Embustero- Pale Boundaries

by Scott Cleveland

  TWENTY

  Nivia: 2710:07:20 Standard

  Winter did not release its grip willingly. Unseasonably cold temperatures remained in place for several weeks, bolstered by strong high pressure that kept the sky a clear, crisp blue until spring lost patience and struck without warning.

  A moist low-pressure front shot northward and fifty centimeters of fresh powder covered the ground by morning. It seemed winter had triumphed, but a warm southerly wind followed and by late that afternoon the only signs of Old Man Winter were piles of dirty ice next to doorways and along paths.

  The snow pack at higher elevations remained intact, ensuring plentiful water into summer even as runoff deluged rivers and streams at lower altitudes. The floods were minor and short-lived, but the Minzoku wailed of lost and damaged equipment and Hal gave them most of what they asked for without a second thought.

  In a few weeks it wouldn’t matter anyway.

  The wind died out after a few days but warm temperatures persisted. The Fort’s paths and walkways filled with people again. The remaining teenagers and young adults that hadn’t been transferred to Alpha appeared in light summer clothing as if they could force the next season to arrive faster by pretending it was already there.

  Hal strolled along the paths with Tamara Cirilo after the sun burned off the chill. Maintenance workers were out early resetting frost-heaved paving stones, sweeping walkways clear of a winter’s worth of sand and gravel and replacing ice-damaged rain gutters. Piles of old leaves waited to be raked out of the corners, trees and shrubs needed pruning and Hal let it go on even though, in a few weeks, it wouldn’t matter anyway.

  The Fort’s population had divided into two camps over the winter—those who knew change was upon them as they watched labs and shops shut down while coworkers left on sabbaticals from which they never returned, and those who chose to believe things would go back to normal soon, who made plans for the annual Spring Festival despite the absence of so many others. Sergio led the delusionaries with meetings and committees and preparations.

  Hal let them be because, in a few weeks—what the hell did it hurt, anyway?

  Tamara gave his hand a squeeze. “You look like you stepped in something.”

  “No, just thinking,” Hal sighed. “A lot of unpleasantness is going to hit once it warms up a bit more.”

  Nowatchik had tens of millions of tiny disease-carrying insects packaged and refrigerated in the one lab that hadn’t seen personnel or operational cuts. She recommended waiting a while longer before deploying the vector; the nighttime temperature was cool enough to send them back into hibernation and a deep cold snap was still possible. Big problems if weather killed off the parasites before they completed their mission.

  A lot of things had to happen at once. A lot of things could go wrong. It fell to Hal to mitigate what could be mitigated; significant pressure for one man to endure under any circumstances and the situation with Dayuki only added to it. He worried about her, alone on the shuttle for weeks, but she’d flatly refused to submit to cold-sleep. She insisted that she needed nothing but access to the hypernet and the Fort’s library.

  Her reaction to his infrequent visits revealed the lie: her face lit up when he arrived and clouded with tears when he had to return to the Fort. Dayuki’s isolation was worse than prison. She could see the sun through the shuttle’s ports but feel no warmth. Trees would blossom only meters away and she couldn’t smell them. She couldn’t even afford the luxury of an excursion into the fresh air: Den Tun’s observers would spot her if someone in the Fort didn’t.

  There’d been an abundance of abandoned pets for a few weeks as families departed. Some found homes with the Onjin that remained but most went to Nowatchik’s lab to be euthanized. Hal toyed with the idea of taking one for Dayuki but couldn’t figure out how to get it to the shuttle without answering awkward questions. The creatures small enough to conceal weren’t the kind any sane pilot wanted aboard a spacecraft—too many wires to nibble on if they escaped.

  I’ll make it up to you, Dayuki—I swear!

  Hal and Tamara parted ways at the command post. Hal climbed the stairs to the second-tier offices where he found Stan McKeon already at work. The strain was wearing on him, too, by the looks of it. The Chief of Security gave Hal his full attention when he closed the door behind him.

  “I want to do the final check on the detonation circuits this week,” Hal said.

