Pale Boundaries

by Cleveland, Scott

  “What the hell is a baffle-rider doing out here?” Zarn exclaimed. Baffle-riders ranged from those cobbled together from spare parts to those professionally built for thrill seekers. Judging by the sleek lines, garish paint job, and the unmistakable shape of a fusion drive bell housing, their bogie was one of the latter.

  “He’ll be disappointed if he thinks we’ll let him ride us back,” Terson said. How he reacted to that disappointment could be interesting. It was patently illegal to arm a civilian vessel without Commonwealth licensing, a process that took months if not years to complete, but baffle-riders squabbled with each other frequently and weren’t known for compliance in that regard. Fortunately, the types of armament capable of escaping the notice of the first law enforcement agency to lay eyes on it tended to be crude projectiles launched via one or more compressed-gas tubes mounted on the hull and camouflaged as an OMS port. Blowguns weren’t particularly lethal, but could do significant damage to an unarmored hull.

  A factory-built hot rod wasn’t likely to come equipped that way and Terson didn’t see any indication that this one had been retrofitted, so his greater concern was the question of how it got out to the middle of nowhere. “Scope’s clear,” Zarn reported in answer to the obvious question. “Maybe he came out with a refueler.”

  “Why would he stay?” Terson boosted again to kill the last of their momentum and crawled back to the platform at a velocity low enough to control with OMS. The fuel indicators crept ever closer to empty and it was with considerable relief that Terson activated the platform’s Automatic Docking System.

  Nothing happened.

  Why doesn’t this surprise me? Terson wondered. No matter what the instructors said, the number of minor glitches and inconvenient times they occurred had long ago convinced Terson the little T-108’s were programmed to malfunction. He took the OMS back to manual and flipped out the optic sight. The 108’s cross hairs eased onto the platform’s target. Terson rolled the ship for better alignment and the docking clamps met with a shudder. Umbilical connections made a moment later.

  Terson requested fuel from the platform. The oxygen cell filled rapidly, but the indicator for the hydrogen cell barely moved. Terson queried the platform’s computer and found that its supply tanks had been refilled two months before. The platform would only dispense to ships it recognized by a coded chip in the docking circuitry, or if someone went inside and entered a billing account manually. The withdrawal logs indicated that the hydrogen tanks contained more than enough to fill the 108.

  “I’m going inside,” Terson said. He pulled himself to the nose and cycled through the airlock to the platform. It stank so badly inside that his stomach lurched. In reality it didn’t smell any worse than the inside of the 108, but over the weeks his olfactory senses grew accustomed to the particular combined body chemistry of the occupants. The sudden onslaught of new molecules from other sources hit his nose like a flashbulb in the dark and it took a few minutes for the shock to wear off. Once it did he took a closer look around and decided that maybe his stomach hadn’t overreacted after all.

  The platform’s small service access doubled as an emergency life support module, and this one had been lived in for a while. A few articles of abandoned clothing left floating loose had clogged the main air return; mesh bags full of empty ration wrappers hung tethered to the walls, swaying in the attenuated air current. The body waste collection system consisted of elbow-length plastic mittens used to catch feces manually as it emerged before being pulled inside out and tied off. The effectiveness of the method depended a great deal on consistency of the material and suspicious smears on the walls suggested that the occupant lacked either the diet conducive to solid, bulky excrement or experience using the mittens.

  Terson cleared the vent, palpably improving the air quality within seconds. He soon found the fuel storage system’s manual control panel hanging by one rivet, jumper wires sprouting from inside like tiny vines. The platform’s communication system, which included the RF transponder and emergency hyperlink transmitter, appeared to have been cannibalized for the materials used to defeat the fuel storage system.

  Terson pulled himself back into the 108 and delivered the bad news to Zarn. “He knocked out the hyperlink when he bypassed the fuel controls, and drained the tanks. We can’t even call for help.”

  “Then we’re one hundred percent screwed unless he coughs some up,” Zarn said. “I’ve been hailing him on the guard channel, but he doesn’t acknowledge.”

