Dayuki debated briefly whether to acknowledge her or not. Although Hal-san had never addressed the issue of opening the door to Onjin other than himself, Dayuki preferred not to. Refusing to answer, however, might raise concern, so she activated the intercom as the Onjin woman reached for the chime button again.
“Good morning, My Lady. How may I help you?”
“Halsor sent me to fetch you; he needs you to interpret for him.” Interpret? McKeon-san was fluent in written and spoken Minzoku—but he had been injured by the gaijin, she remembered. “Halsor couldn’t reach you,” the Onjin woman added during the pause. “He’s outside the Fort.”
“Of course, My Lady,” Dayuki said. “I will require only a few moments.” She slipped out of the kimono she wore around the suite and changed into the Onjin clothing Hal-san had provided.
Tamara Cirilo smiled at her when she emerged. “All ready? This way; I have transportation out back.” She led Dayuki to the emergency exit stairwell at the end of the corridor. Her voice echoed from the walls as they descended. “You must look forward to getting out,” Lady Cirilo said. “I don’t think I’d like being cooped up in a room like that all day.”
Dayuki didn’t like it, of course, but it was not proper to acknowledge that fact in the Onjin woman’s presence. “I serve Hal-san however I may.”
“I’m well aware of that,” Lady Cirilo said. Dayuki thought she detected a tremor of anger in the woman’s voice. The door at the bottom of the stairs squealed open on rusted metal hinges; Lady Cirilo motioned Dayuki to precede her.
Dayuki stepped out into a narrow, unpaved alleyway less than two meters wide between two buildings. The ground was covered with a deep, unbroken layer of leaves dropped by the thick, overgrown decorative bushes that blocked the alley from outside view at both ends.
Dayuki realized she was in grave danger.
She turned to face the Onjin woman as the emergency exit groaned shut. Tamara Cirilo’s smile transformed to a triumphant smirk. She held a needle-beamer identical to Hal-san’s in her right hand. From her left sleeve appeared a short, crude tanto of the sort sold by souvenir venders in Sin City, which she flipped at Dayuki’s feet. The blade bit into the moist humus soundlessly.
“Looks like you aren’t so smart after all,” Lady Cirilo mocked. “Pick it up!”
Dayuki felt humiliated that she’d walked into such an unimaginative trap. Worse, she’d failed to anticipate the trick that facilitated it. Hal-san had explained the conflict between Tamara Cirilo and himself, but Dayuki hadn’t taken the time to understand the implications. A highborn Minzoku woman would not have felt threatened by the mistress of a man she had designs on. Obviously the Onjin woman viewed her as an obstacle.
“Pick…it…up!” Lady Cirilo repeated. Dayuki’s instinct for self-preservation prompted her to calculate the most effective method to neutralize the threat to her life a split-second after she perceived it. The woman stood within effective range, should Dayuki decide to strike but the Covenant forbade her doing so.
She took a step back and bowed. “This unworthy life belongs to the Onjin,” Dayuki said. “My Lady needs no excuse to take it.”
Tamara Cirilo hadn’t steeled herself for calm acquiescence. Her smirk faded, replaced by determination, and she took aim at Dayuki’s face. Their eyes locked and the gun’s muzzle began to quiver. The Onjin woman was too insecure to pull the trigger, yet too proud to back down. Dayuki turned away from her slowly and knelt.
“If I may suggest, My Lady, a shot to the base of the skull would be most effective,” Dayuki said. The silence stretched on, broken finally by the whisper of branches against clothing.
The Onjin woman was gone.
Dayuki reached for the dagger still protruding from the ground but thought better of it. She kicked it aside and swept leaves over it, then turned to the door. There was nothing but a metal plate and keyhole where a handle should have been; it took over an hour to pick the lock with her hairpins.
