Home Fires

4. JUST ONE OF THE GUYS

A seat alone would have suited his mood better, but the only unoccupied seat that offered a good view of the sails was next to a lean old man whose beard and long white hair danced in the wind; Skip took it.

The sails interested him—the complexity of their rigging, and their sheer size, great sheets of some white synthetic that seemed to fill the sky. The sailors who worked them were brawny men, many of them big, yet when they lay aloft to take in sail (as they did when he had been on deck for an hour or so) they seemed hardly larger than ants. The seven fiberglass masts were taller than many office towers.

“We’ve a blow coming,” the old man next to Skip said; he indicated the sails with a wave of his blackthorn stick. “That’s why they’re doing that.”

Skip nodded absently, wondering where he had seen the old man before.

“Your first cruise?”

“No. My third.”

“My ex and I used to try to take a cruise every year.” The white-bearded man had begun packing tobacco into the bowl of a corncob pipe. “Some years we’d make it and some years we didn’t. I don’t mean just this cruise, there’s a hundred plus. You can never run out.”

“I see.”

“If you want to learn more about working the ship, there’s a class. Call the social director. She’ll sign you up.”

“Perhaps I will.”

“Quite a few go on these because they’re getting set to die.” The old man paused to light his pipe, but Skip did not speak.

“It comforts ’em. The sea’s eternal. If Earth were to die, if the Os were to blow up the whole thing, there’d still be seas like this on other worlds. I think about it sometimes.” As he spoke the old man watched Skip, bright blue eyes just visible above his dark sunglasses.

“They won’t,” Skip said. “We’re fighting for control of habitable planets, and habitable planets are rare. The Os want them, and so do we.”

The old man’s mouth smiled, but there was no smile in his eyes. “Suppose they could get control of all the rest by blowing up this one?”

Skip shrugged, leaned back, and shut his eyes. When he opened them again, the old man had gone. Skip had not heard him leave.

He thought—as he had so often thought through all the lonely years—of Chelle fighting on whatever godforsaken world they had sent her to. “One of the best noncoms we had turned out to be an EU spy. I killed him.” She had said that not long ago. “If you love Earth you leave it.” She had said that just before she left, and he felt he understood it a bit better now. The Os would never destroy a habitable world; there would be a negotiated settlement (however unfavorable) long before it came to that. But if millions of people believed they might …

No doubt the government encouraged it; there would be more soldiers, more Marines.

He used his mobile phone to call the office of the ship’s social director. “I understand there are lectures on the operation of the ship. I’d like to attend one.”

“Certainly.” The speaker looked young and bright, and sounded the same way. “We’ll be starting tomorrow at ten. One hour, so you’ll have ample time for lunch. What’s your name, sir?”

He gave it.

There was a lengthy silence. Then, “There seems to be a bit of trouble about your record, Mr. Grison. Could you come to our office? We’re on I Deck, in Compartment Three Thirty-eight.”

“Could you—” But she had hung up.

The elevators were long-lift only, as they were in most buildings ashore. Fortunately, Main Deck to I Deck qualified, and the long walk through stifling corridors to Compartment 338 gave him ample time to wonder about the problem with his records—why it had not been discovered earlier, for example.

“The social director would like to speak to you in person, Mr. Grison.” The girl behind the desk was indeed young and looked bright; she gestured toward the door on her left. “She’ll see you right away.”

Vanessa smiled pertly as he came in. “You don’t look surprised, Mr. Grison. Are you?”

“Not very, Ms. Healy. Surprised to see that I was right, if you like. Can we talk here?”

“We could, but—come with me.”

She led him down a passageway, around a corner to a companionway, and up to G Deck. Down more passageways to a room she unlocked; it was dark save for the watery light admitted by portholes that were scarcely higher than the tossing waves of the Atlantic.

“We’re going to use this for lectures and classes.” She shut and bolted the door. “To be honest, I don’t think my office is bugged either. This is more exciting, though. Don’t you agree?”

Skip said, “We’re less liable to be interrupted, at least.”

“And I get to sit with you in the dark. If I were to switch on the lights, it would be recorded and I’d have to make up a story. It’s the energy thingy.”

“I understand.”

“They work the sailors like slaves. Maybe you’ve seen it?”

“Certainly I saw them working hard at times.”

“I keep thinking, give them electric what-you-call-ums to wind up their ropes, and send some of them into space to fight, the way they sent Chelle. You agree, don’t you?”

Skip shrugged. “It costs a great deal to train and equip a soldier, and much more to get one to a contested world. Few of those men would repay the expense—or so I’d guess. Is this coincidence? Your being on our ship?”

