The guards had still not reappeared when Dayuki reached the door; she paced back and forth with an air of irritated impatience until they arrived. The first to round the corner quickly brought his weapon to bear when he saw the torch and called out a challenge. She replied with obvious exasperation and gestured angrily at the door, railing at the guard with a rapid-fire staccato in their common tongue. Hal itched to understand what was said, but didn’t want McKeon distracted with translating.
The second guard appeared at a brisk trot, rifle at the ready, and turned on a moderately powerful hand-held spot light. It illuminated Dayuki and blinded the first guard as well as offering him up as a target. He stepped back into the building’s shadow and shouted at his companion, who lowered the beam to the ground at Dayuki’s feet. The egregious violation of procedure gave her more verbal ammunition and she gestured at both to approach.
They did so with caution, weapons trained on her in such a way that they stood an equal chance of shooting each other as well. Dayuki informed them of their error with an impressive display of official fury, screaming at the inexperienced solders until the instinct to obey a superior overcame their orders and they snapped to attention before her, shoulder to shoulder.
Dayuki sprayed both of them in the face with a single smooth back-and-forth wave of her hand. The soldiers stepped away from her in surprise, then the full effect of the chemical cocktail hit and all expression faded from their faces. Dayuki ordered them to continue their rounds and they wandered out of sight, slouched and unsteady.
McKeon led Hal and Derner to the door where he fit a decoder over the lock. Though high-tech by Minzoku standards, the electronics weren’t particularly sophisticated and the bolt snapped back after only a few seconds. McKeon pulled the door open a few centimeters. Interior illumination cast a shaft of light across the ground, accompanied by the faint hum of fans and compressors.
“Clear,” he said softly. They stepped into a large parking vestibule as featureless as the outside of the building. A roll-up door was set in the wall directly ahead and next to it a second personnel door secured by a lock identical to the one outside.
McKeon’s gadget defeated it just as quickly. He entered first, followed by Hal, with his needle-beamer ready, then Derner and Dayuki. The hallway beyond led past a mechanical room, the source of the noise, then turned left sharply, doubling back the way they’d come. Administrative alcoves and offices, all vacant, lay off the right side of the corridor. The passage turned right and ended at a personnel-sized blast door that presumably emerged on the opposite side of the building from where they entered. The left-hand side of this leg held three blank stainless steel fire doors, all dogged but not locked. The first led to a small warehouse. The second was a transitional vestibule between a clean room and the rest of the building. The third door revealed a control room with a large window looking into the actual laboratory.
“The Minzoku built this?” Derner exclaimed.
“You recognize this?” Hal asked.
Derner sat down at a terminal. “Of course. The configuration is different, but it’s the same equipment we use to produce indium gallium antimonide.” He gestured to the chamber beyond the window. “Three computer-controlled injectors deliver the molecular elements to the press, where they combine to form the crystal. This console monitors the process.”
“Den Tun must be trying to peddle our methodology,” Hal surmised. “His contacts probably wanted proof that he could deliver.”
“Son of a bitch!” Derner tapped carefully at the Minzoku keyboard. Indecipherable text scrolled up, interspersed with chemical equations and molecular diagrams. “We tried this once!” he exclaimed.
“What are you talking about?” McKeon demanded.
“Monoisotopic optical semiconductors!” Derner said, “They’ve done it with a process that didn’t work for us!”
“You said it’s the same equipment we use,” Hal reminded him.
“Yes, to form the actual crystal,” Derner clarified. “The key to producing a monoisotopic version is the discrimination process. I didn’t spot it because they’ve integrated both systems in a single plant.”
Hal decided to wait for a more auspicious moment to tell Derner his life’s work had been sabotaged and stolen by Den Tun’s spies. The look on his face would surely be a sight to behold. “The research you did before,” Hal asked, “does it still exist? Can you duplicate it?”
Derner tapped his head. “What isn’t archived is up here,” he said. “If a bunch of illiterate Minzoku can figure this out, so can I.”
“If we don’t need to preserve this, we should destroy it,” Hal decided. McKeon knelt to open his bag and removed several blocks of plastic-wrapped gray putty. “It needs to look like an accident.”