Back in her quarters, Dayuki wondered what to do. She’d been entirely sincere when she told Lady Cirilo that her life was the Onjin’s to take; therefore Dayuki had no basis on which to seek revenge. Hal-san’s apparent affection for her was gratifying, but it was not up to Dayuki to choose sides in an Onjin conflict—he had as much right to preserve her life as Lady Cirilo did to take it. That said, her affection for Hal-san gave her sufficient motivation to protect his interests whenever possible.
In that regard, it was important that Hal-san be aware of the lengths to which Lady Cirilo was willing to go in pursuit of her own agenda. Hal-san was hot-headed and impulsive, however; Dayuki could not predict how he would react to Lady Cirilo’s actions. Dayuki decided that it was better to leave him ignorant of the event than to risk the consequences an ill-considered retaliation might bring down on him.
Saint Anatone: 2709:08:21 Standard
Terson experienced a tinge of guilt over the salt deposits on the hydrojet’s windows and tarnished deck fittings; the main cabin looked more like a store room than living quarters, cluttered with gear he’d been too busy to stow properly the few times he checked the boat over the past few months. It had entered Terson’s life long before Virene and the memories of his time there with her were diluted by a greater number of those without. The craft had been a refuge and deserved better than the neglect it received as he moved on with his life.
He did what he could to make amends: he opened shades and portholes to vent the dank smell of vacancy, polished fittings, washed windows and scrubbed bird shit from the deck. The moderate effort exhausted him and he collapsed into bed sore and dizzy well before the sun went down. Random, disconcerting images filled his dreams; he woke with a start hours before dawn when his body encroached on the cold spot beside him Virene once occupied.
Terson employed a paradoxical aspect of human metabolism to regain the weight he’d lost during his hospitalization and the drinking binge that followed: he ate his fill regularly for two days, and then fasted for two more, consuming nothing but water. He gorged again on the fifth and sixth day, followed by two more days of fasting. The cycle awakened ancient memories in his genes, primitive remnants of a time when the ability to store energy against periods of starvation was more valuable than the ability to use it efficiently and his body soon lost its gaunt appearance. His endurance returned along with his weight and he spent an hour every morning and evening performing simple exercises to increase it further.
Before long he could walk the length of the pier and back without resting, though those daily jaunts exposed him to attention he’d just as soon avoid. The pier hosted an active social scene and the sudden appearance of a long absent owner piqued the interest of others who lived aboard their vessels full-time. He’d politely rebuffed a number of invitations to gatherings aboard some of the other long-term moorings, but knew that gossip would inevitably fill the void left by lack of information.
The solitude he sought was available only if he cloistered himself aboard the hydrojet, a cost he could tolerate for only so long. He held his freedom just as dear, but he could not have both as long as he stayed at the marina and there was more to do before he could head out to sea and walk undisturbed along the shore of his island.
He spent several days servicing the engines and performing the preventative maintenance neglected for the previous few months. Once everything above the waterline was shipshape, he slipped over the side to inspect the hull. Thin streaks of algae bloomed where the gelcoat had been scraped or worn off. The growths broke loose with a swipe of his hand, and none of the tenacious pseudocoral formations had managed to take hold.
The condition of the screens covering the intake ducts was another matter. The brief time he’d run the impellers whisked away the fragile algae, but the lattice pattern was exceptionally inviting to pseudocoral. His bare hand detected a sandy coating invisible to the eye on the normally smooth surface immediately. A few small barnacle-like crustaceans used the pseudo-coral seedcoat to anch
or themselves to the hull. The effect on water flow was minimal, but bore watching. A prolonged flight should kill the existing coral and barnacles and retard the development of more fouling organisms, delaying the need to repair the gelcoat.
The boat rocked slightly as someone stepped onto it from the pier. The hull propagated the sound of footsteps traversing the deck above, allowing Terson to swim to the ladder on the opposite side of the boat from the intruder before hauling himself out.
A man wearing a wide-brimmed hat, shorts, and semi-casual button-down shirt stooped to peer through a porthole carrying a six-pack of local beer in one hand and a large manila envelope in the other. “It’s courteous to request permission to come aboard,” Terson informed the stranger coldly as he stripped off his mask. A social encounter on the pier was one thing; he felt no reservations about making his displeasure at an unsolicited intrusion on his deck forcefully clear.
