“Not likely,” came a throaty feminine voice from behind him. Hal turned to find himself illuminated by the liquid brown eyes of Tamara Cirilo. If the father was handsome, the daughter was gorgeous. Auburn curls cascaded over her shoulders; her skin seemed to glow from within, like light seen through bone china. The mere sight of her sent a shock through his system. “As far as I’ve been able to determine, the cargo didn’t include any reactive substances.”
“So we may be looking at the cause of the crash, not a symptom,” McKeon concluded.
“I’ll have the Minzoku bring it up for analysis.”
“Make the flight data recorder a priority as well,” Hal ordered.
McKeon’s people moved in for their instructions, forcing both Hal and Tamara to the outside. The woman’s perfume made it impossible to concentrate on what was happening inside the circle.
“Dad and I were just putting dinner on when they called me,” Tamara said. “I’m sure we have enough for three.”
“I’ll have to take a rain check,” Hal apologized. “I shouldn’t leave now, in view of the circumstances.”
McKeon appeared at his elbow. “It’s all right, sir. There’s nothing more you can do here. I’ll call if anything new develops.”
Tamara slipped her arm through his and guided him into the cold night air. “And how are things Out There?” she asked.
“Dark and cold,” Hal replied crisply.
“It’s dark and cold here,” she noted. Tamara Cirilo, like her father, had been born on Nivia and had never set foot off Beta continent, to Hal’s knowledge. She, however, had aspirations that did not limit her to administration of the Fort.
The signs had been evident as early as their teenage years. Tamara had been a willing conquest and continued to court Hal’s advances long after the other girls turned their affections to men prone to stable relationships. Tamara never voiced objections or exhibited jealousy of Hal’s other affairs, but as each ended she was there, ready to take up where she’d left off.
Just like now.
The warmth of her body against him was temptation enough without the memory of their past familiarity. Hal was keenly aware of the situation and the weakness of character that threatened to re-ensnare him in a relationship with the woman.
Hal withdrew himself from her grasp brusquely. “I’m sorry, Tamara, I’m not up for this. Give my regards to your father.”
Her mouth turned up in a shy smile. “You can stay with me tonight, Hal. I’d like your company.”
Turning down her invitation should have been easy, Hal reflected, but it wasn’t. She was warm, friendly, and as good in bed as her appearance promised. Her flaw was ambition and the quid pro quo it suggested.
“I’m sorry, Tammy. I have to go.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she replied, business again. Knowing the game for what it was, she played it like a pro.
Hal checked into transient quarters and spent much of the night wondering who’d won that round.
SIX
Beta Continent: 2709:05:02 Standard
The shipping container sat in an empty warehouse outside the walls of the Fort. Seawater dribbling from between the double walls formed puddles on the floor that sent random, silvery tentacles across the uneven surface. Hal looked inside expecting to see a fish or two slapping against the bottom. The interior was coated with black, greasy soot.
“What could have caused this?” Sergio Cirilo asked no one in particular.
“That’s no mystery,” McKeon said, referring to the lab report he held in his hand. “The residue indicates ammonium nitrate, petroleum and traces of trinitrotoluene.”
“But what was the target?” Hal wondered. “As impressive as this looks I can’t believe anyone expected to destroy a freighter with a fertilizer bomb.”
“Not one this small,” McKeon agreed. “It was a fluke that it brought down the shuttle.” He pointed to the bulging ribs. “The outer shell contained the explosion, for the most part. I’m guessing that the breach occurred near some of the flight control circuits. The flight data recorder indicates that they lost their orbital maneuvering system.”
“So the target was the shuttle,” Sergio said.
“It depends on whether the bomb was too small to do the job, or too big,” McKeon said. “If this particular shipping container hadn’t been where it was, the shuttle wouldn’t have crashed. Take the explosion to the next order of magnitude and it would have blown the bottom out of the hold and the shuttle might have crashed. To get a blast big enough to ensure the shuttle’s destruction you’d have to fill the entire container with the reactant—”
“In which case we wouldn’t be looking at it,” Hal finished. “So the actual target may have been the cargo. They made the bomb too powerful.”
