Tangled Up in Blue

by Joan D. Vinge

  Except that this time, the Snow Queen was going to prove them wrong.

  The Queen had chosen to remake her own future, just as Devony had. And Devony would do anything in her power to help the Queen ensure that their chosen vision remained intact. Arienrhod was changing the rules, by changing the Change. And Devony refused to regret anything she had done to help make that vision a reality.…

  She opened the doors of the wardrobe beside the bed, exposing its mirrors; stood in front of them, trying on one piece of clothing after another … a bare slip of a dress, a clinging wrapshirt, flowing silken pants.…

  Wearing each of them, she changed the shade of her skin, the style and color of her hair, sometimes even the details of the clothes themselves, until she had chosen which of her faces suited each outfit the best.

  And then, one after another, she tossed the pieces of clothing aside onto the bed, feeling the excitement of the new pall more rapidly with each outfit she tried on.

  Because what difference did it really make what she wore—? She could shave her head and go naked: the sensenet would still transform her into whatever object of fantasy a would-be lover desired.

  She put on a shapeless robe and stood before the mirror again, letting her image morph at random, watching her features dissolve and re-form endlessly into the face of one stranger after another.

  With an unspoken word, she canceled the program; the illusion faded. She stared at her own face as if it were a stranger’s.… Because it was a stranger’s.

  Abruptly she turned away. Lifting the vase from the yielding surface of the bed, she ran her hands over it, experiencing the fluid texture of a material she had never even heard of until today.

  And then, with another, smaller sigh, she carried the vase back into the living room. The bouquet she had found on her doorstep earlier, along with an invitation to late dinner, still lay on the empty side table where she had abandoned it. With painstaking care, she arranged the fresh flowers and exotic rill feathers in the newly purchased vase. The bouquet was from a successful Newhavenese trade broker who had called on her several times in the past. She knew it would flatter his considerable ego to see his gift so prominently displayed.

  The broker was full of amusing tales about bizarre cargo mixups and cultural miscommunications, once she distracted him from his obsession with interstellar shipping schedules. And he always showed plenty of enthusiasm in the bedroom. At least seeing him would take her mind off the unexpected events of this odd day: her unsettling encounter with the Queen and Mundilfoere … and with Nyx LaisTree.

  Where was LaisTree now … what was he doing? Was he all right? What if something she said—

  She set the vase down abruptly on the side table, not even sparing a backward glance to check its placement. With sudden impatience, she ordered the house system to change the music that was playing. She frowned and changed the music again, then canceled it entirely.

  She poured the false water of life into a ruby goblet; left a ring of silver fluid on the surface of the table as she heedlessly filled the cup to overflowing, and then half-emptied it with one draught. She took a spicestick out of the jeweled box that reeked of the herb’s exotic scent, lit it and inhaled the drugged fumes deeply.

  She carried the goblet and incense across the room, set them on the table next to her before she curled up, alone, on the couch that she had shared with Nyx LaisTree earlier in the day … where, as she had carefully removed his clothing, she had witnessed the full extent of his ordeal: all the colors of pain made visible on his bruised flesh; the coolly deceptive expanses of bandage that had replaced the human warmth of his skin.

  He had seemed as surprised as she was by the unexpected passion of the lovemaking that followed—as if, after his narrow escape from the embrace of Death, his body had rediscovered the sheer joy of being alive.…

  She took another long drink from the goblet and ran her hand over her arm, its tracery of embedded filaments—the armor of illusion she had taken on so eagerly when Berdaz had offered it to her, to replace her own feeble defenses of sheer attitude.

  Her clients came to her now like tourists, strangers who paid to explore their most intimate erotic landscapes projected on the screen of her living body. And like tourists, they went away still strangers, taking with them whatever memories fulfilled their voyeuristic desires; rarely leaving a trace even of regret when they were gone.

