Tangled Up in Blue

by Joan D. Vinge

  During the day, this ramp and the harbor below swarmed with activity: Winter dockhands using imported servomechs to move offworld shipments coming in from the starport; traders and sailors bringing local goods from down the coast. But at this hour, he could see no one on the ramp or on the docks below. Here, where the natural world was still accessible, old customs and diurnal rhythms held sway, and people slept the sleep of the weary, if not the just.

  He stopped at the bottom of the deserted ramp, looking back over his shoulder before he looked out across the harbor. The moorage was randomly illuminated by lights strung high in the dripping entrails of the city, among the chains and pulleys twenty meters above. A fog-hung forest of masts and rigging extended as far as he could see, making his vision as uncertain as his judgment suddenly seemed.

  He pulled the technojewel from inside his shirt, letting it hang suspended in plain sight around his neck. He turned right, following LaisTree’s instructions, and started down the pier into the creaking, sighing wilderness of vessels. LaisTree’s captors were asking for a simple exchange, they claimed: LaisTree’s life, for the artifact Gundhalinu had. He had no illusions about whether they planned to keep their part of the bargain. The cold wind out of the icebound north set his body crawling with gooseflesh; or maybe it wasn’t the wind, only the cold awareness in the pit of his stomach that no matter how empty this gelid underworld seemed, hidden eyes were watching him, and hidden weapons had him in their sights.

  Every breath he took filled his head with the pungent smell of the sea, as well as stranger, less appealing odors; every time he exhaled, his breath frosted in front of his face. His hands were getting numb, although for once that was only a relief. He had helped himself to a fresh round of painkillers before he left the station, but they barely muffled the complaints of his mistreated body. He hadn’t needed another stim patch; his fear was more than enough to keep him alert.

  He sealed the flapping edges of LaisTree’s coat, and considered with fleeting irony that he was used to thinking of Carbuncle as cold. The city suddenly seemed like a haven of warmth and light, compared to the forbidding Winter world beyond its walls.

  He peered out into the forest of ships and shadows again, and glimpsed open water; he was nearing the end of the docks. Either something was about to happen, or he would have to start swimming.… The wind off the icy sea gnawed his bones, and he began to shiver.

  “Gundhalinu—”

  He stopped, as a voice he wasn’t sure he recognized called his name.

  A shadow-form emerged from the deeper darkness beneath a ship’s looming hull and moved haltingly toward him. As the man entered the light, Gundhalinu saw the gleam of the headset suspended from his jacket front.

  “Nyx.…?” he whispered in disbelief. He saw the raw, half-healed flesh on the side of LaisTree’s face, where someone had ripped off the bandages; looked into LaisTree’s swollen, red-rimmed eyes, and cringed.

  “You came?” LaisTree mumbled. He shook his head, his arms pressed against his side. “It’s a trap, BZ. Oh, gods, I thought you’d know.…”

  “I did,” Gundhalinu said.

  “Then, why—?”

  Gundhalinu glanced again at LaisTree’s oozing face. He looked down. “We started this together, that night in the warehouse. We might as well finish it together.” He shrugged. “It seemed better than dying alone.”

  LaisTree’s throat worked; for a long moment, he said nothing. At last he whispered, “I’m sorry.”

  Gundhalinu looked down at his own bandaged hands. “I understand,” he said softly, as the circle of armed men closed around them like a noose.

  Surreptitiously he searched the restless underworld for a trace of other motion, for any sign of his promised backup, while strangers searched him for weapons; but it was impossible to make out any detail.

  “Sergeant Gundhalinu.” Mundilfoere appeared in front of him, all in black, darkness incarnate. “Always so punctual.” She reached toward him with a knife in her hand. “So reliable—”

  Gundhalinu stumbled back; the muzzle of a gun dug into his spine, stopping his retreat.

  “Don’t cringe, Sergeant.” She reached out again; her fingers brushed his cheek gently. “I’m not going to hurt you. You simply have something that belongs to me.” She caught hold of the necklace. He couldn’t keep himself from wincing as she cut the silken cord and pulled the jewel free.

  “Thank you,” she said, with a mocking smile. She stepped back through the circle of armed men, turning to LaisTree.

