Embustero- Pale Boundaries

by Scott Cleveland

  They were aimed directly at the Embustero; the freighter was visible to the naked eye, a spinning silhouette backlit by the flare of the stringer’s drive. MacLeod pulled up at the last moment, missing the freighter by a thousand meters or less and found himself staring down the business end of the pirate’s railgun.

  “Now, lad!”

  Terson released the grapples securing MacLeod’s ship in the lander’s belly and tapped the braking thrusters. The little baffle-rider floated ahead like a balloon wafting along on a gentle breeze, but the closing velocity between it and the stringer stood at well over four hundred kph and climbing. MacLeod activated the starboard OMS, pushing the lander off its collision course. The surprised stringer crew cut its drive and swung its nose to follow what they perceived as the actual threat rather than pounding the baffle-rider apart.

  Terson pressed one of the pre-programmed controls at his fingertips and the lander’s drive screamed. The air rushed out of his lungs and his vision blurred as his corneas deformed under the incredible force of twelve gravities crushing him into the seat. His cheeks sagged toward his ears and he felt organ’s slipping within his body. Spots appeared in front of his eyes; he must have screwed up, he thought, mis-programmed the controls to boost continuously instead of for the few seconds he’d intended, and he didn’t care anymore, he just wanted to die.

  The pressure vanished abruptly. His tortured cartilage and sinews sprang back into shape. Terson raised a hand to wipe the tears from his eyes and encountered the acrylic faceplate instead. He shook his head hard, flinging the excess moisture onto the inside surface of his helmet.

  MacLeod didn’t appear affected by the ordeal. He spun the lander to bring the Embustero and stringer into view. The spray of vapor from the freighter’s hull and holds had not ceased but jets of flame from the freighter’s OMS puffed on and off, canceling the tumble incrementally to reduce stress on the spaceframe.

  The stringer continued to fall away from the freighter, cut in two by the baffle-rider’s hull. The shorter half, housing the bridge and living module, threw off bits of debris as it spun. A cloud of atmosphere escaping from the module left no doubt as to the eventual fate of any crewmen who might have survived the wreck.

  Nivia: 2710:05:20 Standard

  Stan McKeon followed the recovery team outside and pulled off his respirator. Steam rose from the wreckage piled in the snow outside the burned-out lab. The fire had burned with the same intensity as the Minzoku facility several months before, but without an explosion and the fire was contained to the lab itself. The building was intact, but snow blowing in over the Fort’s perimeter melted on contact with the outside wall, a testament to how lucky they’d been: only three lives lost, technicians killed in the initial flash-over inside the lab. A dozen others were being treated for burns and smoke inhalation at the Fort’s clinic.

  His men loaded the three body bags into the back of a maintenance sled and set off for the morgue. They could have just as easily walked; there hadn’t been much left to put in the bags and no way of telling who was who. He spied Halsor Tennison and Tamara Cirilo at the barricade blocking the approach to the building and trudged toward them leaving fresh white tracks in the soot-blackened snow.

  “That’s it,” he said tiredly. “Everyone’s accounted for. Three fatalities.”

  Tamara shook her head, tears welling up in her eyes. “Four,” she said, voice cracking. “Tambib died at the clinic a half-hour ago.”

  “Christ. What the hell went wrong in there?”

  “Carelessness,” Hal said flatly. “Derner ran a tight ship and things slacked off after he died. The production schedule hasn’t helped, either. Not enough downtime for rest and maintenance.”

  “I’m no expert,” McKeon said, “but the inside looks like a total loss.” He didn’t know what reaction he expected, but certainly not the calm, quiet nod he got.

  “I want the casualties and their families transported off-world as soon as possible,” Hal said. “Make the arrangements, will you?”

  “No problem, sir.”

  Hal turned to Tamara. “I’d better contact Den Tun. I’m sure his spies saw the smoke and commotion.” The two Onjin turned and headed back to the command post.

