Embustero- Pale Boundaries

by Scott Cleveland

  Hal reached the edge of the landing field a few minutes later and stopped to make sure his fob was actively communicating with the computer on the shuttle before he ventured within range of the sentry guns, clearly demarked by a ring of chewed earth. A medium-sized herbivore of some kind lay dead just inside the ring and, nearby, the remains of a scavenger that died feasting on the carcass.

  The tiny transmitter inside the fob created a bubble of immunity around him for two meters on either side. Anyone or anything standing close to him within that bubble was protected as well. Hal strode up to the craft, ducked under the landing gear and pulled out his needle-beamer when he emerged on the other side. He headed straight out for fifty meters, hidden from the Fort’s view by the shuttle’s hull. He crouched low as he entered the tangle of bushes that had been allowed to encroach on the edge of the clear-cut around the Fort and turned south toward Sin City.

  He moved cautiously, ears straining for sounds of movement around him and soon wished he had a more substantial weapon. The forest was full of sounds and he wasn’t experienced enough to know if the creaking he heard was the result of trees rubbing together or the hunting call of some deadly carnivore. A needle-beamer was adequate defense against a human, but not necessarily effective against the wildlife driven into the lowlands by winter snow.

  He almost turned back, but settled for moving closer to the clear-cut instead, where the shadows weren’t as deep and the sounds not so menacing.

  The Minzoku settlement looked almost deserted. A few streetlights illuminated intersections wide enough to admit vehicles, but overall Sin City was a town for pedestrians. The twisting alleys were almost completely empty and the Minzoku he did see moved quickly through the cold paying little attention to others. Smoke curled from chimneys here and there, and in some places light escaped from around shuttered windows.

  The thoroughfare leading up to the Fort’s main entrance was comparatively well lit, but just as inactive. Most of the food stalls and small shops were permanently shuttered or abandoned until the day the Onjin returned, a day that wouldn’t come. The crystalline air carried music and voices from one of the brothels at the far end of the street, the only one that appeared to be in operation.

  Hal paused in the alley’s shadow to survey the area. The appearance of an Onjin in the street wouldn’t cause too big a stir; the Fort’s lockdown had limited encounters between the Onjin and Minzoku but did not eliminate them as long as the parties had business to conduct. Hal wasn’t naïve enough to think that everyone in the Fort observed the lockdown, either. Someone was always willing to make unauthorized forays into Sin City and those were the people Hal had to be careful of.

  Hal hadn’t patronized the town since his teenage years and didn’t fear being recognized by any of the Minzoku. Encountering someone from the Fort, however, would call enough notice to his activities to spoil his plan. He counted on the uncomfortable weather to discourage such scofflaws from venturing out.

  The cold managed to squeeze a few listless snowflakes from the dry air while Hal watched. A handful of woodsmen or herders arrived and a dozen or more left. None tarried in the street. The cold seeping into his fingers and toes finally convinced him to enter.

  It wasn’t that much warmer inside the brothel. The tables and booths were half- to three-quarters occupied and it appeared that every whore left in town was operating out of the establishment. Hal found himself the target of a quiet stampede as the girls abandoned their Minzoku patrons and headed toward him. Mama-san brought them up short with a shrill command and sent them back to their Minzoku patrons who glared at him, not too drunk to realize that the price of an evening’s companionship had jumped tenfold the moment he walked in.

  The proprietress bowed respectfully. “Welcome Onjin-san. How large your party?” she asked, gazing at the door hopefully.

  “Just me,” Hal said. “I’d like private accommodations.”

  “Yes, very private here,” she assured him. He followed her to an alcove lined with smoke and water-stained paper walls that blocked nothing but direct observation. It wasn’t what Hal had hoped for but it would have to do. She helped him remove his shoes and plumped the thread-worn cushions at the low table for him. “You want tea, Onjin-san?”

  “Yes, please.” He held up a photo. “I want her to serve me.”

  “Oh, yes, very popular girl,” Mama-san gushed. “Many clients tonight.”

