“Have it your way,” the old man shrugged as they turned away, “but check me gear: there’s a copy I brought with me, just in case.”
Shadrack waited until MacLeod was out of earshot. “See if he’s telling the truth. Get him dressed and bring him to my office if he is.”
Half an hour later Markland delivered MacLeod to Shadrack’s office clean, clothed and shackled. He pushed the old man into a chair and set a data plaque on the captain’s desk. “Neuchterlien checked it out. It’s our emission signature, no doubt about it, and lists of ports, dates and cargo.”
Shadrack willed the knot in his stomach to loosen; it returned the moment he spoke. “You went to a lot of trouble, MacLeod. You put the lives of my crew in jeopardy as well as your own, and now, with this,” he indicated the plaque, “you threaten our freedom.
“I don’t see any choice but to cooperate, but Mr. Markland feels that the most prudent course of action is to kill you. He makes a compelling argument, one I’m very close to agreeing with. I’ll hear your proposal before I decide.”
“Fair enough,” MacLeod agreed. “I got me the coordinates of a treasure-laden derelict. The Embustero is big enough to haul it back to Nivia.”
“You stupid old bastard!” Markland exploded. “You know how many stories like that I’ve heard in my lifetime?”
“Far fewer than me, I ken,” MacLeod replied, unruffled by the outburst. “Difference is I had the flight data recorder in me hands and a shyster paid me ten thousand for it. I figure they’ll pay a hundred times that for the vessel an’ cargo.”
“Did it occur to you,” Markland demanded through clenched teeth, “that even if it does exist somebody else probably got there first?”
MacLeod dismissed his concern. “If it ain’t there, it ain’t there. You go your way, I go mine.”
“Until the next treasure map pops up,” Markland said, “and you show up with this again! And again, and again, and again!” He turned to Shadrack. “I won’t live like that! I’ll vote to sell the ship and disband the crew before that happens.”
“Ye got the wrong idea!” MacLeod objected. “I needed it so ye’d take me seriously; it’s good for insurance, maybe a bit o’ leverage, too, but I got secrets o’ me own to keep! I go to the authorities with what I got on ye they’ll snap me up, too.”
“I’m taking you seriously, all right! Serious enough to snap your—“
“GENTLEMEN!” Shadrack thundered. What they had was simply a business transaction like any other and needed to approach it as such. “Mr. MacLeod, hiring us presupposes that you have some way to compensate us for our services. How do you expect to do that?”
“Cargo,” MacLeod answered. “Hans ain’t the brightest fellow. He rolled over on ye quick enough; he’ll give over twice as much cargo as you been moving to stay outta prison. I’ll get ye a load whether we find it or not. If we do, considerin’ the circumstances, I’ll cut ye in for half o’ the proceeds.”
“And turn over all copies of this!” Markland demanded.
“Aye. That goes without sayin’.”
“It’s not that simple,” Shadrack said. “Repairs will lay us up for weeks and wipe out the funds we have on hand as well as what we expect for the cargo. We may not have the reserves to lay up supplies for a purely speculative venture.” If the cost of repairs were too high they’d be lucky to have a ship left after it was all over. The lending institutions on Assend charged steep interest and weren’t known for using due process to collect on defaults. Selling the ship and cashing out contracts might be more cost effective in the long run than burying themselves in debt again.
“Rent the equipment,” MacLeod advised. “Do the work yourselves. I’ll even donate me services.”
“Thanks,” Markland replied dryly, “you’ll be the first one we call if we need a con artist.”
MacLeod shot him a dirty look. “How close’d ye check me wallet?”
“Hang on,” the first mate sighed without any prompting from the captain. He got up and returned a few minutes later with a strange look on his face. He handed Shadrack a large, worn leather pouch, from which he withdrew and unfolded a thick wad of official-looking certificates.
“Either we have a gift for picking up vagabonds with unlikely skills,” Shadrack noted, “or these are excellent forgeries.”
“Nay,” MacLeod smirked, “they’re real enough.”
“I find it difficult to believe that a Master Drive Engineer could be reduced to baffle-riding,” Shadrack said.
