Tangled Up in Blue

by Joan D. Vinge

  He slowed, turning around to gape at the buildings on either side: He was still in the Maze, but nowhere near the Survey Hall.

  The Survey Hall. He remembered going inside. He remembered that he hadn’t found Gundhalinu there. And then … then …

  Nothing.

  He was standing in the Street. He looked down at his watch. Half an hour. Half an hour gone … lost.…

  Gods, what had happened to him? Why couldn’t he remember—?

  He stared at the blank building faces, the empty-eyed windows staring back at him like his reflection in the shattered mirror on his bedroom wall. The crowd flowed around him as if he was inanimate, a stone in the middle of a stream. Time flowed on like a river, while he stood alone in the middle of the Street and covered his face with his hands.

  14

  By the time Tree climbed the ever-steepening steps to his apartment, the storm-gray sky at the alley’s end was the color of his mood.

  No one had seen Gundhalinu today; even his remote was off-line. It was as if he had disappeared overnight and no one had noticed. But a Hegemonic Police officer didn’t just disappear without a trace, even in Carbuncle. Where the hell could he go?

  And yet the surreal hangover of his day spent searching for Gundhalinu dogged his thoughts, whispering in his brain that everything about this city was an illusion and a deception, even the light of day … that Truth swallowed its own tail here, like the spiraling Street, where everything was always disappearing even as it reappeared.…

  He looked back over his shoulder, half-expecting to find Gundhalinu at the bottom of the steps, staring up at him. The stairwell was empty.

  He reached the landing at last, and faced his apartment door. He needed to start cleaning the place up; needed to clean himself up, get some fresh clothes, at least … needed to face the rest of his life, somehow.…

  A pot of home-cooked tapola from Nisha KraiVieux was waiting, as promised, on his doorstep. His sudden smile died as he saw the clay pot lying on its side, cracked open … as if it had been intentionally kicked over. The rich, mouth-watering smell of tapola filled his senses as he moved closer; he stood gazing down at the stain that soaked his doormat like blood from a wound.

  At last he stepped over the rust-colored ooze; pressed his thumb against the door lock with what felt like the last gram of his strength.

  The door swung open before he even touched the knob. He swore under his breath. A sudden surge of fear/fury/anticipation jolted his body to life; his hand groped for the gun he no longer carried, and tightened into a fist.

  The interior of the apartment looked the same to his eyes, still in semidarkness the way he’d left it. He stayed a moment longer in the doorway, listening, until a series of unidentifiable noises told him that someone was in the common room, and not being quiet about it.

  He kicked the door wide open, went down the hall and into the room without stopping. A man wearing a Police uniform stood frozen at its center, staring back at him.

  “LaisTree, I—”

  “Gundhalinu?” His fists knotted. “You stinking bastard!”

  “Wait, I—”

  He hit Gundhalinu with all his strength; Gundhalinu went down as if he’d been stunshot, and lay moaning on the floor. Tree crossed the room and jerked up the shades.

  He turned around. Gundhalinu lay with his hands drawn up to his stomach, still making inarticulate noises of pain. Tree kicked him. “Get up, you fucking coward.” He hauled Gundhalinu upright, propped him against the table, finally getting a clear look at his face. He saw fresh blood, vivid on Gundhalinu’s chin … and rusty smears of dried blood, the purple stain of bruises that were already hours old.

  The fist he had raised for another blow unclenched. He put an arm around Gundhalinu’s waist and guided him to a chair.

  “Ow … shit.” Tree sat on the table, nursing his throbbing hand. “What the hell happened to you?”

  Gundhalinu looked up at him out of one eye; the other one was swollen shut. “Four men hit me a lot,” he mumbled.

  “Who were they?”

  “Offworlders, looking for the missing tech from the warehouse massacre. The same ones who searched your apartment before. I don’t know their names.” Gundhalinu wiped his mouth with a shaky hand.

  Tree looked around the room, and grimaced. “Did they come here looking for me?”

  “No. For me…” Gundhalinu said hoarsely. “I’m thirsty.”

  Tree went to the sink; he looked down in surprise at the floor. “Did you clean up the kitchen?”

  “Yes,” Gundhalinu muttered, as though he regretted it.