  “I understand.” Hal placed a twenty-euro note on the corner of the table. “I’d be grateful if she became available.”

  Mama-san peered at the photo closely and raised her shrill voice above the din to summon the girl. The Minzoku woodsman she was entertaining objected strongly and grabbed her arm when she stood. He jabbered angrily at Mama-san until two burly bouncers seized him by the collar and pitched him out the door into the street.

  “Soon-soon,” Mama-san promised and slid the panel shut.

  Hal’s heart began to thud. Earlier it had seemed a simple thing to snatch a half-breed whore but now, nearing the point of no return, it didn’t look so easy. He estimated he’d have no more than two hours before the command post started wondering. The hustle, as he remembered it, required him to sit through the tea ceremony, engage in some small talk and buy her a number of jusies—expensive cocktails alleged to contain at least a few milliliters of alcohol—before dickering for her services. He’d have to cut some corners.

  The girl arrived a few minutes later wearing a faded silk kimono and smelling of hastily-applied perfume. Mama-san obviously wanted to squeeze as much out of this Onjin as she could while she had the chance.

  The girl performed the tea ceremony competently but without the flourish that Dayuki exhibited and her attempt to appear demure failed miserably. Hal, however, was not the least bit concerned with her execution of the tea ceremony. Her file indicated that she was only five years older than Dayuki but the youthful fullness of the face in the photograph had thinned and hardened. Faint wrinkles and crow’s feet had crept into skin robbed of its glow by a difficult life. She hadn’t eaten well lately, and faint bruises testified to an assault of some sort by mama-san or a patron in the last few days.

  Hal considered passing her by but the two other prospective doubles weren’t likely to have fared any better. He accepted the bowl of steaming tea and sipped tentatively before adding sugar from the heaping bowl on the tray. It was fine, white refined sugar, he noted, the kind that the Minzoku rarely received from the Onjin. It was further evidence of Minzoku-gaijin commerce, though the spoon struck an obstacle concealed just below the surface. Commerce with the gaijin was not so well established that the luxury of processed sugar could be risked by Onjin appetites after all.

  “You buy me jusie?” she asked after he’d drained the bowl and set it back on the tray. Hal nodded and gave her a medium-denomination Minzoku coin. She put the coin on the tray, which she carried to the door and handed out into mama-san’s eager hands. There was a brief exchange of words—mama-san was unhappy that she hadn’t pressed for another coin—and she returned with two small glasses of spiked fruit juice. She settled down next to him to begin the requisite small talk. “You not visit before,” she said. “How long you at Toride?”

  Hal beckoned her to lean closer. “I’ve been very lonely,” he said. “I have a room up the street.”

  “Maybe I go with you later,” she smiled, “keep you company.”

  “Maybe we go now,” Hal insisted.

  The girl shook her head. “Mama-san be very angry I go with you,” she said.

  Hal put a handful of large-denomination Minzoku coins on the table, likely more money than she’d seen at one time in her life. Hal covered her hand with his when she reached out to touch them. “Leave these for mama-san,” he said. “This is for you.” He held up a hundred-euro note.

  The girl’s eyes widened and she pulled his hand down, casting a fearful look toward the paper-thin wall. Mama-san’s voice carried over from the other side of the room wh
ere she handled other customers. She would return shortly, expecting the girl to have finished her drink and asked Hal to buy another. Hal waited patiently while she struggled to decide if her desire for the money was greater than her fear of the beating she was likely to get later.

  Apparently it was. She scooped all but two coins from the tray onto the table and opened the partition just far enough to put the tray, coins and empty cups outside for mama-san to collect and refill. If fortune smiled upon her it would take mama-san a good ten or fifteen minutes to realize they were gone.

  The girl was decisive now that she’d chosen her course of action; she’d done this sort of thing more than once before, Hal guessed. They put on their shoes and she opened another panel that led to a hallway ending in a stairwell at one end, a back door at the other. Silhouettes of other patrons could be seen in other alcoves. She peered out to see if the coast was clear before leading Hal toward the exit.