  McKeon turned the mopping-up over to his second-in-command and went to his quarters. He experienced a wave of revulsion when he entered the tiny two-room suite. He hated the place. For fifteen years it hadn’t been anything but a crash pad if circumstances required that he remain at the Fort for extended periods of time. Until the recent trouble with the Minzoku he’d rarely slept at his official residence more than two or three nights in a row.

  “Home” was a sturdy little cottage constructed at his own expense on the outskirts of Sin City where his wives, Haruna and Chiharu, lived. Had lived. It was dark, cold and empty, now, his women and household long since spirited away to an obscure Minzoku settlement in the interior. The only contact he’d had with them in the last two months were three short letters delivered to a dead drop outside the Fort by one of Haruna’s relatives, letters assuring him they were safe, comfortable and longing to be with him again, letters he dared not keep and burned to ashes moments after reading them.

  McKeon missed them both terribly.

  He washed up and put a packaged dinner in the microwave. Gaijin food was bland compared to the hearty home cooked Minzoku fare he preferred. He consumed the former without pleasure; lately eating had become a chore he performed only because it was physiologically necessary.

  The signs of depression were especially obvious to the Chief of Security—he watched for them in others because depression was one of many maladies that could be exploited to compromise an otherwise steadfast individual. He also knew how to hide the symptoms and did so reasoning that he had every right to be depressed. He would be forced to leave the wild, natural world he loved for an overcrowded artificial one, his wives were marked for death and his best hope for saving them had died before his eyes on the hard, frozen ground.

  For a time he’d clung to the belief that the Family would relent and allow Minzoku such as his wives to escape Nivia during the eventual evacuation. No longer. If Tennison could personally gun down his own mistress in cold blood, how could McKeon expect help or sympathy for his own plight? At times he considered flight: vanish into Beta continent’s wilderness or try to blend in with the gaijin on Alpha. It was no answer, of course. McKeon knew too much. Defecting would make him a top priority for elimination. The Family and its agents would spare no effort to hunt him down to ensure his permanent silence.

  The only way to escape the Family was to distract it with a threat greater than himself.

  The Embustero: 2710:05:20 Standard

  “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, mind you, but there was a cargo sled inside the lander when you left,” Markland told Terson.

  “Yeah, it’s out there,” Terson pointed. “We set it adrift to make room for MacLeod’s ship.”

  “Which, according to you, he volunteered to use as a missile.”

  “What are you driving at?” Terson demanded, impatient with the first mate’s interrogation.

  “You two keep connecting in circumstances I can only describe as unlikely,” Markland replied. “How do you explain that?”

  “Bad luck,” Terson snapped. “You think I put my ass on the line because I’ve got some kind of deal going with MacLeod?”

  “You did volunteer,” Markland pointed out.

  Druski elbowed her way past the first mate. “Give it a rest,” she ordered, “and show some gratitude. They saved our butts and you know it.”

  “Doesn’t mean a thing,” Markland sniffed.

  “Markland, you wouldn’t trust your own grandmother!”

  “Your point being?”

  “Just clear out so I can work!” the medic exclaimed. Markland didn’t dare challenge Druski’s authority on her own turf and left, grumbling. “Let me look at that eye.” A blood vessel had burst at some point during the ba
ttle staining the white of his right eye crimson. She inspected it with a magnifying glass and light. “Looks worse than it is,” she decided. “Let me know if you have any problems with it.”

  “What about the rest of me?” Terson asked dryly, gesturing to the bruises crossing his chest.

  “Take two aspirin and stop whining.”

  “Come on, Doc, I’m pissing blood!”

  “Drink lots of water. Come back if it doesn’t clear up in twenty-four hours.”

  “You’re all heart.”

  “Look,” Druski said, leveling a finger at him, “I just got done checking out that nasty little partner of yours. Not only does he stink to high heaven, he felt me up! I need a damn bath and you aren’t going to die any time soon, so get out of here!”

  The Embustero’s corridors were deserted. Shadrack had ordered a twenty-four hour stand-down to let the crew catch up on sleep lost during the nearly thirty-six hour battle and recovery. Terson wasn’t as bad off as some as far as sleep went; he and McLeod had to wait for the ship to be brought back under control before they docked and neither of them had anything else to do in the meantime but sleep.

