Home Fires by Gene Wolfe Read Free Book Online Page B

after her…?”
    “This was before I knew that.” Skip sighed again. “Here I’m guessing, but I don’t believe she knew anybody was after her then either.”
    “I see. Go on.”
    “I went there the day before we left. It had been broken into and searched fairly thoroughly. She wasn’t there.”
    Chelle’s eyes were wide. “You must have thought they’d gotten her.”
    “No. It seemed clear they hadn’t. For one thing, her overnight bag was gone. Her clothes were missing, too—all her personal possessions. For another, the break-in had to be quite recent. If it hadn’t been some of the other tenants would’ve reported it—you could hardly walk past the apartment without noticing that the door was broken, and it was near the elevator. I talked to the doormen, and they hadn’t seen her for at least two days.”
    “You—you should’ve canceled our trip!” Chelle’s glass slammed the table. “You should have told me. You bastard!”
    “Naturally you’re angry. What would you have done if I had?”
    “I’d have tried to help her! What the fuck do you think I’d do!”
    “Keep your voice down, please.” For a moment Skip was silent, biting his lower lip and feeling terribly, terribly old. “Your mother has your number. If she had needed your help, wouldn’t she have called you?”
    “If she could. Only if she could.” Clearly, Chelle was struggling to keep her anger under control.
    “You met her just a few minutes ago. You hugged her. Did she ask your help?”
    “You smart-ass bastard!”
    “As you like.” Skip sipped his drink. “She did not. She had my number, too. She did not call me. She may have called Mick Tooley—as I said, I gave her his number. If she did, which I doubt, he thought it better not to tell me. I’ve found him a young man of sound judgment.”
    “You didn’t tell me! You didn’t tell me one damned thing!”
    “You’re right, I didn’t. At least not until now, when it seemed to me it might do some good. We may be watched, Chelle. Both of us.”
    She stared at him, her face flushed, her mismatched hands trembling.
    “She and I traveled to Canam together to meet you. Later I found her an apartment and gave her money for furniture. Anyone who traced her recent movements would certainly have concluded that she was associated with me. You see that, don’t you?”
    “I hate to think of Mother being mixed up with a slick bastard lawyer like you.”
    “But she is. And with you, a heroic soldier. Anyone who looked into her history would quickly learn that she had one child, a daughter, and that child’s identity. The simplest search would reveal that her daughter was in the Army and had recently returned to Earth.”
    Chelle rose, trembling; she had never looked lovelier. “My mother has been risking her life for this planet. You knew that, and you left her high and dry so you could run off to screw me, a woman young enough to be your kid.”
    “Chelle! Please listen.”
    “I’m through listening. You listen to me. There’s a deadbolt on that door.” She pointed. “If you’re the first one in here tonight, you bolt it to let me know. I’ll find someplace else to sleep. If I’m first in, I’ll bolt it and you can jump in the goddamn ocean for all I care.”
    After finishing his drink and sandwich, Skip switched off the fan, carried their tray into the passageway, and left too, going up on the Main Deck to watch the working of the sails.
    And think.

REFLECTION 3
    Old Things
     
    I have forgotten the old man’s name; I remember everything else: his tousled gray hair and the old white shirts he always wore, threadbare shirts sometimes patched and darned but always clean, the jeans and the blue rubber-soled shoes from Eastasia.
    His shop was always clean, too. I would have expected dust, but the old lamp with the peeling bronze finish was immaculate and every chipped Dresden plate shone. He spent the hours between customers scrubbing and dusting, he told me,