“He’s not my boss!”
“Reasonable. And if he’s reasonable, he won’t kill us. Or let you do it.”
“I refuse to be diverted,” the white-bearded man said, “just as your explanation becomes interesting. Continue, please.”
“You see, we hadn’t searched the officers’ staterooms. The officers were in and out of them several times a day, and an absent officer would have been noticed immediately; so there seemed no point in looking there. But Lieutenant Brice was in the infirmary, and now his card was missing. Someone had taken Chelle out of the infirmary. It seemed entirely possible that the people who had taken her had taken Brice’s card, too. Mr. Oberdorf told us he would have to open the door to reprogram the lock, so we tagged along. After that, well, I seem to have been shot in the head; but you’ll have to tell me about that—I can’t tell you.”
Chelle said, “Dammit!” and her embrace tightened.
“The cry of a guilty conscience,” Johnson murmured.
“You were shot,” the white-bearded man explained, “by Mr. Johnson here. You can hardly blame him for it, since you were shooting at him at the time. You missed. He did not. At first, we thought you dead. When we realized you were not, Ms. Clerkin here put that tape over your wound to stop the bleeding.”
“She’s soft,” Johnson said. “I’m soft on her, but she’s soft on everybody.”
“I suppose she is.” For a moment, the white-bearded man struggled to regain his balance. “I let her because you were making a dreadful mess. Though no physician, I can offer an opinion concerning your wound. Do you wish to hear it?”
“Yes,” Skip said. “Very much.”
“I believe Mr. Johnson’s bullet struck your skull and was deflected by it. It appears to have traveled about three and one half inches between skull and scalp before exiting. You are fortunate to be alive.”
“He won’t be lucky much longer,” Johnson said.
The white-bearded man shrugged. “Who is to say the living are luckiest?”
Chelle took her arm from Skip’s shoulders and lifted his hand from her left leg. “I’m not going to let this go on. Skip loves me and he lied for me. I love him, and I’m not going to let him.”
“Indeed?”
“Right. Mom threw a little party for us vets, and I went. I could’ve brought Skip, but I didn’t. I went alone and met Jerry Brice there. We made out, and Skip caught us at it.”
The white mustache twitched. “My, my!”
“Yeah. He caught us, and Jerry beat it—grabbed his clothes and ran. He left his shoes, but they were black and I shoved them under the bed. They were on my side, which was damned lucky.”
“Chelle, darling, don’t you—”
“Shut up!” She turned to Skip. “They’re going to kill us, and I don’t want to die with this on my chest. I don’t give a fuck who else knows, but you’ve got to. It’ll hurt you and I’m sorry, but I’m going to die clean. I met Jerry again the next day, and he gave me a card to this room. I stuck it in my pocket thinking maybe I’d use it sometime and maybe I wouldn’t.”
Skip nodded.
“When these motherfuckers came in and shot the medics, they grabbed me and my clothes. They went through my clothes before they made me put them on, and they found that card. This was in the theater on D Deck, backstage. They figured nobody was going to put on a show after the hijacking, but Jerry’s room looked even better. If it seemed like he was going to get out of the aid station, they’d shoot him again.”
“You have a conscience,” the white-bearded man said. “I have none—they’re damnably inconvenient—yet I admire yours. May I, too, set the record straight?”
Johnson spun around. “All right, keep talking if that’s how you want it. While you’re talking, I’ll be shooting. And guess where I’ll—”
His final word was lost in a clap of thunder.
“You shut your own mouth!” Trinity was on her feet. “He older than you! Smarter, too!”
Johnson shouted in return, his gun in her face. She caught his wrist, jerked the gun to her left, and closed with him.
“You’re shaking like a leaf,” the white-bearded man told Susan. “Give me that.” With one smooth motion, he took her revolver, raised it to eye level, and shot Rick Johnson in the back.
REFLECTION 14: Much Later, While Watching the Atlantic
Why should storms provoke violence? Why must our moods reflect the weather? We leave the winter cities and travel to warm southern lands because winter exhausts us. We have huddled in the brightly lit apartments for too long; we know the night waits outside, and feel it even when our drapes hide us. We want warmth and a natural breeze. Most of all, we want sunlight.
Would Rick Johnson have been shot without the storm? I don’t believe he would, because he wouldn’t have been so anxious to kill us without it. Had he not been so anxious to kill us, his life might have been spared, at that time at least.
Might have been, but would it really have been? He said he had Chelle’s secret, which was once Jane Sims’s. Susan says she does not have it, and I believe her. Should I believe Rick as well?
To what degree was Rick really Rick? How much of the man who went from West Point to Johanna was left? What did the Os take away, and what did they leave behind? Does anyone, any wise man or woman, any supercomputer concealed beneath a mountain, really understand the Os? We do not even understand ourselves. The proper study of mankind is man, they say: nosce te ipsum. But what do the Os say?
Did Susan know what was coming when she surrendered her gun? I have not dared to ask her and will not so dare. I have brought her near to suicide already. I must not—and will not—do that again.
The suicide ring must be destroyed and destroyed utterly, not only for Virginia’s sake but for Susan’s. Virginia might be protected; what measures could protect Susan from herself?
What of the shooter? What of Charles? Did he plan from the beginning to kill Rick? Did he fear that we, with the Os’s model before us, would do as they did?
I would have. Silent leges enim inter arma. In order that Earth survive, our rulers would gladly render Earth not worth saving.
Was he unarmed? He’s surely working for somebody, but for whom?
And why?
15. FORMAL NIGHT
The flash and bark of Susan’s revolver were lost in the blue fire that roared from Rick Johnson’s back, blinding and gone. As it vanished, he collapsed like a marionette whose strings had been cut.
The white-bearded man puffed away an invisible wisp of smoke from the muzzle, his mustache twitching. Susan shrieked and wailed. Chelle and Vanessa scrambled to help Trinity, who had fallen.
Skip went to Rick Johnson, wrestling Johnson’s gun from a hand that death had locked around the grip.
“You won’t need that,” the white-bearded man told him. “But if it makes you feel better, you may keep it.”
Susan gasped, “I’m going to be sick,” and stumbled away; a moment later Lieutenant Brice’s bathroom door clicked behind her.
Trinity moaned and writhed. Her face was burned, her hair scorched and smoking. Skip and Oberdorf got her to her feet and walked her to the elevator, preceded by Chelle and Jerry, who had pushed the button before they got there.
No one spoke as the elevator descended save Jerry, who said, “Wow!” His voice soft and almost reverent. A moment later he got out on C Deck.
Achille was waiting for them when the elevator doors opened on J Deck. “You have bad day, mon.”
“I want to talk to you later,” Skip said. “Chelle, we move pretty slowly. Will you go to the infirmary and tell them we’re coming?”