I flattened my nose against the window, watching in shocked horror as burning wreckage plunged to the street or smashed down on top of buildings.
Gordon Ho hadn't seen it, but he knew something had happened. He gaped at me. "What was it?"
I didn't answer right away. Instead, I came over and fragging near collapsed into an armchair. Finally, I said, "It doesn't look like it's a good season for saner heads."
* * *
The downed chopper was a corp bird, Gordon Ho's informants confirmed an hour or so later. (I'd guessed as much earlier, but this wasn't a time when I felt good about being proven right.) The lance of fiery light I'd seen had been a Parsifal man-pack SAM, an obsolete Saeder-Krupp design. Ironic, since the chopper that ate the missile was a Saeder-Krupp bird.
Gordon Ho and I were shoulder to shoulder again, looking silently out the window of room 1905. The streets below us were empty now, except for the occasional corporate security vehicle screaming by, light-bars ablaze. There were more choppers in the air—angular, brutal-looking gunships now, instead of the more streamlined unarmed transports—buzzing around like angered hornets. Most of them were maneuvering radically in case there was another missile team out there somewhere, jinking back and forth, up and down, randomly. Some were dropping flares just in case, sun-bright points of light. I couldn't make out colors or insignias so I didn't know whose the choppers were, but it was easy to figure out they were from different corps. It was also easy enough to figure out that said corps weren't talking to one another efficiently; in a fifteen-minute span, I saw half a dozen near misses when choppers fragging near slammed into one another. Every now and then I could hear the rip of autofire, muffled somewhat by the double-glazed window. Were ALOHA assault teams actually engaging the corp forces, or were the corp sec-guards shooting at one another—a ground-based version of the chaotic gavotte in the skies? It was impossible to tell.
Finally, the ex-Ali 'i turned away from the window and returned to the couch. After a few moments I joined him. Pohaku still looked as though he wanted an excuse to rip somebody's lungs out—anybody's—but at least he still had the presence of mind to freshen our Scotches.
Ho stretched, working his neck and shoulders. He looked like he'd aged a decade in the past couple of hours, I noticed suddenly. Well, I guess getting deposed, then seeing your country stumbling toward the brink of war might do that to you.
"What now?" I asked.
Ho looked over at me and smiled. (I think that's what the expression was supposed to be, at least. It looked more like the facial reaction of a torture victim.) "I've given up on the oracle business," he said. Then his smile faded, and his eyes seemed to grow even more haunted.
"The government doesn't have much choice," he went on quietly. "They've got to act fast, before the Corporate Court does. Which means they can't do much about ALOHA."
I nodded. That made grim and nasty sense. Hunting down and neutralizing a militant policlub—a terrorist group by another name, when you think about it—is never a short-term solution. It takes resources and it takes time. The Na Kama'aina-dominated Hawai'ian government might have the former, but Ho obviously didn't think the corps would give it the latter .. . and I had to agree. Hell, when you came right down to it, stamping out a militant policlub wasn't necessarily possible even in the long term. Ask the FBI teams tasked with eliminating Humanis and Alamos 20K. "So what are the options?" I asked.
Gordon Ho shrugged. "Few." He sighed. "Negotiation—but that requires the corps to be interested in listening, which isn't a certainty at this point.
"Or a counterthreat," he went on, his voice bleak. "The corps have a gun to the government's head, Thor. The government has to draw its own gun." He shrugged again. "Mexican standoff. But at least it gives both sides a little more time to negotiate before the killing begins."
I raised an eyebrow at that. "Bluff, you mean?"
"Bluff wouldn't work. The counterthreat has to be substantive."
"Yeah, right," I snorted. "Threatening the corps?" The idea was so ludicrous I almost laughed out loud.
But Ho obviously didn't think it funny. "You'd be surprised, Dirk," he said darkly.
I did laugh out loud now . . . and then shut up so abruptly I almost swallowed my tongue. Suddenly, I'd remembered some of the weird things Scott had rattled on about during our first breakfast together, about the freaky drek that had gone down around Secession Day. Frag, now that I let myself realize it, there'd been some major questions rolling around in my head about the Secession.