Derner stood. “I can help with that,” he said. “This process uses chemicals that generate explosive fumes if misused.” The metallurgist found what he needed in the storerooms and went to work with fervent concentration, never once decrying the loss of scientific data about to take place. Like a mountaineer tearing down the remnants of a flag left by an anonymous climber at the summit of an unconquered peak, he chose to destroy the evidence of his predecessor’s success rather than applaud the achievement.
He waited for McKeon to set his charges, and then poured the contents of a large bottle into a noxious brew of chemicals in one of the laboratory’s sinks. Fumes began to rise immediately. “We have to hurry; any kind of spark will ignite the vapors!” He pushed past Dayuki and headed for the exit, leaving Hal and McKeon to close and dog the door before they followed. They caught up with the metallurgist in the vehicle vestibule as his hand closed on the door handle.
“Wait!” McKeon hissed. “The guards—!” Derner swung the door open and skidded to a halt so quickly that Hal and McKeon piled against his back and Dayuki just managed to skip aside without falling.
The Minzoku soldiers stared open-mouthed at the intruders they had no memory of encountering less than thirty minutes earlier. Everyone went for their weapons at once.
Bullets struck on either side of the door at the same moment McKeon fired over Derner’s shoulder and Hal’s needle-beamer cracked. Both guards crumpled and McKeon stepped forward quickly to apply a coup de grace lest one of them survive to inform Den Tun.
“Everybody okay?” the security officer asked.
“Yes,” Hal and Dayuki replied.
“Derner? Derner!”
“He is here!” Dayuki called. The metallurgist lay on his side just inside the door. His eyes stared stupidly into space; the hole above his right eye was surprisingly bloodless. “He is still breathing.”
The ground beneath their feet bucked with an audible thump. Hal stood from examining Derner and looked at McKeon sharply. “Did you—?”
McKeon shook his head, holding up the transmitter, still unarmed. “But if the heat gets to the detonators—” A second more powerful jolt heaved the ground. Dayuki backed away from the building, wide-eyed as the men came to a simultaneous decision: “Run!”
A thundering roar lifted the roof off the building as they made the trees. Chunks of concrete crashed down, stripping branches as they came. Flames extinguished by the explosion reignited, consuming the lab and offices in a chemically fed conflagration so hot that leaves at the edge of the clearing began to smoke. The vines overhead caught fire and collapsed as secondary reports flung debris skyward; fire licked up in the brush downwind. The doorway where they’d abandoned Derner roared like the mouth of a blowtorch.
The wind shifted, carrying smoke and glowing embers back over them as they raced back to the ORV. Hal leaned against an armored fender gasping for breath and spat a wad of phlegm onto the ground.
“Thought I...was...in shape!”
A sharp pain lanced from his right hip down to his toes as he boarded behind Dayuki and McKeon. He needed both hands to pull the uncooperative limb inside. The ORV roared from its hiding place in the brush, careening back down the steep t
rail and through the quarry in total darkness. Hal stripped off his night-vision spectacles; he preferred not to see the tree trunk likely to end his life.
Ahead, light cast from the other side of an ascending curve in the trail flickered against the trees. McKeon slammed on the breaks. “I was afraid of this!” He began to back up at almost the same speed.
“Here, here!” Dayuki cried. McKeon backed into an overgrown, steeply descending spur just as the headlights rounded the corner. Three truckloads of Minzoku soldiers rumbled past but none noticed the ORV.
McKeon used a rough secondary pass to reach the Fort. He roared through the town scattering late-night revelers ahead and debris behind, skidding to a halt at the entrance. “Sound recall!” he told the guards. “I want everyone accounted for in thirty minutes!”
EIGHT
Beta Continent: 2709:05:04 Standard
Tamara Cirilo arrived at the command post ahead of the rest of the staff lacking her habitual make-up, her ordinarily coiffured hair tied back in a ponytail. She was not pleased when she learned of Hal’s overnight adventure, though he couldn’t decide if her anger at the jeopardy in which he placed himself stemmed from concern for him personally, or for her goal of reaching the Family’s inner circle through him.
