House of the Sun s-17

by Nigel D Findley

  One of the black-clad arrivals turned and looked our way. I felt his eyes on me like lasers, burning out of a face that could well have been chiseled from black lava rock. Hawk nose, duck brows, short black hair. And tattoos all over his fragging face: swirls and geometricals and curlicues around his eyes until he looked like a paisley necktie. He smiled- the kind of expression I associated with thoughts of ripping out someone's liver-and he strode over toward our table. He was one big son of a slitch, I saw as he loomed up over us. Big and broad; the bulges of his muscles had bulges on them. "Howzit, Scotty?" he rumbled.

  Scott shrugged. "Li' dal." He gestured my way. "Want you to meet somebody, Te Purewa. Bruddah from the mainland, Dirk Tozer."

  Te Purewa-was that his name, or some Hawai'ian phrase I hadn't caught yet?-turned those burning dark eyes on me. "Kia oral" he barked at me. And then he bugged out his eyes and stuck out his tongue.

  My natural response was to laugh; and when I saw the anger flare in those eyes I knew I'd made a mistake. The big guy scowled, and his tattoos seemed to writhe. Then, without another word, he turned his back on us and strode away.

  I turned to Scott. "Oops," I said quietly.

  "You got that, bruddah." The ork shook his head. "Shoulda warned you, I guess. Te Purewa-"

  "That's his name?"

  "Yeah, it's Maori, from Aotearoa-used to be called New Zealand." Scott signed. "Every time I see him, he's more Maori. Good guy, at heart, but sometimes he takes things too far, y'know? All this heritage kanike… Last year it was the tats"-he traced imaginary lines on his face-"then a coupla months back he got himself a linguasoft so he could speak Maori. And now he's doing the traditional greeting crap as well. That whole tongue stuff? He says Maoris look fierce at you as a sign of respect." He shrugged. "Sounds like kanike to me."

  "So now he hates me forever?"

  Scott chuckled. "Honestly? Te Purewa doesn't have the attention span for holding long grudges, hoa. Next time you see him, snarl at him and say 'Kia oral', and he'll treat you like a long lost bruddah." He paused, and his smile faded. "Thought you might like to meet him 'cause he's the closest thing I know to a real shadowrunner. Te Purewa's SINless, he hangs with some of the fringe kalepa, the fixers on the edge of the action. Don't know what land of biz he does for them-don't really want to know, is it-but he's the closest thing to real street action I know around here."

  He glanced at his watch. "Another beer?"

  I thought about it, then shook my head. "What's the next stop on the tour?"

  The cultural/historical part of the tour was next, it turned out. Scott tooled the big Phaeton back through the financial heart of downtown Honolulu, then continued east into the government sector of the city. First stop was a relatively undistinguished two-story building that looked as though it was made of dressed lava rock. Despite the fact that the place was nothing special, it looked vaguely familiar, as if I'd seen it before. It took me a few seconds to tag the memory. That was it-an old two-D TV show I'd seen at some retrospective festival up in Seattle, something about cops in Hawai'i; that's where I'd seen the place before.

  I mentioned this to Scott, but he just shrugged. "Don't know about that, brah, but it's possible, I guess. That's the Iolani Palace. Old place, century and a half old."

  "But what is it?" I asked.

  The ork looked at me like I'd just misplaced a couple of dozen points of IQ. "It's the palace, hoa. The capitol, where the Ali'i lives and holds court with his kahuna."

  "His shaman?"

  Scott shook his head. "No. Well, maybe, but… You'll find words in Hawai'ian can have a drek-load of meanings. Take aloha-'hello,' right? Also means 'love,' 'mercy,' 'compassion', 'pity,' maybe half a dozen others.

  "And kahuna? Shaman, sure. Priest. But it also means 'advisor,' particularly when you're talking about the Ali'i and his kahuna." Scott chuckled. "Also means someone who's nui good at something, okay? Remember that guy we saw on the surfboard? He's one big kahuna when it comes to surfing."

  He paused and shrugged. "Where was I? Oh yeah. The Iolani Palace, it's the 'working' capitol. On some big, nui important ritual days, the Ali'i and his court fly over to the old capitol on the Big Island. But most of the time, this is where King Kam does his stuff."

  "This is King Kamehameha V, right?"

