“No.”
“Then it is not a trap set by my uncle.”
Hal-san took her gently by the shoulders, inviting her to turn. The motion of her kimono against her breasts sent sparks of pleasure through her body, but Dayuki declined despite the warmth his touch elicited in her belly. Her thoughts had been of sekkusu most of the day and she did not trust herself to keep the welfare of the Onjin and her lover ahead of her own desire. She kissed his hand quickly to quell the uncertainty she sensed in him at her resistance.
“I’ll send a few men in ahead of you,” he told her.
Dayuki dished dinner onto a pair of plates. “Their presence will discourage an attempt on my life,” she conceded. “It might also frighten away our informant.”
“Your show,” Hal-san said, “your call.”
He did not always take her advice, but did so often enough to let her know that he did listen. Hal-san evaluated her point of view as an issue separate from her gender instead of dismissing it instantly, as a Minzoku male was apt to do. It was this that attracted her to him as much as anything else.
After dinner Dayuki sifted through closets full of cast-off Onjin clothing. Hal-san was correct: walking among her own people was dangerous. She could not hide her stature, but could hide her face. More than a dozen half-breed prostitutes lived in Sin City and Dayuki could easily pass for one of them. She settled on a worn cloak of a quality a prostitute might accept as a gift or payment.
Hal-san awaited Dayuki at the sally port in the north wall. He held out a palm-sized needle-beamer. “It’s only good for five shots,” he said. “Use it if you have to.” Dayuki tucked it in the folds of her cloak, bowed, and slipped outside. Her breath misted in the biting air. The winter snows weren’t far away but Dayuki was warm enough in the Onjin clothing beneath her disguise.
Sin City was quiet in the absence of its Onjin customers. Most of the transient merchants had returned to their homes; many permanent businesses had closed when it became clear the Onjin would not leave the walls of the Toride again for some time. A filthy Minzoku herdsman could now afford the company of a prostitute for a week at the same price the Onjin paid for an hour. Many of the half-breed prostitutes dyed their hair in gaijin colors to attract peasants with fantasies of mounting Onjin women.
Dayuki experienced a shiver unrelated to the cold as she slipped through the back alleys to escape the attention of said peasants. If not for the favorable intervention of Fate, she might have found them using her body to satisfy their abhorrent lusts.
At last she reached the specified meeting place clutching the beamer within her cloak. “I am here,” she said clearly. Someone groaned. Part of a garbage heap struggled to its feet. The hunched figure shuffled into view with the aid of a walking stick.
“Ah, it is true after all,” the old woman said. “You betrayed your own people to consort with the Onjin.” These were not the obeisant words of a greedy maid. Dayuki glanced around quickly, freeing the beamer from her garments. “I am alone,” the woman chided. “Fate’s whim, girl, do you not know your old friend Libwe?”
“Libwe, the old head maid? How did you come here?”
“My own two feet and the kindness of strangers. I expect to return more comfortably and a good deal wealthier!”
“You were pensioned years ago! How could you know anything of interest to the Onjin?”
The old woman held an arthritic hand up in the light. “My pension does not buy enough gaijin medicine to relieve my pain. Den Tun allowed my return as a kindness, but the pay is still too little.”
“And you dare judge me?”
“Hypocrisy comes easily at my age and you promised payment.”
“Yes. Tell me what you know.”
“One of the fleet returned unannounced,” Libwe said. “Den Tun restricted the servants to quarters as soon as it arrived.”
“You expect a reward for this trivial thing?” Dayuki demanded. “Pray the kindness of strangers is sufficient to carry you home again!”
“Patience, girl! The soldiers told me to search the old Onjin stores for a man’s clothing of a particular size. The vessel was gone again when they released us, but I was sent to clean one of the visitor’s quarters where I found ragged clothing that stank of gaijin.”
“Do you know what became of him?”
Libwe shook her head. “Even the soldiers who sent me searching are gone, without so much as a word to their families. I’m certain that they assigned me the task without Den Tun’s knowledge or I would be with them now. Is this trivia worthy of payment?”
