The curve of the dome’s ceiling was interrupted just past the apex by the descending roof of the older, larger dome next to it. Terson and Cormack passed through a wide, low-slung opening broken up by the bare ribs of the next dome, exposed when the shell was removed after the construction of the next structure. The ceiling vaulted upward again high enough to allow a second story of shops and stalls. The apex of this dome was capped by a large skylight that allowed natural illumination to shine down on an oasis of greenery at the center of the ring of venders.
Again the descending roof of the adjoining dome cut through the newer structure and allowed access between the two through an opening segmented by huge structural members. The roof of the center dome was high enough to allow four stories of commerce to ring a garden beneath a huge skylight. A massive tree squatted in the middle of the garden collared by an array of taproots as big around as Terson’s body. The trunk must have been at least a meter in diameter and stretched upward a good seven meters before the crown exploded in a wide, leafy canopy. It wasn’t the largest tree Terson had ever seen, but it was a pleasant sight after weeks of Assend’s barren surface.
The branches grew incrementally smaller and more delicate as they extended outward, reaching some distance into each tier of the dome. Long, thin vines festooned with clusters of leaves dangled from the branches moving to and fro as the air circulated. More deliberate movement drew Terson’s eyes to the roots at the base of the tree where he spied dozens of small, furry creatures scampering up and down the trunk between the canopy and the floor.
Cormack issued a low whistle. “That old codger must’ve been here a long, long time.”
“I’ve seen bigger,” Terson said dismissively.
“Not like this,” Cormack told him. “You ever hear of a Jacob’s Tree?”
“Sure,” Terson nodded, “but there’s no such thing.”
“I beg to differ, laddie. That there’s the biggest Jacob’s Tree in the known galaxy: I’d bet me life on it.”
“There is no such thing as a sentient plant,” Terson insisted. “They’re a myth.”
“Aye, whatever you say,” the old man snorted. He followed Terson up an escalator to the second level. “Where we bound, anyway?”
“I’m picking up some ammunition I ordered for Bessie,” he replied, patting the holster under his arm. “I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re doing.”
“That thing’s too bloody big for practicality,” the old man opined. “I’d’a hocked it by now.”
“And blown it all on whores and cheap booze inside a day and a half,” Terson said. “Then what would you use to shoot folks?”
“Only gun I need is hangin’ twixt me legs,” MacLeod leered. “Fact you need t’ pack a pistola that massive says nothin’ good about yours.”
MacLeod made a vulgar pass at the sales clerk while she rang up Terson’s order and he decided that the old bastard must possess some level of skill or endowment to make Lytle overlook his foulness, though he couldn’t fathom why she needed to. It wasn’t as if there weren’t plenty of other prospects given the exposure she received in the Mall.
The Embustero had rented a shop in the next-to-outermost ring of domes to hawk the sundry consumer and miscellaneous goods they’d pirated from Nivia and Tammuz. Michelle Lytle had bloomed as an entrepreneur, seizing what most of the other crew considered an unwelcome chore and making it her own. She managed the place like a tyrant but turned a profit well in excess of what Liz and Markland expected. She’d even gone so far as to buy up remnants from other stalls and squeezed out a few more percent of profit.
The gate securing the shop front was partially raised by the time Terson and Cormack arrived. They ducked under and entered the dim shop. The tables, shelves and racks once full of merchandise were beginning to look a little scrubby and bare now that most of the freighter’s cargo had been unloaded and the small consignments separated out.
“Aye, lass,” MacLeod called, “c’mon out and give Grandpa some sugar!”
Lytle didn’t answer. Nothing broke the silence but the hum of display lighting and the men’s own breath. Terson looked around slowly as his eyes adjusted and they fell on an open cage behind the counter. Lytle scoured the Mall for rarities like Terran chocolate, vanilla, coffee, cinnamon, honey and other condiments that would fetch a high return at the farthest reaches of the Commonwealth. She kept them locked up to prevent filching by her crewmates as much as shoplifting, but now the floor was covered with boxes, cans and cartons, several broken open with their contents smeared together.