  "That's it, brah." The ork pointed across the street. "You want to see King Kam I, Kamehameha the Great? There he is."

  I looked where he was pointing and saw the large statue he meant. It showed a perfectly proportioned man with mahogany skin and noble features, holding a spear. He wore a yellow cape and a weird kind of curving headdress, both apparently made of feathers. "Quite the outfit," I noted.

  'The traditional dress of the Ali'i," Scott agreed. "King Kam wears the same stuff for official business." He paused. "From what I've heard, that statue's life-size, by the way. Kam the Great was one big boy."

  I glanced back at the statue. At a guess, I'd have said it was at least 2.2 meters tall-7'3" for the metrically challenged-and that didn't include the headdress. "Big boy, all right," I agreed. "Any troll blood in the king's lineage?"

  Scott chuckled at that as he pulled ahead.

  Our last stop was maybe a block from the palace, the other side of the government business. Scott pointed to a big ferrocrete building whose vertical lines evoked images of both classical columns and waterfalls. Over a set of large double doors hung a massive disk of metal-bronze, probably, judging by its color-bearing a crest. "That's the Haleaka'aupuni," Scott announced. "I guess you could translate that as 'Government House.' The legislature sits here, and this is where the administrators and the datapushers do their thing."

  I remembered some of the material I'd scanned on the flight in. "Is the king still scrapping it out with the legislature?" I asked.

  The ork shot me a speculative look. "You're not as out-of-touch as I thought, brah," he said with a hint of respect. "Yeah, King Kam's still butting heads with the Na Kama'aina hotheads in the legislature." We turned a corner, cruising down another side of Government House, and Scott pointed ahead. "There's some of the hotheads' constituents now."

  I looked.

  It wasn't large as demonstrations go-I've seen larger mobs protesting a hike in monorail fares in Seattle-but there was something about it, something I couldn't quite put my finger on, that made me think it was well-organized. There were maybe a hundred people massed before the steps of Government House. Not many, in the grand scheme of things, but every time the news photographer who was standing at the top of the steps panned his vidcam over them, they all packed in tighter in the area he was scanning. To make the crowd look denser, and hence much bigger, when the footage aired on the news tonight, I realized. That was too much media awareness for a "spontaneous gathering." I could well be looking at the Hawai'ian version of something an old Lone Star colleague had once called "rent-a-mob"-professional agitators, or at least a group led by professional agitators.

  All the protesters seemed to be Polynesian, I noticed. Lots of orks and trolls, with only a few humans and dwarfs tossed in for spice. (No elves, though, I noted, or none that I spotted. Interesting, that…) Lots of bronze or mahogany skin, lots of black hair. Most wore more or less the same as Scott-the same as me, for that matter-but some were dressed in traditional aboriginal costumes of one kind or another. Lots of straw, and grass, and feathers. Most of the placards were too small for me to read from this distance, but I could make out one. "E make loa, haole?" I sounded out to Scott.

  He frowned, then snorted in disgust, but didn't translate.

  "What's it mean?" I pressed.

  "It means, 'Die, Anglo,' " he admitted after a moment. "Like I said, hotheads."

  I gestured toward the crowd. "Are these people ALOHA?"

  Scott laughed. "Are you lolo, bruddah? You stupid? You think I'd get this close to a pack of ALOHA goons with a fragging haole in the car?" He paused, and when he spoke again his voice was more serious. "ALOHA doesn't go for this kind of kanik
e. Mr. Dirk. Peaceful demonstrations? Not their style. They blow drek up, that's how they get their ideas across."

  "Na Kama'aina, then?"

  He shrugged. 'The leaders, sure-one or two of them, the slags who arranged for the newsvid boys to be here. The rest? They're just twinkies come along 'cause they've got nothing better to do with their time."

  A couple of the demonstrators at the back of the pack had turned to watch the limo as we rolled by. One of them had the same kind of facial tattoos as the Maori in the bar. Instead of black leather, though, she wore only a loincloth and a kind of skirt made from dried reeds "or some drek. "I can't complain about the costume choice," I remarked, and Scott chortled appreciatively.

  "Some people get an idea in their heads, and they just run with it," he said. 'The costumes. Trying to speak the old languages… or what they think are the old languages- some died out, but that doesn't stop the hotheads from pretending." He snorted again. "Look at them. Refugees from the luau shows put on for the tourists… except these ule don't know the show's over."

