House of the Sun

"ALOHA."

"Of course," he acknowledged. "You know, of course, that the assassination of Tokudaiji-san has been positioned as a corporate maneuver.

"And there have been other… provocative actions… as well."

I blinked at that. I hadn't heard of anything else, but then, as I'd told Barnard, I'd had other things on my mind of late, like dragons and high-velocity ordnance.

Barnard continued, "And now, your revelation that…"

"It wasn't me, frag it all!"

"It hardly matters," he pointed out coldly. "The revelation that the Ali'i has been enjoying private meetings with representatives of the megacorporations is damaging enough, regardless of its source."

"But hell, he's got to meet with megacorp reps sometimes," I pointed out.

"Of course. But it's the secrecy surrounding your actions that makes them appear so damaging. If Gordon Ho were truly acting in the best interest of his people-and not feathering his own nest through private concessions to the megacorporations-why would such secrecy be necessary?

"Consider the situation," Barnard went on. "How would you interpret a clandestine meeting between the head of your government and the personal representative of a senior megacorporate executive, hmm?"

Okay, frag it, I got the point. Sure enough, my paranoia would kick in, and I'd conclude the government muckamuck was cutting a private deal, and had his tongue firmly up the corp-rep's hoop. "So what kind of drek's coming down?"

"Just what you'd expect," Barnard said grimly. "Na Kama'aina spokespeople in the legislature are putting pressure on the Ali'i. Others are stirring up the populace against him."

"Any violence?"

"Not yet." There was a nasty tone of inevitability in his voice.

"What about ALOHA?"

"Policlub members are involved in the agitprop, as one would expect," Barnard explained. "So far, though, they seem to be keeping a low profile."

"But you don't expect that to last."

"No."

"And then what?"

Barnard shrugged, suddenly looking even older than he had the last time I'd seen him. He might as well have been withering away from some ugly wasting disease. (Frag, I found myself wondering, why do people go to the trouble of climbing the corporate ladder if it's going to harsh them out like this"!) "It depends, I suppose," he said quietly.

"On what?"

"On ALOHA's actions. On Gordon Ho's replacement, if his throne is actually usurped. The megacorporations don't take kindly to threats against their operations."

'They'll take over Hawai'i?"

Barnard nodded. "If forced to do so, yes, they will."

"So it all might come apart?" I leaned toward the screen. "Then get me the frag out of here, Barnard. This isn't my country. It's not my fight, and it's none of my fragging business, okay?"

"Unacceptable," he snapped instantly. "I need someone on-site to keep me informed on developments."

I pounded the table; the telecom jumped. "Frag you, Barnard!" I yelled. "You don't need me. You've got Christ knows how many spooks and stoolies and squeals and yaps and informants!"

He nodded. "And every one will lie to me if it's in his best interest to do so."

"And I won't lie to you, if it's in my best interest? Get actual!"

"Of course you'll lie if forced to it, Mr. Montgomery," Barnard agreed with a smile. "But your needs are different from my normal contacts, and your… er, bias… will be different from theirs. The truth will, presumably, lie somewhere between your description and theirs."

"Oh, just peachy fragging keen. 'Let's hang Dirk Montgomery's hoop out in the wind so we can contrast his lies with the lies from some other yaps.' Thanks tons, Mr. fragging Barnard."

My anger left him totally untouched. Well, hell, why not? All my bitching was about as meaningful in his worldview as the mewling of a fragging kitten. "Perhaps it will never come to that extreme," he pointed out quietly. "Who knows, Mr. Montgomery? Perhaps cooler heads will prevail in all of this." He was trying to convince me, but was a long fragging way from sounding terribly convinced himself.

The explosion woke me from troubled dreams at about oh-four-hundred.

I didn't know it was an explosion at first. In fact, I didn't know what it was that had roused me. For a few seconds I just lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. But then a second concussion hit the transpex picture window, sounding a dull thud. I was on my feet in an instant, dashing over to the window.

The second fireball was still roiling into the sky, a dirty red fire-flower blooming from the dark ground. It was far to the right as I looked out the window-that made it to the west. What was in that direction? The airport, for one thing, but I didn't think the explosion was that far away. (Hell, if it was, it must have been one fragger of a blast…) I wracked my brains.

Yeah, that's right… I remembered part of Scott's quickie tour of Greater Honolulu. There was an island off the shoreline of Honolulu-Sand Island, or something equally uninspired-that was a kind of Special Enterprise Zone for corporate activities. From what I remembered of the geography, Sand Island was about the right distance away. ALOHA had been busy.