“This is fresh,” Terson told Cormack.
“Aye.” MacLeod found the light switch and flipped it. They saw no sign of Lytle at first, but then MacLeod snapped his fingers and pointed to a dusty overcoat and respirator clumped in a corner. Terson started toward it and froze when he spied a single set of large shoeprints leading from the mess on the floor toward the rear office.
Terson drew his pistol, reared back and kicked the door in, shattering the frame around the latch and deadbolt. Illumination from the shop fell on a huddled form just inside. MacLeod knelt beside her while Terson cast around for her assailant.
“Michelle! Lass, can ye hear me?”
Lytle’s face was bruised and swollen, her lower lip split open in at least two places. She shied away from his touch with a frightened scream and began to sob freely when she recognized him. “He hurt me, Cory,” she gasped pitifully. “He never even said why.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Assend: 2710:09:12 Standard
“He said we’d find his way more convenient,” Markland told Shadrack, “and he wasn’t lying.” Michelle Lytle would recover, eventually. Her worst physical injuries were a broken arm and dislocated shoulder; the rest came to nothing but bumps, bruises and fright.
Druski didn’t think the damage to her arm and shoulder was intentional, given the carefully applied beating. Men as large as the one Markland described could easily crush a skull or rupture a spleen.
The assault was an unequivocal message and planned well in advance, which meant Shadrack couldn’t know for sure how long they’d been under surveillance or how many crew members had been identified. Likewise, he had to assume the Embustero’s location was known as well, and the freighter was far from prepared to defend itself. Damn the luck! We only needed a few more weeks! The windfall he’d prayed for was fast becoming a curse.
“How much of the crap is left?” Shadrack demanded.
“A little less than half,” Markland said.
“We’ll unload it all,” he decided. “That may drive down the price, but we need the money, and fast.”
“It’s not that simple,” Markland said. “Bids on the three lots at auction now haven’t even hit the reserve price. Bidders are actually canceling offers and eating the penalty. Apparently a digital video of what this bastard did to the last buyer he located is showing up in message drops—pretty gruesome from what I understand. And here’s the kicker: he’s offering twenty percent to any third party who can deliver the material. That’s a hell of a temptation for some underpaid laborer at the escrow warehouse.”
“Pull the lots,” Liz suggested. “Withdraw the product. We’ve got a list of past bidders; we can contact them directly. There won’t be a public record of the transaction, and it might buy us some time if he thinks we’re giving up.”
“Do it,” Shadrack said. “Now.”
Nivia: 2710:09:15 Standard
Hal looked up from his work as Tamara Cirilo hobbled through his office door, face flushed with exertion from the long trip on crutches. “Sit down!” he exclaimed as he went to help her. “You’re not supposed to walk yet!”
“That’s what she said,” Tamara panted, “but I had to come in person. Close your door; I’ve got something to show you before you talk to the Old Lady.”
Hal blacked out his windows and slid the recording plaque she offered him into the reader on his desk. The screen on the wall across from t
hem flicked on and a pixilated, low-quality image appeared. Based on the perspective, Hal guessed it must have been recorded with a covert camera hidden in someone’s clothing.
The bearer rose from a sitting position and turned toward a spacer approaching from across the lobby of a hotel. “Cargo Three-seventeen?” a disembodied voice asked. Although muffled, Hal didn’t have any trouble placing it—a man he’d never spoken to face-to-face and whose name was not mentioned in polite company. It became apparent very quickly that he and the spacer were discussing the missing indium gallium antimonide.
“Where did you get this?” Hal exclaimed. “It wasn’t in any of the communiqués!”
“I have my sources,” Tamara said smugly. “Now pay attention to the background and tell me who you see.”
Hal peered at the people passing in and out of camera range behind the spacer, but didn’t see anything unusual and started over from the beginning. The face came and went so quickly he almost missed it. He reversed and paused. No doubt about it: “Terson Reilly! Where was this recorded?”
