A Borrowed Man

by Gene Wolfe

  I should have guessed it by then, because the answer was really easy.

  “Have a seat, Mr. Smithe,” van Petten told me, and sat down on the couch; you would have thought he owned the house.

  Colette was already sitting there, close enough that their elbows touched. “I’ve still got you checked out, Ern.” She smiled.

  I explained that I had returned myself when I thought she had been kidnapped. I did not tell her it had been a prize mistake, that I ought to have known better, or that I was still ashamed of it.

  The smile got a little bit brighter, if anything. “I understand, but I didn’t return you; so I’ve never gotten my deposit back.”

  “In that case, I’ll return myself again when they find out you haven’t really been kidnapped.” I was smiling back at her. “When I do, the library will be happy to refund your deposit.”

  “I don’t want it, Ern. They sell you—sell reclones like you, I mean—don’t they? When the library no longer wants them? I’ve bought disks like that.”

  I nodded and braced myself, knowing what was coming.

  “Wonderful! They’ll sell you now. You’re practically new, so they’ll want more money. I’ll pay whatever they want, and I know the president of the Friends. She can put a little pressure on them if we need it. I’ll get you and I plan to keep you. Wouldn’t you rather sleep in a nice bedroom than live on a shelf?”

  I nodded again.

  “Has anybody checked you out besides me?”

  Two nods are all right, but three are too many. I said, “Two officers of the law.” I had tried to say “cops,” but that would not work. “Two detectives” [ought to be: “dicks”] “from the Spice Grove Police.”

  I turned to van Petten. “Their last names were Payne and Fish. I have never known their first names. Possibly you know them?”

  He shook his head.

  Colette asked what they had wanted.

  “They wanted you. You’re a prominent resident of Spice Grove, and you had been taken from our hotel suite in Owenbright. Kidnapped by criminals, or so they—and I—believed. They thought, just as I did, that you might be somewhere in Spice Grove. Since neither they nor I had any idea where you might be, Spice Grove seemed as likely a place as any. Failing that, it might be possible for them to learn where you were and inform the Owenbright police. In either case, Payne and Fish would receive a great deal of credit, as would the entire Spice Grove department. They hoped I knew where you were, or if I did not that I knew something that might point them toward your correct location.”

  Van Petten grunted. I could see that he was taking all of it in, but I could not guess what he planned to do with it.

  Colette said, “I’d think they could’ve asked you about that without checking you out.”

  “They asked me scores of questions by which they hoped to elicit information of value, and struck me whenever they thought it might make their questioning more effective. I was forced to describe your mother, for example, although I had never seen her.”

  “Did they know about the book?”

  There it was.

  “Only what I told them about it.” Remembering those hours hurt. “Also that it was very rare. Fish tried to use a screen—there was one in another room—to locate a copy. He could not.”

  “But you know about it,” van Petten said. “Tell us about that.”

  “Indeed I do. The title is Murder on Mars. Colette had her father’s copy in her shaping bag when she consulted me. She showed it to me then, and allowed me to examine it after she had checked me out. For some reason her father seems to have valued it. Surely she’s told you.”

  “I checked you out,” Colette said, “and you say these policemen checked you out so they could question you. Was there anyone else?”

  “There was another man who tried to check me out when I was in Owenbright.” I was still talking to van Petten. “Short, blond, and fairly young. His name’s Chick, or at least that’s what he calls himself—Chick Bantz. He’s an employee of yours or says he is.”

  Van Petten nodded. “He works for me off and on.”

  “The Owenbright Library could not permit it, since I was not theirs and they had not received me as an interlibrary loan. May I ask why you attach so much importance to this?”

  “I don’t,” van Petten told me. “Colette does. But anything that’s important to her is important to me. I think she wants to see if you’ve been checked out by other women.”

  “I do not!”

  I said, “The answer is no. Only by Payne and Fish, and both are men.”