  “I figured it was coming,” McKeon nodded. “When’s a good time for you?”

  “As soon as possible. I expect orders to implement phase three within the month.”

  “I’m surprised you decided to wait,” McKeon said.

  “The disease vector Nowatchik used likes warm weather,” Hal replied. “One more thing—I want you to keep this quiet—how many prisoners can you handle at once?”

  McKeon’s eyebrows shot up. “Prisoners? It depends. Who are they, what level of security, and how long will they be confined?”

  “I expect trouble from Sergio’s circle when it comes time to evacuate. I think it would be best to take him and a few of the others out of circulation ahead of time; confine them long enough to arrange transportation to one of the safe houses.”

  “I’ve got twenty-four cells, two per cell if they get along, but that’s too many to move at once. I’d suggest groups of six to eight at a time. When do you want to start?”

  “Be a while, yet. Clean up ten cells. Make them as comfortable as possible. This is protective custody—I don’t want Family or loyal employees treated like criminals; they’re still due proper courtesy.”

  “I understand,” McKeon said. “I’ll see to it.”

  McKeon held off the shakes until Tennison left. He could hardly open the bottle he kept in his desk drawer and spilled half a shot’s worth of clear Minzoku moonshine getting it into his glass.

  It burned pleasantly going down, spreading its warmth through his belly, numbing the anxiety. Medicinal purposes only—just like the one waiting to lull him to sleep at night. For a while he thought time would make it easier being separated from his wives, help him pretend they were safe. He thought he could fool himself into believing that whatever happened would not happen to them as long as he didn’t actually see it. Out of sight, out of mind.

  Then he saw what scratch fever did to the grazers in Nowatchik’s lab.

  He couldn’t ignore it, couldn’t forget. Haruna and Chiharu were too far away even if he could acquire vaccine, and the immunity would fade before the plague burned out.

  The Family claimed to reward loyalty but “reward” and “loyalty” didn’t carry the same definitions when they said it. Their expectations were too high for gaijin and as much as McKeon thought of himself as Onjin, their expectations were too much for him, too. Matricide and patricide, reviled in most cultures, were perfectly acceptable to them. It was how Hal Tennison’s father got adopted into the Family, and McKeon had watched the son murder his lover when push came to shove.

  Maybe they thought McKeon existed within their pale, took it for granted that he would do as they would. He wasn’t an angel by the standards of his own upbringing but he could only push his envelope so far and when push came to shove he fell back on his ingrained mores—the ones that said family was more important than Family, which said some sacrifices were too great to expect of anyone.

  No one could claim that he hadn’t looked for a way out that satisfied both standards. It was the Onjin who were unreasonable, who wouldn’t compromise, who cut off his escapes, who forced him to choose between the honorable and the sacred.

  McKeon stayed on for a while after work, thankful that circumstances brought the crisis to a head before the daylight lasted long into the evening. It wasn’t absolutely essential that he remain—all it required was a few keystrokes in the programming of a minor security system—but his presence might allow the glitch to go unreported if it happened to draw attention. More importantly he’d be able to sleep knowing it went off as planne
d.

  The lights along the top of the Fort’s wall blinked on automatically when the sun’s illumination fell below a certain threshold. On this night, half an hour after that event took place, individual fixtures lost power for thirty seconds forming a particular pattern of gaps visible to Den Tun’s observers. It was a rarely used signal with no meaning other than ‘we need to talk.’ Contact might come in an hour or a week in ordinary times.

  Given the current circumstances it fell to McKeon to make himself available without raising suspicion. The dead drop where he exchanged messages with his wives lay in the woods a few dozen meters from the crossroads where the Onjin and Minzoku met to trade cargo. Two of the Fort’s armed ORVs traveled with the convoy for security and McKeon occasionally rode along on the pretense of checking procedures. A brief trip into the bushes to piss was usually all the time he needed to retrieve or deliver messages. He would need more time on his next trip.

  McKeon’s bowels clenched when the ORV struck an inordinately large pothole in the road. Sweat beaded his forehead and he swallowed—hard. The driver tsked sympathetically and gestured to the truck ahead of them. “Want me to tell’em to stop a minute?”