“Or the shipping container was flawed.”
Hal turned to Sergio. “What was in this container?”
Cirilo shrugged helplessly. “We won’t know that until we get a copy of the load list,” he said. “All our goods were contracted as individual consignments; the shipper packed the containers.”
“A dead end for now, then,” Hal said. “Who could have done this?”
“The Minzoku use ammonium nitrate fertilizer,” McKeon said. “They refine quantities of petroleum for their machinery.”
Sergio looked stunned. “At lease a quarter of our shipments are handled exclusively by Minzoku,” he said. “My God, what is that old man trying to accomplish by this?”
“As much as I’d like to blame Den Tun, this isn’t his style,” Hal said. “He’s not one to chance this sort of evidence turning up.”
“I agree,” McKeon added. “This was amateur.”
“Besides,” Hal pointed out, “it was a Minzoku submersible that located the container. If Den Tun arranged this, we’d still be wondering.”
“Could this be part of a power struggle among the Minzoku?” Sergio asked.
“I haven’t caught wind of anything like that, but it’s possible,” McKeon replied. “The man is old and there is no heir apparent.”
Wars have started over less, Hal thought. “This remains classified, for now,” he said. “Our official stand is that a third party’s cargo caused the explosion. I want copies of the lab report and the flight data recorder. Sergio, get me the load lists.” Hal went back to his office to start writing his initial report. He sincerely hoped he would have answers by the time the Old Lady got it.
It was nearly midnight when Hal pulled himself painfully into the passenger seat of McKeon’s ORV for the ride back to the Minzoku base. Bursts of pain shot from his hip to his toes incessantly no matter how he positioned himself.
“Back acting up?” McKeon asked.
Hal grimaced and nodded. “I haven’t been doing my exercises,” he said. “Leaning over a keyboard hasn’t helped any.”
“Mind if I ask something personal?”
“Go ahead.” If he mentions Tamara Cirilo I’ll scream!
“Not many people make it through a car bombing in such good shape,” McKeon said. “What happened?”
“I guess you could say I owe my life to the Sundowners.”
“The who?”
“Sundowners. Local music group. The Old Man was taking care of some business and I wanted to listen to the Sundowners, so I sat up front with the driver,” Hal told him. “There was a shaped charge mounted in a tunnel and tied it into the traffic computer, timed so perfectly that the driver didn’t get a scratch. It shredded everything behind the front seats, and I caught a piece of shrapnel in the back.”
“Damn.”
McKeon fell silent again, and Hal stared ahead dolefully. The headlights illuminated scores of hapless insects as they splattered against the windshield. A few of them stuck there, quivering, broken by the impact but alive for the moment, helpless and doomed. Hal felt some sympathy for them, recalling a similar feeling during months spent immobilized in a Family clinic while Khold biotechnology acquired at unimaginable
cost knit his severed spinal cord together.
They rounded a corner to find a herd of knee-high herbivores in the road. McKeon turned off the headlights and didn’t slow down. Hal braced against the inevitable impact, but the ORV roared through the spot and there was no sign of the animals when the lights came on again.
“Sorry about that,” McKeon said, noting Hal’s alarm. “They freeze in the lights. Couldn’t move if they wanted to.”
“Must make hunting a breeze,” Hal noted.
“Hunting quixok with lights is a Minzoku idiom for unscrupulousness or villainy,” McKeon said. “It means to take advantage of inherent weakness. Like shooting someone in the back.”
“You know a lot about these people,” Hal said.
“More than any one person in the last fifty years,” he agreed.
“Do you like them?”
“I admire their way of life,” McKeon said. “Day to day living is more defined and basic. Everybody knows their purpose.”
“But...” Hal prodded.
“I speak their language, live among them, and married their women, but they never let me forget I’m not one of them and never will be. They’ll bend over backward for us, but it’s giri, not respect.”
“Giri?”
“Moral debt. Repayment of giri is a matter of honor with them. They’ll do almost anything to satisfy it, which gives most Onjin the impression they worship us. They don’t—they just owe us.”