“Assend,” Tamara told him. “Our IGA turned up at auction there several weeks ago. There were only a handful of ships in this system whose movements could have allowed them to pick up Reilly and end up with our IGA from Caliban.
“All of those ships are accounted for except one: Ladybird. It jumped on short notice with a hold full of consignments that were never delivered and it hasn’t been seen since—not even by the Commonwealth authorities.
“Interestingly enough, the Ladybird’s trail peters out a little over three years ago. It claims registry at an obscure orbital colony way and hell out on the rim that doesn’t even have hyperlink access. I very much doubt that the Ladybird ever set foot in that system, and I’d be equally surprised if any legitimate authority in that system had ever heard of the Ladybird.”
“This might be our last chance at Reilly,” Hal said. “Does my mother know about this, yet?”
“Not about Reilly, no. Chas wasn’t briefed to that level.”
“Would he keep his mouth shut if you clued him in?”
“You’re dear half-brother has been infatuated with me for years,” Tamara laughed. “I think he’d shoot himself in the foot if I asked him to. But don’t you want to handle this yourself? I’m sure the Old Lady will give her blessing if you tell her you’ve got a line on those poachers.”
“No time,” Hal explained. “Reilly would probably be gone by the time I got there. Besides, I’ve got my hands full here; she’d never buy off on it.” Sorenson Exports’ poaching operation had turned out to be a fairly lucrative racket and the Old Lady thought its revival would justify Family presence on Nivia after all. It might even help resolve the Minzoku problem if Den Tun could be convinced that the Onjin were sincere when they said they once again needed his people.
Sorenson’s company was headed for an inevitable crash, and Hal was doing his best to fend off the smaller exporters closing in on the market share until the Family could maneuver into position to snap up the assets. Nivia’s neurotic environmental laws were working against him, this time, and negotiations with Den Tun were hampered by both difficulty in communication and the old man’s reticence.
To top it all off, Nivia’s EPF was beset by a flood of poaching and their increasing vigilance made it unwise if not impossible to travel to Beta continent undetected. The only upside was that the Secret Service was too busy handling the poachers to give much thought to the Family’s activities.
In another few months Terson Reilly and monoisotopic IGA would fade from Family consciousness like yesterday’s news.
Assend: 2710:09:21 Standard
The Embustero’s warehouse was nearly empty; the last few pallets of dirt-bound cargo had been marshaled inside several days before and trickled on to the escrow office for inspection and sale. The contents of Lytle’s store were stacked against one wall where most of it would remain, abandoned, when the ship departed. Vital parts and supplies stood in neat rows at the end nearest the office waiting for transport to the ship.
Only a dozen crewmen remained on the surface full-time, some to finalize financial matters, like Liz and Markland, but most as grunt labor. Terson suspected that he was still on the ground as muscle if the need arose; MacLeod’s presence seemed to serve no purpose but to keep him out of Shadrack’s way.
“The lander is due in another couple of hours,” Markland told Terson, Liz, Berriochoa and Lad Hussein. “I want the goods moved from the escrow warehouse directly to the flightline. If there’s any kind of delay, expect to drive in circles for a while, but whatever you do, don’t come back here with the cargo.”
The odd instruction left Berriochoa befuddled. Lad Hussein had been acting hyped up and jittery for days and it was impossible to tell if he even comprehended the irregularity. Liz nodded as if she already knew, leading Terson to believe that whatever was going on had something to do with Markland’s confrontation with the man at the hotel. He waited until they were on their way aboard the cargo sled, Liz sitting in the cockpit beside him and the other two out of earshot in the passenger compartment, to question her.
“So,” he said at last, “are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
Liz shook her head. “I’m sorry, Joey, I can’t. Not yet.”
“But it’s got something to do with that big bastard at the hotel and what happened to Michelle,” he said for her. Anybody with half a brain could figure that out!
“Look—Markland should have told you,” Liz said. “I don’t agree with the reason he didn’t, but I understand it. Would you please trust me?”