  “That doesn’t mean he’s not listening,” Terson growled and jacked in. “Listen, pal: we’re out of fuel. You transfer us a few thousand kilos and we’ll forget we ever saw you.” The only reply was silence. It began to look like the baffle-rider’s pilot was content to remain so indefinitely, leaving Zarn and Terson to find some other way out of their predicament. Terson took one last stab at it: “We haven’t got anyplace to go,” he said, “and you’re not getting back on the platform until we undock. I’m guessing from what I saw inside that we’ve got enough food and water to wait you out.”

  The video screen blinked on. The face that appeared with the voice belonged to a young man no more than nineteen or twenty Standard. It was impossible to tell if his tangled hair and scraggly, unmanaged beard constituted his habitual appearance, but Terson doubted that the darkened flesh under his eyes and the hollowness in his cheeks had anything to do with fashion.

  “I can’t spare any,” he said. “I need the delta-v at the other end.”

  “So do we!” Zarn exclaimed.

  The ‘Rider shook his head. “Not to jump. You just have to clear the platform a few thousand klicks. Orbital Security can send someone out to refuel you.”

  “Good point,” Terson conceded, “aside from the fact that we aren’t about to jump into Nivia’s traffic pattern without clearance and you’re too big even if we were.”

  “I’ll take that chance.”

  “Taking chances is what got you stranded,” Zarn said. “Your record doesn’t engender confidence.”

  “I’ve got the fuel,” the ‘Rider said smugly. “You don’t have a choice.”

  “That my friend is where you are wrong,” Terson replied. He broke contact. “Zarn, how much burn time have we got left at ten percent thrust?”

  “Off hand, a little more than an hour, depending on whether or not we vent the oh-two to normal up the reactant ratio,” Zarn said. “Why?”

  “It only matters if this doesn’t work,” Teson replied. “You strapped in?”

  “Uh, yeah…”

  Terson disengaged the T-108 from the platform and backed away with a hard burst of OMS. He aimed the com laser at the baffle-rider’s hull just forward of the fusion drive. The range finder squawked, warning that the power setting was too high. He flipped the override.

  “What are you doing?” Zarn exclaimed.

  “Forcing the issue.” Terson triggered the laser. A tiny shower of sparks flew away from the ‘Rider’s hull propelled by hydrogen gas jetting from the thumb-sized hole left by the laser.

  “Are you crazy?” Zarn cried. “You’re going to kill him!”

  “Just slowing him down,” Terson explained. “Killing him depends on what he does next.”

  The pilot applied his OMS to correct the spin induced by the escaping gas. His angry face appeared on Terson’s console a few seconds later. “You breached my hull, asshole!”

  “Sorry about that,” Terson apologized. “Guess I had the power a little too high. Hey, I bet you could transfer quite a bit to us before it all boils off! What do you say?”

  “You assaulted me!” the ‘Rider yelled. “That’s illegal!”

  “So is stealing fuel and vandalizing property,” Terson said, “not to put too fine a point on it. Now how about that hydrogen?”

  “Fuck yourself! You’re not getting a goddamned drop!”

  “Well, here’s the thing,” Terson lied. “My partner and I have enough fuel to get us back to the jump zone—it’ll take u
s a long time, and we’ll be pretty hungry when we get there, but we can do it. You, on the other hand, are venting your go-juice at a rate that will leave you dead in your tracks in three or four hours. So I suggest you quit talking and get back to the platform before that happens. We’ll let the authorities know you’re out here—if we remember.”

  “They’ll confiscate my ship!”

  “Should have thought of that before you went tooling around the universe without a jump drive,” Terson commented.

  “Yeah, well, I saw what vector you came in on; maybe I’ll just head for the zone now and wait for you to get there!” he sneered back.

  “That is an excellent idea,” Terson agreed, “but you’ll still be out of fuel by the time we get there.” Without fuel he couldn’t approach them to ride their baffles, leaving him in the same pickle.

