“And the risks?”
“The risk is no higher than any similar procedure performed under general anesthesia. The entire procedure should take less than two hours. I recommend rest for at least a week following, and avoid rapid changes in air pressure for two weeks.”
“It doesn’t sound too bad,” Terson said hesitantly.
“How much lead time do you need, Doctor?” Druski asked.
“No more than a few hours prior,” he said. “Why don’t you think it over for a couple of days, and let me know?”
Terson agreed, but he felt burdened when they left the office, a fact not lost on Druski. “You feeling okay about this?”
“I’d rather be shot at, to tell the truth.”
“Understandable,” she said. “Nobody likes to give up control, but that’s exactly what happens when you get on the table. You become utterly helpless, at the mercy of a stranger.”
“You’re not helping, Doc.”
“I meant what I said earlier. I’m sure he’ll let me observe, if that makes you feel any better.”
Surprisingly, it did.
Liz, Neuchterlien and Markland crowded into Shadrack’s cramped office. “Okay,” the Embustero’s captain demanded impatiently, “What’s the problem?” Markland handed him a small plastic packet, which he turned over in his thick fingers as he examined it. “So?”
“Liz says it’s indium gallium antimonide in rough form,” the first mate informed him, “and Nuke agrees. If that’s true, depending on quality, what you hold in your hand is worth fifteen to twenty thousand euros—as is.”
“I see,” Shadrack breathed, “and how much do we have?”
“Two crates.”
“It may be low-quality crap,” Liz cautioned. “The value of this stuff spiked a few months ago. The container was intentionally mislabeled, so it may have come from some fly-by-night lab trying to cash in on the surge. I couldn’t find any known producers in the Nivia system.”
“But if it’s good quality,” Markland said, “we’re looking at upwards of twenty million euros or better!”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Shadrack said. “Is there any way to tell for sure one way or another?”
“Not with any accuracy,” Neuchterlien said. “The gas-spectrum analyzer we have aboard can give us the elemental percentages, but it’s the atomic alignment that determines the quality as much as anything. I doubt anyone on Assend has the equipment to check.”
“There’s a microchip imbedded in each package that should hold a certificate,” Liz pointed out. “The port inspectors can decrypt it if it’s genuine or a very good forgery.”
“All right,” Shadrack said, tugging at his beard, “this is very good news for all of us—potentially. I don’t want word of this getting to the crew: it will only raise hopes. Liz, go ahead and pursue this; let me know what you find out.
“Markland, Nuke, I still need a word with the two of you.” The two officers paused while Liz slipped out. “Nuke, I want you to get a line on a third transponder,” Shadrack said. “And I don’t want MacLeod to catch wind of it, you get me?”
“Aye,” the engineer nodded.
“Hop on it. Mr. Markland, you and I have some other issues to cover.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Nivia: 2710:08:33 Standard
Hal looked up and down the hallway before tapping on the door to the suite he shared with Tamara and Dayuki. The electronic deadbolts clacked open a moment later and he entered quickly to avoid the sudden appearance of some well-wisher who might catch sight of the formerly dead Minzoku woman. There had been many since Tamara’s return and the stream of visitors offering condolences frazzled her nerves to the point that Dayuki threatened to spirit the Onjin woman away to recuperate.
Hal justified Tamara’s isolation with claims of post-traumatic stress anxiety. The other Onjin nodded sympathetically, claiming to understand even though they didn’t. The death and mayhem at the Fort was little more than an intellectual detail to them—they had their families and hadn’t ever expected to see their old home or friends again after they left.
They’d already cut their emotional ties with Nivia and the Fort, but for Hal and Tamara the emotional wounds were fresh. The shared experience brought them closer together despite the shocking revelation Tamara received upon her return. She took Dayuki’s resurrection remarkably well, considering. Dayuki proved to be not only a familiar face, but a non-judgmental ear as well. The double shock of Sergio’s death and McKeon’s treachery hit her hard and Dayuki’s patience proved far more therapeutic than anything Hal could offer.