  Van Petten said, “Let me be blunt. I won’t threaten you, because that’s not something I do. We want you on our side. You know the library will burn you if there isn’t a lot of demand for you.”

  I nodded.

  “For them it makes sense. You have to be fed every day, from time to time you need new clothes and so on. Colette checked you out. Fine, but she’s one of us. Chick would have if he could, but he’s one of us, too. Payne and Fish won’t check you out again once they find out Colette’s no longer missing. You know how the library operates. She and I have only a vague idea. Suppose you go back now and nobody else checks you out. Nobody, ever. How long would you say you’ll have?”

  “How long will I live?”

  Van Petten nodded.

  “Fifteen years, barring unforeseen circumstances.” I was stretching it.

  He leaned forward. “And what might those unforeseen circumstances be?”

  “Suppose that someone visited the library regularly to consult me. He didn’t check me out, you understand, but he and I went to a table and conversed for an hour or more each time. I might get a considerable extension in that way.”

  Van Petten nodded. “Are there others?”

  “Certainly. They would try to sell me before burning me. If I were lucky, someone might buy me. Do you want more?”

  “Suppose you were sold. Could your new owner burn you?”

  I should not have smiled, but I am afraid I did. Van Petten was thinking exactly as I had feared. I said, “Of course. You knew that.”

  “I did, but I wanted to confirm it.” Van Petten might have been talking to a chair.

  “As you now have. You invite me to join you. As soon as I do, you will want to know where the book is and what I’ve learned about its secret. A bit of experimentation will show you that you’ve learned all that you really need to know. So the fire for me, or the shredder. Whatever you choose.”

  Colette said softly, “I wouldn’t let him, Ern.”

  “You couldn’t stop him,” I told her.

  After that I think van Petten said she would not have to, but I was not paying much attention. From the front of the house, I had heard a woman’s voice and footsteps; and I thought, Oh my God, it’s Chick bringing Arabella! What have I gotten her into?

  A second or two later the maid ’bot appeared in the doorway carrying a beat-up suitcase. Behind the ’bot, I saw Mrs. Peters.

  Colette jumped up. “Judy! It’s Judy! I can’t believe it!”

  Van Petten was looking at me; but I ignored him, getting up and going over to the two women, who were hugging and whispering.

  Colette turned to me, radiant. “You got her for me! Ern, you’re wonderful!”

  I nodded. “I try.”

  Mrs. Peters was beaming. “I know I wasn’t going to start till Monday, Mr. Smithe, but I—well, I didn’t have anything particular to do today, and I thought it might be good for me to have a look at things here to find out what I ought to do first when I went to work. I hope you don’t mind.”

  I said, “Of course not. It’s actually quite admirable, Mrs. Peters.”

  When she had gone, van Petten said, “You’ve been busy. Who authorized you to do this?”

  “No one. Are you considering a lawsuit? As a nonhuman I cannot be sued, but I suppose you might sue the library. You’d have to show the court that my actions have resulted in injury to you, of course.”
/>
  Colette said, “I want to keep her, Dane. Won’t you agree to that? For me?”

  “I suppose you want to keep Smithe here, too.” He had made his voice softer, but I could see it took effort.

  “I do.” Colette paused, looking from him to me, then back again. “You have to get used to him and he has to get used to you, that’s all. I love you, and he’s very nice. He’s useful, too, and loyal and clever. You should be glad I’ve got something like him.”

  “You told me once that he knew where the book was, that he’d hidden it here, in this house, before the two of you went to Owenbright.”

  “Yes, I did.” Colette turned to me. “You did, didn’t you, Ern? I think you said you were going to.”

  “I doubt that I said it. We were very much afraid of their listening devices then, and it would have been less than prudent. Or at least, it would have seemed so. Did Mr. van Petten here really have listening devices in this house?”

  He shook his head.

  “I thought not. I found one in Dr. Roglich’s office and smashed it. He had found it earlier, clearly, but he’d been afraid to touch it.”

  Van Petten nodded. “That one was a decoy, actually. We let him see us install it.”