  “And thank you—” a voice from the outer darkness said, “for underestimating us so profoundly.” Gundhalinu gaped, as incredulous as anyone around him, as Aranne suddenly materialized on the empty pier, flanked by a squad of body-armored Police. “Drop your weapons,” Aranne ordered.

  Someone in the ring of offworlders swore loudly; weapons clattered to the wooden planks of the dock. The sounds echoed and re-echoed from random surfaces all around them. Gundhalinu put out an arm to support LaisTree, who suddenly swayed, weak-kneed with relief.

  They watched silently, neither of them quite believing their eyes, as Aranne came forward and took the necklace from Mundilfoere. She made no resistance while he pinioned her hands. The officers with him put binders on her men and herded them together. Gundhalinu took a deep breath as Aranne held up the necklace; he realized that he had been afraid, in some part of his mind, that Mundilfoere might throw it into the sea as a final act of spite.

  “Sir—” he said, reaching out as Aranne turned back.

  “In a moment, Gundhalinu.” Aranne shrugged off the contact that proved his reality. He studied the piece of mesh dangling from LaisTree’s clothing, and looked toward Mundilfoere. “Is this how you handle the greatest resource the Old Empire has left us?” he asked sourly. He reached out to unfasten the headset. “This had better still be functional.”

  “Don’t be concerned, Aranne,” Mundilfoere said. “The Founders would hardly be so careless as to make something that was intended to last millennia so fragile.… And I am not careless, either.”

  “Really?” Aranne laughed. “My compliments on your clever planning.”

  “On the contrary,” she murmured. “I should compliment you on the constancy of your hubris.” She called out, suddenly and sharply, in a language Gundhalinu didn’t recognize. All along the pier, dark forms rose from the sea.

  Before he could even react, weapons-fire tore open the night; around him, bodies scattered like water molecules in a boiling pot.

  “LaisTree, come on!” Gundhalinu tugged LaisTree’s shoulder as he dove for the shelter of the nearest gangplank. He rolled under cover, only realizing as he looked out again that LaisTree hadn’t followed him.

  LaisTree stood on the pier, weaponless and alone, his transfixed face limned by the incandescence of weapons-fire as he screamed, “Come on, you bastards, do iiitt—!”

  Gundhalinu pushed out into the open and dragged him bodily down. Half-shoving, half-bullying LaisTree under cover, he held him there; LaisTree curled into a fetal ball, crying someone’s name over and over. Even deafened by the senses-searing discharge of energy weapons and the cacophony of agonized screams, BZ knew who Nyx was crying out for.

  A body and a section of pier exploded in front of them where they lay. Trembling uncontrollably, unable even to turn his face away, Gundhalinu shut his eyes as the burning wave of heat washed over them, searing his exposed flesh. He bit down on his coat sleeve and did not cry out, because he had never had anyone in his life that he could trust that way: who would always be there to hold him; who would always answer, when he cried out in the night … who would never let him fall.…

  A falling weapon slammed into the gangplank, almost within reach. Gundhalinu jerked upright, shocked out of his paralysis. He pushed forward, dragging the gun back under cover. Nearly half the shooters on each side were out of the fight already, he realized, either down or fled. Mundilfoere’s second wave of attackers were firing indiscrimina
tely on the Police and the prisoners, using heatseekers and plasma rifles, cutting down their own helpless, unarmed allies as ruthlessly as they slaughtered any Blue who gave them a target.

  He was so far beyond his own understanding of terror now that his mind seemed suddenly, preternaturally clear. He checked the stun rifle’s charge, hefted its weight, solid and real. He was a Police officer: He knew what he had to do—

  Crawling out from under the gangplank, he began to fire. One of Mundilfoere’s men went down, and then another, and another, before someone suddenly turned to fire at him. Gundhalinu flung himself backwards; the heatseeking projectile struck the gangplank above his head, shattering wood, exploding his consciousness—

  * * *

  Tree stirred, dragging his battered senses out of the black pit where his mind had taken refuge when nightmare and reality merged. Slowly he became aware that all motion, all commotion, had ceased; that the underworld was still and silent, and somehow he was still alive.… Because of Staun; Staun would always take care of him. He rolled over and nudged the unresponding body beside him. “Staun—?”

