Embustero- Pale Boundaries

by Scott Cleveland

  Markland moved through the station at a fast trot, mind racing.

  There was only one possible place the button in his pocket could have come from: the Embustero. How it came into the codger’s possession was not a great mystery, and Markland railed at himself for letting Pelletier walk away so easily—doubly for not thinking to check the pallet the dirtsider helped push aboard the sled. There’d been plenty of time for a station-side accomplice to find whatever message accompanied the button and track Markland down.

  He would have liked to learn exactly what game the codger was playing at, but the old bird proved too smart to board the sled where the spacers could interrogate him at leisure and push him out an airlock if that proved the thing to do.

  Markland weighed the risks and advantages of aborting the arrangement with Hans and the decision fell solidly on the side of aborting. Unfortunately, Markland’s conclusion was not the final word and delaying the deal while Shadrack hemmed and hawed his way to a decision would only be a colossal waste of time regardless of which way the captain decided to go.

  Back at the docks Markland paused at a terminal kiosk long enough to download the cargo ID certificates from Hans’ cache to a memory stick and relay those of the cargo the dirtsider had skimmed from the commodities exchange where he worked to Liz for scheduling. Necessity got the better of his preference when he arrived at the sled and handed the stick to Grogan.

  “Something came up,” he told the spacer. “I’m taking a taxi back to the ship. Get these certificates transferred to the containers as they come off. Make damn sure nothing makes it onto the conveyor without a cert, understood?”

  “Got it,” Grogan nodded.

  “I’m not fucking around,” Markland emphasized before releasing his hold. “One container makes it onto the conveyor without a valid cert in its chip and Customs will pop it open. Then they’ll eyes-on inspect everything we unloaded and I’ll do my damnedest to make it look like you’re the most diabolical poacher they ever apprehended. Got that?”

  “Aye, sir, you can count on me!”

  Shadrack couldn’t help but wonder whose uniform, among the years-long roll of officers who’d served aboard, the button had come from as he examined it. Markland stood at attention before him, his verbal account of the incident and his suspicions delivered with clipped military precision. “This,” the captain rumbled, “is not good.”

  “No sir,” the first mate replied with heartfelt agreement, “it’s not. We need to take steps immediately.”

  Shadrack knew without asking what Markland felt those steps should be: double the watch; bolt the hatches from within; issue weapons; sedate, club or strangle Joseph Pelletier into unconsciousness and dump the boy in the brig. Once again, he missed the big picture.

  Legally speaking, skip-tracing was a civil matter handled through investigation, court petitions, liens and enough red tape to fill the center hold, all of which had been previously accomplished to justify seizing the Embustero, but the Ladybird was another matter. Even if a skip-tracer suspected the Ladybird’s true identity they’d have to prove it to take action, a process that would begin with a court order directing the Caliban Stationmaster to hold the freighter in dock and halt all cargo transfer until the matter was adjudicated. Law enforcement wasn’t involved unless matters became acutely criminal, and attempting to blow the grapples would certainly qualify.

  Armed boarding wouldn’t be a problem until the ship voyaged into the web of navigation points between systems where a less than scrupulous bounty hunter willing to dabble in piracy might take action on a less-than-vetted charge.

  The greater hazard at present was the misappropriated cargo due to arrive over the next few hours. The consequences of the ship’s creditors learning her location was insignificant compared to what would happen if the local authorities discovered the piracy. Shadrack dismissed the possibility as quickly as it occurred to him. Entertaining thoughts like that for too long kept a man awake at night.

  Ultimately it didn’t matter if they ever heard from the old codger who accosted Markland again or not: if that man could identify the Embustero and her activities, others could as well.

  “Assemble the main staff in the briefing room,” Shadrack sighed. “We’ve got some decisions to make.”

  “Aye aye. What about Pelletier?”

  “Let him be, for now.”

  “That’s not wise,” Markland objected.

  “Do you really think the crew finding him on Nivia was planned?” Shadrack demanded. “He nearly died!”

  “Maybe it didn’t come off as he expected,” Markland replied, unmoved, “and maybe that’s why the codger didn’t turn up at Nivia. But as to Pelletier showing up where and when he did: yes, I find it completely plausible.”

  Shadrack wasn’t nearly convinced, but he had to admit that history was rampant with elaborate trickery wrapped in implausibility. “Very well,” he said at last, “we let him be for now. Locking him up, if he’s really communicating with someone on-station, might tip them off.

  “And keep this mum,” Shadrack added as the first mate turned to leave. “Rank and file crew doesn’t need to know anything.”

  Nivia: 2710:01:29 Standard

  “Were you here all night?”

  Hal squinted at Tamara Cirilo through sand-filled eyes that kept trying to snap shut of their own accord. “Turn the lights off, please.” His office flooded with darkness again except for the dim lamp on his desk.

  “You haven’t answered my question, Hal.”

  “Yes, Tammy, all night,” he snapped irritably. “If it’s any of your business. What do you want?”

  Tamara took three long strides to his desk and tossed a data plaque in front of him. “My report for Phase Two,” she said.