“That was exceptionally reckless,” she admonished Hal. And to McKeon: “I can’t believe you went along with this. You should have informed me!”
“With all due respect, ma’am, he is the Chief Administrator. I work for him, not you.”
“Let it go, Tammy,” Hal said tiredly. “He was following orders.”
“Ridiculous, foolish, stupid orders!” his cousin seethed. “You should have left the investigation of that facility to me! It’s my job!”
“It would have taken too long,” Hal said, “and given Den Tun that much more opportunity to cover his tracks. Now we know what he was up to and managed to put a stop to it without him being any the wiser.”
“At the cost of a valuable employee,” Tamara reminded him, “and don’t think for a moment that Den Tun doesn’t have some inkling that we were involved. There are half a dozen confirmed Minzoku intelligence agents living in Sin City on a permanent basis; they know who comes, who goes, and when. They won’t consider it a coincidence that we went on alert the moment you arrived. There’s nothing like barreling through town in the middle of the night to clue the local spooks that you were up to no good!”
“It’s coincidental,” McKeon replied. “Gaijin outlaws have raided villages even farther inland.”
Dayuki chose that moment to remind them of her presence: “Den Tun places great importance on what others consider coincidence.”
Tamara’s head snapped around, fixing a disdainful gaze on the Minzoku girl as if she were some offensive substance Hal had neglected to scrape off his shoe. “It’s bad enough that you brought one of them into the Fort, but to the command post, of all places? You didn’t give us enough notice to sanitize the facility, there’s sensitive information all over, and did you even manage to search her?”
Hal closed his eyes. He was in no mood to be scolded; the muscles in the small of his back were tight and hard as rocks; pain shot through his leg like jolts of electricity every few seconds. He was tired, he was dirty, he was irritable and he’d reached the limit of his tolerance. “Tammy,” he said quietly, “shut the fuck up.”
McKeon ducked his head, rubbing at his eyebrows with the thumb and forefinger of one hand to shield himself from his employers’ brawl. Tamara wasn’t certain at first that she’d heard correctly. “What did you say?”
“Enough. Lieutenant Dayuki has proven to be a completely reliable informant and I expect to learn considerably more about Den Tun’s activities with her cooperation. Bringing her was my decision and you will respect it as such.”
Tamara’s eyes narrowed and her voice turned dangerously sweet: “I sincerely apologize for criticizing the way you violated half a dozen standing security protocols. I’ll be more circumspect when I bring them to your attention in the future. Did you need me for anything else?”
“Monitor the situation and notify me if anything happens tonight. We’ll do a full debrief in the morning.”
“Of course. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll see that the rest of us contain the fallout while you rest.” She strode out before Hal could chastise her again; McKeon took the opportunity to escape as well, leaving him alone with Dayuki. If she was disturbed by the revered Onjin’s squabble she didn’t show it.
“You believe that Den Tun will act on this?”
“Yes. Den Tun takes nothing for granted. It might have been better not to alert the Onjin, but your absence, and mine, would fuel his suspicions regardless.”
“But suspicions are all he has,” Hal noted. “No evidence. We may be able to keep him guessing a while longer.” He motioned her to accompany him as he stepped out onto the mezzanine overlooking the pit of the Operations Center. Dozens of faces turned upward, startled at the sight of a Minzoku uniform, and followed them as he led Dayuki down the stairs. “Get me a line to the base,” he ordered. “Audio only.”
“Incoming call from Den Tun,” McKeon replied almost before Hal finished speaking, “on visual.”
“Shit! Get me another shirt!” McKeon commandeered the clothing while Hal shrugged off the black tunic. Den Tun exhibited a convincing show of relief when the call connected.
“You are safe!” the old man exclaimed. “I was concerned when we found your quarters empty. Is all well at the Toride?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Hal said gravely. “We’ve taken mortar and small arms fire from the foothills north of the Fort.”
“Most distressing! Have you suffered casualties?”
“One casualty from gunfire,” Hal nodded.
“And Lieutenant Dayuki—she is with you?”
“She is,” Hal said.