  It didn’t take long for that fact to dawn on the baffle-rider. His tactic altered accordingly: “Don’t think I won’t report you! My old man will sue you for everything you—”

  “I look forward to hearing from him,” Terson promised. “Good luck! Over and out.”

  “Wait!” His eyes appeared to bulge as tears welled up, collecting on the corneas without gravity to draw them down his face. “Don’t leave me out here! I ran out of food three days ago!”

  “Are you going to keep giving us shit?”

  “No,” he blubbered, “I promise.”

  “Then by the authority granted me as captain of this vessel under Commonwealth Treaty Regulation One, Article Five, I hereby place you under arrest for piracy in open space, to wit: the assault upon and theft from Malone Institute Platform Niner Five Niner,” Terson chanted. “Heave to and prepare to be boarded.”

  “That was a bit melodramatic,” Zarn drawled.

  “It’s important to observe the legalities,” Terson replied. He maneuvered the T-108 into contact with the baffle-rider, a tricky move because of the other vessel’s inclination to rotate due to its outgassing fuel. There couldn’t have been enough hydrogen left in the 108 to fill a party balloon when the docking clamps finally mated. He unstrapped to meet their guest at the airlock.

  “You realize we can’t leave him out here,” Zarn said.

  “Sure we can; it’s not like he can get away and neither of us want to sleep in our seat for the next week and a half.” Ironically, the baffle-rider’s crew space was two to three times greater than the 108’s. If they took the pilot aboard the only place to keep him was the bunk. “We’ll give him enough rations to tide him over until the cops get here.”

  “I hate to rub your nose in your ignorance,” Zarn said in a tone of voice that let him know he was going to do it anyway, “but you’ve overlooked the fact that his ship draws its power from a fusion reactor.”

  It took a moment before Terson caught on. The platform’s emergency life support system was just about spent. The baffle-rider’s hydrogen leak would leave the reactor nothing to burn and his batteries wouldn’t last even as long as it took the 108 to get back to the beacon. The kid would freeze solid before the authorities got to him.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  Beta Continent: 2709:06:02 Standard

  Tamara Cirilo strode into McKeon’s office and slapped a printed transcript on his desk. Her thin-pressed lips hadn’t relaxed since the indignity of her cousin running off with the Minzoku girl. Now her cheeks glowed with the rosy hue of outrage.

  McKeon skimmed the document while she leaned against the doorstop, drilling holes through him with her eyes. The blood drained from his face as the implication of the contents sank in. His chest tightened as if each word was a stone on a pressboard, slowly crushing him until he either admitted the unthinkable or died of denial. It took conscious effort to draw each breath by the time he reached the analyst’s summary at the bottom.

  “When did this come in?”

  “Just now,” she said. “Stan, how the hell could you let him go out there alone?”

  “I work for him, remember?” McKeon snapped defensively.

  “You work for the Family!” Tamara shouted. “It’s your responsibility to keep him out of trouble!”

  “Yes, I suppose he isn’t any good to you in prison.”

  “That’s none of your business,” the woman replied dangerously. She aimed a manicured fingernail at the center of his chest. “Fix it.”

  McKeon read the document again after she left, hoping that, somehow, it would get better—it was hoping too much. Approximately four hours earlier, Terson Reilly had emerged from jump and promptly declared an in-flight emergency. Soon after he notified the authorities that he and his copilot were transporting a prisoner—a male prisoner—who refused to identify himself.

  McKeon didn’t spend any time wondering what had gone wrong; it didn’t matter. A member of the Family had been apprehended on his watch and if he didn’t get Tennison back it would mean his own head any way he looked at it. Likewise, he didn’t give much consideration to the fate of Lieutenant Dayuki or the yacht. Personnel at the Fort left Nivia so rarely that keeping a starship on standby wasn’t practical; they traveled by commercial or charter carrier when it became necessary, which meant he had no resources available to secure the spacecraft even if he knew for certain where it was. His attention had to stay centered where it would do the most good.