  She could not remember ever looking into another human being’s eyes without experiencing a head-on collision, a dead end, a wall. The sensenet had given her a far more effective way to protect the naked, defenseless creature she had been when she first came to the city—that she had always been, she realized, from the day she was born. But it had not, could not ever change what she found in another person’s eyes.

  She wondered why it had never occurred to her before how much a fortress was like a prison.

  She set the goblet back on the table, watched its viscous, silver contents settle: an intimation of mortality, an imitation of life. She remembered gazing unseen into Nyx LaisTree’s eyes as he stood on her doorstep today, seeing his expression unwittingly laid bare on the screen of her townhouse’s security system. She retraced in her mind the random acts of compassion and violence that had brought him to her door.

  He had come here out of simple human need, nothing more. And she had let him in, because for once she had looked into a stranger’s eyes, and seen.…

  No. Stop it! She picked up the ruby goblet, swallowed what remained of the false water of life as if it were a dose of poison. Its deceptive rush swept through her body like a purifying wind. Nyx LaisTree was only one more stranger: a charity case, a favor repaid at best. No more. She would be like Arienrhod. She would regret nothing—

  The fingers of her empty hands twined together, like lovers in an embrace, as she sat gazing out into the empty silence of the room.

  12

  Gundhalinu entered the familiar surroundings of the Survey Hall and paused, searching the room with a long glance. At the station house they had told him he would find the Chief Inspector here. He spotted Aranne beside the food-and-drink dispensers on the far side of the hall, along with the Police Commander and two Judiciate officers, one of whom was Jashari. Other Police and government officials, most of them Kharemoughis, were scattered throughout the room, along with a few offworlders—presumably legitimate traders, if they didn’t mind sharing space with so many representatives of Hegemonic law.

  He made his way through the obstacle course of settees, padded benches, and game tables; saw the officials around Aranne look up as he approached.

  “Gundhalinu-eshkrad,” Aranne said, addressing him simply as a Technician, because Survey tradition required that its members maintain a semblance of equality within its halls.

  “Aranne-eshkrad.” Gundhalinu nodded, and acknowledged the other men in turn.

  “It’s good to see that you’ve made a full recovery, Gundhalinu-eshkrad,” LiouxSked said. The Police Commander did everything possible, short of having himself wired into a sensenet, to act and speak like a born Kharemoughi; it was probably why he had achieved the rank he had. But Gundhalinu still found it disconcerting when a Newhavener addressed him as a fellow Technician.

  “Thank you, LiouxSked-eshkrad.” He managed to answer with proper courtesy, not bothering to add that he doubted he would ever have a night’s sleep again when he didn’t wake in a cold sweat out of a nightmare more vivid than life. “Aranne-eshkrad, I need to speak with you.”

  “Excuse us for a moment, if you will.” Aranne left the others and led him to a corner of the hall occupied only by curio cabinets and shelves. Gundhalinu’s eyes scanned the beautiful, odd, and uncategorizable souvenirs that had been deposited there by visitors from all over the Hegemony, throughout the nearly one hundred and fifty years of the Hegemonic occupation. At this point, there were similar displays all around the hall.

  “Is this about LaisTree?” Aranne asked. “Where is he now?
”

  “He’s gone to see a woman,” Gundhalinu said, “who may have ties to the Source.”

  “Who is she?”

  Gundhalinu glanced down, remembering her face … her faces. “I—I’m not sure. But I know she works for a Samathan vicemonger named Berdaz, as a shape-shifter, and I know that she lives in Azure Alley. Berdaz gets his operating money, and anything else he needs, through the Source. LaisTree spent several hours at her place earlier today; he just went there again. I doubt he’ll leave before morning.” He felt an unexpected twinge of envy, and blamed it on fatigue.

  Aranne nodded. “All right. Anything else?”

  “Yes, sir. I questioned the woman this afternoon. I didn’t learn much, but I did notice one thing that was unusual: she was wearing a necklace that looked like an Old Empire artifact. She said the Queen had given it to her—”

  “The Queen?” Aranne said, frowning. “Why?”

