Blue War: A Punktown Novel Read online

  But when Stake had entered the hotel, he found that the Cobalt Temple also had a karaoke bar just off the lobby. He stood in the doorway a few moments, listening to a drunken mauling of an early Del Kahn hit, Spirits on Wheels. Stake loved old music, though he thought a night in this bar might change that for him. Karaoke on Sinan. So the invasion had taken another, more insidious form.

  His mustard-colored suit wasn’t too rumpled from having been packed for the trip, and so a lovely Jin Haa hostess in a tight-fitting black dress invited him inside as if he might be some entrepreneur himself. Stake declined, backed off, headed toward the entrance to the dining room instead. There, he accepted another alluring hostess’ invitation and allowed her to escort him to the table where David Bright awaited him.

  “Thanks for coming, Mr. Stake.” Bright rose to shake his hand and both settled in at their table. “Let me order you a drink.” Stake watched the man as he gestured to a waitress who could have been a sister to the two hostesses the detective had met. As at the meeting in the Colonial Forces base, Stake had the impression that the man was so filled with nervous anxiety that he was ready to explode out of his constricting five-piece suit.

  “A Zub beer will be fine, if they have it.”

  “A man of humble tastes.” Bright relayed the order to the young woman and she left them with menus. Neither man opened them.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Bright?”

  Bright was watching the rear of the receding waitress as it moved within her tight sheath, maybe grateful for the distraction. “What’s with the white rubber gloves a lot of these girls wear? For sanitary purposes? I hear there’s a bad sickness going around, some kind of STD.”

  Stake wondered if Bright had heard about the sexually transmitted disease in the course of pursuing Jin Haa prostitutes, and then he remembered the unusually large amount of patients waiting to be seen in little Vein Rhi, a sight he would expect more in a city like Di Noon. Had the plague that Henderson described to him reached even that hamlet?

  “Upper crust women used to take very good care that their hands looked beautiful, to show that they didn’t have to do menial work. It became such an obsession that eventually they began treating their hands with a solution that crystallizes them and makes them immobile, white as alabaster. It’s an erotic image to Ha Jiin men; they have a fetish for it. So common women will dye their hands white or wear gloves to affect that look. Men will even put on white rubber gloves themselves to masturbate with, or else in Di Noon sex shops they’ll buy porcelain hands to use for that purpose.”

  “Jeesh. They can have the hands all they want; it’s those tight little blue bums I’m interested in.”

  “What was it you wanted to discuss, Mr. Bright? Besides the local fauna.”

  Bright gave an apologetic smile, and shifted restlessly in his seat. “With the Ha Jiin and even the Jin Haa hating the Earth Colonies so much now, it should come as no surprise to you that I’m public enemy number one around here.” He flicked his chin to direct Stake’s attention to another table, where a KeeZee who looked towering even seated was sawing into a huge yubo steak. Sensing Stake’s eyes on him, the alien looked up and glared with three little black eyes, his massive jaws working under a thin layer of gray-black skin. When Stake faced Bright again, the businessman explained, “My bodyguard. There’s been some anti-EC terrorist activity, you know. I don’t trust anybody blue right now.”

  “Maybe you’d better stay away from the native girls, then. There’s a saying to the effect that the women of Sinan have the bodies of children and hearts like hundred-year-old swords. Your assassin might be wearing white rubber gloves and nothing else.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind.”

  “I hate to say it, but I can understand the bad feelings. The little glitch in your process has really set off a firestorm.”

