At Tripler a doctor had also examined his scar and it was now concealed under a neat white bandage; he had been fed; he had bathed; he had been given new clothes. Tripler was a teeming metropolis in itself, a main building some ten stories high, a scattering of outbuildings connected to it by covered passages, with thousands of men and women busy about it. Chandler had spoken to a good many of them in the hour after waking up and before boarding the bus to Honolulu, and none of them had been free with information either.
Honolulu had not suffered greatly under the rule of the Exec. Remembering the shattered stateside cities, Chandler thought that this one had been spared nearly all the suffering of the rule of the world by the Exec, whoever they were. Dawdling down King Street, in the aromatic reek of the fish markets, Chandler could have thought himself in any port city before the grisly events of that Christmas when the planet went possessed. Crabs waved sluggishly at him from bins. Great pink-scaled fish rested on nests of ice, waiting to be sold. Smells of frying food came from half a dozen restaurants. It was only the people who were different. There was a solid sprinkling of those who, like himself, were dressed in insigneless former Army uniforms—obviously conscripts on Exec errands—and a surprising minority who, from overheard snatches of conversation, had come from countries other than the U.S.A. Russian mostly, Chandler guessed; but Russian or U.S., wearing suntans or aloha shirts, everyone he saw was marked by the visible signs of strain. There was no laughter.
Chandler saw a clock within the door of a restaurant; half an hour still to kill. He turned and wandered up, away from the water, toward the visible bulk of the hills; and in a moment he saw what made Honolulu’s collective face wear its careworn frown.
It was an open square—perhaps it had once been a war memorial—and in the center of it was a fenced-off paved area where people seemed to be resting. It struck Chandler as curious that so many persons should have decided to take a nap on what surely was an uncomfortable bed of flat concrete; he approached and saw that they were not resting. Not only his eyes but his ears conveyed the message—and his nose, too, for the mild air was fetid with blood and rot.
These were not sleeping men and women. Some were dead; some were unconscious; all were maimed. The pavement was slimed with their blood. None had the strength to scream, but several were moaning and even some of the unconscious ones gasped like the breathing of a man in diabetic coma. Passersby walked briskly around the metal fence, and if their glances were curious it was at Chandler they looked, not at the tortured wrecks before them. He understood that the sight of the dying men and women was familiar—was painful—and thus was ignored; it was himself who was the curiosity, for staring at them. He turned and fled, trying not to vomit.
He was still shaken when he returned to Parts ’n Plenty. The hour was up but Hsi shook his head. “Not yet. You can sit down over there if you like.” Chandler slumped into the indicated swivel chair and stared blankly at the wall. This was far worse than anything he had seen stateside. The random terror of murders and bombs was at least a momentary thing, and when it was done it was done. This was sustained torture. He buried his head in his hands and did not look up until he heard the sound of a door opening.
Hsi, his face somehow different, was manipulating a lever on the outside of a door while a man inside, becoming visible as the door opened, was doing the same from within. It looked as though the lock on the door would not work unless both levers operated; and the man on the inside, whom Chandler had not seen before, was dressed, oddly, only in bathing trunks. His face wore the same expression as Hsi’s. Chandler guessed (with practice it was becoming easy!) that both were possessed.
The man inside wheeled out two shopping carts loaded with electronic equipment of varying kinds, wordlessly received some empty ones from Hsi; and the door closed on him again.
Hsi tugged the lever down, turned, blinked and said, “All right, Chandler. Your stuff’s here.”
Chandler approached. “What was that all about?”
“Go to hell!” Hsi said with sudden violence. “I—Oh never mind. Sorry. But I told you already, ask somebody else your questions, not me.” He gloomily began to pack the items on Chandler’s list into a cardboard carton. Then he glanced at Chandler and said, apologetically, “These are tough times, buddy. I guess there’s no harm in answering some questions. You want to know why most of my stock’s locked behind an armor-plate door? Well, you ought to be able to figure that out for yourself, anyway. The Exec doesn’t like to have people playing with radios. Bert stays in the stockroom; I stay out here; twice a day the bosses open the door and we fill whatever orders they’ve approved. A little rough on Bert, of course. It’s a ten-hour day in the stockroom for him, and nothing to do. But it could be worse. Oh, that’s for sure, friend: It could be worse.”
“Why the bathing suit? Hot in there?”
“Hot for Bert if they think he’s smuggling stuff out,” said Hsi. “You been here long enough to see the Monument yet?”
Chandler shook his head, then grimaced. “You mean up about three blocks that way? Where the people—?”
“That’s right,” said Hsi admiringly, “three blocks mauka from here, where the people—Where the people are