For one, how come the U. S. had let Hawai'i go so easily? (Okay, the feds had tried to clamp down ... once. But after the warning Thor shots on the naval task force, they'd basically rolled over and played dead. No attempts to take back their military bases.) For another, how had the equivalent of a civilian militia been able to defeat the Civil Defense Force—full-on military? The only answer that made any sense whatsoever was some kind of big stick with which to threaten the good ol' US of A.
I turned to Gordon Ho. "Spill it," I said quietly.
"Magic, of course," he answered at once. "Nui magic. Big magic."
In the back of my mind I heard a kind of almost subliminal click. "Sites of power," I said.
The ex-king nodded. "Of course," he confirmed. "Hawai'i has some major ones."
I felt a cold wind blow through my soul. "You've got some kind of project going, haven't you? Since before Secession, you've had it going."
"Of course," he said again. "We're a small nation. We need an equalizer."
"Tell me about it."
Ho shrugged. "It was my father's idea, I think. He and his kahuna—his shamanic advisor—they came up with the details. They'd heard about the Great Ghost Dance in the States, of course," he explained softly. "The federal government wanted to suppress details, but news always leaks out. When my father and his advisors learned that another group of aboriginals, the Amerindians, had developed large-scale magic as a military tool, they figured if it could work on the Great Plains, why not on the islands?"
"You did your own Great Ghost Dance," I said wonderingly.
Ho nodded. "In essence, yes. The details were different, of course. Hawai'ian traditions are very different from those that Daniel Howling Coyote used. But the principles were the same: massed shamans—kahunas—using their own life-force to power a great ritual.
"We had a major advantage that Howling Coyote didn't, however," the Ali'i continued. "We had those sites of power you mentioned. The kahunas were able to draw a large measure of the mana they needed directly from the land, rather than from their own life-force. Some died anyway, of course, but the cost was much less for us than for Howling Coyote." I shivered. It was chilling, the almost casual way Ho was talking about this. The kind of rituals he was describing were "blood-magic." I'd read somewhere that the "cost" of the Great Ghost Dance was measured in dozens, maybe hundreds, of shamans who'd given their lives to power it. The same in Hawai'i, apparently: "True believers" had effectively suicided to give the islands their independence. "Where did this happen?" I asked. "Puowaina?"
"The Hill of Sacrifice?" Ho's eyebrow quirked. "It would have been appropriate, wouldn't it? But no, the volcanic erater of Haleakala was chosen because it had a higher magical background count, which made the ritual easier."
Something else went click in the back of my mind. It was like I'd been struggling vainly with a jigsaw puzzle for the last couple of days, and suddenly somebody had started handing me the pieces I needed, one by one. "It's still going on, isn't it?"
"The Dance?" Ho shook his head. "No," he said firmly. Then, "Not as such."
I looked into his eyes and saw him trying to decide what to tell me and what to keep hidden. "Spill it, e ku'u lani," I said again.
He hesitated for a long moment, then I saw him come to his decision. "The Dance ended with Secession," he said firmly, "but there were some interesting consequences. For some reason, the background count in the Haleakala crater was higher after
the Dance than it was before. Considerably higher, in fact. We wanted to know why, of course. And we also wanted to learn how to use the additional power. My father established a research station on the crater rim. He code-named the program Sunfire. A staff of kahunas were assigned to Project Sunfire to figure out what had happened to the background count ..."
"And how to use it," I completed.
Ho nodded uncomfortably. "Yes," he acknowledged. "Initially. When I took the throne, though, I decided to back off from that side of things."
"Why, for frag's sake?" I wanted to know.
The ex-Ali'i looked even more uncomfortable. "She convinced me," he said, inclining his head toward Akaku'akanene who was in full lotus again, staring into space and listening to geese.
"Her?"
"She virtually raised me, Dirk," he said, almost apologetically. "Of course I listened to her when she warned me about something."
"Why?" I pressed again. "What was the fragging problem?"
He glanced away, apparently unable to meet my gaze. "She didn't know," he admitted, "not really. She just had a feeling. A premonition, you might call it." He shrugged once more. "That was good enough for me, Dirk," he said earnestly. "I knew her, you see. I knew what her premonitions were like, if she sensed that something was dangerous . . . well, that was good enough for me," he repeated.