The man turned, unconcerned by Terson’s tone. “Courteous probates inform their probation officers when they change addresses,” Bragg replied. He pulled a bottle off the six-pack and tossed it to Terson with irritating familiarity.
It was either catch it, or let it hit him, the deck or the water. Terson plucked it out of the air, but did not open it. “You on vacation or something?” he asked, indicating Bragg’s casual civilian attire.
“Sort of,” the officer replied tightly. “I got suspended more or less. Can we take this inside?”
Maalan “By-The-Book” Bragg, suspended? His estimation of the man improved markedly at the news. He wasn’t about to let the story of how it happened get away. “Come on down.”
The officer appraised the main cabin appreciatively. “This is the first time I’ve actually been inside this thing.”
“Don’t get attached to it.” Terson set down the bottle. “What the hell did you do?”
“You going to drink that?”
Terson shook his head. “I’m back on the wagon.”
“Good for you.” Bragg twisted the top off and sucked down half the contents before he continued. “I floated a theory that got the EPEA involved in the investigation, which pissed off my CO and got me put on forced leave. They took jurisdiction and they don’t generally take any interest in crimes against persons—unless it’s one of their own. Virene’s murder is a closed case, as far as the Federal Police are concerned. I thought you should hear it from me.”
Terson eyed him skeptically. “You thought you’d need a whole six-pack to tell me that?”
“I’ve had some other problems since that night,” Bragg sighed. “I need to talk to somebody.”
“You have people for that,” Terson pointed out.
“Somebody who understands,” Bragg elaborated. He gulped down the rest of the bottle and opened another. “My wife doesn’t want to hear about it—my getting shot freaks her out more than it did me, I think. A few people at the department have been in gunfights, but they’d just tell me to visit the shrink—or report me for not referring myself.”
“I don’t think I’m qualified to advise you,” Terson said. “I don’t have any memory of getting shot.”
“That’s not it,” Bragg said. “What happened to me was traumatic, by anybody’s definition; I didn’t know it was just a stun at the time. I was pretty convinced that I was dying, but getting shot isn’t what’s messing with my head now.”
“I can tell this is important to you, Captain,” Terson said politely, “but I just don’t follow.”
“God, I wish I could get this into words!” Bragg exclaimed. He set the second empty next to the first and twisted the top off a third. “I woke up to the fact that the world is a dangerous place, that I’m charged with protecting people in it, but I’m not sure I’m equipped to do that. I remember starting to draw my gun, but deep down I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to have to make the decision to fire, to take somebody’s life.” Bragg sucked down another half bottle. “I keep wondering how I’d feel if I had shot one of those guys. I like to imagine it wouldn’t be any big deal—they had it coming. But what if he didn’t just drop dead? What if he flipped around and crying for his goddamned mother, or something?” Bragg finished off the bottle and reached for number four. “What would you do, Reilly?”
“Shoot him again.”
Bragg’s hand stopped mid-reach. “My God, you’re serious! What kind of hellhole did you grow up in?”
“Look,” Terson sighed, “here you have a static population of around ten million, all concentrated on one continent. Algran Asta had the same number of people spread out over the entire planet with a high transient population and we didn’t restrict travel.”
“Really? How’d you control poaching?”
“We didn’t!” Terson exclaimed. “There was no such thing! If you wanted to chop down a tree you chopped it down. If you got hungry you hunted. If somebody tried to take what was yours, you shot them.”
“I have to believe there was some kind of law,” Bragg objected.
“Sure there was,” Terson said. “We had more cops than you have here, in fact. Problem was we were too spread out to handle everything.”
“‘We?’” Bragg gaped. “You were a cop?”
“Two year compulsory tour with the Colonial Police,” Terson nodded. “All the big ranches and timber camps had a couple reserve deputies, too.”