  “I’ll look it over, thank you.”

  “You won’t get much from it without some sleep,” she said.

  “I’ll catch a couple hours on the couch; I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  “Which will bring you to a grand total of how much over the last three days?” she demanded to know. “Eight, ten hours? You’re next to worthless already. Go home!”

  Hal rested his elbows on his desk and put his face in his hands, too tired to resist her tenacity. “I can’t.”

  “Because of Dayuki?”

  Hal nodded miserably. He hadn’t been able to resolve the conflict raging inside him since his return from the Minzoku base. He couldn’t be open with Dayuki without giving away everything. The Minzoku girl attributed his withdrawal to stress, but her ministrations only made him feel worse. He found more and more reasons to work late every day.

  “It will be okay,” Tamara said softly. “You’ll think of something.”

  “No,” Hal croaked. “There’s nothing.”

  “Maybe you can’t go home,” she said, “but you can’t stay here, either. Come with me.” Hal followed the Onjin woman out of the command post like driftwood caught in a river current. He shaded his tortured eyes against the harsh afternoon sunlight.

  “Where are we going?”

  “My place; I can see to it you’re not disturbed.”

  “This isn’t the way.”

  “It is now. I moved out of Dad’s quarters while you and McKeon were gone,” she explained. Hal’s addled mind digested the information while she led him into the Fort’s residential zone. Tamara had taken a tiny one-room apartment on the ground floor of one of the buildings reserved for the Family’s unmarried employees. The furnishings that came with the dwelling were functional but austere, nothing like the quality normally afforded to Family members.

  “Was this the only thing available?” Hal asked.

  “No, there were a couple of empty suites in our building. They felt too big for one person. Besides, just about everything at home belongs to Dad. It will be easier to cozy this place up.”

  “I didn’t mean to cause trouble between you and Sergio,” Hal apologized.

  Tamara put her hand on his cheek with
a sad smile. “Everything that happens isn’t about you, Hal. This was a long time coming.” She took him by the shoulders, turned him toward the bathroom and got him started with a push. “You haven’t washed up in a few days, either.”

  Hal expected to bathe, dress, and return to the command post but he was so tired the shower failed to wake him to any degree. He caught himself dozing in the spray and stumbled out to dry off. His clothes weren’t on the floor where he’d left them but he wasn’t too sorry they were gone—three days was enough for any apparel.

  Hal knotted the towel around his waist and cracked the door open. Tamara had drawn the blackout curtains across the windows and turned out the lights except for a wobbly torchiere by the small desk in one corner. She glanced up from her work when the light from the bathroom cast its beam through the apartment.

  She pointed at him, then the bed in the corner opposite her desk. “Sleep. Now.”

  “What’j do with my clothes?”

  “In the wash. I’ll wake you up when they’re done.”

  Tamara had turned the blankets down on one side. Hal sat down on the edge, damp towel and all, and laid back with his feet still resting on the floor. Bone weary though he was, he knew a trap when he saw it and had no intention of falling into it.

  I’ll just rest a minute…

  Stan McKeon watched Tamara Cirilo and Halsor Tennison leave the command post with a tight gut that only got worse the longer he tried to ignore it. Loyalty and self-interest had joined in battle as soon as the Old Lady initiated Phase One, although he didn’t realize it until it was too late.

  From a purely professional standpoint McKeon should have recused himself from participating immediately. The thought never occurred to him, which, in hindsight, was all the evidence he needed to convince himself that he was the Family’s greatest security risk at present.

  It’s their own fault; they should have recognized a conflict of interest this obvious. But they hadn’t; that was his fault, too. He’d done too good a job over the years and they took his loyalty for granted. He’d become a permanent fixture to which they attributed a level of trustworthiness that no man could be expected to live up to. Everyone had a weakness.

  McKeon stayed on at shift change that night. The most basic security measures could thwart him, but Halsor Tennison had been incompetent with fatigue when he left and the network monitor showed that he was still logged on.

  He used his own access rights to log into the command post’s internal security system. He waited until the digital surveillance camera monitoring the hallway outside Tennison’s office showed a deserted corridor and forced the device’s buffer into loopback. The camera replicated the same frame over and over, applying the current date/time stamp to each copy before sending the data to storage. It would be next to impossible to detect the tampering after the fact without intensive chronological cross-referencing between the cameras in surrounding hallways.

  McKeon strode down the hallway a few minutes later, heart pounding. He doubted the lock pick he carried in one hand would get him inside before someone passed by, but he’d come up with a plausible explanation if he was caught: Tennison was still logged onto the network but wasn’t answering his calls. McKeon was just checking on him.

  The handle turned when he tried it. Had Tennison returned without his knowing? He heard someone approaching from around the corner and stepped inside boldly, prepared to test his cover story, but the office was empty. He held his breath as the footsteps drew closer; they continued past without pausing.

  The normally meticulous Halsor Tennison had left file drawers open and documents piled on nearly every horizontal surface. Several unmarked data plaques lay about and it took a few minutes of trial and error on Tennison’s terminal before McKeon found the one he’d seen Tamara Cirilo enter with.