  “Do you think I don’t know that pretty fucking well by now? Christ, I stand to lose a fortune paying restitution to the Ha Jiin and Jin Haa. I’m pushing the EC government to take some of the financial burden, and I’m sure they’ll make a gesture to make themselves look good, but I’m ruined for the rest of my life. My people are doing their best to figure out what went wrong and how to shut the process down. They haven’t had any more success than the blasting Jin Haa exorcists their clerics send to Bluetown. You can demolish the buildings one by one, of course, and spend a thousand years on it. But you can’t bomb the town flat for the same reason bombing was limited in the Blue War – the volatile gas in their burial tunnels. That could send an underground fire through even more of their territory than Bluetown has covered, and burn down the jungles in the bargain. You could try corrosives, but again, you’d have to spend years melting building by building. My crew and the EC teams have tried poisons on the living cells of the advancing line, thinking maybe they could spread them from the air. The smart matter hasn’t reacted to them. My Simulacrum Systems lab rats did a better job designing this stuff than any of us thought. It has a life all its own, and it’s shaking us off like fleas.”

  “And your computers can’t be linked to the smart matter again, and reprogram it? Feed a virus into it? If not to destroy what’s already taken form, at least to stop any more from spreading?”

  “We’ve been doing that. Nothing has taken, yet. This thing has its program, corrupted by a virus though it may already be, and it won’t pay attention to anything else we tell it.” The waitress brought their drinks but Bright dismissed her with their menus still untouched. “Mr. Stake, have you had any luck in investigating those three bodies that were found? Who they were, and why my stuff cloned them in particular?”

  “I haven’t gotten far yet. I’ve been a little sidetracked.”

  “Look, keep at it, and I promise to supplement what Henderson is paying you.”

  “I’m not a scientist, Mr. Bright.”

  “Maybe that’s a good thing. Like I said in Gale’s meeting, I’m willing to look at new resources, here. Fresh perspectives.” Bright glanced around him before continuing in a lower voice. “There’s something else you might be able to find out about. I’m wondering if the Earth Colonies folks themselves purposely hijacked my technology so they could turn Sinan into a massive new Earth colony quickly, forcing the Jin Haa and Ha Jiin both into a subservient position, obliterating their boundaries – meanwhile setting me up as the fall guy. The scapegoat.”

  “Frankly, that sounds a bit on the paranoid side, Mr. Bright.”

  “But not impossible? Think about it a bit. And remember the war you yourself fought in, right? You remember what that was really all about.”

  Stake stared down into his beer to avoid taking on Bright’s too perfect good looks. If he pursued the angle Bright was postulating, he felt he’d be wading into this mess far over his head. “I can’t promise to look into that, Mr. Bright, but if in the course of my investigation I come across any information that suggests such a thing, I’ll try to clue you in.”

  “Ah, dung,” Bright sighed, then sipped his drink. “Why should a private eye from Punktown stand beside me? With all this hell coming down, I can’t even buy a friend.”

  “I didn’t say I wasn’t sympathetic to your situation, Mr. Bright.”

  “If I do find out they’ve used me and my technology like that, they’ll see a whole new firestorm from me, I guarantee it. They’re underestimating me, if that’s the case. I’ll take on the whole blasting Earth Colonies government if I have to. What more do I have to lose at this point?” The businessman smirked wearily. “That’s why I take the risk of getting myself stabbed to death by some little blue prostie.”

  “Well, if you do keep pursuing the local fauna, I’d keep your KeeZee, over there, in the same room with you.”

  “That sounds a little too kinky even for my tastes, Mr. Stake.”

  ELEVEN: BEWITCHED

  While Stake flew his borrowed Harbinger toward Bluetown the next morning, he reflected on last night’s conversation with David Bright, and the busi
nessman’s theory about the active involvement of the Earth Colonies government in the Bluetown debacle. Might it be true, and if so, might that more than anything else account for the failure to halt the city’s progress? But Stake had another thought now that Bright had infected him with paranoia.

  Stake’s body was a skilled artist when it came to replicating another’s appearance, sometimes even to the point of imitating freckles and moles, but he found that his understanding of his subjects’ personalities often didn’t extend much farther than their skin. David Bright, for instance, seemed distraught and anxious enough, but what if it were all an act? Despite his protests to the contrary in Gale’s meeting room, what if he did have something to gain from the development of Bluetown? What if the condo project had only been a front? Might Bright even have teamed with the Earth Colonies in unleashing Bluetown, and his offer to pay Stake to investigate was just a smokescreen to obscure his own role in that plan?

