She turned to Fatu. “Would you care to explain what that little interchange was all about?”
Fatu's face went blank.
“Toma?”
He, too, remained silent. They weren't going to make it easy.
“My bug is in my shoulder, Pua's is in one of her hands,” she said. “Can you remove them for us, Doctor?”
Toma shifted his look to Pua. “Let me see.” Pua put both her hands behind her back.
“You don't need to examine her now,” Angie said. “I'll tell you what you want to know. Her hands are full regenerations. Mine are the originals. The switch was done by direct transplant; there was no genetic duplication involved.”
She paused. “Now. Tell me, Doctor Haili. Why does that verification bring you such well-disguised relief?” She touched Pua's knee and pointed. “See that, Pua? That's how you do innocent confusion.”
The look slid very abruptly from Toma's face.
“What's this about, Warden?” Fatu asked.
She turned to him. “What's inside the burial cave?”
Fatu didn't even blink. Angie wished she had a way to read him better, but Fatu's inner feelings remained as much a mystery as the rest of Pukui. Toma, while his training made him highly dangerous, was at least to some degree predictable.
“As you saw,” Fatu said in that gentle voice that was so at odds with his enormous body. “Only the dead, and a ransacked storage cache.” His dark skin glistened. He smelled faintly of candleberry.
“There's a supply cache in the burial cave?” Pua said.
“What happened in there?” Angie asked.
“Not everyone who searched Pukui in recent months used as much restraint as you did,” Fatu said. “I offered to disinter the bones for Mr. Yoshida...”
Angie frowned—Nori was here, too?
“...but he insisted his own people do it. They tore the place apart every time they went in.”
“No wonder so many things are going wrong at Pukui,” Pua said. “The ghosts are probably—”
“There's nothing to fear from the ghosts,” Fatu said. “I've cleaned and rehidden the bones. The spirits of the dead are at rest. Pukui's problems are being caused by the living.” He returned his look to Angie. “Inspector Yoshida is the Earth rep in charge of the TC records search. I assume from your expression that you know him.”
Angie glanced at Pua, who was still wide-eyed with concern. “I do now,” she said. Nori, you son of a bitch. I will repay you for this if it takes the rest of my life. A gust of wind blew her hair into her eyes. She pushed it back and returned her attention to Fatu.
“You hold a perpetual lease on about twenty percent of Pukui's land and waters. Is that right?” she asked.
“Aye,” he replied.
“Do you consider this to be your permanent home?”
“Of course, but what—”
“Zena and the other Pukui old-timers hold Pukui leases, also.”
He nodded. “Zena holds an original perpetual lease, and the others have long-term use rights granted by Zed and Lehua. This is all in the public records, Warden.”
“You hold title to a rather sizable piece of Pukui, too, don't you, Inspector?” Angie said. That was something not in the public records.
“What?” Pua cried.
Toma sat up. “How did you—”
“I got it the night of the methane fire,” Angie said. “The intruder screens were back on-line for some time before I activated the audio alert signal, so I knew someone was out there. I had time to set up the farm comm to accept a data-burst transfer, which I activated as soon as I had access to your flitter's comm. It was almost three minutes before you got up to the house and sent a precautionary wipe order.”
Toma went as pale as she had seen him yet. He knew exactly how much a trained troubleshooter could bleed from an open computer bank in three minutes. And his flitter comm had been tied into his private home banks. Her gamble had paid off well.
“What do you mean, he owns part of Pukui?” Pua demanded.
“Five sections of barrier reef, two growing pens, and a vertical slice of Second Island, plus pre-approved options on the rest should anything happen to you,” Angie said. “I presume that's to strengthen some future Company claim—”
Pua jumped up. “You are trying to steal—”
Fatu started up as well, but Angie waved him back. She grabbed Pua's hand. “Or, it's an attempt to protect Pukui from the Company in case something happens to you. Sit down. Please.” She pulled Pua down, closer beside her than before. Pua's hand trembled under hers, but she didn't pull it away.
