Tangled Up in Blue

by Joan D. Vinge

… Slipping, as his mother’s hand released him, and she faded into the rose-colored dawn of his childhood with a murmured, “Be a good boy.…” Slipping further, as his father’s aged hand let him go in despair, when he could not bring himself to be anything more than his mother had asked of him.… As his brothers’ pitiless hands pried loose his last fingerhold and sent him spiraling down the red-walled tunnel where the hands he seized in desperation were not attached to anything, because no body was left whole … and he plunged into the blood-red drowning pool from which no one escaped alive—

  He jerked awake, his heart pounding as if he had almost fallen off a cliff. Mumbling curses, he rolled onto his side. His fingers pitted the mattress foam as he stared out across the silent, indifferent space of his room, proving to himself once again that its walls were not running with blood.

  He rolled onto his back and shut his eyes, muttering another curse and then an adhani, beginning the process all over.…

  He woke up an hour later, feeling more exhausted than before. Checking his remote, he saw that LaisTree’s location still hadn’t changed. He got up from the bed and stood for a long moment staring vacantly toward the door. Then, rubbing his eyes, he crossed the room to his desk.

  As he sat down at his terminal he paused, frowning. He reached for the holostill of his family that he had buried deep inside a cubby, on the day he had learned of his father’s death … gods, was it really four months ago?

  He pulled the holo toward him and slowly removed the cloth he had draped over the frame. He gazed down into the past, studying the faces in the picture. All of them were male; there had not been a woman’s face, a woman’s constant presence, in their lives since … since.…

  What was beyond fixing should be beyond grief.

  He forced his mind away from what might have been, to confront what was: the image of a white-haired man with stern, patrician features, wearing the traditional uniform of a Technician head-of-family … a face that might be his own someday, although the uniform never would. Beside the white-haired man stood a youth with a face as insipid as pudding—whose unquestioned right it was, under the laws of primogeniture, to inherit the uniform and everything it represented. Beside him stood a second youth, his face frozen in a perpetual smirk of bitter contempt. Last in line, literally and figuratively, was a half-grown boy who stared straight ahead, his face so doggedly expressionless that he might as well have been screaming. That had been his face, half a lifetime ago.

  The eyes of the figures followed him as he moved his head from side to side. None of them smiled. None of them had ever smiled; not when they were all together.

  He thought of LaisTree and his brother … only his half-brother really. Yet the bond between them had been so strong they’d flouted Police regulations long before they ever thought of turning vigilante, just so they wouldn’t be separated for their entire careers.

  Loyalty over honor.

  And look where that had gotten them.

  He dropped the cloth over the portrait again and began to rewrap it. The cloth seemed to defy his fumbling hands, slipping sideways, refusing to shroud the memories of his own past.

  In sudden, blind fury, he struck the picture with the flat of his hand, knocking it off the desk.

  It hit the floor with a crunch, like the sound of hope being broken under a boot heel.

  Slowly he leaned down, forced himself to pick up the frame. It was broken. He had broken it. He stared at his father, his brothers, himself … the ruins of memory. He touched the scrambled holographic image, the faces blurred to unrecognizability like a violently shaken sand painting in a jar.

  No, dammit … it had always been broken. He wrapped the cloth around the frame and crammed the picture back into its hole.

  His father’s final words on the day he left home, bound for Tiamat, came to him suddenly, as he rose from his seat: “Remember this—when everything seems to be coming your way, the odds are that you’re traveling in the wrong direction.”

  He sat down again, stunned, as he suddenly realized the words had not been a curse, but rather an odd sort of benediction.

  “Trust your gut,” he’d heard the street Blues say. He brought the Police data files up on his screen. Finding the place in the complete records of the warehouse massacre where he had stopped reading last night, he continued his restless search.

  * * *

  “You don’t have to go,” Devony said; Tree hesitated in the doorway. “Stay longer … stay the night.”

