The suit chuckled once more. Then his face grew deadly serious, and something cold and nasty twisted in my gut. "There's one more thing I should tell you, Mr. Montgomery," he said quietly. "There is even more to this matter than you understand ... or to be honest, than I understand. It would seem that some . . . previous acquaintances of yours have some involvement."

"What the frag does that mean?"

"I take it this is not a secure line." He didn't phrase it as a question. "Then all I can tell you is that Adrian Skyhill would appear to have some interest in the outcome.

"Good day, Mr. Montgomery." And the screen went blank.

12.

Barnard couldn't have meant that.

Could he? I sat on my doss's Torquemada bed and I stared at the wall.

He couldn't have meant it .. .

Why the frag did he say it, then? There was only one way I could possibly interpret his words, and, by frag, Barnard must have known that. Adrian Skyhill . . .

Memories bubbled back up-the terror and pain and death and chaos under Fort Lewis four years ago. Fragments of The Dream. Oh, fragging Jesus.

Insect spirits. What the frag else could he have meant? Dr. Adrian Skyhill-erstwhile managing director of Yamatetsu's Integrated Systems Products facility in Fort Lewis-had been a shaman. An Insect shaman. He, or someone like him, had summoned the Queen of the Wasp spirits. The same Queen that had killed Toshi and Hawk and Rodney and many others. The same Queen that had burned off my left arm. The same Queen that had run the .. . the hive, I suppose is the right word ... that had tried to assimilate my sister, Theresa. Oh fragging Christ on a crutch. How the frag were insect spirits involved in this?

Fragging hell, didn't the bugs have other things to worry about at the moment? The pogroms. The "cleansing" of the Universal Brotherhood across North America. And-for Christ's sake-the fragging bugs taking over Chicago ...

My sole encounter with insect spirits had left me maimed; I'd only survived because others had given their lives to destroy the Queen. With a supreme effort I bit back on the fear, forced it down. Barnard's words were something to remember, his warning something to take to heart ...

But in the future. For the moment there weren't any insect spirits or Insect shamans around (were there?). I was still up to my nostrils in drek, but-at this precise moment-the putative involvement of insect spirits didn't make the drek any deeper. I fell back on the bed, shifted my sightless stare from wall to ceiling.

So fragging Barnard wanted me to get in touch with the fragging Ali'i, did he? How in frag was I going to do that? For all the ego-stroking Barnard had given me, I had the nasty, twisty feeling that he had more confidence in my abilities than I did at the moment. I could hope that his estimate was more accurate than mine, but that didn't help my lousy self-esteem one iota.

How was I going to contact King Kamehameha V . . . without getting geeked in the process? I needed resources. Maybe Kat and those other shadowrunners .. .

That thought fired off all kinds of subtle warning bells in my gut. I paused and mentally worked it through. Just what was it that was bothering me so much? Something Barnard had said, partially, but there were other elements to it as well. I replayed the telecom conversation in my mind.

It was Barnard's comments on ALOHA that were bothering me, I figured that one out at once. Why? He'd said one of the sub-bosses of ALOHA was Kane, aka Jonathan Bridge. The real head honcho was a feathered serpent, who might or might not be a vassal of the Great Dragon Ryumyo.

"The bakeware."

"The big worm." A pretty decent description of Ryumyo, neh! Which implied, if I took it at face value, that Kat and her little friends . . .

. . . Were ALOHA. And suddenly a bunch of other puzzling little elements fell into place. Zack the ork's reaction at hearing about Scott's death-his interpretation of death by belly-bomb as "doing it up right." That certainly fit in with the idea of ideologically driven terrorists, didn't it? Add to that the fact-which I'd almost forgotten-that Kat and the rest, who claimed they were helping me merely because I was a friend of Te Purewa, didn't seem to know much about Te Purewa at all. They called him "Marky," not the new Polynesian name he'd taken for himself. If they were really his close chummers, as they'd implied, wouldn't they respect his rather earnest wishes and call him Te Purewa (and maybe stick their tongues out at him from time to time)?