  A tough looking Minzoku standing guard next to it frowned, crossing his arms as they approached. The girl spoke to him quickly and soothed his furrowed brow with two of Hal’s coins. The man’s eyes turned predatory as he looked from her to Hal and back. He asked something and grinned broadly when she consented with a sigh. He stood aside, allowing them through into a cold, narrow alley filled with frozen rubbish.

  “He wanted more money?” Hal asked as they picked their way through the garbage.

  “No,” she said with a shake of her head. “Hambla very lonely, too.”

  Hal led her back the way he’d come. She was less prepared for the cold and started shivering within minutes, but went along willingly enough until he turned into a dark street leading away from the flophouses.

  “Where you go?” she demanded, trying to pull away.

  “It’s just a little farther,” he offered placatingly, and clamped a hand across her mouth while he fumbled for the auto injector in his pocket. Her teeth clamped down on the web between his thumb and index finger. Hal groaned but maintained his grip and jabbed her in the thigh with the injector. The drug took hold in less than a second, leaving him with an armful of dead weight.

  Hal hoisted her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and set off into the icy darkness. The weight put pressure on his old back injury and a bolt of pain shot up his right leg with every step by the time he reached his shuttle. His left hand throbbed in time with his heart. He prepped the girl quickly and slid her into the shuttle’s emergency coldsleep pod, then cleaned and dressed the bite.

  The wound went entirely through his flesh in one spot, bad enough to require stitches. He couldn’t throw them himself and any medic worth his salt would recognize the pattern of human teeth. He couldn’t hide it without putting his health in jeopardy, but he might be able to use it to his advantage.

  Hal went straight to the Fort’s clinic when he returned to have the wound disinfected and stitched. The medic gave him a massive dose of antibiotics and a prescription of potent painkillers. Upon his release he knocked on Tamara Cirilo’s door.

  Tamara answered wrapped in a thick robe, blinking away sleep. “What’s wrong?” she asked when she saw him, suddenly wide-awake.

  Hal held up his bandaged hand. “Dayuki and I had an argument,” he explained. “The little bitch bit me. I need a place to stay tonight.”

  Before long he was arranged on the couch, head fuzzy from the effects of the painkillers.

  The Embustero: 2710:02:27 Standard

  Joseph Pelletier arrived at Druski’s door with a large, heavy case supported by a stout nylon strap slung over his shoulder. “What have you got there?” Druski asked.

  “I borrowed a sonic cleaner from Neuchterlien,” he replied. “I figured I’d give it a try, since the penetrating oil didn’t work.”

  Druski led him through the ship to the armory, a daily ritual that had developed by unspoken mutual consent after the backlog of projects she’d let build up had been completed. She had other things to do, but chose to consider it a form of preventative medicine. The Embustero’s crew always became restless during jump; she’d already patched up half a dozen broken noses and split lips resulting from fights over inconsequential issues. Anything she did to keep Pelletier’s volatile nature in check could only help matters.

  Once she’d satisfied herself that his proficiency was genuine she typically let him work alone while she logged into the ship’s network to keep current on her own duties. Today, though, she followed him to the workbench where the old handgun she’d given him lay wrapped in oil-soaked cloth.

  Frozen mechanisms stymied Pelletier’s first attempt to field-strip the weapon. An overnight dip in penetrating oil hadn’t gotten him much farther. Druski didn’t hold out much hope for this method, either, but kept the opinion to herself until she caught a whiff of the solvent in the reservoir.

  “Be careful,” she warned. “That stuff will dissolve anything remotely similar to plastic.”

  “They didn’t have plastics tough enough to survive in a firearm when they made this thing,” Pelletier replied. “Besides, if it doesn’t work now there’s not a lot more I can do to break it.”

  The clear fluid turned opaque with dissolved grease and suspended particulate within an hour as powerful subsonic pulses loosened foreign matter. It wasn’t unrealistic to believe that corrosion had already done to the internal workings what Druski feared the solvent might and she wasn’t optimistic of the outcome.