  “I can’t.” He shook his head. Slowly, reluctantly, he closed the lower half of the split door between them. She laid a caressing hand on his arm; he took her hand in his. “I’ve got to go … got to research some things in the official report that don’t make sense to me.” He looked up at her, hoping his eyes were saying all the things he didn’t have words for.

  She smiled after a moment. “Well, you know where to find me. If you need a friend.…”

  He grinned fleetingly. “Count on that.” He touched her faintly shimmering face; his smile fell away. “Thank you.” He turned and stepped out into the alley, before he could lose his resolve in the depths of her eyes.

  He made his way back downtown to Police headquarters. He went inside, exchanging as few words as possible with the men coming on duty for the evening shift. Moving through the station house in his street clothes, surrounded by a sea of uniform blue, he felt as if he had walked into headquarters naked. His eyes kept searching the crowd, his heart lurching every time he caught sight of a familiar face, always the wrong one.…

  “LaisTree!” Haig KraiVieux called from the dispatch desk. “How you doin’, boy? They put you back on the roster already?”

  Tree smiled wanly as he reached the counter. “Not exactly.… Look, Sarge, I need to ask you a favor. Can I access the datafiles for a couple of hours? There’re still things about the … the warehouse massacre I just can’t understand. If I could get a real look at the full record, I thought…” he shrugged, “you know, maybe it’d help me remember something.”

  KraiVieux’s forehead furrowed. “Well, if you’re not cleared for duty, it’s against regs. I’m not supposed to—”

  “Come on, Sarge, help me out or I’ll never get back in uniform! Staun’s dead, for gods’ sakes! Let me do something about it or I’m gonna go crazy—”

  KraiVieux grimaced, and nodded. “Okay, boy.… The Chief Inspector isn’t here to bust my ass about it, so I guess I can let you into the system with my passcode. Just this once.” He stepped out from behind the counter, gesturing Tree after him.

  “Thanks, Sarge.” Tree followed him to an empty office and settled into the chair behind the terminal.

  KraiVieux opened the port and brought up the files on the warehouse massacre. As the data flashed on the screen, Tree felt the restlessness that had drawn him here transformed into something stronger, deeper, more relentless. What was it … the thing he knew? He knew—if he could only find the key, lost somewhere in a million bytes of data, that could open the right lock.… His hands closed over empty air, tightening into fists. He forced them open again, flexed his fingers, and began to input his first query.

  KraiVieux stood staring down at him for a long moment; then, with a sigh and a murmured, “Good luck,” left him in peace to run his searches and compares.

  * * *

  Gundhalinu stepped up to the door of Number 23 Azure Alley, knocked, and waited. LaisTree had finally left this address, after being inside for hours; he had gone back downtown to the station house like an insect drawn to a flame. The Newhavenese Blues on duty there had welcomed him as if he were a long-lost friend, and not a walking disgrace to the uniform they wore. He wasn’t likely to be going anywhere else for a while.

  The top half of the split door opened, and Gundhalinu started in surprise. A striking, elegantly dressed Kharemoughi woman, clearly of Technician rank, stood gazing back at him.

  “Yes, Sergeant…?” she prompted, when he didn’t speak.

&nbs
p; “… Gundhalinu, ma’am.” He touched the rim of his helmet, nodded politely.

  “What can I do for you, Sergeant Gundhalinu?” There was something almost insinuating, and not quite innocent, about the question.

  He cleared his throat, suddenly trying to remember what it was he’d come here to ask. “Uh … Nyx LaisTree visited this residence earlier today. I’d like to ask you some questions about him.”

  She bent her head at him. “Nyx LaisTree. And if I said I know nothing about him—?”

  “I’d still like to ask you some questions.”

  She made a small shrug of acquiescence and opened the bottom half of the door. She wore the simple robe and trousers that were casual dress for most Kharemoughis of Technician rank; her dark, shining hair lay in a neat plait down her back. She smoothed it absently as she stepped aside, allowing him to enter.