“All right. If you’ll answer one question: should I expect trouble?”
Liz shrugged. “No more so than Lytle did.”
She met with an official at the escrow office who issued her four temporary passes and called for an escort to guide them into the secure storage area. A forklift brought out a stack of strong boxes, which Liz checked off a list and signed for. The boxes weren’t particularly heavy, squashing the notion that they were picking up a bullion payment, although a pair of armed guards stood watch nearby until they were all transferred to the cargo compartment and secured.
Lad Hussein stripped off his respirator as they all climbed back aboard and dashed for the cockpit. “I’m riding shotgun!”
Terson looked to Liz with a raised eyebrow, but she held up her hands and settled into a seat next to Berriochoa. “Humor him; it’s not much of a view, anyway.”
Lad fiddled with the restraints, too hyper to concentrate on one strap long enough to finish adjusting it before his fingers flew to the next one. Terson pushed his hands away and tightened the buckles for him. The strung-out spacer popped the harness loose again before the sled made it to the exit. “Got to use the head,” he mumbled, and slipped into the tiny lavatory between the cockpit and passenger compartment.
What the fuck is he on? Or maybe the problem was he’d given something up. Either way the captain wouldn’t be pleased, and the dumbass was bound to spend the next voyage strapped down in the brig for detox while Druski tried to get him through the withdrawals.
Terson guided the cargo sled onto the thoroughfare and headed for the flightline. They didn’t get far before the press of heavy traffic slowed them to a crawl, then a full stop as they neared the busy intersection where the port’s main arterial and the road leading to the primary dirt-side entrance met.
Terson didn’t hear the lavatory door open, but he sensed Lad’s presence behind him just as the spacer leaned across his back and made a grab for the pistol slung under his left arm. Instinct brought his elbow tight against the holster and his hand curled up to capture Lad’s wrist before he could gain full control of the weapon.
A cold, ceramic beamer barrel pressed against the left side of Terson’s head as Lad wrapped him in a disturbingly intimate cheek-to-cheek embrace. “Don’t be a hero, Joey!” the spacer hissed. His fetid breath was hot against Terson’s face; his unshaven skin rasped
like sandpaper.
Terson surrendered his weapon; Lad relaxed slightly and the pressure of the beamer barrel against Terson’s head wavered. Both hands shot up to seize the weapon and twisted it out of Hussein’s grip. Lad fell backward into the copilot’s seat as the beamer slid into Terson’s fist and the sights settled on the spacer’s center of mass. He pulled the trigger, eyes slitting against the anticipated spray of body fluid, but the weapon only emitted a spark followed by the faint tang of ozone.
The power cell was empty.
“Figured you’d try that,” Lad panted. The pistol barrel drew shaky figure eights in the spacer’s hand, but a discharge at point-blank range would open Terson up like rotten fruit.
“That gun’s got a light trigger,” Terson cautioned.
“Then you better not make me any more nervous,” Lad said, as if that were possible. The vehicles in front of the sled began to move. “Turn right.”
Terson complied. He half expected Liz to object, but she and Berriochoa weren’t likely to notice anything amiss until they took a good look out one of the ports. Not that they could do anything about it if they did, seeing as neither of them were armed. Terson slowed as they approached the port exit.
“Don’t stop!” Lad barked.
“It’ll take us hours to get back in unless we get a pass,” Terson said matter-of-factly, hoping the chemical-addled spacer would give him an opening to take control of the situation.
“That’s your problem,” Lad sneered. “Keep going!”
The sled crossed the threshold. The intercom crackled a moment later. “Joey, where are you going?” Liz asked.
“Lad wanted to take the scenic route,” Terson said lightly. “Sit back and enjoy the ride, okay?” She didn’t answer, and he soon heard the sound of someone approaching the cockpit. Lad’s aim didn’t waver when she stuck her head in and froze, mouth agape. “It’s all right,” Terson assured her. “Nobody will get hurt if we cooperate. Right, Lad?”
Embustero- Pale Boundaries Page 37