  But it was Gundhalinu who lay unconscious there, not Staun. Not Staun. Staun was dead. Tree raised his head, swallowing a stone of grief as he looked out on the moorage, the docks, the aftermath of slaughter. Dimly he remembered that it was Gundhalinu who had come after him, dragging him down; saving him when he wouldn’t save himself.

  Gundhalinu had been right all along. Aranne wasn’t corrupt; these were the Police he had always known, and trusted.

  Rubbing his eyes clear of their double vision, he saw Aranne’s men moving like specters among the dead and wounded. He could still barely believe that the faceless, uniformed figures were not the spirits of the dead—not his own butchered comrades, come back to claim their revenge—as he remembered how they had appeared around him out of thin air. But they looked solid enough now, as they rolled bodies over and checked them for signs of life.

  Which meant they must have been wearing stealth fields. None of the patrolmen he knew even had access to that kind of technology. Maybe a Special Ops team might have the resources to requisition something like that. That must be who these men were, how they’d done it; the same way the team at the warehouse must have gotten through the Source’s backup systems on the night of the massacre.…

  A plasma rifle, in the hands of a uniformed Blue … a target beam that kissed the fragile kill-points of his head and heart, slid down his body like the touch of a betraying lover.… The image strobed suddenly in front of his eyes, forcing him to look away.

  “BZ.” He shook Gundhalinu gently, and then more insistently, until Gundhalinu groaned and began to stir.

  “Easy—” Tree put a hand on his arm as he tried to sit up.

  “Gods…” Gundhalinu mumbled, “gods.…” He tried again, floundering until his sense of balance finally reintegrated.

  Tree struggled to his feet in the smoldering ruins of the gangplank, shaking off bits of charred wood.

  “Wait—” Gundhalinu said, his voice slurring.

  “S’all right,” Tree muttered, his own voice not in any better shape. “We won.” The knowledge left him curiously unmoved, as if the return of a terror so profound it made everything else meaningless had stripped him of the ability to feel.

  Some of the Blues glanced his way; their headlamps pinpointed his motion as he helped Gundhalinu stand up.

  “Chief Inspector—!” someone called.

  Aranne came toward them through the smoke and bodies, his flash shield up, a smile of vast relief on his face.

  The sound of a plasma weapon being fired tore apart the darkness behind them. Tree jerked around as someone’s choked cry of protest ended with another sense-ripping burst of lightheatsound.

  “They’re killing the prisoners.…” Gundhalinu mumbled.

  “What?” Tree saw someone in a night-black diver’s suit crawling toward the edge of the pier; watched a uniform move in on him and fire, point-blank, reducing the wounded man to a mass of charred meat.

  The Blue kicked the remains off the pier; Gundhalinu made a small, sick noise far back in his throat.

  Tree turned away, his eyes crushed shut.

  “Sir,” Gundhalinu said desperately as Aranne reached them. “Are you killing those men? Why are you killing them? Chief Inspector—?” Aranne pushed past him as if he were mute.

  Tree froze, barely even breathing, as Aranne stopped in front of him. With infinite care, Aranne unfastened the piece of mesh hanging from Tree’s jacket front, then stepped back. Taking the Queen’s necklace out of a belt pouch, Aranne held the artifacts side by side almost reverently. His face filled with the awe a man might feel who was about to witness the literal conjoining of the past and the future, the interlocking halves of which he held in his grasp. He stood, waiting.…

  The anticipation faded from his eyes as nothing continued to happen. He swore suddenly, furiously, turning away. “You miserable bitch—!”

  Tree tracked his motion; saw Mundilfoere lying on the pier, moving feebly, as if she’d been stunshot. Aranne pushed the artifacts back into his belt pouch before he crossed to her and hauled her to her feet. She clung to the railing of the pier as if she could barely stay upright.

  “It’s ruined!” he shouted at her. “Useless! Do you realize what you’ve done? What you just made me do—? And all for nothing!” He struck her with a gauntleted hand, staggering her.

  And then he leaned down and picked up a plasma rifle. His eyes were dark with grief and rage as he turned back to face Tree and Gundhalinu.