  Tree brought him water, watched him drink. “What were you doing in my apartment, anyway?”

  “Searching it, under orders from the Chief Inspector,” Gundhalinu said, as tonelessly as he’d said everything else.

  Tree’s hands tightened. He saw a spark of panic show in Gundhalinu’s eye … saw the dilated pupil. “Did they drug you?”

  “Yes,” Gundhalinu said again. “So I’d cooperate. But she didn’t believe me when I told her I didn’t know. She said I had to know, because I was ‘a stranger far from home.’ So they kept … hitting me. And—” He swallowed, looking down at his hands.

  “Oh, shit,” Tree breathed, seeing the swollen, unnaturally crooked fingers, two on one hand, two on the other. “I’ll take you to the Med Center.”

  “No.”

  ‘‘You need a—”

  “It’s not safe.” Gundhalinu shook his head.

  Tree hesitated. “The station house?”

  Gundhalinu shook his head again.

  “Where, then?”

  Gundhalinu shut his eyes, as if it was one more question he couldn’t answer.

  “We can’t stay here,” Tree said, trying to think beyond the obvious. “I know a place. Take your jacket off.”

  “Why?” Gundhalinu looked down at his uniform.

  “A uniformed Blue who’s had the crap beaten out of him walking up the Street in broad daylight is going to attract too much attention.”

  “You’re saying a civilian who looks like that … won’t?” Gundhalinu asked.

  Tree laughed. “Happens all the time in the Maze, Sergeant. You should get out of the station more often.”

  He found patches of painkiller in the detritus on the bathroom floor. He applied two to Gundhalinu’s palms before helping him change out of his uniform jacket and into a long, shapeless coat of Staun’s. The rest of the patches he used on the parts of his own body that hurt the most. Gundhalinu’s stunner still lay where it had fallen, in the hall. Tree picked it up and pushed it through his belt, covering it with his jacket.

  He pulled a knitted cap down over Gundhalinu’s head, disguising as much of his battered face as possible, before they went out to the Street and started uptown. Gundhalinu walked stubbornly on his own, doing a good imitation of a staggering drunk. Tree adjusted their course when necessary.

  As they entered the Upper City, Tree stopped at a public access and put in a call to Devony. She gave him the answer he needed; they went on their way again.

  She met them at the entrance to Azure Alley. Gundhalinu showed no sign of recognition at the sight of her, but Tree felt him stiffen when they reached her door. He wondered how she had looked when Gundhalinu was here yesterday, what kind of fantasies someone like that kept hidden under all the sanctimonious Technician propriety.

  “Gods and Goddess…!” Devony murmured. She stared at Gundhalinu, as Tree eased him into a chair with a sigh of relief. “Did you do that to him?”

  “No.” Tree frowned. “I hit him once, that’s all. He was searching my goddamn apartment—!”

  “Twice,” Gundhalinu said. “You kicked me.”

  Tree made a face. “Somebody followed him there; they did the rest. He still has a load of interrogation drugs in his system.”

  “Drugs—?” she said. “He should be at the hospital.”

  “It’s not safe,” Gundhalinu said.


  Tree shook his head. “He didn’t want to go to Blue Alley either. I didn’t know what to do with him, at least until he’s rational again.”

  “I’m perfectly rational,” Gundhalinu said. “Don’t patronize me, LaisTree.”

  Tree rolled his eyes. “Beg your pardon, Sergeant, sir. I seem to have mistaken you for the officer who was recently force-fed illegal drugs and beaten to a pulp, after breaking into my apartment.” His expression sobered as he looked back at Devony again. “Dev, I.… Look, I don’t have any right to involve you in this. If you want us to go, we’ll leave.”

  She pulled her gaze back from Gundhalinu’s bruised face, her hands pressing her own face in empathy. “I’m already involved,” she said faintly. “I know what will help him detox, at least. Come on—”

  She led them down a hall past closed doors, to a bath and dressing room. Beyond it Tree saw another door, its single transparent pane clouded with moisture. “Undress him.” Devony began to take off her clothes.

  “What?” Tree said.

  “No,” Gundhalinu said.

  “The sergeant is on drugs.…” She faced Tree impatiently. “What’s your excuse?” She gestured at the waiting door. “That’s a steambath—a sweathouse, if you want the traditional term. Haven’t you ever been to a public one, here in the city?”