  That jolted me, though I tried not to show it. “So a working device remained there?”

  Van Petten nodded again.

  “In that case, I’m surprised that you didn’t plant a few here, in this house. It was Roglich’s conversations with Colette’s father you wanted to overhear? I’ve been assuming that.”

  “Yes, of course. If I tell you about the listening devices in this house, will you tell me where you hid the book?”

  I shook my head. “I will not, since it isn’t yours. It belongs to Colette, however, and I’ll tell her. Will you agree?”

  “Yes, agreed. We put three bugs in this house. One in the laboratory, one in Coldbrook’s bedroom, and one in this room. He found all three.”

  “And destroyed them?” My eyes wanted to wander around then, but I kept them on van Petten.

  “No. Just watched what he said, and said very little.”

  “In which case, they’re still here.”

  Van Petten grinned. “Do you want to look? Have fun.”

  “You think I won’t be able to find them. You’re probably right.”

  “You won’t be able to find them because they’re gone. We caught on eventually and took them out to make him think we were no longer interested in him.”

  Maybe if I were smarter I could say here that his eyes told me he was lying, or that they told me he was telling the truth. All right, this is the truth. His eyes told me a little less than a snake’s. They said that I should not like him or trust him, and the less I had to do with him, the better off I would be. But I had guessed most of that already.

  So I talked to Colette. “Do you want to know where I hid your book—your copy of my book, actually—before we went to Owenbright? If you do, I’ll tell you. Either here and now, or in some private—” I heard the doorbell ring, and stopped.

  The ’bot spoke, a man muttered, and a woman insisted, her voice shrill. A moment later steps, with the woman’s tap-tap-tapping ahead.

  I stood up.

  Have I described Arabella already? Well, probably, but I am going to do it again. If you already know, you can skip this part. Long dark curls flying, cast-a-spell dark, dark eyes open wide, and tiny mouth open wider. An old-gold complexion that made you want to run your hands over every square centimeter of her, then push her skin up against yours.

  Got it?

  Very, very hot. Pocket-sized. High, high heels, perfect legs, hula-hips, narrow little waist, and tits to die for.

  “Ern! He said you were here but I couldn’t believe it.” Kiss-kiss-kiss. “Ern, you freezing son of a bitch, aren’t you going to introduce me?”

  I wanted to pinch her bottom, but I knew where that would get me. Had I seen a styptic pencil in the brother’s bathroom? I did not think so. “Colette, this lovely girl is the famous poet Arabella Lee. Arabella, this kind and beautiful lady is my patron, Ms. Colette Coldbrook. The gentleman is Dane van Petten. Mr. van Petten is some sort of officer of the law, and someday I hope to find out just what kind.”

  Van Petten cleared his throat. “Strictly speaking, Mr. Smithe, I’m not a policeman of any kind, even though I’m authorized to wield various police powers. I am an enforcement specialist in the Continental Office of Emolument.”

  “I stand corrected,” I told Arabella. “He’s a tax collector.”

  Van Petten spoke to Colette. “She is…” He paused. “Somebody whom somebody else has checked out of a library. No doubt you’ve realized that already.”

  “Me,” Chick said. “I did it.” By that time he was standing in the doorway.

  I added, “He had offered to do me a favor, you see. This was the favor I asked.”

  “I ordered Chick to come here to New Delphi and find out what Mr. Smithe was up to,” van Petten told Colette wearily. “He seems to have taken the shortcut of asking him.”

  “They made me,” Chick explained. “So I got friendly with them and got them talking.”

  “They?” Van Petten’s eyebrows were up.

  “He has a pal. George something.”

  “Georges,” I said, and spelled it. “‘Zhorzh.’”

  “There was some guy and a woman with him today,” Chick said. “I told you. George was the guy, probably. Smithe says the woman was his secretary. It looks like we’ve got her already.”

  Arabella shook her head. “I haven’t seen Ern in ages.”