  “She wouldn’t tell me.” Gundhalinu looked away. “But that made me remember something else, something from the warehouse crime scene. One of the men collecting evidence that night asked me about a piece of gear they’d found; they didn’t know what it was. I didn’t even make the connection until I saw the necklace, and then having it linked to Arienrhod reminded me.…” He stared at the mute, fantastic forms trapped behind glass within a curio case. “The object I saw at the crime scene was either Old Empire technology, or based on it. Could that have been part of the missing tech?”

  “The missing prototype is not with the evidence,” Aranne said flatly. “We checked everything thoroughly.”

  “Yes, sir—everything that was in the storage annex. But there were other things from the crime scene that never even got entered in the system.”

  “What?” Aranne said, incredulous.

  “I went down to the annex tonight to take another look, and LaisTree walked in with a crateful of contraband interactive gear that had been diverted to the rec room—”

  “LaisTree?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Father of all my grandfathers!” Aranne glanced toward the other officers still conversing across the hall. “How the hell did that happen?”

  “Apparently it’s … quite common, sir.” Gundhalinu felt his mouth pull down. “According to Sergeant KindaSul, who was on duty tonight, the men—Newhaveners, I’m sure, not Kharemoughis—frequently ‘borrow’ confiscated goods for recreational use. He says they get bored.…” He shook his head.

  “Gods!” Aranne muttered. “You searched the crate of evidence LaisTree brought in, I assume.”

  “I did. The headset that I remember seeing wasn’t in it.”

  “Headset?” Aranne looked back at him. “How did you know it was a headset?”

  “Well, I didn’t, exactly, sir.” He looked down, made abruptly uncomfortable by Aranne’s stare. “That was just what it looked like: a kind of mesh alloy that seemed almost … alive, somehow.” He shook his hand, shaking off the memory of how it had clung to his fingers.

  Aranne was still looking at him with an expression he couldn’t really be certain was disbelief.

  “I thought, since the missing tech was related to artificial-intelligence research—” He shrugged. “It was only an educated guess, sir.”

  “A very perceptive one nonetheless, Sergeant,” Aranne murmured, looking toward Jashari again. “You said it wasn’t with the equipment LaisTree brought back?”

  “No. But it made me wonder whether there might be other ‘misplaced’ evidence out there somewhere.”

  “Or perhaps LaisTree took it out of the box before he turned the rest in.” Aranne’s expression darkened. “How did he seem? Is it possible that he did find the object and it triggered his memory?”

  Gundhalinu swore under his breath, wondering why that had not occurred to him immediately. But nothing had struck him as evasive, or even particularly unusual, about LaisTree’s behavior. He looked up again, shaking his head. “No, sir. If he had found the thing, he’d never have brought the rest of the equipment back himself. He’s not smart enough to be that devious. In any case, the other men should be questioned about it—and reprimanded.”

  “Obviously,” Aranne said. “So that brings us back to this mystery woman, whom LaisTree has already visited twice, you said?”

  Gundhalinu nodded.

  “I’ll have her picked up. Jashari will want her for questioning.”

  Gundhalinu looked toward Jashari. The Special Investigator’s gunmetal gaze shifted abruptly, and caught him staring. Gundhalinu looked down. “Sir,” he murmured, turning back to Aranne, “I strongly urge you to reconsider.”

  Aranne looked at him in surprise. “Why?”

  Gundhalinu kept his face expressionless for a long moment, as he struggled to find an acceptable alternative to the truth. “Because … I think we’ll learn more if we leave her alone. She’s obviously someone significant to LaisTree; simply letting them interact could be productive in helping him regain his memory. And her sensenet will be easy to trace. If I keep a record of her movements, as I’m doing with LaisTree’s, we’ll know who her other contacts are.”

  “Hm.” Aranne nodded. “That’s a good point, Gundhalinu. All right.… We’ll leave her where she is for now.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Gundhalinu smiled briefly. “LaisTree went to his apartment before he headed back to her place tonight. Maybe I should check it out again, while he’s not there.”

