The rent on a comfortable self-contained boat was exorbitant, but not beyond Terson’s means and he went out several times a month. Eventually the rental agent, admittedly motivated more by concern for the safety of his boats than the nautical idiot using them, pointed out that Terson could buy his own cheaper than he could continue to rent.
Mac Toner, the surly marina operator, appeared in the doorway of his office as Terson reached the boardwalk. “I see you fishing off my pier again you’re gone Reilly! Y’hear?”
“Blow it out your ass!” Terson snapped back.
“In the office!” Toner bellowed. “Now!” The frigid air inside chilled his skin as he entered. Toner followed him in, slamming the door and drawing the shade.
“What was that all about?” Terson asked.
“Environmental Protection’s got plainclothes hanging around again,” Toner explained. “Beer?”
Terson’s stomach rolled at the thought. “Sure.” The bitter liquid eradicated the aftertaste from the previous evening’s binge. “They watching my boat?”
“Yep.”
“You want me to pull out?”
“Hell, no!” Toner exclaimed, “You’re a pain in the ass, but the moorage on that monster of yours makes up for it. I just needed a show—those people in slip ten had a line out the window last night and maybe they’ll get the message before I get a fine.
“Anyway, that stuff you wanted came in,” Toner said. “I put it in your live-hold. You sure you know how to handle it?”
“No worries,” Terson assured him. He drained the bottle and sauntered down to the slip where his twenty-meter hydrojet tugged at its moorings in the gentle swell, as anxious as Terson to be off. Most people preferred to dock as close to shore as possible, but the craft’s starboard wing-in-ground-effect surface extended over the dock several meters and Toner had assigned him a slip at the very end of the pier, leaving the adjacent slips vacant.
It was as much an aircraft as a boat, but like all WIG craft the hydrojet’s altitude was limited by its wingspan to thrust ratio: ten meters in this case. The three fifteen-hundred horsepower jet turbine engines could propel it to a speed of three hundred knots in flight. One engine on either side of the nose swiveled to vector exhaust beneath the wings where flaps and wingtip endplates created an air cushion to help lift it out of the water during takeoff. The third, in the tail, added additional forward momentum. A two hundred horsepower impeller provided propulsion on the surface.
Terson stepped up on the deck and took the package Toner had left in the live-hold down to the galley. Inside he found one hundred rounds of 7.62mm ammunition and twenty-five 12-gauge shotgun shells, all carefully triple-wrapped to prevent inadvertent contact with the lead shot and bullets. Acquiring the illegal ammunition had proven inordinately expensive, but Terson had little confidence in the biodegradable rounds available to the general public.
He showered and ate and found himself pacing restlessly through the boat. He’d intended to fly out to the Humboldt Archipelago for a week or so before the altercation that landed him in jail again. He could still make it by dark, but his mind kept turning to a certain pleasant smelling green-eyed redhead.
The islands could wait, he finally decided, at least long enough to divest himself of the fantasy.
The Pit lay in the ring of establishments that invariably sprang up around college campuses. Smoke glowed in multi-colored lights flashing on the dance floor. Bass rhythms beat against his chest; relentless noise blasted his ears. The crowd consisted of stylish young people his own age. Terson’s clothing, though clean, was more suited to working class joints and the distinction was not lost on the revelers who eyed him with casual disinterest if they noticed him at all.
Virene hadn’t told him exactly what she did. She looked too young to tend bar, but he didn’t see her among the waitresses delivering trays of drinks and appetizers. He bought a beer and circulated through the club, his vision hampered by the crowd. He’d grown several centimeters without Algran Asta’s crushing gravity to compress his spine, but he would never be a tall man by Nivian standards.
She walked out from the kitchen toweling suds from her hands, hair pulled back in a tail, dark and stringy with moisture. She held a glass of ice water against ruddy cheeks and laughed at something the bartender said.
She was beautiful.
Terson’s fanciful hopes evaporated. It was hopeless—she’d been polite with him to deal with an uncomfortable situation and he’d chosen to interpret it as something else. It wasn’t likely that she’d even recognize him, and approaching her would only lead to embarrassment for them both.
She saw him before he could turn away and waved. Terson worked his way across the room cautiously, expecting whoever she really waved at to appear at any second. The acoustic qualities of the room protected the bar from some of the noise, but she still had to lean close to be heard.
“Bragg was pissed when he came back,” she laughed. “He canceled my appointment to look for you. Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Despite his earlier trepidation she seemed genuinely engaging, a gratifying development in otherwise uncertain territory even if it turned out that she was nothing but a flirt, and he ordered another mug of beer while they chatted. The girl stole sips from it whenever the bartender wasn’t looking, a transgression that she acknowledged might cost her a job, but which Terson found appealingly rebellious. He finally asked if she wanted to do something when she got off.
“I’ll have to go home and change,” she said, picking a tangle from the end of her maligned tresses. “I hope you don’t mind waiting.”
Terson’s gaze fixed on two uniformed figures that appeared in the mirror behind the bar, strutting through the crowd with the same mien as the Marines on Algran Asta. He watched them stiffly as they approached, but they weren’t Commonwealth Marines, he realized, though the uniforms were somewhat similar. The crowd edged away from them discretely, maintaining a cautious distance in spite of the press.
