No, I realized suddenly, the knot of red wasn't the tail-lights of cars. The color was subtly wrong, as was the way it waxed and waned.

Fire. Maybe a burning barricade, maybe me aftermath of a car bomb, I didn't know. Only now that I knew what to concentrate on, I could hear the distant, almost subliminal ululation of sirens. And something else-maybe the crackle of gunfire, I couldn't be certain. One thing I knew-there was trouble in paradise tonight.

Beside me Pohaku was shaking his head. "Lolo," he muttered to himself… men noticed my attention, and translated. "Stupid."

If I'd thought the bodyguard had reacted fast before to some cue I'd missed, I hadn't seen anything yet. A knock sounded, and before my brain had even fully registered the sound, Pohaku was flattened against the wall beside the door, SMG out and off safety.

Akaku'akanene was alert, too, back from her avian conversations. Pohaku shot her a quick nod, and me woman closed her beady eyes. After a moment she opened them and announced, "Hiki no."

Apparently that meant "okay" or "copacetic" or something similar, because I could see Pohaku relax. His gun was still at the ready, but his finger was on the trigger guard now, not on the trigger itself. He reached out to unlock the door, then stepped back well out of the way.

I was about to grouse "Who's fragging room is this anyway?" or some such drek-until I saw who my visitor was.

Visitors, to be precise, but only one of them counted. He flashed me a wry smile as his personal bodyguards shut and locked the door behind him.

"E ku'u lani," I began…

Gordon Ho waved that off. "I told you, that's not appropriate for the moment." His smile took on a new edge. "Since we're both outcasts, why don't you call me Gordon?"

I could see from the way his bodyguards stiffened that they didn't like it, but frag them if they couldn't take a joke. "I'm Dirk, then," 1 told him. I paused, "So, not to put too fine a point on it-"

"What the frag am I doing here?" he finished for me. He took off his jacket-an armored leather number, quite a change from his feathered regalia-tossed it to a sideboy, and slumped down on the couch. For the first time I noticed how drek-kicked he looked. "I've got to be somewhere," he pointed out, "and since I'd already assigned a significant percentage of the people I really trust to this room, I thought, 'why not?' He sighed, rolling his head as though to relieve tension in his neck. "You wouldn't happen to have some Scotch, would you?"

I realized I hadn't checked for a minibar-which indicated just how distracted I was at the moment. Pohaku had scoped the place out, however, and opened a wooden cabinet next to the trideo to reveal a well-stocked bar. "Make that two," I told him. 'Triples, while you're at it." Then I planted myself in an armchair across from Ho.

Pohaku assembled the drinks almost as quickly as he'd responded to trouble and handed them over to us-Ho first, of course. I sipped and let the peaty liquor work its magic on my tangled synapses. The erstwhile King Kamehameha V was doing the same thing, and I could almost see some of the tension melt away from his face. What the frag had he been up to before coming here? Where does a king in exile-by definition, one of the most recognizable of all people-go to avoid notice?

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."