Blue War: A Punktown Novel

by Jeffrey Thomas

  “This is why the clerics are in such an uproar,” Cali said. “Why they led that exorcism against the CF base and the embassy.”

  “And those guys with the bombs just happened to come along at the same time?” Gale said. “The monks had that planned, too. Now they’re not only endorsing terrorists, but working with them.”

  “Well, I can understand why they’re upset,” Ami murmured.

  Gale looked up at her harshly. “You can understand why they injured some of my men with their terrorist friends?”

  “I just mean I understand how this new Bluetown growth would get them more stirred up.” The smart matter had already capped over the primary entrances to a number of the central tombs of the Jin Haa and Ha Jiin burial systems, but one could still get into them from areas outside the borders of Bluetown. And the basements of skyscrapers had already ruined some of the tunnels that were close to the surface, but deeper tunnels had still survived, so they had been able to relocate their dead. Yet now, with this deeper growth ensuing, the lower levels of the tombs were being threatened, as well. “This is serious stuff for them. This is holy ground.”

  “You think I don’t know that? But does disturbing their dead accidentally justify them killing people on purpose? I don’t think so.”

  Ami held his gaze. “I don’t think so either, Dom. If a shark bit my leg off I’d understand it was hungry, but I wouldn’t like that, either.”

  Cali had slipped into a hallway, and waited at a flight of stairs. “There’s more on the second floor. In every room of this place. It’s become a new mausoleum for them.”

  David Bright waved a hand in front of his face, cupping his other hand over his nose and mouth. “I’m not too happy about breathing this stuff,” he complained, however attenuated the sinon gas was in their blazing lights. “Haven’t we seen enough in here? Or do you want to bottle this up before we leave, colonel?”

  Gale shifted his hot eyes to the businessman. “What’s that comment supposed to mean, Mr. Bright?”

  “Well, it’s what you people did in the war, isn’t it?” He looked to Henderson, and then even to Stake. “You came down here, set up your teleportation gear, and sucked this stuff up. Did you bring your gear with you today? There doesn’t look to be a lot left, but every bit counts, right?”

  “This is Jin Haa land,” Gale reminded him. “We didn’t steal gas from these people.”

  “Jin Haa, Ha Jiin, what’s the difference? You bribe one people for it, kill the other people for it – either way you get what you want.”

  “Mr. Bright, I think you’re suffering a little too much stress lately, and aren’t considering your words too carefully. I know you think we’re profiting from the growth of Bluetown, somehow, but ask yourself now how you think the destruction of the Jin Haa burial network is really going to benefit us – both in our relations with the Jin Haa, and in our need for sinon gas, which you keep reminding me about. You honestly think we’re happy about all this?”

  “I just think your plans have gotten a little out of control now.”

  “I think it’s your paranoia that’s getting out of control.”

  “Like to read, Mr. Stake?” Bright faced him again, giving a brittle smile. “My mother instilled a love of books in me. I read Homer in school. In the Iliad, do you know the name of the Greek guy who got the Trojans to drag the horse full of Greek soldiers into Troy? His name was Sinon. Funny, isn’t it?”

  “Huh,” said Stake. He didn’t find it funny to feel like one of those Greek soldiers himself, right now.

  Back to Gale. “Your base is the horse full of soldiers, colonel. And I’ve been elected to be the piñata, full of blame. The piñata for the Jin Haa and Ha Jiin to break with their sticks.”

  “I think we need to get you back up-ground, Mr. Bright. I think we need to have our base’s Dr. Laloo have a look at you.”

  “Fuck you, Gale. Fuck...you.”

  “Sir,” one of the special ops men spoke up suddenly, his voice issuing from his helmet’s speaker, “there’s someone com–”

  A banshee flew into Stake’s skull. He thought he might be crying out, himself, but his voice was overwhelmed by the other, and it dropped him to hands and knees. He felt Ami bump his hip as she fell, too. He imagined she was also screaming. The banshee’s cry wasn’t really shrill, however, something to break glass. It sounded more like a man moaning deeply through a long, echoing metal tube, with a wavering, vibratory quality. The vibration formed an undercurrent like a cicada’s buzz. That was the layer of the attack that felt most like something high-pitched. That was the part that corkscrewed a hole into Stake’s skull so the thicker, deeper layer’s molten copper could be poured inside.