The Onjin woman sat in a crude manual wheelchair, her left leg encased in plaster and stuck straight out in front of her. A network terminal sat on a tray affixed to one arm of the chair and she did not look up when he entered. “You’re back early,” she noted.
“Things are slowing down,” Hal said. “Do you need anything?”
Tamara shook her head. “Dayuki is taking very good care of me—maybe you could learn from her example. We could both benefit from a little more attention.”
“I’ve been busy,” Hal protested.
“Busy walking on eggshells,” Tamara smiled. “We girls talk, you know. You’re so afraid to show either of us affection that we’re both feeling just a little neglected.”
“I, ah, see,” Hal stammered.
“Men are so damned cute when they’re confused,” she sighed. “Dayuki and I have an understanding, Hal. We decided that you’re not sleeping on the sofa anymore. Her room, my room—you choose. This thing around my leg makes it hard enough to sleep as it is, so I suggest you spend the night with Dayuki for the time being.
“Believe me, I’ll get my due when I’m back on my feet.”
“Sounds like you two thought of everything,” Hal muttered, “except my wishes.”
“Come off it, Halsor. We just handed you every man’s fantasy on a silver platter—don’t screw it up.”
“With the exception of my mother,” Hal snapped, “you are the most infuriating woman I’ve ever known!”
“I choose to take that as a compliment,” Tamara replied cheerfully. “We’ll expect you home at a decent hour, prepared to spend quality time talking about us.”
God! A henpecking by Tamara is bad enough; now I’m going to get it from both sides. He looked around hoping Dayuki would give an indication that Tamara spoke only for herself but there was no sign of the Minzoku girl. “Where is she?”
“I sent her out for groceries.”
Her offhand statement stunned him. “Tammy, don’t you realize what will happen when someone spots her?”
Tamara looked up, eyebrows raised at his tone. “Absolutely nothing,” she told him. “I did her hair, put on some makeup and got her out of that damned jumpsuit. She’s totally out of context—nobody from the Fort will realize she’s Minzoku unless they speak with her, and you’d be surprised how few people at the Fort ever actually spoke with Minzoku.”
“I’m talking,” Hal elaborated with deliberate patience, “about the fucking locals!”
Tamara sensed his growing anger and gave him her full attention. “I’m not sure I understand,” she said carefully. “The rank and file gaijin don’t know the Minzoku exist.”
“That doesn’t matter! The first time she opens her mouth they’ll take her for an immigrant,” Hal snapped. “You do remember how the locals treat immigrants?”
“Dayuki can handle herself,” Tamara said evenly.
She still didn’t understand, and Hal clenched his teeth in frustration. “Yes, Tammy, she can and she will at the slightest provocation! Gaijin aren’t people to Dayuki, they’re savages that burned her village and raped her mother—mortal enemies! Someone so much as looks at her cross-eyed she might kill them!”
Tamara’s eyes went wide with sudden realization. “Holy hell. I’d better make a call.”
Hal-san had deliberately established his household as far from the other Onjin as possible,
with access to several unused exits. Once outside it was simply a matter of crossing a sidewalk and stepping around the corner of the next building to move from the tiny Onjin enclave into gaijin territory. Dayuki had been outside alone several times since arriving on the gaijin continent, but had never ventured so far away as now.
Ironically, she was safer among the gaijin than the Onjin, though after years of conditioning it was difficult to get used to the idea. Dayuki’s first jaunt, taken at Mistress Cirilo’s insistence and without Hal-san’s comforting presence, left her nearly paralyzed with fear that someone would recognize her origins and murder her at once. She stayed out only a few minutes and never moved beyond sight of the door.
Mistress Cirilo ordered her out again the next day, and the next and the next. The gaijin she encountered ignored her for the most part, or offered a polite greeting, and she began to suspect that the frightening stories she grew up with were unfounded or greatly exaggerated.