  I said, “That is almost literally true. I could explain who Georges and the woman were, but is that what you really want to know?”

  Van Petten held out his hand. “First, give me the money, Smithe. All of it.”

  I shook my head. “We not fully humans are not subject to taxation, nor is there a tax on property possessed by municipalities. If there were such a tax—”

  “Shut up!”

  “—the Spice Grove Public Library, to which I belong, would be responsible for paying its share. Or so I’d think. Not me.”

  Van Petten had gone pale. “I could kill you.”

  “Of course you could. You have a weapon, I’m sure. Perhaps even one of those pocket rockets? A missile pistol? Chick has one, and I think that’s what they call them.”

  Colette was holding his arm.

  “It would be as easy as throwing a book into the fire. You could put my body out with the rest of the garbage.” I spoke to her. “Is that how you dispose of your garbage out here? Or do you have to take it to a dump?”

  She shook her head. “There’s an incinerator.”

  “Easier still. Just shove me inside and switch on the fire.”

  “He was a horrid husband,” Arabella told van Petten, “one who nearly drove me mad; but if you kill him, I’ll kill you.”

  For a second or two he stared at her, then he laughed. “You won’t have to, and two dozen of you couldn’t manage it. But it might be fun to watch you try. Looking at you, I wish I could.”

  Colette asked, “Have you had a great many husbands, Ms. Lee? I’ve never been married.” I could tell that she was trying to change the subject, and it made me like her better than ever.

  “About four.” Arabella held up fingers. “Ern was my first, and if I’d known what the other three were going to be like…”

  “‘About’?” Colette looked interested.

  “Sometimes it can be hard to tell.” Arabella turned to me. “You don’t like this man, do you?”

  “We circle and snarl,” I told her, “largely because Mr. van Petten fails to understand the natural respect and affection I have for my patron. When he does, things will become a bit more friendly.”

  “He could check you out after she returns you, Sugar Pie. It might be—”

  I nodded. “Less than pleasant. I know.”

  “He couldn’t because I’m going to buy him,” Colette p
rotested.

  Van Petten ignored her. “I could leave you out in the rain, Smithe. That’s what one does, I believe. What would you do then?”

  “Get wet, of course.”

  Chick had found a chair. “You said to get her, and I did. You got anything else for me?”

  I shook my head. “Not at the moment. No.”

  He spoke to van Petten. “How ’bout you? If it’s somethin’ you don’t want ’em to hear we can go somewhere else.”

  “Later. Did they take your gun?”

  Chick shook his head. “We got friendly. I said that. Hell, we still are.”

  “Watch your ’luted tongue!”

  I said, “Thank you, Chick. We need more friendship here.”

  “I agree,” van Petten told me. He still sounded angry. “You’re friendly with Ms. Coldbrook, or say you are. You say that she’s your patron, and that the book belongs to her.”

  “Correct. She is and it does.” I made it just as sincere as I could, which is pretty close to titanium alloy.

  “If you and she could speak privately, would you tell her where it is?”

  “Where I hid it before we went to Owenbright? Why yes, I would if she wanted to know.”

  Van Petten stood up. “In that case, the rest of us will go into the lounge. You and she will come in there when you’re finished. Agreed?”

  “Not by me. Ms. Coldbrook and I will go wherever she chooses.”

  Colette said, “We will, Dane. I take it that’s what you want.”

  Van Petten, Arabella, and Chick left together, and I said, “May I suggest we go into the garden?”

  “You’re still worried about Dane’s listening devices, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. The one I destroyed in Dr. Roglich’s office was a decoy, or at least Mr. van Petten said it was. He may have been telling the truth. If so, the one they removed from this room may have been a decoy as well, or so it seems to me.”

  She nodded and we went out. When we had reached the dry fountain and sat, she said, “You’re looking terribly glum, Ern.”

  “I suppose I am.” I could not meet her eyes. “Would you like to hear it? All cobwebs and moonlight, I assure you.”