  Stake was on his belly now, and reaching out his hand for an assault engine on the floor in front of him. It lay beside one of the two special operatives. The man was sprawled across the legs of the mummified clerics, his helmet tilted toward Stake. Red liquid and gobs of meat or brain slid down the inside of its faceplate.

  His fingers clawed at the fallen weapon, but the sound was filling his skull to the bursting point. Any moment now, he expected to end up like the special operative, whose helmet’s enhanced hearing had worked very much to his disadvantage.

  There was a shotgun blast, but Stake didn’t hear it. He only knew about it when the banshee vanished from his skull, and he slowly rolled over onto his back to look up and see the KeeZee standing there in a wide stance, unfazed by the aural attack, his shotgun smoking in his hands. Stake’s head turned slightly – an agonizing undertaking – and he saw that a new cleric had been added to the ranks of the dead. This one, though, was not mummified, and a ragged wound had been blown through his chest. The monk sagged against the far wall, near the open doorway he had stepped through moments earlier. Wisps of black vapor escaped from his chest along with his flowing blood. It was not sinon gas, but a related phenomenon, and occurred only when a Sinan person had their heart laid open. Much had been made by those who hated the Sinanese about the black fog in their hearts.

  Stake got back onto hands and knees shakily. Gale was on his feet already, and helped Ami up. She fell against his chest, whimpering, clamping her palms over her ears.

  Henderson was crouched near the dead Jin Haa monk, and groaned, “Oh God, no.”

  “That’s great,” David Bright said to his bodyguard, wiping tears off his cheeks with both palms. “Oh, that’s blasting great. As if they don’t hate me enough! Now a man under my employ has murdered an allied holy man!”

  “What was your man supposed to do?” Gale panted. “He probably saved our lives. Did you see this?” With his toe he nudged the shoulder of the second special ops man. His faceplate, too, revealed nothing but a sheet of running gore flecked with shards of skull. “That fucker just killed two of my men, so to hell with him.”

  “What a mess,” Henderson murmured. “What a goddamned mess.”

  “Is there anyone here who doubts that this was an act of self defense?” Gale demanded. “Rick?”

  Henderson hung his head, but shook it side to side. “There was nothing else we could do.”

  Cali of Simulacrum Systems held up empty hands like a man being taken prisoner, to show there was no protest from him.

  “God, it hurts, Dom, it hurts,” Ami was sobbing. “We need to go have Dr. Laloo check us out...we need to get out of here.”

  “I’ll take that as agreement,” Gale said, turning from his lover to the hired investigator. “What about you, Stake? Are you going to make a fuss about this?”

  Stake was massaging his ears, just for the need to do something to them. His hearing was muffled as if a bomb had gone off too close by, and an aching pressure persisted. “This doesn’t involve me,” he mumbled.

  “You’re involved. Your friend is paying you to be involved.”

  “Not in this.”

  “What does that mean, that you’re going to go to the news hounds with this? Huh? If that’s what you have in mind, don’t fo
rget to tell them how you almost had your brain boiled by your toilet-faced friend over there.”

  “I didn’t say I was going to talk to anyone about this. I won’t. I realize that he might have been trying to kill us. Might. Or maybe he was just trying to disable us, and what happened inside your boys’ helmets was unforeseen. My unit captured a monastery once, with ten monks in it, and they never tried to use their chants to hurt us.” Stake didn’t mention, though, that he himself had been reaching for a gun when they’d been under attack just now.

  “Devil’s advocate, huh?”

  “I just like to look at things from all sides.”