“Cadets from the EPEA academy,” Virene volunteered, identifying the source of his sudden tension. “They’re assholes.”
The Environmental Protection and Enforcement Authority was notoriously brutal in dealing with poachers, both actual and suspected. Nivian law authorized EPEA agents to shoot poachers on sight, and anyone beyond certain boundaries were automatically defined as poachers whether they were observed engaging in the activity or not.
“Look close; you can see their scars,” Terson said, aiming to regain their lighthearted conversation.
“What scars?”
“The ones left by the lobotomy.”
Virene snorted beer through her nose and buried her face in the towel. The hair rose on the back of Terson’s neck. The cadets were staring back.
The drinkers around Terson darted away like a school of fish at their approach. He drained the mug and belched. The cadets settled in on either side of him, mean-eyed and drunk.
“You looking for trouble, little fella?” one asked.
“Not tonight.”
“Then why you lookin’ at us?”
“Just imagining how excited you must have been to find out your IQ was low enough to be an Eepee.”
The cadet stared, certain that Terson had insulted him but too drunk to figure out exactly how. He gave up after a moment, moving on to the more obvious issue: “Hey, you’re a goddamned phig!” he exclaimed, and threw a punch.
Nineteen years in Algran Asta’s high gravity paid dividends in strength and reflexes; Terson moved his head slightly and the intended blow whispered past his chin. The cadet looked puzzled, tried again with the same result. The bad asses where Terson usually drank had learned their lessons early, but he wasn’t drunk enough to want a fight tonight. He grimaced apologetically to the girl as he slid off the stool to leave.
An open hand caught him in the side of the head.
The blow wasn’t that strong; the delivery was sloppy and ineffective, in
tended to intimidate rather than do real damage, a sign of self-important arrogance on the part of the assailant and contempt for the person on the receiving end.
That made Terson angry.
Pent up frustration from months of trying to fit the expectations of a society that wouldn’t cut him a centimeter of slack for the slightest mistake welled up as icy, focused rage. He slapped the next punch aside with one hand and drove forward with the heel of the other. Blood sprayed from the cadet’s nose.
Terson blocked a round-house kick from his partner with his forearm and caught the man’s foot before he could recover. The first assailant advanced on him while his hands were busy; Terson wrenched the foot around, ripping cartilage in the knee and effectively taking its owner out of the fight before addressing the threat.
He struck the advancing cadet in the ribs, snapping bones with each blow. Terson caught him by the front of his collar before he fell and held him up while he drove a fist into his face over and over, battering the flesh until it sprayed fluid like a blood-soaked sponge.
Someone in the crowd jabbed Terson in the kidney with a stunner. His head snapped back as a blue halo blazed around his body. His jaws clenched like a vise as every muscle in his body convulsed. He landed on his side, vision reduced to a tunnel that rapidly collapsed into total darkness.
Terson’s hearing took place after three days of motions and legal gibberish. Bragg acted as his council, a duty that irked the police officer to no end. He took the responsibility seriously, however. If Terson Reilly was to be crucified it would be by the book.
Terson sat through the proceeding listlessly. His head throbbed and he really, really needed a drink. An abrupt silence fell around him. Terson looked up slowly to find the magistrate, prosecutor and Bragg all looking at him expectantly.
“What?”
“I asked,” the magistrate repeated, “if you wish to make a statement.”
“You people are insane.”
The magistrate pursed his lips. “Would you two gentlemen leave us alone for a few minutes?”
“Your Honor, I object,” Bragg said while the prosecutor gathered his documents without trying to hide a smile. “Mister Reilly has the right—”
“I am fully aware of Mister Reilly’s rights, Captain,” the magistrate sighed. “Indulge me.” He leaned back in his chair after the door closed behind them. “Terson, do you know how natural selection works?”
The odd question threw him off his mark. “Natural selection?”
“The means by which an organism adapts to its environment,” he explained, taking Terson’s question for a negative response, “though it applies to populations, not individuals. Say for instance you have a herd of horses and you apply a selective vector artificially—every so often you shoot half of the horses that have four legs. One of three things has to happen: eventually you have a herd of three-legged horses, the horses become immune to bullets, or the herd becomes extinct.”
“I know what natural selection is,” Terson snapped.
“Good. Then you know that a similar process operates within human societies. To survive in a community we develop artificial standards that we call culture,” the magistrate continued. “Now, human cultures are amazingly diverse and adaptable when viewed as a whole, but for individual humans culture dictates conformity. Those who cannot conform disrupt the community and endanger the survival of the entire group.
“Obviously a society can’t cull every non-conformist any more than a breeder could continue shooting four-legged horses. Minor nonconformities can be tolerated, but the more significant ones must be dealt with. A horse can’t survive by choosing to drop off a leg, but a human can be encouraged to conform—up to a point. Past that point society must remove the offender to protect itself.