  Sinon gas was so highly valued by the colonies. If the Ha Jiin and Jin Haa nations could be destabilized, with the colonies coming in to save the day at the last minute – after borders had been paved over and the land altered beyond recognition – might they at last have access to the far richer quantities of sinon gas the Ha Jiin territories had to offer?

  Well, Stake figured it wouldn’t make sense for Bright to put it in his head about the colonies being involved, if he himself were working in conjunction with them on such a project. Unless, that is, the deal had gone sour, Bright was squirming under his role of whipping boy, and he was now feeling vengeful toward his former bedfellows.

  These possibilities didn’t so much make Stake feel closer to an answer as they made it harder for him to pick out the right destination on the horizon.

  Not so, with Bluetown itself. He had been on this world for four years straight, and despite his long absence since that time, he was familiar enough with the way things should look that he still couldn’t assimilate the way they looked now. It was just as disturbing as stepping outside to find the moon now filled a tenth of the visible sky, and was getting larger still. Looming taller than the low forested mountains it inched toward, Bluetown looked exactly like what it was – the horizon of another world superimposed over this one.

  As Stake got closer to the edge of the city, his wrist comp sounded and he took the call. He almost winced to see Thi Gonh’s face there. Even so, he was surprised that her eyes should have lost most of their swelling so soon, and her bruises had shrunk but darkened a deeper shade of purple. Whatever salves or such the doctor had given her had obviously done a lot of good.

  “Thi, my God, I’ve been worrying about you. I called last night but you didn’t answer.”

  “Sorry, so sorry, Ga Noh. I am resting so much.”

  “I understand. How do you feel? Are you in pain? Did they check you for a concussion, ruptured organs, broken bones?”

  “Broken bones.” She gave a snort like a humorless laugh. “You broke bones of my husband. You make crack in his face.” She touched her cheek. “You make crack in his foot.”

  “Foot? You mean his leg, his knee?”

  “Yes, yes, knee. Very bad crack in knee.”

  “I’m sorry.” But he wasn’t. He was quite satisfied. Or maybe not satisfied enough.

  “No sorry.”

  “You were yelling for me to stop.”

  “I was afraid! Afraid he hurt you, Ga Noh! I need tell you...you need understand...I do not love my husband.”

  “He’s a monster. A cowardly little bully, and he doesn’t deserve you. Has he ever beaten you before?”

  “No. First time. But yell to me every day. Yell bad words, call me bad names, call me girl who fuck for money. Always. Now crazy, crazy because Ga Noh is here.”

  “It was your cousin Nhot who told him we had lunch together, wasn’t it?”

  Thi hesitated a moment. “Yes. Nhot always very jealous to me, jealous to everyone. It is her way, from child to now. Smile outside, inside hate. Maybe she hate herself too much.”

  “I can understand why. Your own flesh and blood; I can’t believe it. Who is she to concern herself with her cousin’s business?”

  “Here, person’s business is family’s business. Whole family. That is why I call Ga Noh.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She hesitated again, drawing in breath. “Nhot’s father – my uncle – is boss of family now my father is die. Uncle very unhappy I see you again. Uncle fought you in war. Uncle shame of me when I not kill three Earth men; shame of talk call me Earth Lover. Shame of me for many years now. Now, more shame again. Nhot told him so much, so much.”

  “Mean-spirited little...”

  “Uncle say I make all Vein Rhi people look bad to my family. Uncle say I need tell police make my husband free again.”

  “What? What are you saying? Your own uncle wants you to drop the charges against your husband, after what he did to you? He wants you to let that bastard go so he can kill you next time around? Did your uncle see what he did to your face?”

  “Yes. But uncle afraid people talk about family. Uncle want husband and me to be same before.”

  “No, that’s insane, Thi, insane! You can’t let him go unpunished for this, and you sure as hell can’t go back to living with him! He’s dangerous!”