“Either way, Inspector,” Angie said, “it could be argued that you have a strong motive for not wanting Pua to inherit.”
“Your implication is wrong,” Toma said. “I did not try to kill Pua. Not with loli fever, and not with that methane fire.”
“But you did fly low over number twelve shortly before the alarm went off,” Angie said.
“I make it a point to overfly the pens every time I come out here,” he said. “If your screens were up that night, you know damn well I didn't do anything but fly over them.”
“Is that true?” Pua asked. Angie nodded.
“Then why are you...”
“Because it's important that you know these things, Pua,” Angie said. “If there's ever a public investigation of your parents’ deaths, Uncle Toma here is going to be the prime suspect. He had motive; he had opportunity. He's been in a position to cover up the evidence ever since it happened.”
“But you said before, you didn't think he did it,” Pua said.
“I don't,” Angie said. “But the event was definitely set up so that he would be the one blamed if the murders were ever made public. I can clear him, though.”
Pua sat up very straight. “How?”
“By disproving his motive.”
“But he—”
“Let the warden talk,” Fatu said. Angie nodded her thanks, although she was certain he hadn't meant it as a courtesy to her. He was trying to shut Pua up.
“What's this about, Warden?” Toma asked.
“Permanence,” she said. “Permanence and Pukui.”
She glanced around at the neatly kept compound, at the beautiful house and grounds, at the clean, orderly docks and farm buildings. “This farm was designed, and continues to be maintained, as a permanent human settlement. A long-term home as well as a working farm.”
“Of course, but—”
“That's not true of most of the settlements on Lesaat. It's most certainly not true of Landing. That is as cold and impersonal, and temporary-feeling, a Company town as I've ever seen.”
“I can assure you, Warden,” Toma said dryly, “World Life considers all of its holdings here permanent.”
“Politically, economically, I'm sure that's true,” Angie said. “But I'm talking about emotionally, aesthetically. Landing is like one of those places anthropologists used to talk about in studies of displaced communities. They claimed that people who didn't think of a place as permanent usually didn't do much to make it so.”
Pua pulled her hand out from under Angie's and laid it in her lap.
“It confused me at first, too, Pua,” Angie said. “But after Fatu told me about the inheritance laws and all the restrictions on long-term leases, it started to make sense. With the exception of Pukui, and maybe even that if we can't resolve things here soon, all productive land and waters on Lesaat will be under Company control by the time the last of the current perpetual leaseholders dies.”
She sat back, leaning on her arms. The grass was warm under her hands. A cool breeze fanned her hair. “If you know your land can easily be taken away from you when your three-year lease is up, there isn't much incentive for investing money and energy on aesthetics. Make what profit you can and take your pleasures on the back streets of Landing. That seems to be the prevailing philosophy on Lesaat.”
“Some people send money home to their families on Earth,�
�� Pua said.
“Aye,” Angie said. “Even after the debts that forced them into coming here are paid, many of them keep sending their money back. It's because, even though they know they can never return, they continue to think of Earth as their home. The alterations to their hands make them into freaks as far as Earthers are concerned, and the Company would never consent to change them back. Yet they have no real hope for a future here. It's a difficult situation. It explains, at least in part, why this is such a violent place.”
“What are you getting at, Warden?” Toma asked. “We hardly need a lesson in the social problems of Lesaat.”
Angie met his look again. “According to the information in your private files, that sense of impermanence does not hold planetwide. Linina's Reef, which you own in its entirety, and Fatu's cousin's place at Maui Surf, and others—all of them operating under long-term or perpetual leases—continue to be well maintained and improved. Kobayashi's reef north of here appears to be extraordinarily well kept.”
Toma's frown deepened.
“Almost every cent of profit made on those farms is being reinvested,” Angie went on, “if not in the same farm, then in one of the others. You've developed an interesting pattern of reciprocal gift-giving here, Inspector.