Think about it-what else would the story be? Two explosions? Despite what you see on the trideo or in the sims, drek doesn't just blow up on its own-not very often, at least. Almost invariably, when something goes boom, it's because some slag arranged for it to go boom.

The distant fire-flower faded, and I turned my back on it, crossing the room to slump back onto the bed. I'd hit the sack at about nineteen-hundred the night before, after spending the whole day just keeping a low profile around the hotel room. That meant I'd already gotten nine hours of sleep- more than I normally enjoy. So how come I still felt like a wet bag of drek? Aftereffects of the narcodart, obviously, or so it pleased me to tell myself. The other alternatives- "getting old," "slowing down," "burning out," "too drek-kicked to cut it any more"-were a lot less conducive to good self-esteem.

I snagged me remote from the bed table and keyed on the trideo. Quickly, I flipped through the channels: late-late-late show, early movie, Zelda Does Zurich-Orbital, a twenty-four-hour sports channel (What do they run at oh-four-hundred? It looked like Albanian-rules badminton or some drek.), two talking heads arguing economics, a brain-dead charcom, two more talking heads arguing but in Japanese this time, and on and on. I settled on one channel-Zelda got the nod, surprise surprise-and waited it out.

Maybe I am getting old. I nodded off before Zelda had boffed her way through half of the (remarkably well-equipped) "corporate executives" in the low-budget pornovid. Brassy music jolted me out of a doze, and I struggled to focus eyes and mind on an animated News Bulletin banner dancing across me trid screen.

Well, I'll condense what I saw. Like so many on-the-spot news reports, this one comprised a frag of a lot of "Well, Marcia. we don't really know squat about what's going on here, but at least we're the first network to tell you that live…" By flipping between channels, I managed to piece together most of the story, however.

I'd been right about me location: The two blasts had taken place in the corp zone on Sand Island. Apparently-this was the official story, at least, confirmed by a Na Maka'i spokescop-terrorists had penetrated the corp zone's security and planted three jury-rigged "devices" in various locations. Intrepid security guards had found one of the bombs on Mitsuhama turf and managed to disarm it before it went bang. Unfortunately, two other "devices" had detonated, doing minimal damage to the property of Renraku and Monobe. There were no casualties, damage was extremely limited, and the Na Maka'i spokescop was confident that the guilty parties would be apprehended within hours.

Yeah, right. I was playing "spot the lie," and I caught three of them. First, there was nothing "jury-rigged" about the devices-not judging by the fireball I saw, at least Unless the bombers had wheeled it into place inside a fragging moving truck, that was an efficient, high-yield bomb.

Second-again judging by the fireball-there's no fragging way the damage done was "minimal." A blast powerful enough to rattle double-glazed transpex at three klicks? Cut me loose, here.

Third-no casualties? Give me a break, boys and girls of the media. In one of those herky-jerky on-the-spot tridcasts, I saw at least two body bags getting loaded into a meat-wagon. If you're going to lie, at least make sure your own trideo footage doesn't contradict you too blatantly.

As it turned out, I was treated to a little more than the official story. While scanning the channels, I came across something that had to be a local pirate tridcaster. The production values chewed, and the announcer seemed to be halfway out of his head on some choice mind-bender, but at least he had an innovative take on the whole thing.

According to the pirate, the whole fragging thing was the corps' faults. Peaceful demonstrators had been protesting outside the corp zone on Sand Island, and at about oh-four-hundred, the zone's corp sec-guards had-without provocation-opened fire. It was only then, with scores of their comrades injured or dying, that some of the protesters did something-the pirate announcer wasn't precisely clear on what-that caused the explosions as "fair and just retribution" for the corp instigated carnage.

Yeah, right. "Peaceful demonstrators" packing satchel-charges of CI2 "just in case?" Pull the other one.

Still, I thought as I lay back on the bed, Barnard had raised an interesting point earlier, one that could also apply here. When you've got two contradictory reports, coming from two sources with vested interests, assume that both are tissues of lies. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. Maybe some relative innocents were cacked… either before or after the blasts. (Frag, if I were a corp sec-guard and the site I was supposed to protect just went kaboom, I'd probably be a little less stringent than normal about identifying targets before shooting…)

So, predictably, the Powers That Be were trying to downplay the story, while the hotheads were trying to blow it out of all proportion. I could see already how it was going to polarize. Gordon Ho and his supporters would champion the official line-no casualties, minimal damage. Na Kama'aina and ALOHA would be hard-selling the pirate's take on the whole thing.

I climbed back into bed with a sigh. It didn't much look as though cooler heads were going to prevail after all.