And what would happen to him if he was noticed? I suddenly wondered. "Protective custody?" Or a necktie party on the streetcorner? I guessed it depended on who noticed him first. No wonder he was looking a little ragged around the edges.
We held our peace, the two of us, for maybe five minutes and a hundred milliliters of single-malt scotch. Then Ho sighed and remarked, "Well, it's starting to get… interesting… out there."
I'd decided I wasn't going to be the first to talk biz, but now that he'd broached the subject, I leaned forward. "What the frag's happening out there?" Quickly, I filled him in on the fire-or whatever-we'd spotted from the window.
Ho nodded wearily. "Anticorp violence," he said quietly. "It's breaking out all over the city… all over the island, if what I heard is true."
"How bad?"
"Disturbingly bad," he admitted. "It's not well organized-not yet-but in some ways that makes it even more difficult to counter."
I nodded agreement. If civil disobedience, which was what we were talking about here, was organized, you could often quell it by snagging the leaders. (Or at least so they taught us at the Lone Star Academy.) But if it was spontaneous mob action? Mobs are creatures with a few hundred legs and no brain (again, a quote from my Academy days), so there's no clean and easy way of shutting mem down.
"So what's happening?" I pressed.
Ho shrugged. "What isn't happening?" he said dispiritedly. "Cars turned over and torched-that's probably what you saw, by the way. Rocks through windows. Molotov cocktails, sometimes. A couple of sniping incidents."
That shocked me. "Sniping? Already?"
The ex-king smiled, but there was no amusement in it. "Matters are degenerating faster than I'd expected," he allowed.
"What about casualties?"
He shrugged again. "I'm not privy to detailed police reports anymore," he pointed out dryly, "but I'd assume they're probably still light."
"That'll change."
"Yes," he agreed. He was silent for a moment, then went on quietly, "I did hear about one incident. A Mitsuhama executive's limousine was blocked by a mob. No overt violence, just threats… but her bodyguards overreacted and opened fire." I cringed as he continued. "More than thirty of the rioters dead… plus the bodyguards and the executive herself, of course, when the mob rampaged. I understand they turned the car over, built a bonfire around it, and roasted her alive."
It's getting out of control. The thought chilled me like an arctic wind on the nape of my neck. "Somebody's behind it," I pointed out. "Somebody's stirring up the mob."
"Of course," Ho said. (He didn't voice the accompanying, "you idiot," but his expression conveyed it adequately.)
"Na Kama'aina, right?"
"Initially, yes," Ho corrected. "But they've lost control of the situation, too." He smiled grimly. "It seems that their dogs aren't on quite as short a leash as they'd believed."
Realization dawned. "ALOHA," I breathed.
"Of course. Na Kama'aina never really believed in all of that fiery 'corporations out' rhetoric. They were too realistic for that. They only wanted to use it-and ALOHA itself-as a lever, to oust me from the throne." He smiled again, with bitter humor. "Well, they've achieved that part of their plan.
"But now ALOHA has scented blood. Na Kama'aina can't leash them in anymore." He shook his head and frowned. "I wonder what Ryumyo's agenda is in all of this? Does he know what ALOHA's doing, or has he lost control, too?"
I raised my hands, palms out. "Hey, don't ask me," I protested.
We both fell silent again, sinking back into our private thoughts. The ex-Ali'i's scan of the situation seemed all too plausible, I realized. Except…
"You said Na Kama'aina never bought the 'corps out' drek?" I asked suddenly.
"Of course not," Ho said, surprised. 'They're realists, after all. Politicians, and ambitious, but still realists."
"But…" I felt like I was wandering into the mental equivalent of a mangrove swamp.
"Think about it. Dirk," the ex-Ali'i urged. "What happens if the corporations are forced out?"
"They'll fight back. Sanford Dole all over again."
"Precisely. But, just for the sake of argument, what would happen if the corporations could be ousted?"
I hesitated. "Polynesia for Polynesians, I suppose," I said slowly.
"It won't happen," Ho countered firmly. "Hawai'i was self-sufficient once… back when me population of the entire island chain was less than half a million. There's six times that in Greater Honolulu alone. There's no way the nation can be self-sufficient now. If the corporations are pushed out, the islands starve."
I nodded. That's what Scott had told me, what seemed so long ago now. "Na Kama'aina knows this?" I suggested.
"Of course they do. As I say, they're realists."
Another idea was niggling away in the back of my brain. I closed my eyes and let another healthy mouthful of Scotch encourage it to come out where I could examine it.
"If the corps were booted out," I went on tentatively, voicing the thoughts as they came to me, "there'd be a power vacuum, wouldn't there? The islands are strategically valuable-the U.S. thought so, for frag's sake. So somebody's going to move in. Japan, maybe?"
Ho was smiling. "It took my staff considerably more time to figure that out than it did you," he said quietly. "Yes, of course. Corporations out, Nihonese in. That's why I said 'Polynesia for Polynesians' will never happen. Neither me megacorporations nor the Japanese would allow it."
"Maybe that's Ryumyo's angle, then. Maybe he wants Hawai'i for Japan."
"That occurred to me, too," Ho said. "Ryumyo seems to live in Japan, however he and the Nihonese government have never been on particularly amicable terms."
"There is that," I admitted. And with that we both sank back into our private contemplations. It was funny in a way, I had to admit. Even with the drek dropping into the pot around me, it was reassuring-calming, in a way-to have someone with me who was getting ragged over by it all as royally (no pun intended) as I was. What was me old saying: "Misery loves company"? We sipped our Scotch and we stared at the carpet and we thought our bleak thoughts.
The telecom bleeped, jolting me out of my reverie. Pohaku was standing nearby, and he shot me a questioning look. At the moment I simply didn't feel like talking to anyone new… or, what I particularly feared, hearing any more bad news. For a second or two I debated just letting it ring. Bad idea, probably. Not that many people had this number (I hoped), so it was probably important. I sighed. "I'll get it," I told Pohaku, levering myself out of the upholstery and going over to the telecom.
I disabled the video pickup and accepted the call. "Yeah?"
The screen stayed blank-the caller had selected voice-only, too-but I recognized the voice immediately. "Mr. Montgomery?"
Deeper sigh. I keyed on my pickup. "It's me," I told Barnard.
The corporator's face filled the screen. Beside me, I felt Pohaku stiffen. Apparently, the bodyguard recognized Barnard as a corporate presence, and hence a potential threat… or maybe he was just professionally paranoid. "Do you have any news for me?" the suit asked. "Any developments I should know about?"
"Got an hour or two?" I asked dryly. "First thing, the throne's been usurped. Ho's out on his hoop."