  His belly demanded food, but the best meal he could hope for was an S-rat. His muscles and joints were sore and stiff from the punishment of high-gravity maneuvers. Visiting the commons would give him twice the distance to walk back to his cabin and he decided that rest would do him more good than food and headed for his quarters.

  He found Liz sitting on the couch inside. “Did I leave the door unlocked?” he asked.

  “No,” she replied blandly. “Do you want me to leave?”

  “I guess not. Can just anyone get in here?”

  “I doubt it.” He didn’t really expect her to explain how she managed it and didn’t press the issue. He stood in the shower for twenty or thirty minutes. The lights were off when he came out and he found a fresh Thermogarm by feel.

  “That was a brave thing you did,” Liz said when he got into bed.

  “Are you my reward?” he teased.

  She stiffened immediately. “Do you want me to be?” There was an odd tone to her voice, as if he’d pressed against a tripwire hard enough to cock her defenses and she was waiting to see if he’d make the right choice.

  “No,” Terson said. “I mean, not that way.”

  “So, I’m not good enough for you, am I?”

  “You’re too good for me,” he chuckled.

  A warm hand touched his face. “That was a nice thing to say, Joey.” She scooted under his arm and put her head on his chest. The pressure hurt his ribs, but an aching loneliness welled up inside him and he couldn’t bear to move her away. Her hair had the same texture as Virene’s, in the dark. Her body was just a little larger and her skin smelled the same, he was sure of it, and the thought made it so. He wanted the woman lying next to him to be Virene so badly that, for a few moments, she was.

  “She loved you a lot.”

  The stranger’s voice dragged him back to reality. He swallowed the sudden anguish, reminded himself that the experience was a lie, an illusion; he hadn’t lost her again after all. Anguish gave way to indignation that this other person, this counterfeit, had the audacity to speak on Virene’s behalf.

  “How would you know?”

  “She couldn’t help it, if you always held her like this.”

  EIGHTEEN

  The Embustero: 2710:06:03 Standard

  “Neuchterlien reports the ship’s onboard systems stable within acceptable parameters and operating at specified minimums or better,” Markland told Shadrack.

  “Very well, Mr. Markland. How long before we can get underway?”

  “They’re still trying to balance the load,” Markland said with less enthusiasm. “We should know if it’s possible in the next few hours. But the ship is sound,” he stressed.

  The statement belied what Shadrack observed in the Embustero’s corridors. Damage to the ship’s main hold and the loss of the superstructure had thrown its center of balance so far out of kilter that she couldn’t sustain a true course, even with full OMS assist. The crew spent nearly four days repositioning cargo and equipment to compensate for the missing mass. Many of the results ran contrary to Shadrack’s sense of order, safety and spaceworthiness: jerry-rigged systems, exposed circuits and corridors made impassable by cargo while portions of the holds stood empty. If the loadmasters couldn’t establish an acceptable center of gravity by shifting mass within the ship they would have no choice but to jettison additional cargo.

  Extreme measures, certainly, but equally necessary and probably the least of his problems in the long run. Repairs and refitting would effectively wipe out the fiscal progress they’d made over the last few years—set them back at zero. At least no one had died, this time.

  Markland’s cough broke Shadrack’s reverie. “Something else?”

  “Yes, sir. MacLeod. Now would be the best time to decide on his…disposition.”

  “I can guess your recommendation,” Shadrack replied. “I don’t have to remind you of my feelings in the matter.”

  “No, sir.”

  “How would you go about it, then?”

  “Sir?”

  “How would you dispose of the man? Gun, blade or bare hands? Or we could forget he’s in the brig; he wouldn’t last too long without food or water.”

  Shadrack’s petty attempt to bait his first mate failed; Markland returned his gaze unflinchingly, aware that his offence lay not in the proposal but in reminding the captain of an issue that the captain preferred not to acknowledge. “Tradition calls for spacing.”

  “Without any consideration for what he did for us.”