“I will dispatch troops immediately,” Den Tun assured him before breaking the connection.
“Get some men up in the hills,” Hal told McKeon. “Give the Minzoku something to chase. Don’t cause them more than light casualties and don’t let them get close enough to cause us any.”
“Yes, sir.” McKeon’s gaze lingered on Dayuki. “I can handle things here,” he said, “if you’d like to arrange quarters for your guest.” The security officer’s meaning was clear: he still did not trust Dayuki and considered her presence in the command post a serious liability.
“I’ll do that,” Hal said. “Thank you.”
Hal had taken a suite at the VIP quarters the first night he spent at the Fort, and it was there he led Dayuki rather than the rarely used ten-cell jailhouse lying just off the Security offices. Each suite contained a complete kitchen, formal dining room, parlor, office, four bedrooms and two doors at either side of the parlor leading to adjoining suites. The four bedrooms shared access to a miniature replica of a Minzoku bathhouse, complete with communal soaking pool, with the added Onjin features of steam sauna and cool-down showers.
The suites’ arrangement and infrequent occupation made the VIP quarters a popular spot for clandestine parties among the Fort’s youth; Hal had attended a number himself when he was a teenager, one of which led to his first tryst with Tamara Cirilo not two doors down from the one he now occupied.
He had no doubt that the tradition continued and checked both connecting doors to ensure they were locked from his side. Twinges of nerve-pain lanced through his right buttock as he gave Dayuki the tour, growing progressively worse with each step. He eased onto a bench at the edge of the pool with a low hiss when they reached the bathhouse. “Does that maki-whatzit have any lasting effects?”
“Not if it is performed properly.” Dayuki felt his back gingerly. “After we wash you should take a bath to relax the muscles, then I can adjust the vertebrae.” To the Minzoku, washing and bathing were two entirely different activities, linked only by coincidence. One washed before bathing, and washing in a bath rated only a step higher than pissing in it.
>
“If you insist.” What Hal really wanted to do was go to bed, but he knew from past experience that if he didn’t address the pain immediately it would put him out of commission for days, giving justification to Tamara Cirilo’s criticism of his decisions. Dayuki took his arm and helped pull him to his feet, but instead of returning to her own bedroom she led him around the pool to the shower spigots where she began stripping off her uniform. Hal recalled another peculiarity of Minzoku culture: communal baths were exactly that, and the Minzoku were anything but body-shy.
He’d seen her disrobe less than seventy-two hours earlier, and the tiny wound at her throat from the encounter was red and puffy, a minor defect on her otherwise flawless completion. His paralysis had occupied his attention at the time, and he watched her surreptitiously from the next spigot as lukewarm water sluiced down her flanks carrying sweat, blood and soot with it. Her body was lithe and toned, slender, but without the protruding bones that many Onjin women considered necessary to reach an attractive weight.
Her casual bearing when she approached him to scrub his back stripped the moment of eroticism, but he was glad the cool water that brought her nipples to attention had the opposite effect on his anatomy when he returned the favor. The steaming water of the bath felt especially good after the chilly shower. Dayuki moved behind him and worked the muscles in his lower back with the heel of her hand as he leaned against the rim. The tightness eased quickly, as did the pain. His vertebrae slid back in place with an almost audible click. “Woman, you have the touch of an angel,” he sighed.
“I doubt you thought so earlier,” she said, a slight smile curling the edges of her mouth. Her hands continued up his back and she had to stretch to reach his neck and shoulders, bringing the length of her body into contact with his.
He’d never been in such close proximity to any woman in such a state of undress who wasn’t a lover, and a spark of concupiscence flared in his loins. Hal doused it with conscious effort. Any number of the Fort’s women, not to mention Tamara Cirilo, would leap between his sheets at the snap of his fingers if he needed an outlet. In any event, he found the platonic intimacy surprisingly pleasant, and didn’t want to endanger it, or Dayuki’s trust, with an ill-conceived pass. Besides, Dayuki’s likely surprise at such a move, combined with her skill at the chiropractic arts, would like as not leave him paralyzed again, only this time facedown in the water.
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