  “No!” McKeon groaned, “Not until we get there.” He closed his eyes, concentrated on keeping his sphincter from opening up on its own. God, it’ll be close! His previous experiments with the purgative took place in a less mobile environment, on a regular diet that assumed his digestive tract’s natural rhythm wouldn’t vary much one way or the other. He timed the dose to hit shortly before the convoy rendezvoused with the Minzoku rather than risk busting the timeline and getting sick on the way back to boot. Now it looked like he wouldn’t last that long.

  He wished he’d thought of another way to buy time.

  The best way to fake illness was to induce it—few had the resolve to put themselves through such misery and no one ever looked beyond the obvious for ulterior motives. No one, that was, but trained and experienced security professionals. There were only a few of those stationed at the Fort, including McKeon, and he arranged the schedules so he didn’t travel with any of the others when he checked the drop. He’d been so careful, in fact, that he never scheduled along the same guards lest a pattern develop that one of them might recall later.

  They reached the crossroads without McKeon shitting himself. The lead ORV pulled sideways to the Minzoku’s team-drawn wagons. The gunners swung their turrets to cover the laborers waiting to transfer the loads. The Onjin trucks made a wide U-turn at the intersection to get their noses pointed back toward friendly territory in case of trouble.

  McKeon stumbled out of the ORV and headed for the bushes. The driver jerked his weapon out of the rack and hurried to follow. “Stay at your post,” McKeon ordered with as much authority as he could muster.

  The guard paused uncertainly. “That’s not reg, sir: two-man integrity.”

  “Do as I say and stay at your Goddamned post!” The man fairly rose into the air as he about-faced and scampered back to the ORV. His reaction galled McKeon on the one hand: the protocols he developed were intended for everyone and he’d done his best to train awe of rank out of his people. There were several who would have nodded—Yes, sir. As you say, sir—and followed him anyway just like regs said. McKeon made sure none of those made the duty roster, either.

  His abdomen was ready to explode.

  He risked one look back as he passed the dead drop to make sure he was out of sight and dropped his drawers. He fell to a squat and let loose with flatulence and stinking slime, moaning with agony and relief as wave upon wave of cramp and release wracked his colon. He rested his head on his forearms, oblivious to anything but the miserable, molten putrescence squirting out of his backside every few seconds. The cramps began to fade and he recalled the reason he’d put himself through the ordeal. There was no one around, however. It was possible that the Minzoku had missed his signal. He cast about for foliage to clean up with and discovered a small handheld radio lying on the ground at the edge of his vision behind him.

  “Nice work,” he told the invisible Minzoku who’d delivered it. He seated the earpiece and turned it on. “Who am I speaking with?”

  “Your wives send greetings,” a voice at the other end replied: Den Tun himself.

  “Do they need anything?”

  “They are safe and well cared for,” Den Tun promised. The conversation paused for a moment while McKeon’s guts knotted up again and squeezed out a few bubbles of gas.

  “The Onjin,” he gasped, “are going to move against you soon—I don’t know when. Certainly by the end of the month.” A tiny but perceptible interval of silence followed.

  “We have prepared for that eventuality,” the old man said.

  “Any preparations you’ve made are worthless unless they take plague and nuclear detonation into account.”

  “You lie,” Den Tun replied. “The Onjin would not risk their own in this way.”

  “They aren’t risking anything,” McKeon told him. “Half the Onjin in the Fort are already gone. The rest leave soon. Then they’ll release a more potent strain of the fever they tested on Sin City last fall.” Silence as the old man muted his microphone to confer with his advisors.

  “What is your reason for informing us of this?”

  McKeon’s heart thudded in his chest. A few months ago he wouldn’t have believed he could ever utter the words. “I can give you the Fort.” He heard an uproar in the background before the circuit muted. He imagined the bedlam as Den Tun’s advisors offered conflicting guidance—could the gaijin be trusted? If genuine, was the offer worth the risk? What could motivate such treachery?