Vanessa tittered. “You can’t be as silly as that. I know you’re not. I checked the passenger lists.”

“I didn’t know they were public.”

“They’re not. Do you want the whole story?”

“I do.” He noticed that the ship’s roll seemed more pronounced. “Very much.”

“All right. At a dinner years and years ago, I sat next to a nice young man who worked for this line. We chatted and I was oh so charming. I can be charming when I want to.”

“I know.”

“Well, I knew you and Chelle were going on a cruise, so I looked up this gentleman and told him what Chelle thought. I’m sure you remember. She thought I’d been out in space, too, and that was why I wasn’t an old lady now. So I said I’d been out in space for the government and I couldn’t say anything about it.” Vanessa paused. “He let me see the passenger lists and took me to dinner. I didn’t have much money, so that was very nice. I liked him, and Charlie’s history. I told you, didn’t I?”

Skip said, “I’d think he’d be too old for you.”

“You’re right. He was, a bit. Still he was terribly nice. Do you know who’s not too old for me? Who’s exactly the right age?”

“I understand why you left the apartment. Still, I wish you’d told me you were going.” When Vanessa said nothing, he added, “I suppose you were afraid I’d have tried to stop you, and you’re probably correct.”

“It wasn’t that at all. They tried … I was afraid to tell anybody. Terrified! Put your arm around me. I’m serious. Do it. I need a man’s arm around me, and you’re just right for me and—oh, damn! I’m g-going to c-c-cry.”

He hugged her.

“I was so t-terribly frightened. Horribly, horribly frightened. I—I talked it down for a few days, but now I’m frightened again. They tried to k-kill me, Skip. They did! I was going to a few places I remembered, just to see what they were like now and who was there. Oh, Lord!”

“What was it?”

“It seemed so funny at the time. I kept a straight face until I got away, but then I laughed until the people around me must have thought I was crazy. I laughed, and I had almost forgotten that part.”

“Tell me.”

“I went to Simone’s and there was a woman there eating with some man. I didn’t recognize her, but she must have been much younger. Anyway, she recognized me. Her mouth dropped open. Do you know what I mean? And she positively gawked! So I pretended I hadn’t seen her and scooted, but after that I had to laugh. And—and…”

Vanessa had begun to tremble again. Skip tightened his grip.

“He stabbed me. Just stabbed me in the back while I was walking down Seventy-second with hundreds of people around us. He did! I know you won’t believe me, but it’s the truth.”

He gave her his handkerchief.

“Women were screaming and I was on the sidewalk trying to get up, only I had this thing in my back that hurt and hurt, and nobody would pull it out, and there were police all around and people saying, ‘I didn’t see it. I didn’t see it.’ Over and over.”

“You’re not making this up?”

Vanessa had begun unbuttoning her sleeves. “I’m going to take off my blouse. I don’t want you to pull off the bandage, and it’s too dark for you to see the place anyway. But you can feel the bandage—it’s a little bit above my bra strap. Go right ahead and feel it. Be gentle.”

As well as he could judge, there was pad of gauze somewhat smaller than the palm of his hand, held in place by tape. It was, or might have been, stiff with blood.

“We’ve a doctor on board—an official doctor, I mean. Dr. Prescott. He changed the bandage for me yesterday, and he says my body will absorb the stitches as the wound heals. Do you want to hear more about Tim? That’s the nice man who got me this job. He’s president of the cruise line now. I told him which ship, and I’d take any job to get on it and be there for Chelle and all that nonsense, and he said could you be a social director, we haven’t got one for the Rani? The mandate’s five to four, you see, and every little bit helps.”

Skip nodded.

“Well, of course I could and I said so, so here I am.”

When Skip did not speak, Vanessa added, “I could take off my bra so you could feel it better. Wouldn’t you like that?”

“No. I’ll leave if you do.”

“All right.” She sat. “Only I’m going to leave my blouse off for now. We’ve got huge fans and vents that catch the wind when there is any, but it’s so dreadfully hot all over the ship.”

“First I should tell you that Chelle’s angry with me. I’ll answer—”

“Of course she is. If she hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have stripped.”

Although Vanessa could not have seen them, Skip’s eyebrows went up. “She told you?”

“No, indeed. Your face did. When I spoke with her, she was deeply in love with you. Or that’s what she said.”

“I see.” He took a deep breath. “I was about to say that I’d answer your questions, but you must answer mine first—my questions about the attempt on your life. I’m going to do my best to protect you, and these are things I’ll need to know. Did you see your attacker?”

“You defend criminals, don’t you? Isn’t that your business?”