  “No,” Tree said.

  “No,” Gundhalinu said.

  She sighed. Turning back to Gundhalinu, she put her hands on his shoulders and said, “Sergeant, you need to get the drugs out of your system. This will help. Do you understand?” He looked toward the steamroom, and back at her. He nodded slowly. She removed his coat, and began to pull up his shirt.

  “This is bloody humiliating!” Gundhalinu burst out, his pale freckles flushing bright red against the brown of his skin. “Don’t you people have any sense of decency—?” He shrugged her off, swearing as he tried to remove his shirt by himself. When Devony saw his fingers, her face turned white. Tree moved in at her glance, to help him strip.

  With practiced skill, she draped a bathsheet around Gundhalinu, then finished taking off her own clothes. Her sensenet gleamed in the light like the scales of some fantastic sea creature as she turned back, completely unself-conscious about her nakedness; the deep-red jewel of her necklace glowed softly against her skin.

  “You’re beautiful…” Gundhalinu murmured, awed; he turned his back abruptly, cursing himself under his breath.

  Devony stared at him for a long moment, her face unreadable. Then she folded herself into a bathsheet, and led him into the steam-room.

  Tree took off his clothes, and put on a sheet.

  He rubbed his eyes to clear his vision as he entered the steamroom; inhaled and exhaled with a conscious effort until his lungs accepted the startling density of moisture, the strong, rich smell of herbs.

  He sat down beside Devony on the lowest bench. Gundhalinu huddled miserably in the far corner of the chamber, eyes shut, taking slow, deep breaths. All around them was glowing whiteness—the walls, the ceiling, the floor were tiled in white, illuminated by a lamp suspended above them like a fog-shrouded sun. Tiny trembling stalactites of condensation clung to the ceiling of this timeless pocket world; occasionally one fell, in a slow, silent rain.

  Tree pressed his hand to the wall beside him, studying the abstract pattern his fingers made against the moisture-slick tiles, feeling the wall’s soothing warmth seep into his bones. He settled closer to Devony as his aching, exhausted body began to surrender to the steam’s embrace.

  She smiled at him, haloed by an aura of glowing mist. Gundhalinu stared at them from across the room as she began to gently massage Tree’s shoulders, and he kissed her smiling lips.

  At last she drew away and turned toward Gundhalinu. “Sergeant, the men who drugged you—who were they?” she asked. “What did they look like?” Tree glanced over at her in surprise.

  Gundhalinu blinked as if he had been startled awake out of a dream. “One … one was Samathan, I think,” he murmured. “The others … anybody’s guess. They were just muscle, anyway. The Ondinean woman gave the orders. She drugged me. She asked all the questions.”

  Devony stiffened as Gundhalinu mentioned the woman. “You know her?” Tree asked, with sudden hope.

  Devony shook her head. Her hand rose to touch the jewel that glistened like blood at her throat. “Just … how could she give the orders, and then watch them … do that to someone?” Something flickered in the depths of her eyes as she glanced at Tree—something he had seen too often, in too many eyes, since he’d become a Blue. He looked away uneasily.

  “I thought you Tiamatans believed in complete equality of the sexes,” Gundhalinu said; Tree wondered whether the irony was intentional. Devony looked back at him without answering.

  “What did they want from you, Gundhalinu?” Tree asked. “What did they ask you?”

  Gundhalinu shook his head, glancing away. “Where it was … what I knew about it.”

  “‘It’ what—?”

  “I don’t know!” Gundhalinu said furiously; echoes assaulted them from every side. “If I knew what it was, don’t you think I would have told her—?” His swollen hands rose in a spasm of futility; he let them fall into his lap again. “I think … I think that it has to do with that missing piece of evidence from the warehouse.”

  “What do you mean?” Tree leaned forward. “Why is that so important to you?”

  “The Chief Inspector said…” Gundhalinu grimaced, fighting the drug-induced compulsion to tell them everything he knew, and losing, “… bloody hell! … the Chief Inspector said there was … stolen experimental tech from Kharemough involved … in a secret trade-off between the Source and Arienrhod, the night you raided the warehouse.” He looked down. “It’s missing.”

  “The stolen tech?”