  “Again?” Aranne said.

  “Then the Police did not search his apartment, while he was in the hospital?”

  “No.” Aranne looked hard at him. “He had no opportunity to hide anything from the warehouse there.”

  “I was told someone searched the place.… It must have been the Source’s people.”

  “Then I suppose it’s our turn.” Aranne nodded. “Give it your best effort, Gundhalinu.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said. “I will.”

  * * *

  Jashari came to join Aranne where he stood watching Gundhalinu exit the hall. “What news did he have? Was that about LaisTree?”

  Aranne nodded. “LaisTree’s involved with a woman, a shapeshifter, which ties him to the Source, at least indirectly.”

  “Are you familiar with the so-called ‘six degrees of separation,’ milords…?” A female voice reached them seemingly out of the air, along with the faint sound of chiming bells, and the exotic, erotic perfume of scented oils. “Each one of us is no more than six steps removed, in some way, from any other human being … or so they say. What sort of random conclusions may be drawn from such incidental proximities, do you suppose?”

  The two men turned to face the veiled woman emerging like a whisper from a shadowed doorway.

  “What are you suggesting—” Jashari’s expression darkened, “Mundilfoere? That LaisTree’s visiting this woman today was a coincidence?”

  “No; Special Investigator. Only that a room awaits us, like our destinies, in which we may discuss these matters more … intimately.” She gestured down the hallway from which she had emerged, toward meeting rooms whose actual degree of privacy depended entirely on the level of hidden influence possessed by their occupants.

  “You have a hell of a nerve,” Aranne muttered, when they were safely within the confines of the chamber she had chosen, and all sitting cross-legged around a low table. The table’s surface was inscribed with the pattern of a tan board, set up for the seemingly innocuous game that was not simply a game, any more than Survey was simply Survey: Tan was as much a key to, and a reminder of, the Great Game in which they had previously been opposing players and were now, unexpectedly, allies.

  Aranne scooped up the gaming pieces, scattered them across the board. “And who has called this fellowship into being,” he recited, observing the pattern made by the fall of stones, “and given us our duty, and shown us the power of knowledge?”

  “Mede.” Mundilfoere answered with the name of the third secret Founder of Survey, the only woman. She studied
the game pieces, gathered them in and tossed them out again.

  Jashari swept up the stones before she could speak the next question; before the game pieces had even finished forming their final pattern. “In the name of Mede, Ilmarinen, and Vanamoinen,” he said impatiently, “I say we dispense with the ritual pleasantries. We all know why we’re here.” Ignoring Aranne’s annoyed frown and Mundilfoere’s sharp, indrawn breath, he said, “What about LaisTree, and this woman … a shapeshifter, you said?”

  Aranne nodded. “The only unexpected thing LaisTree did today was go to see this woman—twice. I doubt he’s seeing her professionally, on a patrolman’s salary. She works for Berdaz, out of the Closed Doors Club, which ties her indirectly to the Source. And the club was the last place LaisTree was seen on the night of the warehouse raid.”

  “He never mentioned any woman to me.” Jashari looked up, his gaze glacial. “Who is she?”

  “You know how ’shifters are about their names. Gundhalinu couldn’t get it out of her. But he said she lives in Azure Alley.”

  Jashari froze; Aranne saw something come into the other man’s raptor eyes that made him want to look away.

  “I know this woman you speak of,” Mundilfoere murmured. The words were casual, dismissive, but the faint sound of bells marked her own speculative glance at Jashari. “Her ties to the Source are incidental, and extremely inconsequential. You should know, however, that she repeats everything she learns about her clients to the Snow Queen.”

  “Everything?” Jashari said. This time Aranne saw a subtle, telltale flush burn the Special Investigator’s face.

  “Everything,” Mundilfoere repeated, and Aranne heard her smile. “The Queen’s interests are quite eclectic.…” She shrugged, her bells singing. “At least that has been my experience of her.”