He chuckled, surprising himself. “That’s what people think it is, and they may be half right. I defend persons accused of crime, Vanessa. They’re criminals, of course—but that’s because everyone is. Did you see your attacker? Don’t stall.”

“No. No, I didn’t. It was somebody behind me, and then I fell down.”

“Was it a man or a woman?”

“I don’t know! I just told you so.”

“You’ve been wearing ten-centimeter heels every time I’ve seen you, so I assume you were wearing them then. In those heels you must be as tall as quite a few men.”

“Not as tall as you are, Skip. You’ve a good two fingers on me.”

“Did you see the knife? After they pulled it out, I mean.”

“No. They never showed it to me. I suppose the police have it. What difference does it make?”

Skip shrugged. “It’s something we know your attacker had, and it might tell us something about him. Was it a dagger?”

“Isn’t that just a knife you stab people with?”

“A dagger is double-edged. It’s made for stabbing. Knives are made for cutting, for the most part. When people are stabbed, it’s usually a kitchen knife. Often it’s part of a set, a set that will be one knife short. It was the stabbing that made you give up the apartment I gave you?”

“That’s right. Because I was in the hospital the first night. After I got out, I thought, they’ll be looking for me and by this time they may have found my apartment. You’re not checking out my breasts.”

“Sorry. I didn’t know you wanted me to.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want you to stare, but it would be nice if you noticed them.”

“I have. Who is ‘they’?”

“People from the company that brought me back, from the Reanimation Corporation.”

“Do they have a good reason to want you dead? What is it?”

“You haven’t been making the payments. You told me you haven’t. Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Lots of reasons.” Skip wanted to pace and did, only slightly impeded by the roll of the ship. “In the first place, I didn’t tell you I hadn’t been making the payments. I said I was going to stop.”

He pressed a button to light the dial of his watch. “Today is Tuesday. When were you stabbed?”

“It was a Wednesday, I think.”

“A week ago? This is important. Wednesday of last week?”

“Don’t be silly, we sailed the next day. It was two weeks ago.”

“You spent Wednesday night in the hospital. What about Thursday?”

“That,” Vanessa said primly, “is none of your affair.”

“Friday? Will you tell me that?”

“Certainly. In my cabin on this ship. The social director doesn’t wait until the passengers come to get on board. There were all sorts of things I had to do to get ready. My assistant had never done this before. Neither had I, but I told her I had and that gave her confidence. Confidence is very important.”

“Go on.”

“After that I taught her all about dances and balls and dress codes, and we talked about shuffleboard and badminton tournaments. She’s a good diver, so we decided to have diving contests, too, and a putting tournament. You need things for people of all ages, but especially for older people because there are more of them. Then there’s dress-up night every Friday. We’ve a man who takes your picture, and dress-up night is good for his business. He pays, naturally, and he’s got to—”

Skip said, “I understand, and I won’t ask any more questions about your sleeping arrangements.”

“Well, I wish you would. Because after we made our plans my assistant’s Girl Friday came and we had to start all over with her. And I wanted to say that two of the officers are very nice, but they are—you know—taken. My little cabin isn’t as comfortable as yours, but it’s not too bad. Would you like to see it?”

“No.”

“Well, it’s ten ninety-one J. I know you think you and Chelle will make it up, and I hope you’re right. But until you do?”

“No,” Skip repeated.

“Besides, a little variety can be quite nice. You’ll see. You know, I thought of taking you there straightaway when we left my office. I ought to have, but you’d have worried about people listening, and this is more romantic anyway.”

“You didn’t think your office had been bugged.”

Vanessa shook her head. “Why should they? They’d just try to kill me, wouldn’t they?”

“I don’t know.” Skip paused, considering. “In the first place, the time line is all wrong. On Friday, two days after you were stabbed, I called Reanimation and told them I might take them to court. It got me an appointment just before lunch with a vice president named Feuer. I went straight back to the building, and your apartment had been thoroughly searched.”

“How did they know I lived there?”

“That’s just it. Suppose they had begun to act when they got my call—which they did, come to think of it. Feuer told me my payment had been refused. Even so, they would have had to learn your address, get one or two security agents into my building, and search. A search like that would take one person at least an hour. Probably more.”

“What were they looking for?”

“I’d love to know. I don’t. Let’s get back to what we do know, which is that it wasn’t Reanimation’s security goons who stabbed you, and it wasn’t their security who searched your apartment. The timing is wrong for both.”

“I liked it better when you had your arm around me,” Vanessa said.

“Besides all that, Reanimation’s a business. It’s got to act sensibly for the most part, or go under. They want that pretty body of yours back alive.”

“Well, they don’t act like it!”