“Secrets,” the old man shrugged, “like I told ye.”
“We’ll discuss this in more detail later,” Shadrack decided. “Mr. Markland will arrange quarters for you.”
“So I’m to live,” MacLeod concluded.
“For now,” Shadrack replied. “You may consider yourself our guest, but I caution you not to abuse our hospitality. Do not repeat any part of our negotiations with the rest of the crew.”
“Aye. Understood.”
“Very well. That will be all.”
Neuchterlien contacted him a short time later. “We nearly got’er, cap’n. Have to lash wreckage to the stump of the superstructure, but we’ll get a workable center of gravity.”
“Well done,” Shadrack congratulated him. “Stop by my office when you get the chance. I’ve found someone you might be interested in adding to your staff.”
“Aye, sir,” Neuchterlien acknowledged quizzically. Shadrack thumbed through MacLeod’s certifications again. Fate had smiled on the Embustero after all.
“So I hear ye got pinched from Nivia,” MacLeod said conversationally from the jump seat at the rear of the lander’s cockpit.
“You hear rightly,” Terson replied in a tone intended to discourage further discussion. It didn’t work.
“I met all manner o’ Nivians,” MacLeod continued. “Ye ain’t one.” It wasn’t a question, so Terson didn’t respond but MacLeod wouldn’t be put off: “Yer high-grav,” he observed. “Ain’t that many inhabited hi-grav dirtballs. Where’d ye originate?”
Terson glanced to his right where Ingwaldson, Neuchterlien’s fellow engineer who’d been tapped to perform dual roles as copilot as well as his primary specialty, sat stoically silent. The taciturn crewmen rolled his eyes to indicate that he, too, wished the old man would shut his trap but offered nothing in the way of help or distraction.
“Algran Asta; how about we let it drop at that?”
“Ach, bad business, that,” MacLeod murmured, but appeared appeased by the information.
Terson found some advantage to MacLeod’s presence on the Embustero. It gave Markland’s paranoia another outlet, for one thing. The first mate hadn’t offered up a snide insinuation of ulterior motive or conspiracy concerning Joseph Pelletier since the encounter with the stringer. The sudden shift in attitude was downright spooky, particularly their last encounter.
The first mate had drawn Terson aside and out of sight of the others just before he boarded the lander to embark on the current mission to retrieve the missing section of superstructure. “I understand you know how to use one of these,” Markland said quietly, holding out a palm-sized beamer. “Two shots. Use them both if MacLeod tries anything—one in the chest, one in the head.”
The weapon was currently a slightly uncomfortable lump between his thigh and the seat harness, effectively inaccessible inside his pressure suit’s right-hand storage pouch. How he would get to it in time to prevent MacLeod from trying “anything” was a mystery he was certain Markland hadn’t considered.
“Say, Joey-me-lad,” MacLeod piped up again after a short interval of silence, “what say we take a lookit that stringer while we’re out here, eh?”
The request earned a frown from Ingwaldson. “Nat da yob,” he said curtly.
“Aye, truly,” MacLeod agreed, “but wouldn’t ye like a closer look at the bloke that nearly cashed in our chips?”
It was tempting, and given time and inertia doing so would only get more difficult as
the remains followed their various paths into the deep dark. The lander’s radar currently painted four major pieces of wreckage, only one of which, the superstructure, was of immediate concern. The other three—two halves of the stringer and the battered shell of MacLeod’s baffle-rider—formed the rest of the expanding constellation. With no active transponders on any of them it was only an educated guess which target was which. Timing suggested that the one farthest away was the superstructure, but with no coherent picture of beginning vectors or velocities it was only a best guess.
“We don’t have the fuel,” Terson said. The damage to the Embustero had caused the loss of a significant portion of her deuterium supply, used in both the freighter’s Orbital Maneuvering System and the lander’s fusion reactor drive. Figenshaw had uploaded a carefully crafted minimum-fuel trajectory to the lander’s guidance system in order to rendezvous with their target. Any deviation without prior approval would be difficult to explain or justify.