  I blinked in mild surprise at the vehemence in his voice. "Is that what you think of what's-his-name?" I asked quietly after a moment.

  'Te Purewa?" He paused. Then, "More or less," he admitted. "I don't think he's taken to waving placards at the government yet, but…" He shrugged.

  'Te Purewa's not his real name, is it?" I guessed.

  Scott gave a bark of laughter. "You got that," he agreed. "Mark Harrop, that's his real name, can you beat that? Mark fragging Harrop. Couple years back he decided he had Maori blood in his veins-like, a couple drops, maybe-and picked the name out of some book."

  I was silent for almost a minute as Scott swung the limo around a corner and headed back toward Waikiki and Diamond Head. At last I asked gently, "What about you, Scott? You don't have any sympathy for Na Kama'aina? You're Polynesian by descent, aren't you?"

  He didn't answer right away, and I wondered if I'd offended him. Then he smiled, a little shamefacedly. "I'm a kama'aina," he agreed. "I'm a 'land child'-quarter-blood, but I get it from both sides of my family. My mother, she was a Nene kahuna."

  "Nay-nay?" I asked.

  "Nene, Hawai'ian goose," he explained. "Looks kind of like a Canada goose-except it's not extinct, it's got claws on its feet, and it likes volcanic rock. One of the local Totems.

  "Anyway," he went on, "you can be a kama'aina, a local, without being part of Na Kama 'aina, if you get my drift."

  "And you've got no desire to take a Hawai'ian name and run around in grass skirts?"

  "Grass makes me itch." He paused. "I've already got the Hawai'ian name," he added quietly after a moment, "I don't have to take one. My mother, she gave me one."

  I waited, but he didn't go on. "Well?" I pressed at last.

  He sighed. "My given name is Ka wean ula a Hi'iaka I ka poli o Pele ka wahine 'ai ho nua." The polysyllables rolled off his tongue like a smooth flowing river.

  "Holy frag," I announced when I was sure he was done.

  "Yeah, quite the mouthful."

  "And it means?"

  "'The red glow of the sky made by Hi'iaka in the bosom of Pele the earth eating woman,' if you can believe that."

  "You must get writer's cramp signing your name."

  He laughed. "That's why my father called me Scott," he explained.

  7

  My body clock seemed to have finally adjusted to the time difference and everything. I slept when I went to bed, and I woke up when I wanted to, a couple of minutes before my alarm went off. I rolled out of bed feeling like a new man-or at least a creditable retread-drew open the drapes, and stared for a couple of minutes out the bedroom window. The sun glinted off the azure sea, and the few clouds only served to emphasize the depth and clarity of the sky. Another drekky day in paradise.

  As I dressed, I noticed for the first time the two holos on opposite walls of the bedroom. One showed Waikiki as I'd seen it the day before from a vantage point somewhere near the west end of the bay-a view of Diamond Head in me distance, people on the beach, a big auto-rigged trimaran anchored offshore. The other hologram had a sepia tone, like a holo taken of an old black-and-white flatphoto. A dark-skinned native was pushing a dug-out outrigger canoe up onto the beach out of the surf. Something looked familiar about the shot somehow. I compared the two mentally and realized that both holos were from exactly the same camera angle! The sepia one had to date from me nineteenth century. There was Diamond Head… with nothing but jungle all the way down to the beach and only a couple of tiny buildings around the curve of me bay. I turned back to the contemporary shot-yes, the holographer had matched the camera angle and the composition exactly. Fascinating.

  It was oh-eight-thirty by the time I finished dressing, and my stomach reminded me not to skip breakfast. So down the elevator I went and breakfasted in the company of those little ring-necked doves on the outdoor patio.

  I was savoring my third cup of coffee and debating whether I had room for another waffle when I felt a presence beside me. Glancing up, I saw one of the self-effacing hotel functionaries holding a small cellular phone out to me. "Mr. Tozer?"

  I nodded to him, and he vanished from sight as I flipped the phone off standby. "Hello?"

  "Good morning, Mr. Dirk." It was Scott, of course. "I hope you're feeling up to a little business today."

  I almost asked him the details, but my natural caution- better yet, my paranoia-kicked in at the last moment. "When?" is all I said.

