Pale Boundaries

by Scott Cleveland

  “I know,” Bragg said, choosing his words carefully. “I am reasonably sure that you aren’t involved in anything you consider illegal, but you need to understand that my superiors will formulate their conclusions based on our way of life. The fact that you routinely cross the coastal boundaries and the identities of the men who attacked you suggests poaching, as far as they’re concerned.

  “Without anything else to go on they won’t look for any other reason. Virene’s murder will get filed away as a poaching-related crime. I’m the only one who will give you the benefit of the doubt, Terson.”

  Terson closed his eyes. “I can’t tell you anything! I didn’t do anything to anybody, Vi didn’t do anything to anybody, I don’t know!”

  “Captain, that’s enough for today,” Alsept said from the doorway.

  “All right,” Bragg said, and stood. “I’ll be talking with you again, Terson.”

  Bragg watched rooftops flow past below the skyhopper. He’d discovered a few basic patterns in police investigation that held true in most crimes: murder victims usually know their killers; the most obvious answer is usually the correct one; sometimes the obvious is so obvious—

  “Oh, hell!” Bragg snatched the skyhopper’s handset and dialed the office. “Dwin! The guy Reilly hauled in with him—who was it?”

  “That exporter, Neil Sorenson’s kid. Philip, I think his name is.”

  “You might want to check that fourth set of fingerprints against Philip Sorenson’s record.”

  The kidnapping had come soon after Reilly landed. Philip Sorenson had been remanded to his father’s custody almost three hours before Reilly left the port, plenty of time to make a call and arrange something, even if he wasn’t personally involved.

  Bragg called the legal department at Malone, got an answering service and left a message. Next he called Alsept and asked her to take particular note of anyone trying to visit Reilly. The existence of material witnesses had provoked murder attempts before.

  Nivia System: 2709:06:15 Standard

  Jumping from controlled spacelanes to unregulated systems or waypoints was relatively simple. Getting back wasn’t; unscheduled jumps ran the risk of a close and deadly encounter with other vessels.

  Hal first jumped to a Standard Traffic Entry Portal—a deep space waypoint equipped with an unmanned Space Traffic Control buoy—and transmitted a request to the Sector Control Office. A few hours later he received an approved flight plan. The wait was comparatively short: Nivia’s traffic was light compared to destinations in the Commonwealth’s core where approval of a flight plan might take days.

  “This is my world?” Dayuki gasped in astonishment when Nivia’s blue, sunlit face appeared in the port. “Why did it not look like this when we left?”

  “We departed from the night side,” Hal explained. He pointed west. “See? There is the gaijin coast, just coming into morning. There,” he pointed east, “is your continent, moving into night. That sliver of land sticking out of the darkness to the south is part of Nivia’s antarctic continent. It’s still winter there so we can’t see the rest.”

  “So,” Dayuki murmured thoughtfully, “Dusk and dawn stay in one place, and the ground moves.”

  “Of course,” Hal laughed. “Did you think the sun circles the planet?”

  Dayuki arched an eyebrow. “Why would I not think that? You Onjin mock us for believing what seems obvious, but do not see fit to teach us differently!”

  “Hey, sorry! I take certain things for granted; choose to think of it as a loveable character flaw.”

  A faint smile cracked her stern countenance. “I pray I do not find too many reasons to love you.”

  “I’ll try to do better,” Hal promised. “How else may I enlighten the dark pit of your ignorance?”

  “All right, Hal-san.” She pointed at Nivia. “This ‘gravity’ makes us fall toward the world. Since I see nothing holding the world up, it is falling too, yes?”

  “Strictly speaking, yes,” Hal agreed.

  “And the sun, it has this ‘gravity?’”

  “Certainly.”

  “Then why does the world not fall into the sun?”

  “Well, as the planet falls toward the sun, it also tries to get away from it, you see, so the world falls in a circle.” His explanation faltered under Dayuki’s skeptical gaze. “Look it up in the library.”

  They left Hal’s ship in a parking orbit and made planetfall aboard the shuttle. Hal maintained contact with Space Traffic Control until they handed him off to the ground based Air Traffic Controllers. His transponder activated a circuit covertly installed in the traffic control systems by the Family years before. A subroutine verified the hand-off with STC, then erased all record of the shuttle’s flight from the tapes and blanked the raw radar video. ATC was never advised of the hand-off and the target’s abrupt disappearance raised no alarm.

