He answered at once. "Use your influence to stop this before it goes too far."

I laughed in his face. "Influence! Chummer, you've got the wrong slag here, let me tell you. I've got about as much influence as a fragging pawn in a chess game, as much as…" My imagination failed me, so I just waved my hands about eloquently. "Zilch, in other words. Zero. Zip. Null. Get me?"

"You have influence," he stressed. "You don't wish to acknowledge it for your own reasons, but you have it."

"Yeah, right," I snorted. "I'm as significant in this as tits on a bull."

"Oh?" The shaman's eyebrow rose again. "That's not how it seems to others, Mr. Montgomery." He glanced pointedly around the suite, his gaze settling in turn on each of the security personnel. 'This isn't the residence of someone lacking in influence."

"Them? They're not following my orders. They're the Ali'i's people."

The shaman nodded. "And the Ali'i listens to what you have to say. You're significant in his interpretation of events. Otherwise, he wouldn't have arranged this meeting.

"The same with Yamatetsu Corporation," he pressed on firmly. "If someone listens to your words or follows your actions, then you have influence. And there are others, aren't there, Mr. Montgomery?" he asked. 'There are others who consider you significant"

"To the extent of threatening to kill me, yeah," I said sarcastically.

"And that's to a significant extent indeed," the shaman shot back, "as you'll recognize if you'll only think about it. You don't warn off or threaten to kill someone without importance or without influence. You kill them, or you simply ignore them.

"You have influence," he concruded. "Use it."

"I don't know how."

"You will."

I narrowed my eyes. "You really expect me to help you on this?"

The shaman shrugged again. "You want this stopped," he stated, "we want it stopped. Is it really that difficult to understand?"

"So why don't you just"-I gestured vaguely, searching for the right word-"just possess me like you did Theresa? Then you wouldn't have to convince me, would you? I'd just follow orders like a good little drone."

Again, my scorn and anger just rolled off him. "That's not our way," he said quietly. "It must be voluntary… on both sides. You must accept us, but we must also accept you."

"And I don't 'make the grade'?" The shaman didn't react in any way. So the bugs considered me 4F, did they? Thank God for small favors-if I could believe this slot, at least.

I stared out the window for a few moments. My eyes saw the scenery, but my brain didn't register it. More thoughts- fears, doubts, hopes, dreams-bubbled up from the swamp of my subconscious. I tried to sort through them, separate reason from irrationality. Finally, I turned back to the shaman. "What's in it for me if I do it?" I asked.

He blinked. "The entities will be unable to penetrate the barrier," he said slowly. "They will be unable to prey on-"

I cut him off with a sharp gesture. "No. What's in it for me? Me personally?"

Again the shaman paused. "Payment, you mean?" His tone was confused, as if I'd asked him something he'd never had to consider before.

"More like quid pro quo," I amended. "I do something that benefits you, you do something that benefits me. Me. Not metahumanity in general. Me. Get it?"

I watched his eyes as he tried to bend his brain around the thought. (Frag if I'd ever needed hard evidence that the Insect spirits were inhuman and alien in their outlook, this was it. The idea of bribery, a surprise? Cut me loose…) Finally, he nodded slowly. "Perhaps something can be arranged."

Roughly, I grabbed him by the shoulder, and I dragged him into a corner of the room. Away from the sec-guards, away from Akaku'akanene. Away from Theresa. "I want her back," I whispered harshly. "My sister."

He blinked again. "What?"

"Look, it's simple. I do this for you, you give me my sister back. Normal, understand? The way she was, with her own thoughts and her own mind and her own soul. You reverse whatever the frag it is you did to her." I crossed my arms. "That's my price."

The shaman's unblinking eyes were fixed on mine, as if he were trying to see into my mind. "Can we discuss this?" he asked at length.

"No negotiation," I whispered firmly. "That's it. You want me to do this? Then that's my price. You don't play ball, then I'll use whatever influence I've got to fuck you up, chummer. Anything you do to block these cosmic nasties, I'll throw a fucking wrench into it."

"But the entities-"

"Let 'em come! Doesn't matter squat to me if I don't get my sister back." I leaned in close again. "Scan me, bug-boy?"

He thought about it for a long time-two minutes maybe. It felt more like two hours. I could feel beads of sweat trick¬ling down my spine, soaking the waistband of my trousers. It was all I could do to keep my knees from trembling.

Finally, he nodded once. "Your sister for your cooperation? Yes."

"We have a deal?" I pressed.

"We have a deal."

I thanked whatever gods were listening that he didn't insist we shake hands.

21

Okay, I'd cut myself a deal. Now the question was, how the frag was I going to see my side of it through? (And how the hell could I be sure bug boy was going to live up to his side? Save that worry for later, I told myself.) The Insect shaman could argue until he was blue in the tits that I had influence. Who knows, maybe he was right, speaking from his own twisted, nonhuman standpoint, but I didn't know how the frag I was going to use it.

Let's say he was right, that some shamans were going to jack around with this barrier-whatever the frag it was-in one of the sites of power in the islands. Fine, take that as a given.

Which site of power? Puowaina? Haleakala? Hona-whatever Bay? Or one of Christ knew how many others?

And when were these shamans going to do the dirty deed? Tonight? Tomorrow? Next month? Or had they already started?

So what the frag was I supposed to do, huh? Use my "influence" to arrange for all the sites of power to be staked out, round the clock, forever and ever amen? Yeah, right.

I sat on the couch in room 1905, New Foster Tower, staring out the window. The sun had gown down maybe an hour before. A couple of the brightest stars-or maybe they were comsats-were visible against the black velveteen sky; the rest couldn't compete with the artificial fire of the city.

Kono and Lupo had taken Theresa and the Insect shaman away a couple of hours before. They didn't say where they were going, and I didn't ask. Theresa promised she'd be in touch, and that was good enough for the moment. On his way out the door, bug-boy had given me a strip of paper from a pocket 'puter's thermal printer-a local LTG number where I could contact him.

That left Louis Pohaku and Akaku'akanene to keep me company. Since I didn't particularly feel like company at the moment, I was relieved when they settled down to do their own thing. The bodyguard quietly field-stripped and reassembled his weapon, then seemed to tune out and go to sleep. The shaman just settled down into full lotus in a corner and stared blankly into space-maybe talking to geese or some damn dung.

It was maybe ninety minutes after sunset that Pohaku surged to his feet-no warning-fragging near scaring me to death. Silently he crossed to the window, staring out and down. City lights reflected in his eyes as he frowned out into the night.

"What?" I asked him.

"Trouble," he said quietly.

I was on my feet and beside him in an instant, straining my eyes to see what was worrying him. Nothing. No fire-flowers blooming from Sand Island… or anywhere else, for that matter. If I pressed my forehead right up against the transpex, I could look down to the right onto Kalakaua Avenue and watch the cars-mainly corp limos, probably- cruising along it, forming streams of lights. White on one side, red on me other. I blinked. Way down Kalakaua, to the west, there seemed to be a major knot of red taillights.