Home Fires (20 page)

Susan held out the card. “Here it is. I’m glad we didn’t wake you up.”

“Not a bit! I was just staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out how I’d like to die. Fighting, sure. But would I want to know it’s coming, so I could get ready? How much time? Stuff like that.”

Skip said, “That doesn’t sound healthy.”

“Sure it is—takes my mind off my troubles. I got blown all to hell up on Johanna, maybe I told you.”

Skip nodded.

“That was one hell of a lot worse than this. This is kid stuff. The dentist says not to eat anything tough for a while and my teeth should root again, or whatever you call it. Not come out. I got a scalp wound and they’re bleeding bastards, but it’s been sewed up good and they gave me a transfusion. I’ll be back on the field in the third quarter.”

Skip said, “What about your arm?”

“It’s busted, that’s all—simple fracture of the humerus, so there’s a titanium plate and a bunch of screws in there now. One of those bastards hit me with a crowbar. See this black dingbat in my cast? High-frequency sound, with all the best undertones and overtones. It’ll heal fast, and it’s been splinted and pinned already.”

Susan said, “Is there anything that we can do for you?”

“Yeah. Yeah, there is. That white box in the corner? My stuff’s supposed to be in there, only I’m not supposed to get out of bed. Look inside, and see if you can find my gun. The nurse says it’s in there, but who the fuck knows? I’d like to check on her.”

Skip opened the cabinet and pointed.

Susan said, “Yes, it’s right here.”

“Hold it up, okay? Don’t touch the trigger.”

Susan did.

“Great. Bring it over here. I just want to hold it for a minute.”

Susan hesitated, then looked her question at Skip.

He nodded.

“I’m not going to shoot anybody. I just want to feel it.”

Skip took the gun from Susan and put it into Chelle’s right hand.

“That’s great.” Chelle’s smile warmed him.

“What is it?” Susan asked. “I don’t know much about them.”

“A Springfield MIL 31-3. It’s got everything you need and nothing you don’t—high capacity, a comp that hides flash and doesn’t knock your ears off, ambi safeties, flat trajectory, lots of knockdown, and a jewel of a trigger. Was that old lady magic, Skip? Or was I?”

“Tante Élise? Both of you, I think.”

Chelle turned back to Susan. “You went down into the hold to get me, didn’t you? Somebody said that.”

She nodded.

“You had a gun? Do you still have it?”

“I … Yes. It makes Mr. Grison nervous, but I do.” After a moment she repeated, “I don’t know very much about them.”

“So you think people like me, people who love their guns, are nuts. I’ve used a gun to save my life. That’s the difference. They’d sent us some new ’bots, and they were good but it was desert camo. They might as well have been bright yellow, and they got picked off pretty fast. We were supposed to come in behind them—”

The middle-aged nurse in the office outside had raised her voice, “You can’t! Don’t you listen?”

The words of the reply were indistinct but its tone was unmistakable. A moment later, the door opened and a lean man in a tweed jacket stepped through. He shut the door firmly behind him and held it shut with his heel. “Bureaucrats!”

Skip said, “Chelle, this is Rick Johnson. He came with Mick Tooley and was one of your rescuers.”

Susan added, “Came prepared to fight. He has a gun like yours.”

“Not quite,” Johnson said, “but it’s a good one. You’re Mastergunner Blue, ma’am?”

“Sure.” Chelle grinned. “But I’m not really holding a gun on these folks. I just wanted to see it and make sure it was safe.”

“I understand.” Johnson was studying Chelle’s gun. “There’s no reason for you to trust me to keep it for you, but I will if you want me to.”

“So will I,” Skip said.

“Thanks.” Chelle moved the gun from her right hand to her left and gave it to him butt-first. “With three of you here, I’ve got a great chance to ask about the other guys who went into the hold.” She paused. “Not your bunch. Sergeant Kent-Jermyn’s and mine. Some didn’t come out alive. I know that. Does anybody know which ones made it out?”

No one spoke.

“From my bunch or the earlier bunch?” Chelle looked from face to face.

“I can’t tell you,” Skip said. “I know we freed some, but I’m not sure how many.”

“When I was down there,” Johnson said slowly, “we got out four, I believe. Four alive, not counting you. Three had to be carried.”

“I saw them,” Susan said.

“I took down seven,” Chelle’s voice had sunk to a whisper. “Somebody said there were eight in the first bunch.”

Skip nodded. “That’s what I was told, too.”

“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.

REFLECTION 10

Susan Clerkin

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.

11

RIGHT AND LEFT

“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.

Vanessa murmured, “Polly’s dead. So is Amelia. I know they are.”

Skip wanted to say that one or the other might have survived; but he knew it would sound as false as he felt it to be, and kept silent.

“I killed them.” Vanessa stepped in front of him and clutched his shirt. “I killed them when I volunteered, but I didn’t mean to.”