  He glanced around her living room, taking in its expensive, elusive decor; trying to get a sense of its owner, and failing. The pure, limpid notes of an art-song by Zaille suffused the quiet space. He looked back as the woman moved on into the room, gesturing at him to join her. In spite of himself he found that his eyes followed her every motion, perhaps because her sensuality was so at odds with who she was, or seemed to be.

  “Would you like something to drink, Sergeant? Or something else—?”

  “No,” he said, “thank you.”

  She looked back at him. “Is that against regulations? Or just personal preference?”

  “Both,” he said, a little abruptly.

  Amused, she gestured him toward a seat.

  Annoyed, he sat on the couch.

  She sat down across from him, in a chair wide enough for two, and set an oval cup made of violet glass on the low table between them. He couldn’t tell what the cup held. She drew her feet in their soft city shoes up under the hem of her robe.

  Her fingers played absently with the blood-red jewel she wore on a silken cord around her neck as she sat gazing back at him. The gem did not look like any stone he had ever seen, and yet an odd sense of déjà vu filled him, as if it was something he ought to recognize.…

  He forced his eyes away from it. The chair the woman was sitting in had Old Empire lines. He thought suddenly of the novel he carried in a pocket of his uniform jacket, with its haunting images of that lost world and the somehow more-than-human ancestors who inhabited it. The world of Ilmarinen and Vanamoinen … the vanished world he had hoped to catch a glimpse of by coming to Carbuncle, only to be so profoundly disappointed by the city’s reality.

  He realized suddenly that the tension he had sensed in the room existed entirely inside his own mind: that it was a kind of surface tension, and that he was attempting to walk on water.…

  “What was it you wanted to ask me about, Sergeant?” the woman said, reminding him that his silence had gone on for too long.

  He looked away from her unnerving golden eyes. “This townhouse is leased to a Gestin Berdaz?”

  “Yes.” She nodded.

  “And you live here?”

  “Yes.”

  “With him?”

  “No.” She smiled. “Alone.”

  “And you are—?”

  “His tenant. And his employee.” She leaned forward. The jewel dangled between her breasts; he realized that her robe was open almost to her waist. “But I thought you wanted to ask me about Nyx LaisTree.”

  “Uh,” he said, forcing himself to meet her eyes again, “I know that LaisTree came here today. I want to know why.”

  “He came to see me.”

  “For what reason?” He realized suddenly, with a pang of disbelief, that he knew what she did here for Berdaz.

  “He needed someone to talk to.”

  “Really,” Gundhalinu said skeptically. “LaisTree has plenty of people he can talk to.”

  She picked up the violet cup and took a sip from it; held it in both hands as she leaned back in her seat again. “Do you mean the kind of people who would hound a man who nearly died until he wished that he was dead? Or the kind who tell a man who has amnesia that if he can’t remember what happened to him, the deaths of his brother and a dozen other men are on his conscience? The kind who vandalize the apartment he’d shared with his brother while he’s recovering in the hospital? The people who spy on him, and invade the privacy of anyone he even speaks to?” As she spoke her gold-flecked eyes, which seemed to miss nothing, passed judgment on him and found him wanting. “Are those the people you mean? People like you?”

  “I assume LaisTree told you that.” Gundhalinu let his mouth twist, trying to keep his tone cynical and not sullen as he added, “He probably neglected to mention that he and his brother, and the others with them, were all Police officers engaged in vandalizing private property when they were attacked.”

  She hesitated. “Are you saying two wrongs make a right, Gundhalinu-eshkrad?”

  He felt himself flush. “No, eshkrad—” he said, habitually responding as one Technician to another; realizing as he did how skillfully she had avoided telling him even her name. “Those men didn’t deserve to die. I didn’t mean—” He looked down, trying to refocus his thoughts. “You said that someone vandalized his apartment?”

  She nodded. “They tore it apart … as if they were looking for something, he said. But surely you knew that.”

  “It wasn’t the Police.” He shook his head. But could he really be sure of that? “All the Police want,” he said stubbornly, “is to catch the murderers. He must want that too. If someone searched his apartment, he should have reported it. There may be more to this crime, and the criminals, than he realizes. We want him to remember what happened that night because it could give us some new leads. We want the murderers brought to justice, that’s all.”