  The Minzoku observers around the Fort had witnessed Dayuki’s fate and such an event wouldn’t go unreported. McKeon knew the old man well enough to assume he’d already considered what that meant for McKeon and his wives. It surprised him that the old man hadn’t initiated some kind of overture first, but, of course, he had no way of knowing when the Onjin might decide to attack and he wouldn’t play his hand prematurely.

  “You have conditions?”

  “Safe passage and freedom afterward. The Onjin must come to no harm.” Something to soothe his conscience, at least.

  “I can guarantee nothing until the Toride is under our control. You must safeguard the Onjin if there is fighting.”

  “Agreed. I will leave instructions at the dead drop.”

  “No. The Minzoku will decide when and how,” Den Tun insisted. He still didn’t trust McKeon, and with good reason. “You must be prepared to act on an instant’s notice.”

  “This is foolish,” McKeon told him. “I can’t guarantee anything unless I initiate the action.”

  “You will abide by my conditions,” Den Tun said, “or I promise nothing.”

  Damn the stubborn old bastard! McKeon couldn’t arrange a bloodless coup if the Minzoku cut him out of the loop. “How will I know?”

  “You will have no doubt,” the old man promised.

  Den Tun left his staff and advisors to their arguments. It might take them days to reach a consensus, but by that time it would be over, and a frightening new era would descend on the Minzoku. The next panel of the tapestry was to be woven during his lifetime after all.

  General Cha’Cain followed him into the corridor. The military officer fell in beside him silently, intuitively cognizant of what was to follow. Cha’Cain had been a brash new lieutenant when the previous Minzoku leadership launched its disastrous coup attempt against the Onjin. With the exception of Den Tun, he alone perceived the greater disaster should they succeed. He alone held knowledge of the conspirators’ back-up operation, the only part of the plan worth protecting in the intervening years.

  The two spoke of it only once, a few years later when it was obvious that the operation had to go dormant. They memorized and destroyed all written evidence. Certain Minzoku engineers and dozens of peasant laborers met with untimely deaths—both men harbored guilt over the murders. They then swore an
oath that when one fell ill or mentally feeble the other would hasten him on to the next world to protect the secret, and then find another that could be trusted.

  Den Tun’s hopes had rested on his grandniece, Dayuki, but youth did not invest itself with the life experience necessary to take the long view. She fell under the Onjin’s thrall as others before her. The news of her death broke his heart despite his anger. How cruel to be used and discarded by the ones she trusted so much!

  Only Fate’s blessing prevented her from learning the secret before her betrayal.

  The men entered Den Tun’s study and sealed the doors. “How long to revive the operation?” Den Tun asked.

  “A few days,” Cha’Cain replied, “but the movement of so many troops will be difficult to conceal.”

  “We must trust McKeon to distract the Onjin.”

  “As he trusts us?”

  “Just so. This will be the least of many betrayals, my friend.”

  “And your promise to protect the Onjin? Will you honor it?”

  “Insofar as it is possible,” Den Tun nodded. “Impress that upon your soldiers. We are without defense against the gaijin; taking Onjin hostages may be all that saves us.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Nivia: 2710:07:31 Standard

  Detonating a nuclear weapon didn’t require much effort: a half-watt transmitter at the Fort, an unsophisticated receiver at the Minzoku base, a bias shift in a solid-state relay that allowed a few billion electrons to zip down a conductor generating an infinitesimal electromagnetic field.

  A discrete-component relay activated, closing a circuit to allow a larger flow of electrons to cross a chemical medium and then it was a matter of chemistry and physics, an increase of energy in increments, teetering baby steps toward annihilation.

  Conductors and electrons and timing requiring no more brainpower than it took to turn a key and push a button; no more intellect than the circuit logic printed on a few microchips along the way. Alter the timing a microsecond or two; physically mis-route the flow of electrons and—nothing. A matter of a moment, by human reckoning, to sever a connector on a relay and install a jumper on a circuit card which fed a logic high to a particular lead of a particular chip. The monitoring circuits saw what they were intended to and lit a green-tinted LED on a status board in the command post.