“Quite so.” Dayuki held out the bag of coins. Libwe extended her hand, bowing as she accepted it. Dayuki applied the maki suru with her free hand and eased the old woman to the ground. She arranged outer garments as if they’d spread open in a fall and closed her gnarled fingers around the coins.
“You will not suffer in pain much longer,” she whispered in the woman’s ear. “Your service to the Onjin has reserved your place in heaven.”
Hal rushed to the command post with Dayuki as soon as she related her conversation with the old Minzoku woman. Finally, finally he was a step ahead of Den Tun. With Reilly gone and the revelation of the Minzoku’s gaijin contacts within reach Hal could put an end to the present debacle.
“Show me the magnetometer scans of the coast starting ten days ago,” he ordered. The Onjin’s efforts to conceal the Minzoku included a system that automatically erased their submarines’ magnetic signatures before the satellite data reached the mainland. It was a simple enough matter to call it up again from the archives.
“These are Minzoku submarines,” McKeon said as a number of circles appeared. “The scans frame forward at one hour a second.” The traffic around Den Tun’s submarine pens was routine for the first thirty hours. Then, inexplicably, arrivals stacked up in deep water one hundred kilometers from shore and departures halted entirely. The tableau held as a single vessel transected the sector from the southeast and entered the cavern.
“It’s too bad the scans can’t distinguish between vessels,” Tamara said thoughtfully.
“We’re not interested in the submarine,” Hal said darkly. “We want the identity of the man it’s carrying. Although,” he wondered aloud, “why would Den Tun bring a gaijin all the way from Alpha?”
“Perhaps,” Dayuki offered, “the gaijin did not come from the Alpha continent.”
Hal sighed; yet another assumption lacking empirical substance brought to light. They continued to operate on preconceived notions of what Den Tun and the Minzoku were capable of—notions consistently proven incorrect. If that didn’t stop immediately the Onjin would continue to fail in their efforts to anticipate Den Tun’s actions.
“Backtrack the sub,” he said. The origin of the gaijin might give some clue to his identity.
“It appears to be the one the Minzoku had on picket duty at the crash site,” McKeon reported a few minutes later. He highlighted the location and let the data run forward in time. “It headed east from there for several hours before turning west again, back toward the crash. It cruised around in circles for several days before heading for the pens.”
“So it didn’t go anywhere near Alpha.”
“No, sir.”
Hal rubbed his face. I’m missing something. Maybe the assumption that the gaijin in question had entered the base with the submarine was also incorrect. There were gaijin criminals living on Beta; maybe it was one of them, and the subsequent lockdown of the servants was simply coincidental to the arrival of the sub. That didn’t make much sense either—why recall a vessel to transport someone when there were already others in port? Unless that was the point: dispatching another vessel on short notice might draw attention or start rumors, but secretly recalling one already at sea left no such trail.
Hal stared at the sector map, eyes following the submarine’s course. The vessel steamed straight and true from the crash site toward Alpha until the captain appeared to change his mind and headed back
for Beta. Along the way indecision set in, compelling him to orbit in an ever-expanding spiral until finally settling on a course back to port. Comprehension struck with a wave of triumph. “They’re looking for someone!” Hal exclaimed, pointing at the spiral. “They picked the gaijin up at sea.”
“But there’s nothing else out there,” McKeon frowned. “No aircraft, no ships.”
“There might have been earlier. Reverse the timeline again, but stay with this sector.”
The Minzoku submarine’s icon raced out of frame, leaving vacant ocean for several days until, suddenly, a tiny target appeared out of nowhere just about the center of the sub’s search pattern and swept eastward at high speed toward the Alphan coast.
“It’s an aircraft of some kind flying right on the deck without a transponder or GBST beacon,” McKeon said. He ran the scan forward again. The aircraft flew back into frame then suddenly slowed, stopped, and vanished. “It almost looks like he ditched—just a second.” He strode to his station to consult a file and returned with a grim look on his face. “That thing appeared right about where our Federal source said Reilly’s boat went down.”