  “Well, why don’t we all look at the bigger picture here. Yes, what just happened is a major scoop of shit in the punch bowl. If the Jin Haa find out what we did, it could be the final straw to break relations between us and them. There goes our access to sinon gas – right, Mr. Bright? Poor, poor Earth Colonies. True. But poor, poor Jin Haa, too.” Gale was pacing between them now, working himself up. “What these ungrateful asswipes seem to forget, lately, is that they didn’t win the Blue War by themselves, not by a long shot. We won it for them. And we’re what really keeps the Ha Jiin from pouring in on all sides of their tiny-ass country and reclaiming it. If the Earth Colonies ever pulled out of this dimension, the Jin Haa would be screwed. So it’s not just for our benefit as members of the Earth Colonies that we keep this incident from reaching the Jin Haa. It’s for their own good, as well, whether they could appreciate that fact or not!”

  Bright was unsteady on his feet, and the KeeZee reached out to help hold him up. Stake expected Bright to shake him off, resume his tirade, but the businessman seemed persuaded by the colonel’s viewpoint. “Just don’t you be pinning this on me later, Gale, when you need a scapegoat again.”

  “Maybe this will put your mind at ease, Mr. Bright. Put us both on the same level of responsibility.” Gale stooped down and picked up the AE-95 Sturm assault engine that Stake had been straining to reach. “Just to show you I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is.”

  Blue plasma rounds ate only organic matter, and might leave behind a pile of smoking clothing. Green plasma was less particular, and it was two of these projectiles that Colonel Gale fired into the dead Jin Haa monk. Perversely, he fired them right into the spiraling cavern that was all the cleric had for a face. The gel capsules burst, and Gale stepped back as a glowing green matter like liquid fire spread quickly to blanket the cleric’s entire body. It outlined his form, but then that form began to shrink away, the limbs receding, the head dropping from its neck to fall into the lap, to melt and merge with the rest of the diminishing pool. When the last of the flickering green glow was gone, all that remained of the holy man was a charred place like a lingering shadow.

  “God help us,” Henderson said.

  “God help that bastard,” one of the surviving Colonial Forces men spat.

  “Remember,” Gale said to the others. It sounded like a threat, and he turned to them with the bulky assault engine gripped in both fists. “This is for the good of us all. Now let’s get the blast out of this hell hole, before more of these fanatics come along and complicate things more.”

  Before they left, carrying their own two dead men with them, Stake saw Gale smudging the charred area with his heel, trying to make it look less like the outline of a person.

  SEVENTEEN: ENTANGLED PAIRS

  Stake took a call as he piloted his helicar back toward Bluetown, only an hour after he and the reconnaissance party headed by Gale had returned from it. On his wrist comp’s screen he saw the hairless head of Thi’s cousin, Nhot, her cheeks bunched with a smile and eyes thin slits like some jovial female Buddha.

  “Hello, Mr. Stake – sorry if I’m disturbing you.”

  “Hello, Nhot. How did you get my number?”

  “Sorry, but I found it on my computer; I let my cousin use it whenever she likes.”

  “That was very...industrious of you.”

  “Mr. Stake, I’m concerned about my cousin’s welfare. I overheard her call you to say she wanted to come meet you in the Blue City. She just left here on her bike. Mr. Stake, I just don’t think that’s a good idea! Her husband is out of prison right now, and yes, he is timid at the moment because of his arrest, but I don’t think it would take much for him to become angry again. I’m just worried that he may hurt Thi!”

  “That worries me, too. But I think Thi can make her own decisions.”

  “But she’s so stubborn! She isn’t thinking clearly. Who will protect her when you return to your own world?”

  “It would be nice if your father protected her. Since he’s the head of the family, I think Thi’s husband might be cowed if your father put some pressure on him.”

  “My father is getting old now and he’s not in good health, so he can only do so much.”

  “Well, thank God at least Thi has you looking out for her best interest. Like when you called her husband to let him know I’d had lunch with Thi. I guess you were just trying to save her from herself.”

  The blue Buddha looked a little less benevolent now. “What are you saying? I didn’t tell her husband about that! And yes, we are trying to save Thi from herself! You have to understand, Mr. Stake, that even if Thi left her husband – which would be disgraceful in the eyes of her people – she could never be with you.”

  “Your father wouldn’t have me in the family, huh?”

  “Well, he did fight against you not so long ago, of course.”