  I was waiting outside the hotel when the Rolls pulled up thirty minutes later. Dressed in a finely tailored business suit today, Scott climbed out and held me rear passenger compartment door for me. (No slotting around with sitting up front today…) As I settied myself in the couch, he slid back into the driver's seat, buttoned the car up, and pulled away.

  "Okay, Scott," I said once we were out in traffic, "give. Who, what, where, when, and why."

  He glanced back at me. (At least he'd left the kevlarplex divider down.) "You've got an appointment with Mr. Ekei Tokudaiji." he told me flatly.

  "Who is?"

  The ork shrugged his broad shoulders. "An important man around these parts, that's all I can tell you."

  Well, frag, I could have maybe guessed that much. "Where are we going?"

  "Kaneohe Bay. Mr. Tokudaiji has a… a place there."

  I frowned. The friendliness, the volubility, had vanished from Scott's manner. This was more than being businesslike, it was as if the big ork were under some kind of major stress. Was visiting this Tokudaiji so daunting, even for a fragging chauffeur? Just how important was this slag? "Why couldn't we have gotten this over with yesterday?" I asked.

  "Like I said, Mr. Tokudaiji had biz on the outer islands yesterday," Scott explained patiently. "He's under no obligation to see you at all, see? He could just dust you off, and nobody could say drek about it."

  I digested that as Scott turned the limo onto a northbound highway that soon plunged into a tunnel through a range of hills. Either Scott didn't know on whose behest I was working-this Tokudaiji wouldn't be dusting me off, he'd be dusting off Jacques Barnard, executive vice president of Yamatetsu North America-or Tokudaiji was a very important man indeed.

  "Are you packing?" Scott asked suddenly.

  The Seco suddenly felt heavy on my hip. "Yes," I said slowly.

  Scott made a tsk sound. "Should have warned you about that. You'll have to leave it in the car when you go in to see Mr. Tokudaiji."

  Like frag I will… That's what I wanted to say, but I held my tongue with a sigh. "I'm not sure I like the way this is working out." For a moment the old Scott reappeared in his smile. "Hey, brah, at least you won't have to go through a cavity search."

  The highway emerged from the tunnel, and the whole landscape had changed. The north side of the island was much lusher than the south, which implied more rain. (Hadn't I read somewhere that changing wind patterns had really fragged with the weather in the islands over the last half century? Well, whatever.) Th
e highway curved northwest, judging by the position of the sun, then switchbacked to the northeast, descending a hillside. Directly north was a rocky promontory, with something that looked like a military installation at its base. On the west side of the promontory, the coastline opened out into a sweeping bay so beautiful it almost couldn't be real. "Mr. Tokudaiji's got himself a pretty fair view, you ask me," Scott said, again seeming to read my mind.

  We pulled off the highway and followed a harshly weathered secondary road that flanked the bay. After a klick or two, Scott took an unmarked turn, and the quality of the road improved drastically. Private road, I guessed… and a glimpse of a surveillance camera tracking the car from a hibiscus bush confirmed it a moment later. I patted my pockets to be sure I hadn't misplaced Barnard's message chip after all this, and, a little grudgingly, undipped the Seco's holster from my waistband. "You can just leave your piece in the back there," Scott suggested. "It'll be safe."

  The limo sighed to a stop at a security gate, but not any kind of security gate I was used to. No electrified chain-link fences here, no strands of cutwire, no powered metal gate running on reinforced tracks. Instead, we faced a large palisade-that's about the best word I can find for it-made of finely finished dark wood. A Japanese-style arch topped the gate. I saw the motif worked into that arch and into the double gate itself and felt a faint chill in my gut. A chrysanthemum, that was the key image, replicated everywhere. Just fragging peachy.

  As we sat, waiting, I examined the gate and the palisade. Though the whole setup looked like a set from an old Kurosawa flatfilm-Ran, maybe-it didn't take much brains to guess that things were a lot more secure than they seemed. Maybe the facade of the gates and the fence were real wood-if I hadn't noticed the chrysanthemum pattern, I'd have wagered they were cheaper macroplast-but they certainly covered material a lot more resilient. Reinforced ballistic composite at the very least, possibly armored ferrocrete. Though it looked as though those carved gateposts would fall like bowling pins if Scon gunned the Rolls into the gates, I'd have laid a very big bet that even a light panzer would have difficulty taking down Ekei Tokudaiji's first line of defense.