  Pelletier disassembled the weapon carefully. Deformed fragments of the return spring fell onto the cloth when he removed the slide. Corrosion had pitted the inside badly, eating away at the edges of machined grooves and catches necessary to properly cycle the action.

  “What do you think?” he asked Druski.

  “If that were my patient,” the medic grimaced, “I’d put it out of its misery.” The weapon wasn’t beyond repair, but reconditioning would require time and patience. He had plenty of time, and as for patience… “You might be able to rebuild the surface with Nuke’s inert gas electroplating gun if you don’t mind a lot of detail work—and if he’ll let you borrow it.”

  The com buzzed before he could reply.

  “Need you in the infirmary,” the bridge informed her. “Got another customer for you.”

  “On my way,” she said, then to Pelletier: “You’ll have to pack it in early today. Sorry.”

  Colvard stood just inside the door of the infirmary. Sitting on one of the examination tables, rocking from side to side like a drunk, sat a severely beaten Lad Hussein. Both his eyes were swollen shut and clotted blood soaked his mustache. His mouth hung open as he panted for air like a dog. Both upper front teeth were missing.

  “What’s the other guy look like?” Druski asked as she scrubbed up.

  “Broken knuckle,” Colvard said. “He’s in the brig. I’ll bring him in later.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Jerrell Mackey.”

  “Mackey?” Druski echoed. “This is a little out of character for him. What’d you do to set him off, Lad?”

  “I didut thay ambything!” the spacer protested.

  “I’ll bet. Hold still.” She gave him a dose of anti-inflammatory followed by an injection of mild painkiller. “Anybody save the teeth?”

  “I think he swallowed them,” Colvard said.

  “You’ll be lisping until we hit port then,” Druski told Lad. “I’m not a dentist.” To Colvard: “Anybody see what happened?”

  “Neuchterlien. He said Lad was giving O’Brien crap about a miscarriage when Mackey happened along. You see the result.”

  Druski’s temper heated to a slow burn as she turned back to Hussein. The drugs had reduced the swelling enough that he could open his eyes a crack, and they reflected fear. “How’d you know about that, Lad?” she asked softly. “Only three of us even knew she was pregnant.”

  “Ah don’d owe,” he shrugged pitifully.

  Druski grabbed his broken nose and twisted hard enough to overcome the painkillers. Colvard came a step
closer but she commanded him to stop with a gesture. “Who told you?”

  “Id wath Grogan!” he yelped. Blood began running from his sinuses again. Druski let him go and slapped a cold pack across his face. “I guess Grogan didn’t mention who the father was, huh?” She worked his injuries efficiently but without the slightest care for his comfort. Colvard took him by the arm after she’d packed him with gauze and cleaned him up.

  “I know medical information is privileged,” the second mate said before he led the crewman away, “but Shad needs to know. It may have a bearing on Mackey’s punishment. And his.”

  “I’ll talk to the captain,” Druski said. Not that anything stays privileged for long after Grogan finds out about it! Grogan had a knack for ferreting out the most intimate details of other crewmen’s lives and took great joy in combining them with his acidic wit to initiate incidents. Somehow, though, Grogan himself was never the one to come to blows. One of his cadre always acted as a proxy and Grogan didn’t seem concerned whether his agent won or lost: watching the action was satisfaction enough.

  The bullying spacer was one reason Druski was happy to let Pelletier while away his free time in the armory. If Grogan was keen to make a project of Pelletier after the humiliation he’d suffered on Nivia, he had to be raring for it now. And if Pelletier was out of reach physically, Druski didn’t put it past him to strike at those he thought the boy considered friends. Ultimately it was not Pelletier who needed protection, but Grogan. The clod was too caught up in his own ego to comprehend that he was outclassed.

  Shadrack listened impassively while Druski laid out her accusations against Grogan. “I can see this has upset you,” he acknowledged when she finished, “but I’m not sure I understand what you want me to do.”

  “I want some kind of disciplinary action taken against Grogan!” she exclaimed.

  “I can’t do that without cause,” Shadrack said patiently.

  Exasperated, Druski lost her temper. “He instigated the whole thing! How much more cause do you need?”