“Den Tun must figure his giri is about paid up,” Hal noted wryly.
“Sure he does,” McKeon chuckled. “The coot’s almost a hundred years old.”
Hal hadn’t eaten anything since a sparse breakfast that morning and the aroma of spices and stir-fried vegetables set his mouth watering as he entered his quarters. Dayuki knelt by the low table, pouring tea. She rose as he approached and held out the cup.
“What’s this?” Hal asked.
“Spicebark tea,” she said, ushering him to the sofa. “Some find it energizing.”
He sipped the brew dubiously while she dished out rice and stir-fry. Strands of hair sprang haphazardly from her hastily pinned tresses. Even disheveled, she was alluring.
Hal folded his legs beneath him and accepted the plate gratefully. “This is a pleasant surprise.”
“It need not be,” she chided. “Engage your mind with your tasks; I will see to your well-being.”
He wolfed down two helpings and quaffed half a liter of tea. While Dayuki cleared away the dishes he slowly unfolded and arched his back, wincing at the twinge that lanced his spine. “I have got to get a real table in here,” he grimaced.
Dayuki put her hands on his shoulders before he could rise. “Lay down.” He stretched out on his stomach stiffly. Dayuki’s fingers worked across his back with an almost painful vigor, overpowering each muscle in turn, leaving them placid. The knots eased one by one. Hal’s consciousness drifted, as if it were about to float out of his body. She paused at the straps of his shoulder holster.
“I must tell you something.”
“Umm?”
“It was an accident,” she said. Her fingers moved around each vertebra, aligning them with subtle pressure. “I made a mistake, and it went off too late.”
“What did?”
“The explosive I put in the container.”
Hal lunged away from her. Dayuki followed with two nimble steps and struck him in the middle of his back. His legs went dead under him and he crashed to the floor, twisting to get to his needle-beamer. She touched his neck, light as a feather, and Hal’s arms quit working. He collapsed on his face, chin tucked into his chest so far his airway closed. He realized that he was suffocating with rising panic and strained to rise, to roll over, to move anything. Just when it seemed his brain would reconnect with his body, the most excruciating pain he’d ever felt coursed up his spine and spread to his limbs.
“Stop!” Dayuki commanded. “Struggling will do permanent harm!” She rolled him onto his back and lifted his chin. A shuddering gasp filled his lungs with sweet air. Hal tried to calm his breathing. It wasn’t easy; the memory of the paralysis after his injuries in the car bombing was terribly fresh, and this was worse. He could manipulate his eyes, but nothing else.
Dayuki took his head in her hands and turned his face toward her. Sadness marred her beauty. Gold flecks floated deep in her brown eyes, conveying a serene, deadly resolve. “I have disgraced the covenant between our people,” she said. “I will do what I must to restore honor, but first you will listen:
“Den Tun has betrayed you to the gaijin. They have helped him infiltrate your systems and take your secrets. His researchers have grown a Tiger Opal, which he intends to give to the gaijin. I did not discover his betrayal in time to warn you. My attempt to stop him went terribly wrong.”
With that pronouncement she rolled him onto his stomach. Oh, God, what now? “What the maki suru steals, the kaidokuzai restores,” Dayuki explained. “Lie still until your strength returns.” Her hands worked up his spine again, and something in his neck popped.
Sensation rolled back into him like a wave, bringing both relief and pain. Dayuki turned him onto his back again. A long, involuntary groan rattled his lips as millions of white-hot needles pricked his skin.
Hal’s mind raced with the implications of her charge while his body slowly regained control of itself. It was not inconceivable that Den Tun could develop his own lines of commerce with the gaijin. The Onjin had become insular over the years, complacent in the Minzoku’s history of obedience. Given the freedom they enjoyed, some kind of contact was inevitable.
Dayuki moved about the room purposefully. She retrieved a lacquered wooden box, an objet trouve’ collected by a previous occupant, and set it on the table. Her loose cotton pajamas fell in a heap at her feet. Naked, she knelt facing him from the other side of the table.