You're reaching, Montgomery, I told myself firmly, really reaching. There wasn't one thing I could point to and say "proof." Intriguing hints, maybe. Totally circumstantial evidence-well, not even that. Who the frag knew-maybe Te Purewa only did his more-Maori-then-the-Maoris trip with new acquaintances, and didn't mind close chummers calling him the familiar Marky. And even if the phrase Beta had used was "the big worm"-and not "the bakeware"-was I justified in making the logical leap and implicating Ryumyo? Got me, chummer.

Still, it was a possibility, and I had to take it into consideration. No more contact with Kat and crew, then. And, a sudden chilling thought, I had to get the frag out of this doss and find somewhere else to flop. Kat had told Zack to "get my bike ready." What if that preparation had included the addition of a homing beacon of some kind? So frag it, I had to ditch this doss, and I had to ditch the Suzuki while I was at it. With a general curse at corporations, yaks, terrorists, kings, and the whole fragging Kingdom of Hawai'i, I forced myself to my feet and headed for the door.

Thanks be to chummer Quincy, again. Another one of the wizzer little features with which he'd juiced my pocket 'puter was the software that allowed me to make the next best thing to certified credsticks at a moment's notice. Slip a real credstick-the kind that has personal identification datawork and all that drek, on it-into one slot; slide a credstick "blank" into the other. The software smoothly transfers cred from the ident stick to the blank. (Okay, hold the phone, I know any 'puter can do that. The feature that sets Quincy's code apart from the usual 'puter facility is that it erases all "audit trails" in the process. Normally, when you transfer cred from stick to stick, both "donor" and "recipient" sticks archive details of the transaction. Anyone with the right toys-cops, mainly-can backtrack this kind of transfer without breaking any skull-sweat. With Quincy's toys, both sticks think they're archiving the appropriate data ... but neither is. Try to trace the audit trail later, and you'll come up empty. And no, the software isn't good enough to slam a credit balance onto a blank stick without taking that sum from a legitimate stick. Quincy's a technomancer, not a miracle worker.) So that's what I did, sheltering like a squatter in the entry alcove of a boarded-up building. I transferred a couple of hundred nuyen from "Brian Tozer's" credstick to a virgin blank. Reassured that I wouldn't be leaving a great, glowing electronic trail that yaks and ALOHAs and other assorted reprobates could follow, I got to work on finding a new squat.

First order of biz was to get out of Ewa. I'd have loved to have taken the little Suzuki Custom-I'd actually come to like it-but I couldn't be totally certain I'd cleared it of any homing beacons. So I hopped The Bus-that's what it had emblazoned on the side in bright yellow, The Bus, in case anyone mistook it for, say, The Art Gallery, or something-and cruised north into Waipahu. Apparently, this used to be another distinct city, like Ewa, recently absorbed into the sprawling mass that was Honolulu.

If I hadn't been paying attention to the street signs and pestered The Bus driver with idiotic questions, it would have felt like I'd never left Ewa. Waipahu felt much the same, kind of like Renton on a good-air day, and that made me feel at home.

I checked into a hotel called the Ilima Joy. The sign out front advertised rates by the day, week, or month, but judging by the scantily clad individuals who amorously accosted me on the way in, the place could probably have done good trade charging by the hour. I got myself a "convenience suite"-in other words, with its own drekker, telecom, and hot plate-and slotted my "blind" stick to pay a week in advance (a bargain at 350 nuyen). In most parts of the world, it's a legal requirement that hotel guests provide some kind of ident. I was all ready with one of my secondary aliases-not good enough to get a credstick or to travel, but certainly good enough to register at the Ilima Joy. I needn't have bothered. The bored-looking clerk just handed me a stylus and told me to sign in on the touchscreen of the battered registration computer. I overcame the urge to sign in as "I.M.N. Alias" or something similar, but made sure my signature was absolutely illegible, even after computer enhancement. Taking the grimy key-card the clerk handed me, I walked up the two flights of stairs and found room 301.