It was easy to feel contempt for a people she really knew nothing about; certainly their policies and practices ran counter to Minzoku well-being and Onjin goals, but as individuals they were not unlike most Minzoku peasants she’d encountered: too busy with the concerns and struggles of daily life to care about what the government said or did.
At first she attributed their failure to acknowledge her foreignness to those self-interested distractions, but today, sitting on a bus surrounded by them, it occurred to her that the answer was much simpler. The Minzoku, culturally and ethnically homogenous, could spot a gaijin, Onjin or half-breed like herself within seconds. The gaijin, however, were a riot of dress and ethnic features, a rainbow of skin tone and hair color in which Dayuki was just one more variant of humanity.
She even spied individuals with unmistakable Minzoku features despite their dilution in gaijin blood. The contact between their societies was not one-way; Minzoku and gaijin regularly assaulted each other’s women if the opportunity arose and it was inevitable that some of the occasional offspring that resulted would surface in gaijin society.
Dayuki felt an odd, sad kinship with these lost ones. Though the gaijin accepted them more willingly than her own people did, they were ignorant of their heritage and the Covenant. The theft of identity struck her as the more egregious crime, but there had been moments in her life when she might have considered ignorance a fair trade for acceptance and happiness.
The bus entered one of Saint Anatone’s residential neighborhoods and Dayuki disembarked at the stop Mistress Cirilo had marked on the map. The high-rise apartment buildings were awesome and not a little disturbing. The Minzoku rarely built more than three or four stories high and left space between structures to mitigate the spread of fire. The gaijin warrens stood so close that a person could practically step from a balcony on one building to its counterpart on the next.
They were taller than any other structure she’d seen in her life, reaching so high that sunlight surely couldn’t strike the ground until midday, and if her calculations were accurate, a single gaijin apartment building housed more people than most Minzoku villages!
The sidewalks ran along the base of the buildings where the Minzoku ordinarily installed wide gutters to catch the waste and garbage dropped from windows. Dayuki flinched at every shadow and movement overhead expecting to fall victim to someone’s careless disposal, but she saw no evidence of the practice and concluded that the residents either disposed of their trash some other way or waited for some specified hour in the evening to give workers time to clean the streets before morning.
Surprisingly familiar sights popped up amid the strange surroundings: elders sat outside to gossip as the world went by, young men and women loitered in separate groups, though never far from each other, while adults came and went with pressing urgency. Dayuki had never conceived of similarities between Onjin, Minzoku and gaijin yet here they were—though the nearly total absence of small children in public struck her as inordinately odd.
Dayuki did not dismiss her observation that Onjin and gaijin might be more alike than Onjin and Minzoku. The similarities were surprising, but did not bear on the Covenant and it was the differences, after all, that carried the most weight. Though the gaijin’s vilification resulted more from Minzoku interaction with the worst of their number than any claim the Onjin made, she would do well to remain cautious and alert.
Dayuki consulted her map, comparing the spelling of unfamiliar words with signposts on the street corners and eventually turned left. Ground-floor dwellings gave way to small business establishments that opened directly onto the sidewalk. The largest of these endeavors, and her destination, occupied a full quarter of the first story of one building. The sign on the awning over the entrance declared Milner’s One-Stop Market. She plucked a plastic basket from a stack just inside the door and began to move up and down the aisle-ways searching for the items on Mistress Cirilo’s list.
Dayuki quickly discovered that while her command of conversational Onjin was excellent and her proficiency at reading and writing the language nearly the same, her exposure to it had been severely limited. The immense selection of products was baffling: she could read the labels and pronounce the words, but the meaning utterly eluded her. What was cream soda? What were Hot Poppers and Zesty Snaps?
Relief flooded through her when she happened upon fresh meats and produce she could identify by sight. She put the things she needed in her basket, but in the end she found herself trolling up and down the aisles again with growing anxiety, searching for items she doubted she would recognize if they were sitting in front of her.
“Can I help you find something?” Startled, Dayuki spun to confront a middle-aged gaijin watching her with a helpful smile.