“But look here,” the old man insisted, pointing to the sensor screen, “I bet ye won’t need but a bitty bump t’ swing by this one. I recollect it bein’ number two for what we seek.”
“A distant number two,” Terson clarified. He began to wonder if the current situation would qualify for Markland’s definition of “anything.”
“A’right, laddie,” MacLeod said, abandoning his wheedling tone, “how ‘bout this: ye do me the favor an’ I’ll see to it we not only get back with the payload but spare fuel as well. Ye don’t an’ I fall into a swoon at the hatch from a sudden bout o’ astrophobia.”
Terson wasn’t about to give in to the old man’s extortion; the job was safer with three, but could be accomplished with two. The sudden concern on Ingwaldson’s face, though, made him pause. MacLeod had volunteered to perform the EVA portion of the recovery; Ingwaldson was along to oversee the placement and securing of the load. It occurred to Terson that the engineer might not be keen to do an EVA—or qualified, for that matter. He studied the indications on his screens, performed some quick mental calculations and concluded that the old man was right: a minimal lateral bump from the OMS would allow them to pass within easy view of the other target and an equally minimal correction would put them back on course.
“We might have a glitch in the program,” he said to MacLeod while looking at Ingwaldson. The other man’s eyebrows furrowed in a moment of indecision before he gave a resigned (and relieved) nod.
The alteration caught the Embustero’s attention in minutes, but Terson’s claim of a glitch in the guidance system was met with relief instead of suspicion. Given the minimal, hurried repairs performed on the lander’s known damage and the strong suspicion of more yet undiagnosed, a glitch was the preferred alternative to a catastrophic system failure.
A few hours later the wreckage came into range of the lander’s optics and Terson linked the feed to an auxiliary monitor for MacLeod’s benefit. It turned out to be the stringer’s aft section, a revelation that greatly pleased the old man. He went to work on the lander’s computer, taking measurements and building formulas, leaving Terson and Ingwaldson in peace. That changed when Terson voiced his intent to correct their course back to the primary target.
“Nay, laddie, we got another hour to nearest point of approach.”
“I promised you a look and you got it,” Terson told him. “The longer we wait the more fuel it takes to get back on course.”
“Too soon,” MacLeod insisted. “We ain’t close enough t’ get a tag on the bugger, yet.”
“I don’t give a damn about a tag,” Terson retorted.
“That there’s money in the pocket—mine if ye and yer cohorts ain’t interested in the salvage. Knowin’ it’s here does me no good if I cannae find it again!”
The reason for the old man’s interest and careful mathematical calculations came clear at once: once a piece of debris was tagged and a profile of relative separation between it and the rest established, it wouldn’t take any effort to locate it all again provided the point of reference was found. It didn’t matter if MacLeod himself returned in ten years or if he sold the tag code and profile to a treasure hunter next month.
“I’ll give you until we reach maximum effective range on the tagger,” Terson offered. “And you only get one shot.”
MacLeod agreed; half an hour later the tag was in place, the ident code and profile burned to a memory stick and tucked in his pocket. Terson bumped the OMS, and the maneuvering clock recalculated the lander’s time-to-intercept. MacLeod’s plan to recoup the fuel was at once both mathematically sound and ludicrous for anyone with a reasonable sense of self-preservation. “I’ll rappel across wi’the torch an’ trim off what ain’t needed in transit,” he explained as if it were obvious to anyone with a lick of intelligence. “Less mass t’ move, less fuel used.”
It didn’t matter that they weren’t carrying the necessary equipment for the rappel; he suited up and hand-tied a seat harness with a length of spare tether, fashioned an expedient descender from a pair of cleats, netted up the plasma cutter and attached it to the line on the lander’s grapple gun. When they came within ten kilometers Ingwaldson fired the gun and they waited while the tether played out.
The tether hit the target and the rate of play increased for a few moments as it began to wind around the tumbling mass of wreckage. Ingwaldson increased the tension on the drum and the drag slowed the gyration to a stop. Terson tapped the bow thrusters experimentally to make sure it wouldn’t unwind again and gave MacLeod the okay to clip on.
