Tangled Up in Blue

by Joan D. Vinge

“And now you must go.”

  Devony bowed deeply, and backed like a sleep-walker to the door. She took her eyes off Arienrhod only as she reached it, to let herself out, and let in whoever was waiting there.

  As she left the room, Devony found an offworlder, a woman, standing outside—an Ondinean, from her night-black skin and indigo eyes. The woman wore a utilitarian coverall and heavy boots, and her shining hair was pinned haphazardly under a cap like a common dockhand’s, although Devony doubted that small, fragile-looking body had ever done hard labor.

  She met the blue-violet eyes; the other woman’s piercing stare drove into her brain like a spike. She moved on past, the mask of her smile disguising her sudden need to be far away when Arienrhod’s agate gaze met the Ondinean’s.

  She had shaken off her unease by the time she found the Winter courtier who was to escort her out of the palace. But the Ondinean’s face haunted her thoughts until, with a subvocalized command, she added the woman’s image to her sensenet’s permanent file. She didn’t know when or why she would summon up that presence again; only knowing, somehow, that she would.

  6

  Tree opened his eyes, and his nightmare changed again: The dream of endless darkness filled with blood and screaming, where he huddled beside his brother’s lifeless, gutted corpse, became the dream where he opened his eyes on a world of pain, unable to beg or weep or even remember how he had come to be a torture victim, with tubes violating every orifice of his helpless, suffering body.…

  “Hey, Tree,” a familiar voice said. “Welcome back. You ready to stick around a while, this time?”

  “Staun—?” he whispered, as the blur of blue-gray above him slowly congealed into figures … into two of the men from his unit, wearing their duty uniforms. The calm, deeply lined face of Sergeant Haig KraiVieux and the pinched features of Ailm TessraBarde smiled at him uncertainly; they shook their heads.

  He took a deep breath of disbelief, and realized that he could breathe on his own. He said, “Shit.…” faintly, and discovered that he could speak. All a nightmare … all of it…? He tried to sit up; floundered, as his strengthless body lost its struggle with restraining straps.

  “Easy … easy, boy.…” KraiVieux laid a large, weathered hand on his forehead, gentling him, although Tree couldn’t feel the touch through the layers of bandage. “Don’t pull your sutures, or they’ll make us leave.… You’re gonna be here for a while yet.” TessraBarde passed over a cup of water, and KraiVieux helped him drink.

  “Gods … hospital…?”Tree gazed up at the ancient ceiling with its webwork of paint cracks, and down at the foot of the unfamiliar bed. He looked over at the two men again as KraiVieux helped him lie back on the pillow.

  “Yeah,” TessraBarde said, as if it was perfectly logical. “For about a week now.”

  “Why?”

  He saw them look at each other. KraiVieux asked, “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “Dancing.…” Tree turned his head from side to side; the motion felt surreal. He gazed in astonishment at what appeared to be his own arms. One was coated with a shining haze of bandage from fingertips to shoulder; the other one still sprouted tubes and sensors hooked up to the life-support system at his bedside. The faces of the two men strobed as he looked back at them, and reality began to slide in his grasp.…

  KraiVieux caught his flailing hand. Tree hung on to the solid strength of the other man’s grip until the room stabilized again. “Sarge,” he whispered, “where’s Staun?”

  “He’s d—” TessraBarde began.

  “He’s on duty right now,” KraiVieux said. “He’ll be by later.”

  Tree nodded, or thought he did. “What … happened … to me?”

  “Long story.” KraiVieux shook his head. “We better save it for another time; right now, you need your rest. We’re gonna go tell the others we’ve got you back.”

  “Yeah,” TessraBarde grinned. “You take it easy. Don’t be giving the meds any of your lip.” His grin fell away as someone dressed in Judiciate black entered the room. “Special Investigator Jashari, sir!”

  The two Police officers stiffened to attention. Jashari barely acknowledged their salutes before he gestured them out of the room. TessraBarde headed for the door.

  “Sir—” KraiVieux hesitated, murmuring something that Tree couldn’t hear.

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” Jashari said.