[f this was a convenience suite, I wondered at once, whose convenience was it supposed to enhance? Not mine, chummer, that's for damn sure. The drekker was private-probably because nobody else would want one that didn't work-and the door to its alcove was distinctly missing. The hot plate apparently did work, judging by the scorch marks on the wall and the countertop; I couldn't imagine myself trying it out. And the telecom was also functional, if limited to outgoing calls only (no doubt monitored, and charged for, at the front desk). Still, it was all I really needed at the moment.

The first order of business was to check out the legitimate approaches to the Ali'i . . .

No, the first order of business was to get some sleep. Being hunted takes it out of you, chummer, trust me on that one. It wasn't so much my body that was tired as my mind, my emotions. Sleep is a weapon-somebody (Argent, maybe?) had told me that once-and I figured it was time to bring that weapon to bear.

The sun was just rising over the skyrakers of downtown Honolulu-or I guessed it was, at least; the view from my convenience suite at the Ilima Joy didn't give me much of a view, apart from a noisome alley and the back of another decrepit rooming house.

Now it was time to check out the legitimate approaches to the Ali'i... if nothing else, to eliminate them. I had it in the back of my mind that some monarchies-I don't know where I'd picked this up-have always allowed the populace to contact their ruler directly-to "cry Harold," or whatever the frag the term was. Who knew, maybe King Kamehameha had something similar in place. I fired up the telecom and started browsing through the online directory.

It didn't take me long to track down the number of the information desk at the Iolani Palace. I placed the call, and then had to sit through a recorded message telling me about the availability of tours and other such useless drek. Only when that chip had played out did I have the option of speaking to a flesh-and-blood receptionist.

Well, what do you know-there was a simple procedure through which citizens of the Kingdom of Hawai'i could arrange for an audience with the Ali 'i. So the plastic-faced receptionist told me, at least, through his fashion-model smile. All that was necessary was for me to give my name and SIN and make an appointment. There even happened to be a slot open in the king's schedule ... in early spring of '57. If I wanted to take it, all I'd have to do was to arrange for the requisite security and background check ... I hung up, of course.

What next? For almost an hour I wracked my brain. Frag, if this had been Seattle, I was pretty sure I'd be able to arrange a meeting with good old Governor Schultz. But that would have required a whole bunch of shadowy contacts and resources I just didn't have here in the islands. Back to the directory again, and this time I dredged up a number for the Executive Offices at the Iolani Palace. Again, I placed a call.

With much the same result. A polite functionary informing me that of course I could arrange for a message to be passed to the Ali'i. All I had to do was give my name, SIN, arrange for the requisite background check ... I hung up, of course.

I was starting to come up dry at the old mental well. On a wild-assed hunch, I even checked the directory for listings under the name "Ho." When the first of seven screens filled with names and LTG numbers, I fragging near despaired. I hung up, of course.

I needed a break, I needed something to jump-start my synapses. If I were really hard-hooped about security, I'd never leave the damn room, but that just wasn't going to work. I needed food, and-more important-I needed coffee. (That was one major thing I'd decided I liked about the islands, incidentally. Nobody seemed to have heard of soykaf; even coffee shops served the real thing. Bliss beyond measure.) So I strolled downstairs and into the ratty coffee shop next door to the Ilima Joy.

And almost had a coronary arrest on the spot as I saw a face I recognized. Over in the back corner, sitting at a table, idly watching the comings and goings of the patrons, lingering over a mug of coffee. It was the same little bird-boned woman I'd spotted at the Cheeseburger in Paradise. Her eyes lit on mine as I walked in, and I almost had a childish accident. It took me a moment to calm myself down. Coincidence, for frag's sake, I told myself firmly. It had to be coincidence. This was a free fragging country, wasn't it? Little bird-boned women could take coffee wherever the frag they liked. Sure, she seemed to be paying an inordinate amount of attention to my face, but that was just my paranoia playing up. "The guilty flee where none pursueth," and all that drek. Frag it, she'd never so much as seen my face before, had she? She hadn't been there when I'd walked into the Cheeseburger in Paradise yesterday, and the only time I'd laid eyes on her was via the security camera system. Even so, it took me a lot more effort than it probably should have to turn my back on her and jander over to the counter.