Hal stared at him dumbfounded, face blushing with anger. “They told us he was dead. They assured us he was dead!”
“He was, to their way of thinking,” McKeon shrugged helplessly. “He would be if the Minzoku hadn’t picked him up.”
Hal fought the urge to hurl a chair into the screen. “And why,” he choked out, “would the Minzoku pick him up? Take a wild guess!” McKeon faltered, unsure which would infuriate his boss more: silence or the wrong answer.
“The Tiger Opal,” Dayuki said with surprising assurance. “Den Tun lied about its loss. He recovered it from the wreckage but left it on the bottom of the sea for his gaijin lackeys to recover later.”
“But Den Tun reported them to us,” McKeon objected.
“Covering his bases, knowing that we might detect them independently,” Hal decided. “He made excuses not to take them out, remember? He assumed that they’d make it back to Alpha before we got to them.”
“But he was mistaken,” Dayuki said proudly.
“Very mistaken,” Hal agreed. “Reilly may not have had it before, but you can bet the farm he’s got it now,” he said, stabbing a finger at the overhead monitor, “and it’s right there!” Or was, considering what the old maid told Dayuki. If Reilly and the Tiger Opal left the same way they arrived there might still be time to intercept them.
McKeon reset the display to the point that the submarine carrying Reilly entered the pens and resumed the playback. The vessels parked off the coast entered the pens, joined by stragglers arriving over the next several hours. Nothing departed during that time and Hal could imagine the chaos inside as the pens grew more cramped with each addition. The logic behind the tactic was as obvious as it was frustrating to watch when Den Tun finally made his move: dozens of subs exited simultaneously and scattered, all heading in the general direction of the Alpha continent.
“Show us where they are now,” Hal sighed. McKeon brought up the live feed showing the flotilla mere hours from the gaijin coast, evenly dispersed along the continent’s entire length.
“There’s no way we can intercept them all,” Tamara declared unnecessarily.
“No kidding,” Hal growled. Instead of getting a step ahead of Den Tun he found himself half a step behind with no conceivable way to catch up. “Continue monitoring,” he said. There was always a chance that something might give away which sub carried Reilly and the Tiger Opal.
Hal fumed on the way back to his quarters considering what form of vengeance might satisfy his anger at the duplicitous old bastard who had made a complete and utter fool of him. The call light on the com panel was already lit when he and Dayuki arrived.
“We need you back at the command post,” Tamara apologized. “We have another problem.”
“What the hell is it now?” Hal snapped angrily.
Cirilo raised an eyebrow. “I can’t discuss it over this circuit,” she replied evenly. “That’s why you need to come to the command post.”
The main overhead screen displayed a satellite view of Alpha continent’s northern peninsula when Hal and Dayuki entered. Dozens of aircraft icons speckled the display, most headed more or less southeast, apparently out of the path of a strong weather front moving in from the ocean. Tamara indicated the screen. “This is restricted airspace over the Great Northern Preserve,” she said. “There shouldn’t be so many aircraft in there, and more keep popping up as the storm gets closer.”
“EPEA?” Hal asked with a frown.
Tamara shook her head. “This is pre-edited data. This is what the gaijin are receiving.” Another image appeared on the secondary screen, identical to the first in every way but for one detail—no GPST icons. “They’re using blocking transponders.”
Hal couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it coming. Den Tun’s gaijin connection was the single most obvious organization on the planet, one that had operated with the blessing of both the Family and the Federal authorities for years: “Sorenson!”
“Who is this So-Ren-san?” Dayuki asked.
“Our front,” Hal explained. “We’ve given them a few blanking transponders over the years to facilitate moving our merchandise off-world, but not nearly this many. The devices are supposed to be impervious to reproduction.” Apparently Sorenson Exports had done so. Their presence in the Preserve pointed to poaching, a matter of no particular interest to the Onjin except for the risk of discovery by the EPEA. The blanking transponders masked boats and aircraft from orbital detection but the radar of individual EPEA aircraft were not susceptible to the transponder’s magic.