“You fall off,” Terson reminded the old man, “we might not have the fuel to pick you up and make it back to the ship.”
“Aye, mine to worry, laddie,” MacLeod replied from his place in the airlock at the lander’s nose. “Hit the goddamn brakes, a’ready!”
Terson applied a quarter-gravity thrust from the bow and MacLeod’s suited figure zipped ahead, the netted cutter preceding him down the line into the darkness.
Ingwaldson gestured at the receding form with a mix of awe and disgust: “Dat une craazi fook!”
When they returned to the Embustero Terson turned the lander and its payload over to Neuchterlien and Figenshaw and caught ten solid hours of sleep. The remains of the superstructure were lashed to the hull when he woke, and Shadrack announced a twenty-four hour stand-down before the final jump to Assend.
Terson wandered into the commons for chow and found the room filled to capacity with members of both shifts, most of them gathered at the bar to take advantage of the respite. Cormack MacLeod sat at the center of a knot of crewmen, waxing eloquent in answer to questions about his heroic and harrowing recovery of the superstructure.
Jerrell Mackey approached Terson with a bottle in each hand. “You back to drinking, yet?”
“’fraid not,” Terson replied. “Some of us only get a half-shift off, you know.” Figenshaw already had a batch of sims programmed to practice handling the ship in its new configuration and wanted to begin running them the moment she completed her own crew rest.
“Yeah, I heard—poor fellow.” He handed over a bottle that turned out to be a soft drink. Liz entered a few minutes later and surveyed the room coolly before she approached the bar. She looked right through Terson as she passed and Mackey leaned in close to his ear. “You two need to watch it.”
“You two, who?” Terson asked.
“She’s been seen coming out of your cabin,” Mackey informed him.
“And who’s business is that?”
“Hey, nothing to be ashamed of,” Mackey said. “Personally, I think you two make a cute couple.”
“We’re not a couple,” Terson insisted.
Mackey rolled his eyes. “Sure, okay. My mistake. Just remember: anything I hear, so does Grogan. He’ll make it his business and everybody else’s, too.”
“Alright,” Terson said without admitting anything. “Thanks for the heads up.”
“No problem.” Mackey looked off where Liz stood by herself sipping from a bo
ttle. “I never would have guessed,” he commented. “How are you two, y’know, getting along?”
“What did I just tell you?” Terson demanded.
“I heard you,” Mackey grinned, “but if you aren’t a couple, what are you?” He stepped back into the crowd before Terson could formulate a reply. It was a valid question, one Liz brought up herself a few nights previously.
“Doesn’t it bother you to get used?” she asked him while they lay curled together in his cabin.
“How do you mean?”
“This. I know what I get out of it, but what I get you don’t need, so…why? I don’t love you, I’m not going to give you sex, and if I had to make a choice between you and me, I’d probably choose me. What do you get?”
Terson had mixed feelings about his own motives. On one level he felt like he was cheating on Virene, on another he rationalized that he was returning a favor, doing for Liz what his wife had once done for him. It sounded wonderfully altruistic to the ear but stung his conscience. The truth was that he was using Liz, too. She was a topical, a salve to sooth a wound in his heart but incapable of healing it, though he didn’t want to acknowledge that truth.
“Friendship,” he suggested instead.
“Friends are just people you know.”
“What the hell happened to you?” he wondered aloud. He didn’t expect a reply, but the inquiry seemed to open a valve inside her and she began to speak. “I’m stationer born,” she said softly. “I started working the docks when I was fourteen. My very first trick was a knife freak.” She shuddered violently, her voice thickening. Terson sensed the fear inside her, the effort she exerted to keep from shrinking away from him. It was a rare courage, the kind it took to keep going in the face of fear that couldn’t be conquered.
“He cut me; said he’d cut my throat if I made a sound. He would have. They found a girl dead, just like that. The only way I could keep from screaming was to…go away. By the time I was sixteen I would do anything. Part of me just shut down while it was happening.
Embustero- Pale Boundaries Page 26