  “Yes!” Gundhalinu glared up at him. “Damn it, LaisTree! I’m not allowed to tell you this. Stop asking me.”

  “Not a chance,” Tree said. “Why doesn’t the Chief Inspector want me to know about it? Why doesn’t the whole force know—?”

  “It’s a matter of Hegemonic security. You can’t be trusted. The vigilantes must have been planning to steal the technology and sell it; that’s why you were all there that night. The whole lot of you were corrupt—”

  “That’s a lie!” Tree said; his anger echoed off the walls. Devony put a hand on his arm as he rose to his feet. He sat down again, taking a deep breath. “We were just trying to bring some justice to this cesspit of a city—”

  “Apparently you think ‘justice’ means ‘breaking the law,’” Gundhalinu said. “The Chief Inspector believes you knew about the stolen tech, LaisTree. The Ondinean does too. How can you be so sure it’s not true? You don’t even remember what happened.”

  Tree looked away into the surreal whiteness. Fresh steam, pungent with herbs, suffused the dripping silence.

  “All the officers on that vigilante raid were Newhavenese. That’s why the Chief Inspector doesn’t want the whole force to know. He doesn’t know who he can trust.”

  Tree looked back at him, his jaw tightening. “Oh, yeah, I guess we all look alike, to you.”

  “No,” Gundhalinu said. “You all just act alike.”

  “At least we’re not all dead from the neck down.”

  “I’m sure it’s easier, being dead from the neck up.”

  Tree made a rude noise. “I’ll tell Commander LiouxSked you think so, Tech.” He glanced at Devony as she put a hand on his arm again. “What kind of woman did he want to see, when he came here yesterday and questioned you?” He gestured at Gundhalinu. “Tell us your fantasies, Sergeant … what’s your dream woman like? What do you imagine her doing to you…?” He watched the smugness disappear from Gundhalinu’s face, as the compulsion to answer took him by the throat.

  “You don’t have to answer that,” Devony interrupted, before Gundhalinu could open his mouth. “You don’t have to.” She turned back to Tree, frowning. “Tell him.”

/>   Tree looked at her, at Gundhalinu; at his feet. “Don’t answer. I don’t want to know.”

  “Sergeant Gundhalinu,” Devony said, “do you actually believe the things you said to Officer LaisTree, about Newhaveners?”

  Gundhalinu looked surprised. “No.…” He shook his head. “I was just angry.”

  “Then I think you’re making progress.” She looked back at Tree. “Now leave him alone,” she murmured, “or leave the room.”

  “Why the hell should I?” he said sullenly. “They wouldn’t leave me alone, those fucking Techs. Jashari wouldn’t. Aranne wouldn’t—” He pointed at Gundhalinu. “He won’t! They’ll never leave me alone, until—until I’m dead … as dead as my brother.…”

  “Nyx, no!” Staun’s cry of warning; an arm pushing him back out of Death’s sight-line—

  Tree rose slowly to his feet, caught in the crosshairs of eternity, as someone fired—vaporizing the wall of lies, releasing an unstoppable flood of memories.

  “Staun!” he cried, deafblind in the echoing whiteness. “Oh, gods … no.…”

  “You remember,” Devony whispered, not even a question.

  “They shot him! They shot my brother—” He shut his eyes, pressing his hands to his bandaged side, holding himself together. “But he saved me … he saved me.…” Water dripped from the ceiling, ran down his face like tears. “He saved me.…”

  “You saw them?” Gundhalinu demanded, getting up. “Who were they?”

  “Blues … uniformed Blues,” he said brokenly, as image after image filled his head like a holy vision … a Kharemoughi face, a Police uniform, a gun … Death … lies … betrayal—“They weren’t with us. They were already there. But somehow, they didn’t trigger the hidden security. We did.…” He shook his head, trapped inside the coils of disjointed time. “And after the lasers hit us, they came into the tunnel, to make sure there were … no survivors. Cabrelle.…”

  “Cabrelle?” Gundhalinu crossed the room toward him. “He was killed in the massacre. He was part of a covert team sent to retrieve the stolen tech—the mission the vigilantes interfered with. That was why everyone died.” He shook his head. “Cabrelle wasn’t trying to kill you. Wasn’t he your unit C.O., for gods’ sakes?”