“This brings us to you.” The magistrate pushed a document across to Terson with his finger planted on a signature block. “Your continued participation in this society will be decided within the next few minutes. My signature, on this spot, will remand you back to Commonwealth custody. I couldn’t care less what happens to you then.”
Terson’s throat constricted. He gripped the edge of the table as the room swam around him, unbidden memories of his first incarceration welling up in an inexorable tide.
“Just between you and me,” the magistrate continued, “the two cadets that jumped you are thugs. What you did was justified to a degree, considering what they might have done to someone without your...background, but I have no doubt that you would have killed one or both of them if their plain-clothed friend hadn’t interceded. Rest assured that they will be dealt with appropriately, but make no mistake: you are absolutely worthless to this society as you are. I’ll let you walk out that door once, but if you cross paths with this court again, ever, you might just as well hang yourself.”
Terson lay across the hydrojet’s impeller engine cowling fighting a new fuel pump into place. His fingers located the bolt hole by touch and he maneuvered the pump into place. Supporting it with his other hand, he reached out for the bolt and found—nothing. “Son of a bitch! Fuck!”
“Hey, watch the dirty talk!” a feminine voice quipped.
Terson peered under his left armpit to find Virene watching him from the dock. “Do me a favor?”
“You’ll have to do more than talk dirty,” she warned.
“Yeah, ha ha. There’s a bolt on the deck down here somewhere. Will you get it for me?”
She hopped onto the boat and peered around. “What kind of bolt? There are a lot of them.”
“About twelve centimeters long.”
“Male centimeters, or the real ones?”
“Geez,” Terson barked. “You never quit!”
“Not when I’m winning. This one?” She handed it over and rubbed the grease off her fingers against the pier’s weathered surface while Terson got it started.
Terson stood and peeled off his shirt, wadding it into a ball as he scrubbed the worst of the oil and grime from his hands, stalling until his fastidiousness became awkward.
“You don’t get much sun,” she observed. Terson’s face and hands were darker than the girl’s own honey complexion, but his skin was white as ivory from neck to wrists, unblemished except for a crosshatch of scars.
“I guess not. You want a beer or something?”
“Sure.”
Terson took two bottles from the deck cooler and twisted off the tops. “So what brings you here?”
“Curiosity,” Virene shrugged. “I wondered what happened to you.”
“Bragg give you my address?”
“He uses his wife’s name for his password. Your file didn’t say anything about jail, so I figured you must have gotten off.”
“The magistrate sentenced me to college,” Terson shrugged. “I guess he pulled some strings to get me into the Spaceflight Training School at Malone.”
“That’s amazing,” she smiled. “I had you pegged for a plant psychiatrist specializing in thorny shrubs and nettles, the bane of geraniums and flowering houseplants.”
Terson smiled despite himself. “You think you’re funny?”
The tips of her ears reddened. “I hope you think so.”
Terson finished his beer. “I’ll have the engine together in an hour,” he said. “Want to go for a ride?”
“I’d love to,” she smiled. “Or did you mean in the boat?”
TWO
West of the Humboldt Archipelago, Nivia: 2709:03:24 Standard
The channel between the reef and the island’s shore looked like the miss-stroke of an artist’s brush, a slash of blue amid the pale green of shallower water. Terson blinked his eyes irritably. His brain chose the damnedest times to remind him that the shadows were just a bit too sharp, the light too intense. He couldn’t blame it all on his brain, though; he’d pretty much ignored it during the long post-wedding party the night before. He flared back later than he should have and the hydrojet met the ocean with a jar. Beside him Virene opened her eyes, a
wakened by the slap and bounce of the craft’s hull as it settled into the water.
The small island was formed by a minor volcanic vent that emerged five hundred kilometers west of the main archipelago. It boasted two cones, one a little over one hundred meters above sea level, the other slightly less than fifty. The forces that created them had been dormant for centuries, and the sea worked at the windward bulwark of black cliffs relentlessly, grinding them down one millimeter at a time.
Virene smiled at her husband as the growl of impellers drowned out the rhythmic assault. He was a sharp contrast to the man she’d met a year earlier. Tanned skin accentuated coils of muscle in his arms and legs where once the very idea of exposing limbs was foreign. Around strangers he stood reserved, but no longer surly. He’d softened over time, but was by no means tamed. Her parents had made their disapproval painfully clear from the moment they learned of the affair. He was dangerous, they said, undisciplined and lawless. Virene did not disagree: they were the very attributes that made him so attractive.
Rough rock walls slid past. The island’s lagoon was the remnant of a volcanic crater. At some point the ocean had worked its way through the hardened magma, creating a thirty-meter long curved canal nearly invisible from outside the reef. The bottom sloped to a depth of four meters, and then dropped off into blue, impenetrable depths. Along one side of the lagoon a huge tree had fallen into the water. Eventually tunneling sea worms would break it up, but in the meantime it made a serviceable dock.
Virene jumped out and made the boat fast while Terson held it snug against the tree with the impeller. He slid out the gangplank and gave her a hand back aboard, and they slipped into each other’s arms. She flicked her tongue past his teeth teasingly as his hands slid down her back and fingers slipped beneath the waistband of her shorts.
Pale Boundaries Page 3