  “Oh, I suppose I’d sedate him before I put him in the airlock,” Markland said lightly. “He doesn’t deserve any more consideration than that, as far as I’m concerned. We wouldn’t be here in the first place if he’d left us alone.”

  “Or if we’d heard him out instead of running,” Shadrack added. The stakes were much higher now, and running wasn’t a viable option. The captain stood. “Come with me.”

  Markland didn’t have to ask where they were going.

  The officers heard voices as they approached the brig and its single occupant. They found a giggling Michelle Lytle standing at MacLeod’s cell. The crewman spun with a gasp when Markland cleared his throat. “I assume you’re here on official business, Ms. Lytle?”

  “Oh! I-ah-yessir! Just bringing Mr. MacLeod his meal.” She held up an S-rat to prove it.

  “Get on with it, then, and go about your business.”

  “Yessir!” She slid the ration through an open slot at the bottom of the cell door and made a hasty departure.

  MacLeod looked on lecherously, his sunken left eye socket fascinating in its hideousness. He was stark naked, throwing the wrinkled brown skin on his face, neck and hands into glaring contrast with the rest of his body, which gleamed white and smooth as an adolescent’s. Even seated, his posture revealed more than either of the two spacers ever wished to see and it took no imagination to guess the subject of Lytle’s tittering.

  “Mr. MacLeod,” Shadrack asked severely, “where are your clothes?”

  The old man turned a wide, toothy smile on the Embustero’s commander and first mate, unabashed by his nudity. “The elusive Captain Shadrack, I ken! I’m honored.”

  “Yes, of course. Your clothes?” Shadrack repeated.

  MacLeod aimed an accusatory finger at Markland. “Ask yer mate.”

  “They were filthy,” Markland explained. “I told Services to clean them. If they never came back it’s because they fell apart in the wash.”

  “Be that as it may, I think we can spare a shipsuit. Get him something to cover himself with in the meantime.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” In short order MacLeod was wrapped in a light blanket.

  “Now, Mr. MacLeod,” Shadrack began, “I have it on good authority that you went to all this trouble because you want to hire us. Is that true, or were you feeding
Helmsman Pelletier a line of shit?”

  “I told him God’s own truth, I did. I mean to hire ye, if ye prove as reasonable as ye are discrete, or extort ye if ye ain’t.”

  “I knew it!” Markland exclaimed. “I can’t wait to stuff your scrawny ass in an airlock!”

  “Aye, I knew that look in yer eye the day we met,” MacLeod said, “so I took precautions. I disappear, there’s a safe-deposit box in a bank on Cali­ban Station gets opened, eventually. Inside there’s information relating to the Embustero and the Ladybird.”

  “We’ve been dodging skip-tracers for years!” Markland shot back hotly. “The authorities at Nivia won’t give a damn about our debts if we’re not in their jurisdiction when they find out.”

  “True,” MacLeod replied, the wide grin unwavering, “but it ain’t for the authorities at Nivia. Or Hain’s World. It’s for the Ladybird’s clients and the shipping company that sot Hans works for. And it includes a copy of the Ladybird’s reactor emissions signature.”

  Shadrack’s heart leapt to his throat. Markland looked like he’d taken a punch in the stomach. A vessel’s reactor emissions signature was as distinctive as the rifling in a gun barrel or a human’s fingerprint and just as difficult to alter or disguise. It was the single critical piece of evidence that would incontrovertibly bind together the Embustero and Ladybird, creating a trail for both the Embustero’s creditors and the Ladybird’s victims. The scope of the crimes committed under both names could lead to Commonwealth charges of fraud and piracy. Shadrack and his crew could never enter into legitimate commerce again.

  “He’s lying,” Markland choked out. “He wouldn’t wait this long to threaten us if he had that kind of evidence!”

  “I never figured on actually needin’ it,” MacLeod explained. “I figured knowing who ye really were would be worth a favor to keep quiet. I ain’t out to ruin ye, an’ if I was after money I could’ve reported ye for the reward.”

  “You make a convincing argument,” Shadrack conceded, “but I find that I agree with Mr. Markland on this occasion. Good day, Mr. MacLeod.”