  The procedures for this contingency assumed the presence of several Onjin agents on the mainland. Unfortunately, decades of downsizing had pared those resources to a single safe house manned by an administrative staff of four on a five-month rotation. None of those presently on duty had the experience necessary to manage an operation of this nature, and even if they did the severity of the situation demanded that he handle it personally.

  Getting on-scene involved ten to twelve hours of travel. McKeon read the transcript again, line by line, making note of the time stamps. Reilly’s T-108 was only sixteen hours from Nivia Station but his arrival was sure to generate some confusion while the authorities sorted out where and how who did what to whom. It might take another two to three days to positively identify Halsor Tennison, maybe a bit faster if they coerced it out of him somehow. Given those delays, half a day in transit wouldn’t put his employer at any greater risk.

  He called the Chief of Operations at the command post. “Get the plane ready.”

  The order set in motion a complex ballet of subterfuge. Brief coded commands flitted into the Federal data network through the Fort’s covert connections, triggering subroutines buried in the Air Traffic Control system. A flight plan identifying the aircraft as an EPEA patrol materialized in the appropriate databases by the time McKeon reached the Fort’s airfield. Once inside unrestricted airspace the EPEA patrol would transform into a previously non-existent cargo flight for the rest of his journey.

  McKeon dashed across the tarmac to the plane’s rear boarding steps, cringing at the thundering roar of its four idling ramjets. The passenger compartment was smaller than one would have suspected from the outside. The bird couldn’t refuel en route, so fuel tanks had commandeered most of the available interior space. The passenger cabin was sufficiently insulated to block the engine noise as soon as the hatch sealed. After a few minutes a discrete chime and flashing panel advised him to fasten his restraints and return his seat to its full upright position.

  The aircraft rotated sixty degrees as it cleared the runway and climbed straight out. Low cloud cover quickly obscured the coastline. The pilot leveled off at the lower end of the plane’s optimum cruising altitude, high enough that McKeon could see the curve of the planet but several thousand meters below Space Traffic Control radar.

  He used the onboard communications system to apprise the staff at the safe house of the situation and begin laying the groundwork for the rescue. The Onjin had the ear of a few high-ranking gaijin in Nivia’s government who might be persuaded to arrange Tennison’s release. McKeon had to tread carefully, though; cooperation depended on political convenience. If he made his request too emphatically
or too far in advance curiosity might lead them to ask just who it was they had in custody and tempt them to use Tennison for their own purposes. If McKeon waited too long, however, they would make the same discovery through the routine process of identification with the same result.

  McKeon had to acknowledge the reality that he might not be able to secure Halsor Tennison’s release through coercion or diplomacy. In that case Sergio Cirilo would officially notify the Family of the situation, bringing its attention to bear on the Chief of Security who, as a mere employee, did not relish the scrutiny. He had little doubt that Tamara Cirilo would spin the truth to her benefit, emphasizing the fact that it was McKeon’s plan that put their kinsman at risk while downplaying the degree to which Tennison himself refused to follow it.

  The Onjin were at a grave disadvantage if it became necessary to repatriate Halsor Tennison by force. Every adult at the Fort was familiar with basic weapons and tactics, primarily so they could anticipate the security force’s actions and stay the hell out of the way during a response, but few had advanced training and none, save McKeon’s own people, practical experience. The personnel manning the safe house might hold their own defensively with someone to direct them, but using them in an offensive operation was out of the question.

  McKeon would have to draw upon a small pool of local individuals who worked on a fee-for-service basis, though it increased the risk significantly. Locals didn’t necessarily adhere to the game plan without constant, direct supervision and had a tendency to make decisions based on their own priorities if circumstances took them outside the mission brief.

  McKeon directed the safe house staff to find out who was available, then told the Chief of Operations to contact him on the aircraft’s encrypted satellite link if there were any new developments before reclining his seat to catch what sleep he could. He woke again a few hours later from turbulence generated when the airplane shed velocity and dropped deeper into the atmosphere, slowing below mach one to emulate the supposed cargo flight. The raucous warble of the telephone shattered the silence. McKeon snatched it before it could sound twice. “Yes!”