“You've also established your own set of customs and beliefs. Kobe, for example, still abides by the kapu against harming Pukui reef dwellers, even though he no longer lives here, and Katie, with her limited connection to reality, never fails to serve food to a guest. Pua reintroduces herself to her mother's house whenever she comes there directly from the sea.”
That small ritual had surprised Angie as much as anything the girl had done or said since their arrival on Lesaat. It spoke so very clearly about her strong belief in the consciousness of this place. Pua had to have learned that from her parents and Fatu and the others among whom she was raised.
“The Pukui household itself is a museum of manufactured traditions that you all admit to very openly,” Angie went on. “Fatu, you've tattooed your body in a very ancient tradition for the sake of your grandchildren. That's emotional and psychological permanence. Even your burial customs speak of it. In fact, they speak most eloquently of all. That cave is much more than a graveyard. It's a shrine, a place for future generations to pay their respects to their ancestors.”
She glanced around at them all. “Yet, just like everyone else on Lesaat, you know that your children and your grandchildren will never truly benefit from all this. The customs, the traditions—they're nothing without the land. Not here, where they're all made up to start with.”
“Some of us still have personal pride,” Fatu said. “We choose not to live in squalor.”
She shook her head. “If that's all it is, why is there all this fuss over the total-conversion enzyme? If all you want to do is live here on your well-maintained reef until you die of old age, then why withhold the processing records? No, Crawley was right. If I'm going to figure this out, I need to find Sa le Fe'e.”
Fatu caught his breath, just as he had the first time she had said the phrase to him. Pua sat up straight. Angie laughed softly. “You led me away from that subject very expertly on the sub that afternoon, Fatu. You spoke about Le Fe'e with just enough reluctance that I entirely missed the change in names.
“I only caught it this morning when I was glancing through one of Lehua's reference books on Pacific Island mythology. A reference suggestion took me back to your Samoan language tapes. Le Fe'e is the name of a Samoan demigod just as you said. But Sa la Fe'e is the name given to his domain. Its meaning is somewhat ambiguous, but it can be translated as ‘the forbidden place of the octopus,’ or—and this is what I found most intriguing—'the clan of the octopus.'”
If she hadn't been looking right at him, she would never have seen Fatu's start of understanding, his involuntary admission that what she was about to suggest was true.
“You're hiding a second generation out here, aren't you?” she said. “A generation of legal heirs, just like Pua. Zed refused to turn the TC enzyme over to the Company because he intended, you all intended, to use it as a bargaining tool—or blackmail, if that became necessary—for the safe acceptance of your genetically altered offspring.”
Both Fatu and Toma remained absolutely still. A secret held so completely for more than thirteen years was a hard thing to give up.
“Since Pua hasn't been anywhere farther than she can swim, it still reassured you she hadn't given anything away through the locator,” Angie said, “I presume you're hiding these children, or something that leads to them, right here at Pukui.”
“I could swim all the way to Landing if I wanted,” Pua said.
“Pualei,” Fatu said softly.
“Well, I could.”
“You've never stopped following me long enough to swim all the way to Landing,” Angie said. “Or to any other distant place, for that matter. And you say you don't know where the TC enzyme records are, so it can't be that you're protecting. Also, Toma was obviously tremendously relieved to verify that the Company had not found a way to genetically reproduce you or parts of you. I assume that means someone here has?”
“Doctor Waight tried hard enough.”
“Pua, be quiet,” Fatu said. This time it was an order.
“Say whatever you want to say, Pua,” Angie said without turning away from him. He hissed softly, and the sound sent a chill up her back. If there were, in fact, mythical spirits roaming Pukui, she had no doubt that this man could call them up.
“I told you, Fatu,” Pua said. “She always knows when people are lying.”
Fatu glared at her.
“Why don't we just show her—?”