I didn't stay there long-not just because of the birdboned woman, though her presence certainly didn't help any. I drank several cups of fine coffee, scarfed down a sandwich billed as ono-some kind of fish, apparently, even though it could well have been Styrofoam packing material, judging by the dry texture-then I left. On the way out through the lobby and up the stairs, I used what tradecraft I could to pick out anyone tailing me. Nobody, specifically not Mrs. Bird-Bone. Thank the spirits for small favors. I returned to my room and locked the door.

If I'd been hoping my sojourn in the coffee shop would jar something loose from my brain, I was sorely disappointed. I sat back down at the telecom-trying to convince my body and brain that it was time to get back to work-but then I just stared at it for a good five minutes. To meet a king ... how do you go about it? And, more to the point, how do you do it fast! The telecom beeped, and I jumped so hard I almost sent the chair over backward. I glared at the screen. Yes, the icon told me it was an incoming call . . . despite the placard on the wall over the unit saying no incoming calls. I blinked at it.

And then I brought the telecom online to receive the call. What else could I do?

It wasn't Barnard, as I'd half expected. It wasn't Kat or Moko or an urbane-looking Japanese assassin, as I'd half feared. No, it was a handsome Polynesian man about my own age. Strong-featured, he was, with the kind of nose you could classify as "noble," and eyes as dark and hard as flint. His black hair was worn long, shoulder-length in the back, a little shorter on the sides, and was perfectly groomed. The framing of the image was such that I couldn't see his clothing, but beneath his chin there was something that could maybe be a corp-style split collar. He smiled at me, showing perfect teeth. "Mr. Montgomery," he said with a slight accent that sounded faintly British, "please don't hang up. I understand you need to talk to me."

"And who the hell are you?" I demanded, though I had a nasty, nagging feeling I already knew.

"My name is Gordon Ho," the man said calmly. "You may also know me as King Kamehameha V."

13.

King Kamehameha. Frag me blind.

"Your Majesty," I said slowly-was that the correct form of address?-while I tried to get my racing, panicky thoughts in order. Then I blurted out the question that was in the forefront of my mind-probably not the most politic thing to say to a fragging king, but there you go. "How the frag did you get this number?"

King Kamehameha V smiled. "Think about it for a moment, Mr. Montgomery," he suggested quietly. "The Kingdom of Hawai'i is a sovereign nation, and I'm head of its government. While our capabilities don't match those of UCAS, for example, they're still fairly formidable." His smile grew a touch broader. "Certainly formidable enough to track down the number of someone who's called the switchboard at the palace several times in the past few hours." The smile twisted, became an ironic grimace. "I still have the loyalty of some members of the nation's military intelligence service, at least."

I thought about that for a moment. You got it, chummer, I was playing way out of my league. I thought I'd covered myself pretty well-well enough to keep prying corps and yaks and terrorists off my back. Not well enough to block the military intelligence service of a fragging nation-state.

Oh, my aching head ...

I nodded acceptance, or maybe it was surrender "Okay. So . . . ?"

"So why am I contacting you?" The king shrugged slightly. "I'd rather thought you'd be the one telling me, Mr. Montgomery. I've heard through ... various sources ... that you wished to speak to me on a matter of some grave concern."

That set me back for a moment. Sure, Barnard had said he'd be spreading the word "through various other assets"-his phrase-that one Dirk Montgomery would be trying to arrange a meeting. But I hadn't expected an instant response-well, I hadn't expected any response, to tell the truth. And I sure hadn't expected that the fragging Ali'i would take the time and trouble to track me down to talk.