  “Husband cry and cry to police, so sorry hit wife. Husband promise not hit me again.”

  “And you believe that? He isn’t sorry – he’s just afraid to be sent to prison! Can’t you understand that, Thi? Or do you really love this guy, after all?”

  “No! No love him, I swear! But understand...for Ha Jiin, men are boss, not women. My uncle is boss. My husband is boss. I must be listen to brother of father. Respect uncle, respect husband. Not what I like. But what I need do.”

  “I can’t believe you, Thi. I can’t believe your cousin, your uncle, or especially you.” He was almost shaking with frustration, and worked distractedly at the Harbinger’s controls as he crossed Bluetown’s creeping border and began to decrease his altitude.

  “Listen, Ga Noh, please, please. Today, I go police and make husband free. Before I let husband free, I like see Ga Noh one time more. Okay? Please.”

  “What for? What good will that do now? You saw me once and it got you beaten. And now you’re letting that animal out of his cage to kill you, either tomorrow or next month or next year. What good would it do us to see each other one last time?” He was almost raging.

  “Ga Noh not want to see me one time more?”

  He could hear the broken edge in her voice. She was almost in tears. So fragile, so brittle now, the Earth Killer. Stake forced the rage – and a pain strong as rejection – down as much as he could manage. “Of course I want to see you. But I want you to think about this. Think very carefully.”

  “Ga Noh can not come to Vein Rhi, please,” she told him. “I am afraid people talk and my uncle hear.”

  “Okay, look, I’m flying into Bluetown right now. I’m here to meet with Captain Yengun. I’ll be here for an hour or two, I figure. So I’m fairly close to you. Do you want to meet me in Bluetown when I’m finished?”

  “Yes, I like.”

  “Then you can start coming out this way now, if you want. When you reach the city, call me back. I’ll get in my helicar and raise it high enough into the sky that you can get a sense of where I’m at. Sound okay?”

  “Yes, okay.”

  “And then when you get here, you and I can talk more about this.”

  “Okay – I come to Blue City now, and call soon.”

  “Be careful, Thi.”

  “Ga Noh careful, too. Blue City no good. Very no good.” With that, her image blinked out.

  “Fuck,” Stake hissed, slamming the heel of one hand on the control console. “Her own family. Her own blasting family.”

  ***

  Stake saw there were eight of them, some sitting on the curb and a few pacing around cradling their assault engines. They watched him lower the Harbinger
to the middle of the street, then climb out. Yengun was one of those sitting on the curb, and Stake noted that they had been eating – all of them except for a wizened little woman, who was staring at the newcomer with apprehension bordering on outright fear. Yengun rose to come forward and meet Stake halfway.

  “Packed a picnic lunch?” Stake said, gesturing toward several lacquered woven baskets resting between the soldiers. They studied the Earther warily themselves.

  “You are welcome to join us if you like. My wife makes meals for me and my men, when we are out on patrol.”

  “That’s nice of her.” Stake could sense a pride, an affection, in Yengun’s words. He hoped so. He hoped he was kind to his wife – never beat her. “I’m not hungry, actually, but thanks anyway.” Stake glanced around. “I didn’t see your transport when I was coming in.”

  “We came on foot. Fortunately the witch’s village is close to here. Well – it isn’t fortunate for her village. It is now having to be evacuated as the city moves closer. But the witch will not ride in our vehicle. During the Blue War, I understand, a Colonial Forces tank came through her village, and in the fighting two of her nephews and a number of her neighbors were killed.”

  Stake glanced at the woman again. “I hope my presence doesn’t agitate her too much.”

  “I tried to let her know you were coming, but I do not know how much she comprehends. She seems even more disoriented than the first time she brought us here. Her family told us that her dreams make her afraid to sleep.”

  “Tell her that she might feel better after she talks to me about them. Tell her she can unburden her dreams on me.”

  “And who are you to unburden the dreams on, after that?”

  Stake held the Ha Jiin’s gaze. “That remains to be seen, I guess.”