Fatu slammed his palm onto the ground. Pua jumped and pulled back. Serious anger from Fatu was obviously not something she encountered often. “That was stupid, Pualei,” he said.
Toma spoke at last. “You're a credit to your profession, Warden.” His voice revealed a much colder fury than Fatu's. “Your tough talk couldn't budge us, so you manipulated the child instead.”
“This child,” Angie said, “has seen her parents die, and then lived for six months believing that you, her good friend, her uncle, had murdered them. She survived being torn away from her home and everything she'd ever known, and being imprisoned in a place so alien it makes your fireloving rock eels look like teddy bears!”
Her adrenaline was rising. She knew she was losing control, and for just an instant she didn't care.
“This child,” she said, maintaining just enough calm to keep from raising her voice above the level of privacy, “has had her bloody hands cut off and then been forced to watch them grow back on somebody else! Spit in a bucket, Inspector! You wouldn't know tough if you sat in it!”
And then she knew she had to care, so she forced herself to shut up. There was a movement to her left, and she glanced that way. The girl was staring at her again with that damned look of awe, except this time her mouth was twitching in an attempt to suppress a smile.
“Your passion is very moving,” Toma said.
Spit!
“Toma,” she said. “You know I can't walk away from this. You, especially, know I won't walk away.”
“A good troubleshooter never leaves a job unfinished,” he quoted. It was like a slap across the face.
“That's right, Inspector, and despite my personal feelings about the way this entire situation has been handled, I will not leave this job until it is finished.”
“Why didn't you just truth-drug us in the beginning like Crawley wanted you to?” Fatu asked. “Why go through this charade of acting sympathetic to Pukui's situation?”
She returned his glare. “Because I don't approve of altering people's bodies, chemically or otherwise, against their will,” she said. She lifted a hand to stop him from interrupting, and he stared at her long, thin fingers. “I have used the drugs in the past, Fatu—and I'll use them here if I have to. But I am trying to extend to you the courtesy of not doing so.
”
“Courtesy?” Toma said. “You set this whole thing up so you'd know exactly what questions to ask when you do use the damn drugs.”
“What difference does it make, anyway?” Pua asked. “You control all the off-planet transportation and communications, Uncle Toma, so there's no way she can sneak back through the wormhole to tell Mr. Crawley. Besides—” She turned her look on Angie and frowned. “She knows what I'll do to her if she tries.”
“Well, you'd better get ready to do it, girl,” Fatu said, “because Crawley will be here at Pukui tomorrow morning. He's scheduled to be on the downside shuttle three hours from now.”
“What?” Pua exclaimed.
Angie leaned forward. “Crawley's here?”
“He and a full U.N. inspection team,” Toma said. “The same Company-controlled team he's used before to reclaim leases from original settlers. You haven't been following his orders, Warden. He's come out to oversee the investigation himself.”
“Crawley couldn't investigate himself out of an open petri dish,” Angie muttered. Which meant he'd be bringing more than a hand-picked inspection team with him. Her fingers twitched at the thought of meeting Nori face-to-face again.
“It seems we have a bit of a situation, here, Warden,” Toma said. It was a troubleshooter's challenge. Watch your backfires now, Angie girl, she thought.
“Just how much does Crawley know, or suspect, about your kids?” Angie asked. She might as well get this part over with, too. There was no way it was going to be easy, but it had to be done. Pua needed to know it all.
Pua was on her feet in an instant. “What do you mean? How can Crawley know about my babies?”
Before Angie could answer, Pua flung herself at her. She grabbed Angie's shoulders, and her long fingers snaked around her neck. Angie fell back, trying to make use of Pua's momentum to loosen her grip, but the girl's hold never faltered. The tips of her thumbs pricked Angie's gills.
Angie froze.
“Did you tell him?” Pua asked in that cold, cold voice that did not belong to a child. Her face was just inches from Angie's. Her breath smelled of the sea, and her eyes promised a painful, certain death. “Did you tell him, Earthlady?”
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