“We don’t know how they act. Listen to me. The mind of a Reanimation employee has been wiped and your own mind uploaded into her brain—the brain that you call yours for the time being. It means they had a nice-looking woman of thirty-five or forty in their database who resembled you and would consent to being used like this. She must be very valuable to them. Injuring her or killing her would be the last thing they’d want to do. Kidnap you, wipe the brain and reinsert her mind, and they’d have a strong case. ‘There she stands, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. That is her body, the body she was born with. And as you have heard, she consents to everything we’ve done.’ ”

“I see.”

“Kill you, and it’s murder. Not some two-bit hate-speech charge but real murder. This country has far too many people, or thinks it does. The result is that the government kills as many as the politicians can justify. Murder means execution, and quickly. The murderer dies; so does everybody they can convict as an accessory.”

Vanessa said, “Well, somebody wanted to kill me.”

“I agree, and we need to find out who and why. What were they looking for in your apartment?”

“I haven’t the least idea.”

“Think!”

“Skip…”

“Yes?”

“Do you remember when we met at the railroad station?”

He nodded.

“It was one of the very first things since I’ve been back. I don’t remember dying. I know I must have, but I don’t remember it.”

“Of course not. You can’t be scanned after death.”

“The last thing I remember is going to Saint Andrew Kim’s for a transplant. After that, I was lying on a gurney in a different room. I got up and a woman helped me dress and drove me to the station. She told me a lot about you on the way and gave me a little money. Well, of course I wanted to see Chelle, so I did what she’d said to. I had nothing then. A few clothes in a little bag.”

“I remember.”

“Everything I had after that, I bought with money you gave me. I don’t steal, Skip. It’s so, well, déclassé.”

He had stopped pacing to stare out a porthole.

“I never hid anything there. Not a thing. Tim gave me a little money. For these shipboard clothes, you know.” Vanessa held up the white blouse. “If they were looking for some sort of treasure that would be very funny.”

“I’ve been trying to convince myself that they were looking for something that would tell them where you’d gone.”

She shook her head vigorously. “After I was stabbed, I went back there to pack, but I had no idea where I was going afterward, and I was in and out in ten minutes.”

“They cut open sofa cushions, so they were looking for something you would’ve hidden.” Skip paused, and snapped his fingers.

“You’ve thought of something. What is it?”

“Your face, basically. It’s a very pretty face. Delicate features, sharp chin, perfect nose.”

Vanessa’s smile flashed in the dim light. “Why, thank you!”

“Big eyes, with a tiny upward tilt. Most of all the vivacity. Chelle didn’t recognize me at Canam, but she knew you at once.”

“Well, naturally she would.”

Skip shook his head. “Not naturally at all, because that’s not really Chelle’s mother’s face. It’s the face of the Reanimation employee, an attractive woman about thirty-five whose name we don’t know.”

“It’s mine now!”

“You’re right, it is. And because it’s animated by your personality, it exhibits your characteristic facial expressions.” Skip paused, scanning the empty chairs as though gauging the reactions of a jury. “But suppose the woman you saw at that restaurant—the woman you didn’t recognize—didn’t recognize you at all, never having seen you. Suppose she recognized the face, a face she had seen on another woman last hundred-day or last year, a woman whom she and her male friend had been searching for.” He returned to his seat.

“You mean they didn’t know that I’m me?”

“No, I mean they don’t care. Do you think it would make any difference to them?”

“Why, I have no idea!”

“I don’t think it would. They’d have to assume that Reanimation will reclaim you eventually, wipe you, and replace you with the employee’s scan. When it does, the person they fear will be back. I say ‘they’ because I think it was the man who stabbed you. The woman must have told him who you were. My guess is that he jumped up to follow you. You didn’t see his face?”

Vanessa shook her head. “His back was toward me. The woman was facing him.”

“He will have followed you, I think, and stabbed you when he felt he had a chance to get away afterward. Your wound’s at the shoulder blade. That indicates a tall man holding his knife under his hand and stabbing down. It can’t have been a big knife, or he’d have done more damage, but presumably it was all he had. That means he wasn’t a pro. Can you describe the woman?”

Vanessa pursed her lips.

“Think back.”

“I only saw her for a second or two. Wait. Round face, not bad-looking, thirtyish. Brown-blond hair over her forehead. Heavy, I think.”

“She was sitting down when you saw her?”

“Yes, that’s why I can’t be sure how tall she was. But she was eating something white, and it was probably mashed potatoes. So heavy. Besides, girls with round faces are usually fat.”

Skip nodded. “Or vanilla ice cream, but I suppose that would be the same thing.”