  He scanned the document quickly until he found what he was looking for: the list of specific Minzoku and gaijin that the Family intended to eliminate before evacuating Beta continent.

  He searched the list hoping not to find the names, but Cirilo had been thorough and there they were: Haruna and Chiharu, McKeon’s Minzoku wives. The data on them was out of date, however. The images of their faces had been taken when he’d married them fifteen years earlier; the location of their home had changed three or four times since then. McKeon suspected that their files had been compiled with the others automatically—Cirilo had probably not seen them, given the low priority.

  A few keystrokes deleted their profiles, but it was only a copy. The original resided elsewhere and it was essential that it be altered as well. McKeon browsed the network and shortly found where Tamara Cirilo housed her files. Halsor Tennison’s position as Chief Administrator gave him read/write privileges to everything on the Fort’s network. A few more keystrokes removed Haruna and Chiharu’s names from the original and the source of the alteration, if it were discovered, led to Tennison himself.

  McKeon replaced everything as closely as he could and logged Tennison off the network. He locked the door behind him as well, and a few minutes later the security camera took up live recordings once more.

  SIX

  Caliban Station: 2710:01:30 Standard

  The Embustero’s main staff sat clustered at one end of the conference table, listening solemnly while Markland related his encounter.

  “This was bound to happen sooner or later,” Shadrack said when the first mate finished. “The local authorities might not be interested in our credit history, but staying in this system will give the skip-tracers time to file papers on us. We also have to assume that this old codger knows what our other activities are.

  “How does it affect us if we change schedule—bypass Iago and A-30-Sierra—and jump directly to Tammuz?”

  “Half the load is contracted delivery to Iago and A-30-Sierra,” Colvard responded. “Financially, canceling those contracts will hit us hard, up front, but allow us to take on speculative cargo that could make up the difference at Tammuz.”

  “Canceling the contracts and off-loading will tell anyone who’s paying attention exactly what our intentions are,” Markland countered. “We have to change flight plans at the last minute, preferably en route, and the cargo has to go with us to make it work.”

  “That leaves us stuck with cargo we can’t sell and won’t get paid for,” Colvard replied. “We’ll just have to dump it at Tammuz as space-A back to this system at a loss we won’t recoup!”

  Liz chose that moment to speak: “There are ways to sell cargo we don’t own.”

  “True,” Shadrack nodded, “but the Ladybird has a clean record and I want it to stay that way—at least outside this system.” He nodded again, to Markland. “Regrettable as the loss may be, I’m taking your advice.”

  “One quarter of our current load is space-A bound out-system,” Colvard said. “We stand a better chance of mitigating the losses if we trade it out for spec-cargo.”

  “Most of it’s already loaded,” Markland replied. “Swapping will delay our departure a good twelve hours.”

  “I’m inclined to take Mr. Colvard’s counsel on this,” Shadrack rumbled, “provided the margin is worth it. Liz, how much venture capital do we have tied up?”

  “Less than five percent, including crew accounts.”

  “You and Colvard run the figures; have your recommendations to me by the end of the next shift,” Shadrack finished. “Again, not one whisper about the route change to the rest of the crew. Meg, I’d like a word with you.”

  Druski settled back in her seat while the others filed out.

  “I need Pelletier put out of commission for a few hours,” Shadrack told the medic.

  “The early jump,” she guessed. “You promised to leave him at A-30-Sierra.”

  “Not just that,” Shadrack told her. “Markland has an unflattering theory about the boy that spins him up something fierce. I need his mind where it does the most good, not stewing over what he thinks Pelletier may or may not be doing.”

&nb
sp; “Does Markland’s fixation have any merit?”

  “It may,” Shadrack admitted reluctantly. “Under the circumstances we can’t afford to take the risk.”

  “So have a couple of big fellows grab him and stuff him in the brig,” she replied.

  “It can’t be that overt,” Shadrack said. “I need him friendly afterward—or at least less pissed off. Can you do it?”

  “I can,” Druski acknowledged, “but I don’t think I should.”

  Shadrack leaned forward, thick fingers interlaced on the table between the two of them. “And why is that, Megan?”

  Druski leaned forward, mimicking his posture. “Because my patients have to trust me.”

  “It’s a little late to claim an abundance of ethical scruples,” Shadrack told her. “We both know better.”

  “When and how I invoke scruples is my prerogative,” Druski said flatly.

  Shadrack shrugged. “Then I’ll leave it to you to choose,” he said. “If, in this case, you can’t or won’t do what needs done for the well-being of the ship then I’ll leave it up to Markland.”

  Druski blinked. “Markland wants him dead.”

  “Not my first choice, either,” Shadrack smiled. “That will be all, Meg.”

  The medic departed stiffly and without uttering another word, telling Shadrack exactly what she thought of him and his order. He stared at the hatchway for another moment, and then began to compose messages to Iago and A-30-Sierra to inform them that the Ladybird had accepted a high-priority contract delivery to Tammuz and assure them that their goods would be delivered by other means as soon as possible.