“And people still took the law into their own hands.”
“They had to!” Terson said. “If you hear your neighbor beating the hell out of his wife here you make a call and a cop shows up in a few minutes. If somebody landed on your ranch on Algran Asta and started loading up your stock the cops wouldn’t get there for days. You had to handle it yourself, and if you caught somebody rustling your neighbor’s stock you did something about it because you knew he’d do the same for you.
“So if you’re asking me how to deal with the fear of killing someone, I can’t—we don’t share a common frame of reference.”
“That helps explain why I couldn’t keep you in line,” Bragg sighed. He held out the envelope.
Terson felt several loose objects inside when he took it. “What’s this?”
“Virene’s personal effects,” Bragg said. “The EPEA declined to take custody of the evidence, so it’s been released to the next of kin. I figured you deserved first right of refusal.” Terson spilled them onto the table: wristwatch, a single earring, wedding ring, and a few coins. “I’ll ship it off to her parents, if you don’t want it.”
The diamond in the ring still shone with the fierce inner fire that had matched the woman who wore it so well. It should have gone out when she died, but the stone was aloof, unaware of the fate that befell its wearer. The life of Virene Reilly was a flicker in the existence of the cold, carbon nugget.
Terson paused before he swept them back into the envelope. “What happened to the necklace?”
Bragg grimaced. “She suffered some very...traumatic...physical injuries. It probably broke off.”
Terson closed his eyes, concentrating. He was sure she wasn’t wearing it when they threw her out. A possible motive for the whole thing began to form in his mind. “You said it was valuable. Is that because nobody’s allowed to collect them, or are they actually rare?”
“I don’t know, but there’s somebody nearby who might. Come on.” Terson followed him back up the pier—straight to Mac Toner’s door. Toner’s instinctive glare deepened when he saw Bragg. “Hey, Mac,” Bragg said cheerfully. “Let’s talk in your office.”
Toner leapt to his feet as the officer came around the counter. “Not without a warrant, you don’t!”
“Nothing official, Mac. Reilly has a couple questions for you.”
Toner turned the glare his way. Terson shrugged with his best Don’t-Look-At-Me-I-Don’t-Have-A-Clue look, followed by a tipping-the-bottle gesture, which apparently satisfied whatever concern Toner had about Bragg’s official status. He hung out his Back in One Hour sign locked the door and drew the shades “Mind you keep yo
ur lip buttoned!” he warned Terson.
He took them into his minuscule office and pulled open the door leading to what Terson had always believed to be his storage and repair facilities. Refrigerated air gushed out, carrying the coppery smell of blood and offal. Freezer units lined the walls and two young men turned from their work at a butcher table, startled by the sudden intrusion. They dropped their fillet knives when Toner flicked his head and hastily vanished through another door toweling viscera from their hands.
Toner moved the plastic crate filled with fillets from beside the huge carcass and shoved it in a freezer, straining to lift it to the top of a stack of identical crates.
“You’ve got some balls,” Terson said approvingly. “This would get you what—fifty to life?”
“Every one of these fish is legal,” Toner declared. “Every one!”
“There are a few loopholes in our harvest and export laws,” Bragg said. “There’s a limit on how many fish you can pull in with a recreational harvest permit, but there’s no limit on how many you can buy from permit holders. Private citizens can resell to anyone in any quantity once they have the provenance.”
“Huh,” Terson grunted. “So you use the rental business to launder the biomass?”
“Some folks put it that way,” Toner said sourly. His conversion from charter cruising to exporting had begun long before the fateful storm that drove him from the sea. Ignorant of the loophole, sport fishermen willing to buy a recreational harvest permit and charter his boats were often happy to settle his fee and avoid the perceived hassle of processing their catch by turning it over to him and walking away with a photograph and a good story. Meeting a rich Belter vacationer interested in a lucrative partnership had been inevitable. “How they get it off-world isn’t my concern.” He leaned against the table and crossed his arm. “What do you want to know?”
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