  “Yes, sir.” KraiVieux’s lips thinned. He glanced toward Tree a last time, lifting his hand in farewell, before he followed TessraBarde out.

  The living shadow in a Judiciate uniform replaced the field of blue in Tree’s vision. “Do you know who I am, Patrolman?”

  “Later.…” Tree mumbled, still answering the others’ goodbyes, as the slick slope of consciousness tilted further out from under him.

  “No.” Jashari’s hand moved to the touchboard of the monitor at his bedside. “We’ve waited too long already.”

  Tree gasped as liquid fire seared his veins, shocking every synapse of his neural net to screaming life, jolting his consciousness fully awake. He looked up into the eyes of the shadow, seeing Jashari clearly for the first time. “Hurts—” he whispered.

  “I regret that. But I need you alert.” Jashari gestured at the monitor. “It will stop hurting as soon as you’ve told me about the raid.”

  “Raid…?”

  “The raid the Nameday Vigilantes made on a warehouse in Sienna Alley seven nights ago, where everyone died but you.”

  “What…?” Tree moved his head from side to side. “Last raid was … months ago. Nobody gets hurt—”

  Jashari laughed, incredulous. “‘Nobody gets hurt’—? Your partner is dead, LaisTree! Blown to pieces, along with a dozen other men. You’re the only one who survived.”

  “What’re you … talking about?” Tree’s body spasmed; he bit his tongue. “My partner’s on duty! Ask KraiVieux!”

  “KraiVieux didn’t believe you were strong enough yet to face the truth.” Jashari held a holographic imager in front of Tree’s eyes. “This is the truth. Take a look at it.”

  Tree stared at the incomprehensible smear in shades of red, as it slowly began to resolve into recognizable forms. Forming an image of … of.…

  Tree turned his face away, crushing his eyes shut; tears spilled down his cheeks. “You fucking liar!”

  “Look at where you are! They had to restart your own heart three times!”

  “No.…” he moaned. “Staun!”

  “What happened to the artifact?”

  “Staun! Staun—!”

  “What in Fah’s name is going on in here?” A blur in medical pastels swept past Jashari to the bedside monitor. “Did you reset these feeds?” a woman’s angry voice demanded. Her night-black hands made a swift pass over the touchboard; the sensation that molten lead was flowing through Tree’s veins began to fade. The doctor turned back, glaring at Jashari. “Who the hell are you, and what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Special Investigator Jashari, authorized by the Judiciate and the Police to question this man about the warehouse massacre,” Jashari snapped.

  “In other words,” she said, “you are not a medical practitioner.” Arms folded, she blocked his access to the bed.

  “He has vital information—” Jashari’s tone was murderous; he took a step toward her.

  “Which you will never get, Special Investigator, if you kill him.” The woman stood her ground, unfazed by the implied threat as he moved in on her. At her nod, two more figures entered the room, wearing Police blue.

  “Staun…?” Tree mumbled.

  “I’m reporting this,” the doctor said. Her unflinching indigo gaze never left Jashari’s face. “If you touch so much as a bedpan in this hospital room again, I’ll have you banned from the complex.” She indicated the two uniformed officers waiting behind him. “Sergeant KraiVieux and Officer TessraBarde will escort you out, Special Investigator—”

  Jashari looked toward t
hem, his mouth like a laser cut. He looked back at Tree.

  Tree watched as the features of his face, the shadow-black of his uniform, the midnight blackness of the doctor’s face all began to blur and run and flow together … until the shadows bled away from his bedside and were absorbed into the waiting field of blue.

  “Staun … don’t go—” He struggled against the restraints and his own dissolving consciousness as the men in blue began to disappear. “Staun!”

  But it was only the doctor who returned, to lay a reassuring hand on his arm. Her fingers seemed to pass through his flesh, as if one or the other of them had become the insubstantial figment of a dream.

  “Don’t go away yet, Officer LaisTree,” the doctor murmured.

  But it was too late.

  * * *

  “Sir.” Gundhalinu entered the office of Chief Inspector Aranne and came to attention, managing a salute that was considerably more regulation than the last one he had made, on the night of the massacre. “Reporting as requested.”