  She looked searchingly into his eyes, but this time she didn’t respond. She took another sip from the violet cup.

  Gundhalinu got to his feet. “Is there anything else LaisTree said that might be of help with the case?”

  “Only that he wanted to be able to remember. And that he wanted to be able to forget.…”

  “What did he mean by that?”

  “I would think you’d understand that better than most people, Sergeant,” she said. “Weren’t you also a survivor of the massacre?” She rose from her seat. “Don’t look so surprised. It was in the news for days.”

  He nodded, looking away, all his momentum suddenly lost.

  She came around the table, put a hand lightly on his arm. “And now I really must ask you to leave. I am expecting a guest.” The scent of her perfume reminded him suddenly of a warm afternoon in the garden at the family’s.… No. It was his brother’s estate now. He no longer had a family, or a home.

  He looked back at her, not really registering her presence, any more than he registered her words. When he didn’t move or respond, she took his hand and attempted to lead him toward the door, as if he were a recalcitrant little boy.

  He resisted, turning toward her as the jewel she wore caught the light. He reached out impulsively to lift it from the folds of her robe, felt her start as his fingers brushed her half-exposed flesh. “I’m sorry. I only meant—” But she moved forward before he could let it go again. She stood perfectly still and dangerously close to him, gazing back at him with eyes that still seemed to find his own brown eyes transparent.

  “Where … where did you get this?” He forced himself to concentrate on the jewel, realizing as he did that it was not a gemstone at all, that it was not really any substance he could identify. Except.… “Is this an Old Empire artifact?”

  Her hand rose as if she was going to take the jewel back from him; it dropped to her side again. “I don’t know.”

  “I think it may be,” he murmured, more to himself than to her.

  “How can you tell?” She looked at it where it lay in his palm.

  “Because it’s not like anything else.” He glanced up at her. “You get a feel for these things.… My mother excavates Old Empire ruins.�
�� He let it go, gently, his fingers barely contacting her skin, and watched it slide back into the hollow between her breasts. He breathed deeply, controlling a sudden, dizzying sense of arousal as he inhaled her perfume. “Where did you get it?”

  “It was a gift.”

  “From whom?”

  “From the Snow Queen.”

  Surprise caught him. “Where would she get a thing like that?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Why did she give it to you?” His gaze left her face again for the spot where the jewel rested on her radiant skin.

  “Use your imagination.…” He looked up, startled, and she smiled. “I see the Old Empire has you under its spell, Gundhalinu-eshkrad. You read about it—” Her hand touched his hip, the pocket of his coat, as if somehow her eyes could penetrate his clothing. “Do you dream about it…?”

  And before his eyes she began to change, her coolly perfect Technician features transforming until she was a woman from his even deeper fantasies, clad in stranger garments than he had ever seen, and the past enveloped her like perfume.…

  “What—?” he whispered, before he lost his voice altogether, as the succubus of a long-vanished age pressed her ghostly lips to his, and took his breath away.

  “No one is ever quite what they seem in Carbuncle, Sergeant Gundhalinu,” she murmured, drawing back again. “Including you. Why are you following Nyx LaisTree? What do the Police really want from him?”

  “I.…” He shook his head. “I can’t tell you that. I don’t know—” He pulled away from her and strode to the door. He opened it and went out, almost letting it close behind him without looking back—

  He looked back. The woman stood motionless, watching him go … but she was Kharemoughi again, not a vision out of his dreams. Only the necklace remained unchanged.

  He shut the door, and went on down the alley as quickly as he could without running. He had nearly reached the Street, and the waiting patrolcraft, before he let himself realize that she had been wearing a sensenet; that she was completely human, and perfectly ordinary, after all.…

  * * *

  Devony entered the Snow Queen’s nacre-walled conference room and bowed. For once the room did not distract her, because Arienrhod was already there … and she was not alone.