Another faint click. "That changed, didn't it?"
"Against my wishes, yes," Ho acknowledged. "Six years ago, the Na Kama'aina faction in the legislature finally accrued enough influence to basically take over Project Sunfire. They switched the emphasis of the research from simple understanding back to exploitation. They thought the kingdom might someday need the power that Haleakala represented.
"Maybe they were right," he added with a wry glance out of the window at the flying circus of choppers over the city.
And then came the last mental click. Suddenly I felt really cold, as though somebody had hooked the room's ventilation up to an industrial freezer. "That's the big stick, isn't it?" Ho blinked in confusion, so I elaborated. "That's Na Kama'ai-na's counterthreat to use against the corps. They want to draw power from Haleakala."
"Of course," he said simply.
Oh, drek . . . That had to be what bug-boy was talking about, didn't it?
The horrible realization must have shown on my face, because Ho asked, "What's the matter, Dirk?"
"We've got to stop Project Sunfire, e ku'u laniI told him. "We've got to stop it right fragging now."
23
Gordon Ho blinked. Behind him, I saw Pohaku glaring at me.
"Stop it?" Ho echoed. "Stop Project Sunfire? Why? I admit, I did consider it dangerous. But there's danger and then there's danger, if you take my meaning." He gestured out the window toward the corp gunships hanging against the sky.
I sighed. "Maybe I should have told you about this earlier," I said, then summarized, as succinctly as I could, what bug-boy had told me.
Ho held his peace throughout my spiel, not even asking any questions. He understood what I was telling him, though, I could see that in the way his eyes narrowed and his face hardened. Finally, after maybe five minutes of talking, I concluded, "The way I scan it, your Project Sunfire kahunas are going to get a frag of a lot more than they bargained for."
The erstwhile King Kamehameha V nodded thoughtfully. "If you believe an Insect shaman is telling you the truth," he said slowly.
I shrugged uncomfortably. That was the fragging point, wasn't it? Did I believe bug-boy? "It's not like I've really got much choice."
Ho glanced away, as if not wanting to meet my gaze. I knew what was coming. "I understand, Dirk," he said quietly. "I do. But ..."
"She's not your sister," I said, my voice cold and bleak in my own ears.
The ex-king shrugged. "I understand your concern," he went on, still not meeting my gaze. "But I have to consider more than just one person. The entire nation—"
"Will get drek-kicked by these 'entities'," I broke in sharply. "If bug-boy's telling the truth. Hell, maybe he's lying through his fragging teeth. But I don't know, and neither do you." I leaned forward intently. "You're right, you've got to think about your people—all your people. Are you willing to put them at this kind of risk?"
Ho fixed me with his gaze then, and again I felt the immense force of will, of personality, I'd experienced when I'd first met him in the Iolani Palace throne room. "You make a good case, Dirk," he said calmly. "But am I willing to put them at risk from the corporations? I know that risk exists. What you're talking about—"
"It's not immediate, that's true," I said. "Frag, it might not even be real. But there's a big fragging difference, e ku'u lani. You can negotiate with megacorporations ..."
Ho had to smile. "... And not with malignant 'entities.' Granted." He sighed. "If anyone ever tells you they'd like to be a head of state ..."
"I'll tell them they don't know what the frag they're talking about," I finished. I paused. "So what's it going to be, e ku 'u lani?"
My chest was tight, as if a cold fist were reaching down my throat and trying to turn my lungs inside out. I was afraid I knew which way he was going to jump. Frag, it was the way I'd probably decide if I were in hits position. Which threat would any reasonable person consider the most important? One that anyone with a pair of eyes could recognize? Or one based entirely on the testimony of a soul-sucking Insect shaman?
Yes, I thought I knew how Gordon Ho would have to decide. And then what the frag would I do?
I jumped fragging near out of my chair as another voice broke into my thoughts. "The Insect kahuna was telling the truth."
Like two puppets on the same strings, Ho and I pivoted our heads to stare at Akaku'akanene. The bird-boned woman was still sitting in full lotus, staring off into space. For all the reaction she'd shown—or showed now, for that matter—I'd have sworn she was so wrapped up in speaking to geese that she hadn't heard a word we said.