Her skin glowed the hue of ripe barley in sunlight. The sleek, tight lines of her stomach and hips spoke of lithe strength, guiding his eyes to the shadowed dip of her navel. High, full breasts swayed as she opened the box and removed its contents. She wrapped herself in a light silk kimono, white as milk, knotting the sash at her waist.
Dayuki untied her mane and flung it forward, brushing until the locks separated and layered in fluid waves. Satisfied, she flipped them back over her shoulders where they flowed with life of their own. Her delicately boned hand dipped into the box and came up with a twenty-centimeter tanto, a wickedly sharp dagger with the angled tip distinctive of Minzoku cutlery.
“N-nogh…”
Without the force of his lungs behind it the sound barely escaped his lips, but it was progress. Oblivious, the woman inspected the blued steel in the light, fogged it with her breath and buffed away some blemish. She set the blade on the polishing cloth and held her palms beneath her chin, eyes closed, and began a prayer-like chant.
The tingle in Hal’s limbs had diminished. He tried to move his hand and was rewarded with a single twitch. Dayuki’s voice droned on; Hal caught himself echoing the cadence in his mind, mesmerized by the narcotic rhythm.
The mantra ceased abruptly. Dayuki lifted her chin and positioned the blade to sever her trachea and jugular. She held it at arm’s length for a moment, and then drew it to herself as if embracing a child.
Hal strained against the fading paralysis. His body still couldn’t perform to his will’s expectations—pain flooded back down his nerves and he groaned again, loudly. The sound startled Dayuki. She faltered and the blade entered her flesh less than a centimeter. She raised her arms to strike again; by that time Hal had her by the wrists.
“You can’t repay your giri this easily,” Hal gasped. “Until you can, your life is mine to take, not yours!” His hands had no strength; it took everything to stay upright. She looked at him with bottomless eyes, considering. Choosing.
“As you wish.”
Dayuki helped him to the couch. Blood trickled from the shallow wound in her throat, forming a stream between her breasts
and over her belly. She slipped out of the kimono, using it to staunch the sanguine flow, then braced the blade of the dagger over the edge of the table and brought her elbow down, snapping it off at the shank. Once blooded it could never be allowed to serve any purpose less noble. Both parts went back into the box, wrapped in the polishing cloth along with the brush. She laid the container, tied with the sash, at the foot of the couch.
Dressed again in the pajamas, she helped him sit up. But for a lingering soreness, the pain was gone, and he took the opportunity to ask the obvious question: “Dayuki, what the hell is a Tiger Opal?”
The girl stared at him uncomprehendingly, answering only after he repeated the question. “I do not know,” she said at last. The confidence she’d exhibited only a few minutes before evaporated. “It—it was a secret that he stole from you!”
Hal shook his head slowly. “If it exists, I don’t know it by that term.”
The revelation cracked her composure and her face filled with incredulous horror. “But it—I—oh, what have I done?” she cried, burying her face in her sleeves.
Hal caught her by the chin and forced her to look at him. Her eyes welled with tears, but flashed angrily at his rough handling. “Listen, damnit! I don’t know what you’ve done, so answer my questions! You don’t know what it is, but you’re sure it belonged to us?”
“It is something difficult to make,” she elaborated, wiping her eyes. “Something powerful, which Den Tun believed would give the Minzoku leverage over Onjin and gaijin both. I thought destroying it would give me time to warn you!”
“Do you know where it was made?”
Dayuki shook her head miserably. “Only Den Tun knows that.”
Saint Anatone: 2709:05:03 Standard
Terson arrived at the flight training building early to check the roster for the Advanced Flight Skills Evaluation but his name was not listed. Dean Whitman, the chief flight instructor, motioned Terson into his office when he stopped by to inquire about it.
“A situation has come up,” Whitman explained, “and I moved you to the second round so we could discuss it before you went out.” He paused as if trying to decide how to continue. Terson began to worry about legal fall-out from Bragg’s discovery that he and Virene had knowingly violated the coastal boundaries, but Whitman’s next words took him completely by surprise:
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