“Arrange for transportation and accommodations at Saint Anatone,” Hal told McKeon and Tamara. “Get a couple of men and meet me at the shuttle in an hour. We’ll pay Sorenson a visit.”
“You think he’ll cooperate?” McKeon asked.
Hal smiled grimly. “I’ll see to it that he does.”
Saint Anatone: 2709:09:17 Standard
Neil Sorenson arrived home expecting to discover another of his son’s drunken parties when he saw a light on in the pool house. It came as a mild surprise that there were no strange vehicles in the driveway, and Philip’s car was parked safely in the garage. He heard the rattle of ice in a glass as he entered the house and spied light coming from beneath his study door. He stormed in angrily, this time expecting to find his son guzzling a bottle of centuries-old whisky from his collection.
But the man drinking his whisky was a stranger.
It took the exporter a moment to recognize Halsor Tennison and lower his hackles. One of McKeon’s men closed the door behind him. Sorenson approached, unfazed by the goons.
Hal finished pouring a second drink, which the exporter accepted with an unpleasant frown. “That whisky is three hundred years old, Tennison.”
“Really? Good stuff. Smooth.”
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” The exporter sauntered to his desk and opened a drawer.
“You’ll want this,” Hal said, tossing the empty pistol magazine onto the desk. “Sorry for snooping; I was concerned that you might mistake me for a common thief.”
Sorenson put the magazine in the drawer and closed it. “Why are you here?”
“I understand what Den Tun stands to gain by betraying us,” Hal replied, “but what’s in it for you?”
“Your question implies that I have betrayed you,” Sorenson said.
“We know you’re using more blocking transponders than we gave you,” Hal said. “My conclusion is that you built your own to facilitate poaching. I hope I’m wrong.”
“You’re not,” Sorenson replied matter-of-factly.
Hal’s anger welled up. “Use of that equipment other than as specified in our agreement was expressly forbidden!” he snapped. “You’ll expose my operation if you get caught!”
“Your operation would have been exposed years ago if I hadn’t,” Sorenson snappe
d back. “The Belter habitats in this system can’t produce enough food to feed themselves. The need exceeds the quantities we can move legally, thanks to the environmental laws you people influenced. Without poaching, the rest of the system will starve! How long do you think your parasitic little sub-culture will stay hidden if that happens?”
Hal bristled at the exporter’s characterization. A parasite wasn’t an organism one cooperated with or protected—it was something to be eliminated. “How exactly does helping Den Tun penetrate our network help feed the hungry masses?” Hal demanded.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t have time to quibble,” Hal said coldly. “Den Tun confessed; the only thing keeping you alive right now is my curiosity.”
“Then I certainly don’t have anything to gain by satisfying it,” Sorenson said.
“Let me show you why you’re wrong.” Hal motioned for McKeon’s men to follow and they fell in behind him and Sorenson. The exporter sauntered along beside Hal without apparent concern, more interested in his drink.
Sorenson stopped suddenly as they entered the pool house; one of McKeon’s men nudged him forward with the barrel of his gun. Philip Sorenson sat in a chair at the water’s edge flanked by Tamara and McKeon, his face puffy and bruised; Dayuki stood behind him with her hands resting on his shoulders. He looked beseechingly to his father, but kept his mouth shut.
“You have a tendency to save your son from himself,” Hal said. “Now you have the opportunity to save him from me. Would you like me to repeat the question?”
Sorenson’s eyes flicked from his son to Dayuki, then McKeon’s men and back to his son. He swallowed hard and licked his lips, his bravado gone. “None of what’s happened is irreversible,” he said.
“Answer the question.”
“The Minzoku penetrated your network without any help from me,” he claimed. “I discovered it when they tripped an intrusion alarm in my own network four years ago.”
“God-damn it!” Hal exploded. “Why didn’t you inform us then?”
Pale Boundaries Page 31