"That's true, Your Majesty," I said slowly. "Er ... is that the correct form of address?"

That brought another smile to Gordon Ho's face. "Not precisely," he told me. "The correct phrase is e ku'u lani-'O my royal one'-but I'm only a stickler for the old forms when the kahunas are around." His smile faded, and his expression became that of a professional poker player or, I suddenly thought, a corporate exec. "I've invested considerable time and effort in arranging to speak to you, Mr. Montgomery," he went on, his voice even and calm. (Yeah, right, I thought, the time and effort of lackeys, maybe.) "I'd like you to tell me a reason why I should invest any more in you."

I paused. "This isn't a secure line," I pointed out at last, "not at this end at least."

"I'm well aware of that," Ho said drily. "But I'm certain you can find ways around the problem, am I correct?" Again I paused, thinking through exactly what I could get away with saying on a potentially compromised line and still pique his interest. "According to the news, some heavy happenings have been going down recently," I began.

"True."

Jumping into what sounded like a real non sequitur, I made my voice as casual as I could. "Oh, by the way, the father of a college pal says hoi."

He blinked in momentary confusion. Then I saw his eyes narrow as he made the mental connection ... or, at least, I hoped he did. "Yes," he said musingly, "yes, he might well be sending greetings.

"Do you still wish to speak with me face-to-face?"

I swallowed hard. "Yes, e ku'u lani," I said, butchering the pronunciation. "Or maybe it'd be better all around if I did it over a secure line." That wasn't according to Barnard's instructions, but it wasn't his hoop hanging out in the wind.

"Unacceptable," the Ali'i responded immediately. "There's no such thing as a totally secure line, as you should know. If the matters you wish to discuss are truly weighty, then a personal meeting is the only thing that'll serve."

"I'm not sure I'd feel too comfortable just jandering up to the front door of the palace," I pointed out.

"But that's exactly what you must do," Ho told me coldly. "If this is really important, that's exactly how you'll handle it."

"I'd prefer neutral ground," I tried again.

"Of course you would, but that, too, is unacceptable. 'Neutral' for you is potentially hostile territory for me." I digested that one quickly. Were things getting that dicey in the political in-fighting game? "You will visit the palace," he repeated, "and present yourself at the reception desk at"-he glanced off-screen-"one o'clock this afternoon. That gives you two hours to decide whether to accept my invitation, Mr. Montgomery." He smiled frostily. "Would that suit you?"

No, it wouldn't fragging suit me at all, I wanted to say. "There are other concerns-"

"There always are," he broke in. "But I leave it to you to deal with them in whatever manner you see fit."

Great. Thanks, Kam. I had to try once more. "If you've figured out what the matter is I want to talk to you about-" And again he cut me off, "Are you insinuating that the Ali'i of the Kingdom of Hawai'i might want to take personal retribution against you?" he asked icily.

"Well . . . yes, in a word."

"Then you have my word that isn't the case."

"No insult intended, e ku'u lani, but-"

"You need something a little more tangible than my given word-than the given word of the descendent of King Kamehameha the Great, is that it?" His smile was back, but now it had a real nasty edge to it. "Then perhaps this would suffice."

His eyes stayed locked on mine, and his lips moved. I couldn't hear a sound, maybe because he was using a kind of hushphone or something. His barracuda smile grew broader.

And, just like that, something snicked through the window of my doss, and slammed into the wall beside me. Instinctively, I threw myself to the ground, scrambling across the small room to flatten myself against the wall under the window. For a couple of seconds I just crouched there, hyperventilating.

I could still see King Kam's face on the telecom screen, though I knew I was out of range of the unit's vidcam. "Is that sufficient support to my word, Mr. Montgomery?" he asked my empty chair.

Message received loud and clear, O my royal one: If I'd wanted you dead, you'd be dead. "Quite sufficient," I told the telecom, trying vainly to keep my voice steady.

