Gene Wolfe: Home Fires

“Certainly. So do you.”

“Give me a minute.…” Chelle looked thoughtful. “I got it! Mother.”

“Excellent.”

The lights flickered again.

“You know where she is?”

“No. I haven’t the least idea, and I’m not at all eager to find out.” Skip rose and opened a door. “What do I have to do to get you to look at our living room? From what I can see of it, it’s really quite beautiful.”

“Answer my questions, that’s all. I want to know where my mother is. My biological mother. Let’s not get into the divorce thing.”

Skip said, “I think we ought to call her Virginia Healy.”

“That was on the boat.”

“Yes. On the Rani —and here, too, if you’ll take my advice. There’s a company called Reanimation Incorporated. Have you heard of it?”

Chelle shook her head.

“I thought not. It probably didn’t exist when you went into space.”

“Reanimation—you’re saying they bring the dead back to life.”

“In a way, they do. Anytime anybody enters a hospital for a serious operation, he or she is given a brain scan. When things go wrong, the patient sometimes becomes brain-dead.”

“That’s dead.” Chelle looked decidedly uncomfortable, stretching her long legs out before her and drawing them up again. “If you’re brain-dead, you’re dead.”

Skip shook his head. “Legally, a person is not dead until he—or she—cannot be restored to life.”

“Bullshit!”

“Not at all. You have life insurance. I know you do, because all soldiers get it.”

“You’re right, I do. You’re my beneficiary. What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“Let’s say that you were taken to a hospital—the reason doesn’t matter. While you were there your heart stopped. That triggered an alarm, and a therapy ’bot kept you breathing and shocked your heart into beating again. Let’s also say that I, your beneficiary, knowing what had occurred, then tried to claim your death benefit. No court would award it to me.”

“I see. Because I’d been dead, but I was alive now.”

“Exactly. Brain death means that thought has ceased. The patient is no longer conscious and will never return to consciousness spontaneously.”

“Never wake up. I’ve got it.”

Skip shook his head. “Thought doesn’t stop in sleep, it’s just that its character changes. Dreams are the most obvious example, but there are others. When a patient is brain-dead, no thought processes are occurring. None at all. There are medical techniques, however, that will sometimes return the brain to normal activity.”

Chelle fidgeted. “Are we still talking about my mother?”

“In a way, yes. I was explaining why the brain is scanned. When a previously dead brain is returned to activity, a great deal can be lost. Some memories are always gone, I’m told. Certain skills may be lost as well.”

“Like, I might forget how to shoot?”

“Exactly. A brain scan permits the physician to remedy that. The revived brain is wiped clean—all its information is nulled. The scan is uploaded in place of it.”

“Do you know,” Chelle muttered, “I’m sorry we started talking about this.”

“I’m not. It’s something I knew I’d have to tell you sooner or later, and I want to get out of the way.” Skip paused as if to study the off-white walls, the brightly patterned hangings, and the dark, stolid wood. “This was going to be our new home, Chelle. About thirty seconds ago, I realized that it won’t be. You and I, as a couple, will never live here.”

She straightened up. “What the fuck are you saying?”

“That I’ve always been a man who relied on reason, on logic, and on precedent; but there is a higher knowing, and sometimes it comes to me. You wanted to know where your biological mother is.”

“Yes! I do!” Chelle’s hands clenched. “I do, and you’d better tell me.”

“Very well. I will. Your biological mother is dead. She died, if I remember correctly, about five years after your leaving Earth. Presumably she is buried somewhere, though she may have been cremated. It shouldn’t be hard to find out.”

Chelle stared without speaking.

“You’d divorced her before you left; thus you weren’t notified.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“What Reanimation does is really pretty simple. It uploads a dead person’s last brain scan into the brain of a living volunteer.”

“That—my mother…? That’s what she is?”

“No, that is what Virginia Healy is. The package is costly. I paid to have it done because I wanted to make you happy; I hope you’ll take that into consideration.”

“But she isn’t really my mother?” Chelle looked incredulous.

“That’s a question for philosophers. She hasn’t lied to you about it, and you need to understand that. She believes that she is your mother, and in fact she’s as sure she’s Vanessa Hennessey as you are that you’re Chelle Sea Blue. Vanessa Hennessey’s memories are there, and so is her personality. The genetic heritage isn’t. Nor are the fingerprints. She couldn’t pass a retinal scan.”

“You want me to call her Virginia Healy.”

Skip nodded. “I suggest it.”

“Do you know what her name was before all this?”

“I do, but it would be nonsensical for anyone to use that name for her now. She wouldn’t even recognize it. Mentally, although not physically, she really is Vanessa Hennessey. Or at least, a very close approximation.”

“And you are a complete and total bastard!”

“For trying—”

“Shut up! Just shut up!” Chelle was on her feet and raging. “I know everything you’re going to say, you sneaky son of a bitch! Shooting me full of dope would have made me happy, too, and by God it would have been cleaner!”

The lights went out. Skip closed his eyes—but heard the door slam.

* * *

Later, after he had stacked Chelle’s luggage out by the elevator, he called his building manager. “I need the locks changed. Change them, and bring me up the new key-card.”

“Just one card, sir?”

“Yes, just one.” Skip hung up.

His next call got an answering machine.

His third, the call after that, was to his office. “This is Skip Grison, Boris. I gave the Z man a little job a few days ago. He was to check out a name I’d been given and find out whether there was any such person. I’ve called his office several times since, but there’s nobody there.”

“I see…”

“I don’t want you to start the same investigation, so I’m not going to give you that name. All I want is for you to look around for the Z man. He had a secretary, didn’t he? And a Girl Friday? Some kind of assistant?”

“Yes, sir. Yes, he did. Chrissie was the secretary. I think the other girl was Wendy something.”

There was a pause.

“Wendy Kaya. She was a criminology major just out of UCTI, but he said she was smarter than a good many people who’d been in the business for twenty years.”

“Find Zygmunt if you can.” Skip’s fingers drummed the table. “Find those girls. The second should be better but either one of them. Get the story and get back to me.”

“Yes, sir.” Boris paused. “There’s a man here who wants to see you. I know you told Dianne not to bother you today, but since you’re on the phone now, I thought I’d tell you. He … well, he doesn’t have hands, for one thing. He says he’s a friend of yours, but he won’t even give his name.”

“I understand. I know him, and he is. Tell him to wait. Say I’ll be there in an hour and I’ll see him first. Is he carrying anything?”

“Yes, sir. An old lunch bucket. I suppose it’s in case he gets hungry.”