Gordon Ho leaned forward, his gaze drilling into her. "Say that again," he instructed. His voice was soft, but it was an order nonetheless.
Finally, Akaku'akanene focused her eyes and turned to look at her sovereign. "The Insect kahuna was telling the truth," she repeated calmly. "To the best of his understanding."
" 'To the best of his understanding'?" Ho echoed. "What's that supposed to mean?"
The Nene shaman shrugged her scrawny shoulders. "He spoke the truth as he believed it to be," she elaborated, almost casually. "There was no prevarication in what he said. He spoke the truth to the best of his understanding. Nene tells me so."
"But he could be wrong," Ho pressed.
"Of course," Akaku'akanene agreed easily. "But he didn't think so."
The ex-king fell silent, and I could almost hear his brain working. Unbidden, my memory brought back an image of Theresa—of her glassy, unblinking eyes. It was all I could do not to speak out, not to throw every argument I could think of behind Akaku'akanene's take on things. But I knew that was the worst thing I could do at the moment. Ho had to come to his own conclusion. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, but somehow I managed to keep my yap shut.
"What do you think, makuahine?"' he asked after what seemed like forever.
"You know what I think, e ku'u lani," the old shaman said with another shrug. "What I always thought, what I always told you. Forgotten, have you?"
Gordon Ho smiled wryly. "No, makuahine, I haven't forgotten." He turned to me. "What do you want to do about this, Dirk?"
I wanted to slump back into my chair and just enjoy the relief that washed over me. But I'd have time for that later. "Shut down Project Sunfire," I said flatly.
To my right I heard an exclamation, quickly muffled, from Pohaku. Ho turned to the bodyguard, one eyebrow raised in query. "You have something to say, Pohaku?" he asked dryly.
The hard-man swallowed visibly. "No e ku'u lani," he said firmly. "I ... No. Kala mai ia'u, forgive my rudeness."
I shot die bodyguard a sharp look. Like f
rag you've got nothing to say, I thought.
The ex-Ali'i was speaking again, and I turned away from Pohaku. "Shut down Project Sunfire," Ho echoed with a crooked smile. "It sounds so simple. But how, Dirk? I'm no longer Ali'i, remember. And the faction of the government with direct control over Project Sunfire is the same faction that arranged to pry me out. Somehow I don't think they're going to listen to a decree to close down the project, do you?"
"Don't just tell them. Do it."
"And how do you propose I manage that?"
I swallowed hard. We all knew it was going to come down to this, didn't we? "Send me," I told him. "By all the fragging spirits, I'll shut it down."
He fixed me with those sharp, dark eyes. "How, Dirk?"
"It doesn't matter, does it?" I shot back gruffly. (Translation—I haven't got a fragging clue ...) "Just give me some assets and some gear, and get me there. I'll do the rest."
Ho's gaze didn't shift, and I felt as though his eyes were burning their way deep into my brain. "You have your reasons for this ..." he said slowly.
"So do you, e ku'u lani," Akaku'akanene put in.
The moment stretched out until I was fragging near ready to scream. But then the ex-Ali'i nodded once. He seemed to shrink in on himself, as though—just for an instant—he was just plain Gordon Ho instead of King Kamehameha V. "You know, Dirk," he said quietly, "apart from Akaku'akanene, you're the only one I know who treats me as a person, not as a king. You tell me what you think, and you don't care if I agree with you or not. Do you have any idea how refreshing that is?"
He sighed, and his face changed. King Kamehameha V replaced Gordon Ho once more. "What do you need?" he asked me.
* * *
If Ho's capabilities were limited by being booted off his throne, I'm not sure I wanted to know how all-encompassing they'd been beforehand. With the sole exception of Jacques Barnard, I'd never dealt with anyone who could whistle up a military transport, personal gear, and personnel with a single phone call. (It was funny—Ho was fragging apologetic that he could supply only one military transport, and that the personnel he could offer were limited to Louis Pohaku, Alana Kono, Akaku'akanene ... and a SWAT-style Quick Response fireteam. Only! Cut me loose, here.)
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