"One o'clock, then. I expect an interesting conversation." And with that, King Kamehameha V signed off.

I took off my shoe, threw it at the telecom keyboard, and the unit disconnected. It was another three minutes before I felt comfortable standing up.

Frag, I was boned. No, I was so far past boned that it would take light twenty years to get from here to there. I was playing with the government of a sovereign state. A fragging government. What kind of resources could a fragging government bring to bear at the whim of its ruler? Heavy-duty electronic interception and tracking, for one. A fragging sniper for another. What the hell else? I didn't know, and I didn't want to know.

Idly, I stuck my little finger through the bullet hole in the window-nicking myself, incidentally, on the sharp material. Clean-edged, perfectly circular-a little larger than nine millimeter, I judged. The round had been so fast that it had basically drilled through the window composite, too quickly for the brittle material to even crack, let alone shatter. The bullet hole in the opposite wall was a touch bigger, and so deep that I couldn't reach the bottom with my finger. It was a weight-bearing wall-good fragging thing, otherwise the round would have cored its way through my room and several others, before coming to rest in a wall or a hot plate or someone's headbone. (But of course the sniper had probably known it was a reinforced weight-bearing wall.) Okay, I got the point. I wasn't dead, which meant I probably wouldn't become so on my appearance at the Iolani Palace. After my meeting with Gordon Ho, of course, all bets would be off. If he figured I wasn't telling him all I knew or wasn't giving him the answers he wanted to his questions, there wasn't much stopping him from sending me downstairs into a small, dark room-palaces had dungeons or something, didn't they?-where large men would ask the questions again under less agreeable conditions. Fragging swell.

Maybe I should just pull the quick fade. Maybe Kat and the rest-ALOHA or not-would help me disappear into the shadows. Maybe-and this was a big maybe-I'd be able to stay one jump ahead of the factions already out looking for me. Oh yes, and add to the playlist the Yamatetsu payback team that Barnard would send after me when he learned I hadn't delivered his message to the Ali'i. I was pretty good at keeping a low profile, I knew that ... but over the long haul, "pretty good" wouldn't cut no ice. I figured my odds at surviving a week at about fifty-fifty. A month-call it seventy-five-twenty-five. A year? Maybe a one-in-ten chance. Long enough to look back on all this and laugh? I'd rather bet on the survival of a snowball in a plasma furnace, chummer.

Looked like I'd be visiting the Iolani Palace in about an hour, didn't it?

The telecom-the one supposedly locked out to incoming calls-chirruped again. I glared at it. When it stubbornly refused to disassociate into its component atoms, I sighed. Gordon Ho calling back with some additional instructions? Whatever. I sat down at the keyboard, pressed the keys to accept the call.

It wasn't Gordon Ho's face that appeared on the screen. No, if I had to describe a face that was diametrically opposite from King Kam's in all facets, it wouldn't be too far from the man I saw before me. Smooth skin so pale it looked almost translucent. Silver hair, long and flowing. Eyes the color of arctic ice in Global Geographic trideo shows-maybe blue, maybe green, maybe gray, depending on the light and your mood. Hollow cheeks, small nose, small mouth. Ageless, too. If you'd asked me to peg his age, I'd have put it anywhere between twenty and a hundred. Instinctively, I looked at his ears-no points, he wasn't an elf.

There was something ... well, disturbing is the closest I can come to it ... about his appearance. Austere, he was, aloof, distant ... almost inhumanly so. I didn't really want to think about what those eyes might have seen.

"Mr. Montgomery," he said. His voice was ... strange ... too, thin, reedy, almost piping, but also strong, in the way that a stiletto is both delicate and lethal.

"Sorry," I said, trying to keep my bravado up, "someone's already won the prize for guessing that one. Who the hell are you?"

"A friend." No smile, no expression at all, accompanied the declaration.

"Could have fooled me. Are you sure you don't have the wrong number? Wrong Montgomery, for that matter."