  Hal landed at the Fort’s tiny field rather than Den Tun’s base. Dayuki would not live long if she ever fell into Minzoku hands again and he didn’t trust Den Tun enough to let his people ferry them ashore. An armored ORV raced out to meet them.

  “McKeon is waiting at the command post,” the driver told him. “Also, the Chairman tried to contact you while you were gone. We sent word of your arrival as soon as you started down.”

  Hal sent Dayuki to their quarters and went to the command post to find McKeon. One of the night shift staff directed him to a conference room. His jaw dropped when he caught sight of his Chief of Security. “What the hell happened to you?” The right side of McKeon’s face was one solid, black bruise, the eye almost swollen shut. A patch of scalp over his left ear had been shaved and stitched; he walked with a distinct limp.

  “Ran into a complication,” McKeon replied and related his encounter with Terson Reilly, fleshing out the account with information he’d acquired after the fact. “I couldn’t get past the Commonwealth seal on his records, but he knew what he was doing.”

  “Christ, maybe we should have recruited him. The girl didn’t know anything?”

  McKeon shook his head. “Didn’t seem to. I got in about a minute’s worth of intelligible interrogation before her heart stopped. The only object she associated with that day was this.” He held out his hand and let dangle a broken gold necklace weighed down with a large blue pearl. “I brought it back just in case, but it turned out to be exactly what it looks like.”

  Hal took the necklace and bounced its weight in the palm of his hand. “I should have been consulted first, Stan,” he said.

  “I was under orders,” McKeon said. “At least it wasn’t a total waste; I’m confident they never had the Tiger Opal. We have a couple Federal contacts in a position to bury the whole thing, if we offer the right incentives.”

  Hal rubbed his temples. “Do it. Feed them something to satisfy their curiosity, if they get too interested. What did the Old Lady say?”

  “Wants to talk to you ASAP,” McKeon said. “She knows you’re here. We can maintain the hyperlink for about four hours before it causes a brownout. I can have it piped in here, if you want.”

  “Let me know when you’ve got her.” Hal closed his eyes, welcoming the silence after McKeon’s departure. How the hell could anybody have such a run of bad luck? The video monitor flickered to life. Hal found himself under the Old Lady’s bemused scrutiny. “Madam Chairman,” he nodded.

  “I understand you’ve had an interesting few weeks,” the woman stated. “The Committee is concerned.”

  “I share their concern,” Hal replied. “The crash was a serious setback.”

  “The crash doesn’t concern us as much as the promise you made Den Tun.”

  “It was politically and strategically expedient, considering the circumstances,” Hal said. “We can afford to throw him a few bones until we locate the crystal.”

  “Ah, yes, the crystal.” She pursed her lips. “Rumors are circulating regarding the existence of this crystal, and the process to produce it. Rumors with a disturbing quantit
y of fact.”

  “Den Tun’s contacts,” Hal decided.

  “I agree,” the woman nodded. “Find out who his contacts are. In the meantime, consolidate the research data you have and transmit it to me. Then destroy your records. We will recreate the process at a location we can better protect.”

  “That may not be necessary if I can recover the existing technical data,” Hal said.

  She shook her head. “You must concentrate on increasing production of our other products to make up the shortfalls and satisfy the obligations we’ve incurred. Our competitors are already using the delay to undermine our markets.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “If Den Tun has become this brazen we may have to discontinue our operations on Nivia sooner than we ever anticipated,” she said. “Others on the Board may disagree, but I believe I have more than adequate influence to override them. You must be prepared to deal with the Minzoku. All of them.”

  Hal cleared his throat. “Yes, Madam Chairman. That brings up an interesting point…”

  “The half-breed girl you think so much of?” the Old Lady asked.

  “Dayuki, yes,” Hal blinked. “How did you know?”

  “You aren’t the only one I receive reports from,” she chided. “Your father was impressed by her intelligence. He was also of the opinion that her devotion to the Onjin was based solely on religious fanaticism and isolation from her own people. The girl will have to prove herself before the Family could even consider adopting her.”

  “She has already done so, to my way of thinking,” Hal stated.

  “Her actions have yet to benefit us,” the Chairman snorted. “Your father murdered his own parents to prove himself. This girl has sacrificed nothing.”

  “She was willing to take her own life!” Hal insisted.

  “Which is worth little, by her reckoning. Her devotion is too brittle to place any significant trust in—it may shatter when she realizes we are not the virtuous benefactors she believes us to be.”

  “You can’t decide her motives,” Hal said. “You don’t know her.”

