. Chelle Sea Blue—Shell Sea Blue. He likes to play games with colors. He’s playing a deep game now, and I may be better off not knowing what it is. Someone had talked to Don while I was unconscious. Was it Charles? More probably, it was Chelle herself.

Someone paging me. She wants to go to lunch. She doesn’t want me to see her naked. Was it the same with Jerry? Is it the same with Mick?

Formal Night over, Chelle dropped into a chair as soon as the door of their stateroom closed. “Sit down. I’ve got to talk to you.”

“Not yet,” Skip said. “I want to get out of this outfit.”

“Are you trying to tell me you talk better in your underwear?”

“I talk better in anything. I’d talk better in a diving suit.”

“You can’t unfasten that fake bow tie, can you?”

“Yes, I can; but I can’t see what I’m doing, so it may take a while.”

She rose, and in another second his tie was gone. “Now the collar stud.”

“Who the hell invented these clothes?”

“You really want to know?” She was grinning. “You won’t like it.”

“Lawyers?”

“Huh uh.” The collar stud gone, Chelle stepped away. “Guys who wore them every day, like Lord This-‘n’-that who always dressed for dinner. Band leaders and headwaiters. Guys like that.”

Taking out one last shirt stud, Skip grunted.

“While you’re doing that, how about unzipping me?”

A tug at the keeper at the back of Chelle’s neck opened the graceful blue gown she had chosen to match her eyes. It fell around her feet, and she stepped out of it, a blue chemise half concealing a blue bra and blue panties. “Think you’re going to get an eyeful? This is as far as I go until the lights are out.”

“Fine.”

She picked up her gown and hung it in the closet they shared, then returned to her chair, plainly waiting for him to speak. Silently, he stuffed his shirt, damp with sweat, into his dirty clothes bag.

She snorted. “You’re waiting for me to make the first move, damn you.”

“Or not. As you wish.” He was stepping out of his trousers.

“Okay, I will. Did you believe Charlie?”

“Hardly a word of it. Do you believe he was Charlie? Is that man in actual fact your biological father?”

“Yeah. You don’t think so?”

“I wasn’t sure. Are you?”

“Hell, yes. Can I prove it? No. But that’s him.”

“Did you tell him about the College Inn? Firing his secretary?”

“Of course not. I never saw him until he came in with Mom tonight. You were there. If I’d told him, you’d have heard it.”

“You saw him when you were being held in Lieutenant Brice’s stateroom.”

“Yeah. You’re right, I did. Only I didn’t know who he was then. He was just a nice old guy who was talking them out of shooting me.” Chelle’s deep sigh was followed by a wistful smile. “I loved him then. I could’ve kissed him, mustache and all. But I didn’t know it was Charlie.”

“They gave you deeptrance. I don’t suppose you know what you told them.”

“While I was under? All I know is they didn’t get what they wanted. They put me under four times, I think it was, and every time I came to, Rick was madder.”

“In that case, you might have told the man with the beard about dinner at the Old College Inn.”

“I suppose, if he’d asked the right questions.”

“I admit is isn’t likely,” Skip said. He leaned back in his chair. “It’s possible, however. He could also have planted the suggestion that you would recognize him as your father the first time you saw him with your mother. I’ll admit that neither of those are very plausible.”

“I’ll say! That’s Charlie. A lot older, but still Charlie. Did you buy that story about his just happening to go into the cabin looking for me?”

“Certainly not.” Skip paused. “He lied about having met Jerry Brice and half a dozen other things.”

Chelle nodded. “He said all he had to do was say he’d been sent by headquarters, and they bought it. It was damn hard not to laugh in his face.”

“Hard but wise.”

“Yeah. He came to save me, just like you did. Only he pulled it off.”

Skip nodded. “You don’t know how he established his bona fides?”

“I’m pretty sure I was under when he came in, but I know somebody who does.”

“Who might,” Skip said. “So do I, and I want to talk to her.”

“Will she tell you the truth?”

He shrugged. “Susan won’t lie to me intentionally. But she may not have understood what was said or what sort of ID was shown. She may have been busy doing something, most probably because Rick Johnson saw to it that she was.”

“Do you really think there would be papers? Something like a service card?”

Skip shrugged again. “Almost certainly not, but there may have been something else. A ring, a coin, a button. Maybe a gesture. A secret handshake sounds absurd, I know; but it might be good for just that reason. Or the repeated use of some particular phrase. Or something else—there’s always the chance it was something else.”

Chelle grinned. “You said ‘something else’ twice. I bet you thought I wouldn’t catch it.”

“I said it three times. Seriously now, it might be good for us to know what the ID was; but I doubt that we can get it from Susan because I doubt that she has it. I hoped you did.”

Chelle shook her head. “Do you really, seriously think Charlie might be spying for the Os?”

“You knew him far better than I did, and your memories of him will be far more recent. Do you?”

“You want to give me time to think about it?”

“No. Off the top of your head. Would he do it?”

Chelle looked thoughtful. “For enough money, yes, he might. But he’d double-cross them as soon as he found out how to make double-crossing pay. You want more?”

“Absolutely.”

“Charlie’s loyal to Charlie. If God pays off on total no-slacking loyalty to a cause, there’s a gold throne in heaven just waiting for Charlie. If he doesn’t kill goats in front of his own picture, it’s because he’s never found goats good enough.”

“He tried to save your life.”

“Wrong. He saved it. It kind of worries me, because he figured he’d get something out of it and I don’t know what. I’ve got a dozen guesses when what I need’s one good one.”

“He sees you as a detached part of himself. All right if I have the first shower?”

“No way. You’ll be all nice and clean and smell good, and I won’t take one at all. So me first. Do you think that’s really it? I’m part of him? In his mind, I mean?”

“Biologically you are. You’ve got a bunch of his genes, and he certainly knows that. Would Virginia be as quick to take him back if she didn’t know he’d saved you?”

Chelle rose. “I think so. It’s money, not me. He’s rich, or she thinks he is, or anyway she thinks he might be. She’s poor now, and she doesn’t like it. I’ll try to leave you a dry towel.”