  “I realize you and your father have the family honor in mind, Nhot, but you know what? I have a cousin who’s a lesbian. That’s not a problem for most of my people, but I know that it would be for most of yours...”

  “Yes.” A tighter smile now. “It would.”

  “Anyway, I’d never tell my cousin that what she was doing was wrong – not that it is. I’d never judge her. I’d never act against my own flesh and blood.”

  “You would if you were Ha Jiin.”

  “No – not even then. Because in the end, this isn’t about being a Ha Jiin or an Earther or anything else. It’s about being a malicious, jealous little troll. And you can tell your father that he doesn’t deserve to have me in his family, just like he doesn’t deserve to have Thi in his family. Now I’ll thank you to never fucking call me again.”

  Nhot opened her mouth, and for the first time Stake expected that she would vent her true venom, no longer hidden behind her apple-cheeked grin, but he banished her image from his screen before it could come. He temporarily blocked the number.

  He seethed. He knew that he hadn’t made things any easier for Thi, just now, but wasn’t her personal situation bad enough already? Thi would never dare to put her uncle’s daughter in her place, apparently. Sometimes Stake took on these dirty jobs for other people, even when they didn’t pay him for it.

  If he heard that the uncle wanted to punish Thi for his impudence, then Stake thought he’d show the former Ha Jiin captain what a Blue War Two would be like.

  ***

  Since the helicar was faster and Stake wanted to minimize the driving Thi would have to do on her hoverbike, he told her to meet him at the periphery of Bluetown on its Ha Jiin side. Approaching it, he saw the massive blooms of steam coming off the creeping edge of new growth, where the fast-multiplying cells bled off their liquid component in the process of calcifying like coral. A coral reef in the form of a city. Not just any city, though, he thought. His city.

  To him, the great white columns of steam looked like the mushroom clouds of an attack on the city, burning up its edge instead of laying it down, as if Bluetown’s growth were a film of consumption played in reverse. Destruction, construction. Was there a difference, here?

  The wind was blowing the steam in another direction, fortunately, and his view of the streets below was clear. He saw a pack of refugee children, as Hin Yengun would call them, chasing after a ball. They paused from their play to shield their eyes and squint up at him. Thinking of Yengun
made Stake wonder if the security captain would see him nearing the border he patrolled, and come to meet him. He hoped not. Nothing against the man, but he wanted to meet one Ha Jiin only.

  He spotted her. She waved up at him. As he started down toward Thi, he magnified her on one of his console screens. She was wearing a sleeveless top and matching pants of a coarse, almost metallic green-brown material, her hat with its floppy brim and a scarf around her lower face to protect her from sun and dust, respectively. He recognized her eyes despite her disguise.

  Stake brought the craft to the ground and climbed out. “Hey,” he said in greeting, still not sure how things would be between them after the last time they had met in this city. “Let’s see if we can get your bike in the back. I don’t want to leave it here.”

  “We leave car, maybe? Ga Noh ride on bike with me?”

  As much as he liked the idea of riding behind her, his front pressed to her back, his hands on her waist, her hair streaming in his face, he said, “I’m afraid some refugees might do something to my car if I leave it unattended.”

  “Mm, yes...I see. Okay.” She swung off the bike, and together they managed to fit it inside the Harbinger. As they did so, not looking at him, Thi asked, “Where you like go with me?”

  “As I was coming in, I saw some new buildings just along the edge, here, that I recognize from Punktown. I think it’s possible the neighborhood I grew up in has started to form. It would be in that direction.” He pointed into the gulfs of the city. “Want to go have a look?”

  “Okay. I like to see.” She smiled faintly. Was she afraid of him? The idea made him sick inside. She was afraid enough of other men, these days – her husband, her uncle – without that. So Stake put his hand on her arm gently to direct her into the car.

  “Come on, then. Let’s see if we can find us Tin Town.”

  ***

  As Stake lowered the helicar into a neighborhood made hallucinatory by its combination of aching familiarity and glaring transfiguration, Stake said to Thi, “Your cousin called me while you were riding out here.”