“I should be getting back to my office. Goodness only knows what’s been going on there.”

“One last question.” Skip held out the slim brown shaver. “Why did you have this?”

Vanessa screamed.

* * *

Back on deck, in a yellow deck chair flanked by empty chairs, Skip spoke into his mobile phone. “I want the Z man to check something out for me. A woman was stabbed on Seventy-second Street two weeks ago. She was taken to a hospital. Her name may be Vanessa Hennessey or Virginia Healy. It could also be something else. I want him to find which hospital and what address she gave, assuming she gave one. Have him talk to the investigating officer and find out as much as he can. If he can’t get a look at the weapon, tell him to get the officer to describe it.”

Tooley said, “They’ll think we’re going to defend the offender, sir. Are we?”

“No. Absolutely not. Tell him we want the offender caught as much as the police do, but we can’t reveal our connection yet. Soap him.”

“Got it. Anything else?”

“Not now,” Skip told him, and hung up.

The prow was supposed to be off limits to passengers, but he went there anyway, finding a spot where few of those on deck could see him. A warm breeze toyed with the straw hat he had brought to ward off the sun, whispering in his ears and ruffling his shirt. Below him, the sharp prow split the self-healing sea. Beyond him, the tapered steel bowsprit, up-tilted and longer than many a street, pointed south. High overhead, two-score sailors labored, their cries no louder than the mewing of the gulls. Behind him, before him, and above him, the sails did their work in silence, urging the immense square-rigger Rani south.

Ever south.

* * *

He tried the door at 23C, which opened to his cabin card. Opening the bedroom door as well gave him the briefest glimpse of a naked man who sprang from the bed, scooped a bulky bundle off the floor, dashed out onto the veranda, and vaulted over the rail. Like late applause, something fell with a crash, knocked over by his swift passage.

Skip shut the outer door and bolted it, then closed the veranda door and bolted that, too.

“Sorry.” Chelle sounded sleepy. “I was supposed to lock you out. I forgot.”

“That’s good. I need a place to sleep.”

He had switched his mobile phone to VIBRATE, and it did. The tiny phone-pic showed Vanessa with shoulders bare and the end of a strip of tape barely visible. “Have you been looking for me? I’m in ten ninety-one J. I thought you might have forgotten.”

“No,” Skip said, “but thank you for the offer. I do appreciate it.”

“It would give me a chance to apologize.”

“That’s hardly necessary,” he said, and hung up.

Chelle yawned. “Who was that?”

“Just a friend.” He sat down and took off his shoes.

“I already know.”

“In which case there’s no need to cross-examine me, and no need for me to lie.”

“Aren’t you going to ask who I was sleeping with?”

Skip unbuttoned his shirt. “If you want me to, yes. Not otherwise.”

“You should be concerned. We’re contracted.”

“I am concerned, but it doesn’t follow that I have to ask. Non sequitur.”

“That’s good, because I’m not sure I can tell you. There was a party for us vets. Mother cooked it up for my benefit, I think. She must have pull with somebody.”

“She doesn’t need it. She’s the social director.”

“Really? She peeked in for a minute.”

“Just doing her duty.”

Chelle yawned again. “Anyway, I met a lot of people, and he was one of them. Just one of the guys.”

“I see.”

“I wasn’t looking for a reason to lock you out, if that’s what you think. If I had been, I wouldn’t have forgotten to bolt the door.”

“That’s not what I think.”

“Good. There’s booze in our little refrigerator. Can I get you to fix me a drink?”

“Certainly.” Skip was taking off his trousers. “What would you like?”

“Anything and soda. Anything and water, if there’s no soda.”

There were three bottles of club soda. After striving vainly to recall her preferences of twenty-odd years earlier, he mixed club soda with the rum in a miniature bottle.

“This is good. What is it?”

He told her.

“I know I’ll be hung over in the morning, but I’d rather not be tonight. Rum because of where we’re going, right?”

“Right.”

She finished it, set the glass on the floor beside the bed, and lay down again. “That was either Jim or Jerry, I’m pretty sure, only I’m not sure which. They looked a lot alike, and I kept getting them mixed up.”

“Natural enough.”

“You mean I was hammered. I wasn’t. I’d had two or three drinks, but I wasn’t even close to it. I remembered our cabin number, didn’t I?”

“Obviously.” Skip slid between the sheets.

“Do you remember what we were fighting about?”

He shook his head. “Not at the moment.”

“Me neither.” Chelle snuggled closer. “I’ll remember in the morning, but it’s gone now.”

Much later, when she was sleeping, he heard her say, “Don? Don?… Kiss me, Don.”

Then, “Where’s Don?”