“Yes, please,” she said, holding out her list. “I require these things.”
Something about her had an immediate and profound effect on the gaijin. Although the man maintained his smile, the sincerity fled leaving it forced and weak. The eyes of other shoppers turned toward her and lingered, some with distaste, others with unveiled contempt.
“Worthless phig!” a nearby woman muttered, walking away as if Dayuki’s mere existence constituted a personal insult.
The man led Dayuki through the market with a dramatic exhibition of patience, pointing out products and speaking with exaggerated pronunciation as if addressing a dimwitted child. Dayuki’s face burned with anger and embarrassment by the time she reached the pay station. She felt as if every gaijin in sight was aware of her presence and waiting to mock her next display of ignorance.
The young woman who counted up her purchases shot her a grim, sympathetic smile. “The accent gave you away,” she whispered, barely moving her lips. She swiped the plastic card Mistress Cirilo had given her through a machine and handed it back with a paper receipt. Dayuki felt a small, slightly stiffer paper card hidden between the two and looked at the clerk questioningly. “These people helped me hide mine,” she explained as she passed the bags of goods to Dayuki. “Have a nice day.”
Dayuki left quickly, eager to get away from the crazy gaijin, but discovered that her ordeal wasn’t over when she reached the street. Three teen-aged boys she’d seen check through the next line a few seconds ahead of her stood waiting outside and drifted to block her way.
“You new around here?” one boy demanded with a predatory grin. Dayuki stepped around them and continued at a pace she hoped would make her too much trouble to harass. They seemed to mistake her evasion for weakness and dashed ahead, countering her attempt to avoid them a second time. “Let us carry those for you,” the leader said.
“No thank you,” Dayuki said coldly. “Let me pass.”
“Hey, we’re just trying to be friendly,” the bully claimed. “You’ll be a lot happier if you’re friendly back.” Their adolescent chuckles suggested what kind of friendliness they meant. “So how about it? Want to be friends?”
“No!” Dayuki exclaimed. “Leave me be!” Her voice caught the attention of several
other gaijin on the street but none seemed inclined to intervene. She turned away from the three boys and walked rapidly back the way she’d come. She heard footsteps behind her and when a hand caught her arm she dropped her bags and spun on her assailant, raising her opposite elbow to throat level.
A loud WHUP-WHUP! broke her concentration and she stumbled against the boy, who suddenly couldn’t seem to back away from her fast enough. “Stay where you are!” an amplified voice ordered. Their bravado vanished and they suddenly looked like what they were—three little boys caught misbehaving, who had no idea how close they’d come to death.
An unmarked vehicle pulled up to the curb. Dayuki’s heart caught in her throat when a tall, slender gaijin wearing a black jumpsuit stepped out. One hand rested on the butt of a pistol strapped to his right hip and the other aimed an accusatory finger at them.
“You three: stand against the wall. Produce some identification,” the stern gaijin directed. He turned to Dayuki and lowered his voice upon seeing the fear on her face. “Everything’s under control, miss. Are you injured?” Dayuki shook her head mutely, lowering her eyes in deference to his authority. “I suggest you check your property—see if anything was damaged. I’ll be with you in a moment.”
Dayuki knelt and thrust the spilt groceries back into the bags. Her nerves calmed once she realized the focus of the gaijin police officer’s attention was on the three truants. She considered bolting into one of the nearby doorways, but doubted that she could remain hidden for long.
The officer peered at the identification cards the three sweating boys produced. “You,” he said to the leader, “I’ve talked to you before, haven’t I? Speak up!”
“Yeah,” the boy mumbled.
“Any reason I shouldn’t take you in?”
“I didn’t do anything!” he protested. “We were just having some fun!”
“Oh? Does she look like she was having fun? If I ask how her groceries got spread all over the ground will she say it was a game?” None of them had anything to say at that. “Sit down and face the wall.”
Embustero- Pale Boundaries Page 35