  He had been inside the Chief Inspector’s office exactly once before, shortly after his arrival on Tiamat. He had been surprised then by how small and cramped it was, barely large enough to hold two native-made chairs and a potted plant, plus Aranne’s desk/terminal, which he would have considered an antique, back home. But he was not back home anymore … and after a year in the living tesseract that was Carbuncle, he found himself surprised by how spacious Aranne’s office seemed to have become.

  Aranne looked up from his monitor screen and motioned Gundhalinu toward a seat. “Welcome back, Gundhalinu. How are you feeling?”

  “Fine, sir.” Gundhalinu sat down gingerly in the hard wooden chair, hiding his grimace at the discomfort every wrenched muscle in his body still caused him each time he moved. Compared to Jerusha PalaThion and the one other survivor of the massacre, he had no excuse to complain. “It’s good to be back.”

  Aranne nodded, but his attention was on his monitor again. He stared at it for a long moment. “Gods, all those senseless deaths.… Such a waste. Vigilantism was bound to spill over into killing. That’s what comes of having disdain for the law.”

  “Yes, sir.” Gundhalinu shifted uncomfortably. “Chief Inspector, about the vigilante massacre—why wasn’t I assigned to the investigation?”

  Aranne glanced up at him. “Sergeant, I already have every man I can spare working on the case.” He gestured at the screen. “The Judiciate has even sent us a special investigator, from Internal Affairs.” His voice soured ever so slightly.

  “Yes, I know, sir. But Inspector PalaThion and I were first on the scene. It’s our call—”

  Aranne frowned briefly. “You and PalaThion deserve the credit you’ll be given for discovering the crime while it was still in progress. You probably saved the life of the only witness—I’ve put each of you in for a commendation. But the Inspector isn’t even out of the hospital yet; she’ll be on medical leave for weeks. And you don’t have the street experience or the background for a homicide investigation.” He shook his head. “You’ll do more good by continuing in your present duties.”

  “Until the Inspector returns, I have no duties to speak of,” Gundhalinu said stubbornly. “I’m university certified in biopsychiatric pathologies, and in data interpolation. I was top of my class at the academy. I am an excellent shot. And with all due respect, sir, how the hell will I ever get any street experience, if I spend my entire career behind a desk?” He leaned forward in his seat, his hands tightening on the chair arms. “I have a personal stake in this—”

  “Enough!” Aranne’s gesture cut him short. “That is exactly why I don’t want you involved, Gundhalinu.” His frown deepened. “You’re too close to the situation to keep a clear head.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.” Gundhalinu looked down, shamefaced, forced to admit even to himself that Aranne had a point. “I’ll get back to my … duties.” He pushed his fists deep into the pockets of his freshly cleaned uniform jacket.

  Aranne’s expression eased. “Gundhalinu-eshkrad, you come from one of the most respected Technician families on Kharemough. You are clearly intelligent, capable, and ambitious—you are virtually assured of a successful career in the Hegemonic Police. But you’re young. Learn patience. Only time can teach you the rest.…” A pained grimace took the place of his smile as he leaned back in his seat. “Now, about the reason I called you in—”

  Gundhalinu froze, midway through the motion of getting up, and sat back down.

  “Special Investigator Jashari has your report. But he wanted to know if you have anything further to add, any details you might have remembered since that night.”

  Gundhalinu forced his clenched fists open; his fingers touched something small and cold, deep in his right-hand pocket. He pulled it out, pulling loose a raveled thread of memory as he saw what lay in his palm. “Survey…” he murmured.

  Aranne leaned forward. “What?”

  Gundhalinu held out the silver pendant.

  Aranne took it from his hand, turning it over and over. “Where did you get this?”

  “At the crime scene, sir. It fell from one of the bodies they were carrying away. I should have given it to someone then. I wasn’t thinking very clearly.…” He rubbed his face. “It looks like a Survey symbol.” Survey was an old and respected social organization, to which most Kharemoughis of Technician rank belonged. It had members from all of the Eight Worlds except this one. Back on Kharemough, he had found its meeting halls to be stodgy and somewhat dull places; but here on Tiamat, far from everything he knew, he actually enjoyed the familiar surroundings of the local Hall. The star-and-compass pendant matched the symbol over the entrance to every Survey Hall, although he had never seen it worn as an ornament before. “I suppose he must have been a member.”