  Gundhalinu raised his hands in a gesture that was both pleading and warding, his expression stripped naked by the utter finality of Aranne’s betrayal.

  Any emotion—any response at all—struck Tree as beyond futile, now; beyond even absurdity. The scene unfolding around him had become so surreal that he could feel Time itself winding down, as logic and Order were overthrown at last by entropy and Chaos.…

  He watched, empty-eyed, as the Chief Inspector took aim at them … felt his eyes widen as Mundilfoere surreptitiously gathered herself behind Aranne, and launched her body away from the rail.

  Registering Tree’s reaction Aranne turned, just as Mundilfoere collided with him. Throwing her arms around him, she wrenched the gun aside, but not out of his hands.

  Aranne shoved her away, turning the gun on her. Tree lunged, jerking the barrel off-target just as Aranne pressed the trigger. The gun fired; the white-hot shock wave from the plasma stream punched Tree backward into the railing of the pier.

  Aged, weather-worn wood cracked and split; he screamed as the sutured ligaments and muscles tore in his unhealed side. But Mundilfoere’s sudden, piercing scream drowned out his own. Trapped in a weir of splintered rails, he watched ghostfire spread over her body as she fell back onto the pier. Still screaming in agony, she … changed.

  “Dev—?” Tree cried, his voice raw with disbelief. “Devony!” He tried to pull himself up the mooring post. The move drove a spine of broken rail into his back like a spear into a frantic fish; he collapsed, tasting blood. He could only watch, helpless, as spasms racked her body, until at last she lay still and her staring eyes closed.

  Aranne crouched on the dock, still agape at her transformation. Gundhalinu staggered to his feet and picked up the fallen plasma rifle. “Get your hands up,” he said, his voice deadly.

  Aranne turned his incredulous stare on Gundhalinu. Slowly he put up his hands.

  “Look out—!” Tree gasped, as a uniform farther down the pier suddenly raised a stun rifle. Gundhalinu swung around, too late. Aranne’s man fired, and Gundhalinu went sprawling as the glancing hit took his legs out from under him.

  The Chief Inspector kicked the gun out of reach as Gundhalinu tried to drag himself after it; stood gazing down at him, almost in sorrow. “Your performance in this investigation surpassed all expectations, Gundhalinu-eshkrad,” Aranne murmured, his voice as bitter as the wind. “You will never know h
ow profoundly I wish that it had not.” He glanced away along the pier littered with lifeless bodies. His gaze was a dead man’s as he turned back again. “You asked me before why we were killing the prisoners, didn’t you? We did it for the same reason that I have to kill both of you, now. We answer to a higher calling—”

  “You mean the gods?” Gundhalinu raised his head with an effort, contempt smoldering in his eyes. “Or the honor of your sainted ancestors, Aranne-eshkrad? Or did you simply mean greed, or power?”

  “Don’t look at me like that!” Aranne’s face mottled with sudden fury. He moved toward the spot where his weapon lay. “Jashari was right; you couldn’t even begin to comprehend the choices we are forced to make.… Do you think I want to do this?”

  The crack of a stun rifle sounded again, followed by a hoarse shout. Aranne turned away, startled, as one of the anonymous Blues inexplicably fired three more shots in rapid succession, dropping the last members of the renegade special ops team who were still on their feet.

  “Do you want to do it—?” The real Mundilfoere raised the flash shield of her Police-issue helmet as she turned to face them, pointing the stun rifle at Aranne. She came toward them, picking her way deliberately through the obstacle course of bodies. “That’s not the right question, Aranne. It will never be the right question. You know that.”

  “You—?” Aranne breathed.

  “Give me the artifact,” she said, aiming the gun at his chest. Fired at close range, a stun rifle would paralyze both voluntary and autonomic nervous systems, killing a man almost instantly.

  He grimaced. “There’s no point. The reader device is ruined. It’s not responding. After all this.…” His mouth twisted.

  “Perhaps that’s because it isn’t the real device.” Mundilfoere held something out: a curving piece of mesh that shaped itself to her fingers as if it were a living thing. “We didn’t put the real one on LaisTree. Did you honestly believe we were that stupid?”

  Aranne glared wordlessly at her. And then, suddenly, he laughed out loud.