  “Yes … yes, I suppose so.” Aranne laid the pendant on his desk; his expression turned distant and unreadable. “Do you know which body it fell from?”

  “The victim was wearing a Police uniform. I think he was a captain.… It must have been Cabrelle.”

  “All right. I’ll see that it’s put with his personal effects.” Aranne nodded. “Thank you, Sergeant. That’s all.”

  Gundhalinu got to his feet, hesitated, as a half-formed thought brushed the back of his eyes like moth wings.

  “Was there something else?” Aranne asked.

  He shook his head, feeling suddenly, unspeakably, tired. “No, sir,” he said. “Nothing else.” He saluted, and left the office.

  7

  “What the hell do you mean, it’s over!” Tree demanded. “They didn’t wait? I needed … needed to see him, before … Sarge, you know I had to be there! He’s got nobody else to say the Words for him! For gods’ sakes—!” He pushed to his feet; fell back into the padded convolutions of the seat, as pain split his skull like an ax. “He was my—”

  “I know, boy.…” KraiVieux glanced away at the others, out at the view of ocean and sky that lay beyond the sunroom’s window-wall. The lines in his face deepened as he turned back. “I know it’s hard. But tradition says the dead should be cremated within a day. Commander LiouxSked insisted—”

  “LiouxSked?” Tree said fiercely. “Since when did he give a rat’s ass about tradition! If you skinned him, you’d find a Kharemoughi—” He broke off, as another spasm stopped his voice in his throat.

  KraiVieux’s hands rested on his shoulders, supporting him, gently but firmly, until it passed. “I know the Commander’s more Tech than the Techs, most times … And I do know what Staun meant to you. But the Chief Inspector said it was LiouxSked’s order.”

  Tree bit his lips, shaking his head.

  “We brought you the reliquary, Tree.” Ness TierPardée came forward hesitantly, holding out the small inlaid box.

  Tree took it, nodding his gratitude; his hands trembled so much that he was afraid he might drop it.

  “There’ll be a memorial service for the force,” KraiVieux murmured. “I know, I know it’s
not the same—” he paused, as Tree looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes, “—but it’s something, a place to speak the Words.…”

  Tree nodded again, his throat working. “You got … any new leads, on the killers?”

  “Nobody’s cracked yet,” KraiVieux said, frowning. “The Source must have sewed shut every mouth in town. But the entire force is busting ass on this; you know we’ll get them.”

  “You still don’t remember anything?” TessraBarde asked.

  Tree shook his head, looking away. A phantom haunted the room, always just beyond the limits of his sight; as if his brother would be standing there, if he could only turn his head quickly enough—

  “Listen, Nisha said you should come stay with us for awhile, when you get out of the hospital,” KraiVieux said. “She needs somebody to fuss over, since our boy went back home to school.”

  Tree smiled; it bled into a grimace. “Thanks … tell her thanks. But I think my next stop’s going to be a cell down at the lockup. That’s what Jashari says, anyway, every time he comes to interrogate me.” His hands tightened over the reliquary until his fingers turned white. Pain forced him to let it go, and he set the box on the low table beside his seat.

  “That bastard…” TessraBarde muttered. The others exchanged glances, and looked down at the floor.

  “It’ll work out,” KraiVieux said at last. “It’ll all work out.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that.”

  Tree looked up with the others. His heart missed a beat as he saw a uniform … a uniformed Kharemoughi … standing in the doorway of the sunroom. But it was only PalaThion’s aide, Gundhalinu. He vaguely recalled being told that Gundhalinu had been first to the scene at the warehouse, along with Jerusha PalaThion, and had almost gotten killed for it.

  KraiVieux and the others exchanged glances again. Gundhalinu started toward them, stopped; he looked as though he was trying to find the courage to enter a minefield. Finally he came on across the lounge and stood in front of Tree, frowning.

  “You want to go back to your room now, Tree?” TessraBarde asked pointedly, offering him a hand.