  The Old Lady’s eyes squinted suspiciously. “Is this more than a desire to reward her loyalty?” Hal felt his face flush. The woman nodded knowingly. “You may keep a mistress for the time being,” she said, “nothing more permanent. The status you enjoy in the Family carries certain obligations.”

  “You know how I feel about that.”

  “We both know your feelings are irrelevant,” she countered. “The Family must approve, if not decide, who you marry.”

  “Yes, Madam Chairman.”

  Her eyes softened. “Don’t do that. It’s hard enough to know I cannot always allow you the happiness I have the power to grant. We can discuss it another time. Good-by, Hal.”

  “Good-by, Mother.”

  Hal sat alone in the darkness after the connection broke, absently weaving the necklace around his fingers. He had avoided the subject of marriage for most of his adult life, though the reasons changed through the years. In his youth he’d thought himself skilled at enticing members of the opposite sex into his bed and viewed the prospect of marriage as the absolute end of the world.

  The eventual realization that he owed his numerous conquests to political status rather than sexual prowess, like a crown prince to whom flocked scullery maids and princesses with equal enthusiasm, shocked him into a period of serious introspection.

  And he had his own parents’ example to consider.

  Hal’s father had been a minor Commonwealth functionary in a minor Commonwealth system. He’d been seduced by the Family through a character flaw, or perhaps the romanticism of espionage. During the endgame, with the authorities closing in, he murdered both his parents in their sleep to protect the Family and the Family rewarded him with a new life. They gave him a home, a purpose, a job, and when the situation suited them, a wife.

  The only positive outcome of the arrangement, Hal thought, was that his parents waited until their forties to have him. By then they’d both given up trying to live together and accepted their fate in a culture that did not allow divorce. Hal was spared the years of anger, fighting and hate between them, and was raised shuttling between parents that loved him, but not each other.

  Hal did not intend to make the same mistake; he would not allow anyone to force the issue.

  Tamara Cirilo’s sleepy eyes lit up when she answered the door. “Hal! Come in.” The apartment was dim and quiet. “We had a scare while you were gone.”

  “So I’m told. Where’s Sergio?”

  “Sleeping. Would you like a drink?”

  “Thank you.” Somehow the bodice of Tamara’s nightgown came unbuttoned between the time she let him in and fixed his drink. He caught a flash of breast when she gave him the glass. The alcohol burned on the way down, adding heat to his simmering rage. “I just talked to the Old Lady,” he said.

  Tamara turned her face away and poured her own drink. “Oh?” The catch in her voice confirmed his suspicion. He gulped back the acid rising in his throat.

  “You don’t have the right to report my private affairs,” he said.

  “I’m the intelligence officer,” Tamara said. “I have the right and the duty to report significant observations and events. That includes your violation of a long-standing security policy.”

  “Not if you do it to serve your personal interests.” The glass quivered in his hand.

  “Hal, you put your own life and the Family’s interests in jeopardy for nothing more than an adolescent fling!”

  Hal dropped the glass and slapped her.

  Tamara’s face twisted in a grimace of shock that transformed to fury as they stared at each other. “You…! You—get out!” Hal knew he’d crossed the line. Tamara was Family, not an employee to be assaulted and threatened, but he didn’t care; truly did not give a damn, which in itself warned him that he had to leave before it went farther. “Enjoy your Minzoku slut!” she screamed at his back. “That was the last time you’ll ever touch me!”

  Hal spun and hit her again.

  She staggered back, dazed. Blood welled from her lower lip. He seized her nightgown and ripped it to the hem. She struggled weakly as he forced her down on the couch.

  “Don’t,” she whispered. “Please…!”

  “Isn’t this what you want?” Hal shouted. “Isn’t this what you’ve been after since I got here?”

  “Get away from my daughter!”

  Hal looked up into the barrel of a gun. His rage evaporated with astonishing haste. Tamara pulled her torn gown around her and folded into the couch, sobbing. Hal straightened up slowly, careful to keep his hand away from his needle-beamer. Sergio was a coward. A coward with a gun was a dangerous thing.

  “Get the fuck out of my home!”

  “Going,” Hal assured him. He backed to the door. “Just remember, Sergio: you were willing to prostitute her for what you wanted. Put that in your next report.”

  The shakes caught up with him in the corridor. He paced the dark stone paths outside, struggling to put aside the emotions that Sergio’s intervention had momentarily diverted. Cold and discomfort dulled the fire after a few minutes; he was still angry, but trusted himself not to stalk back in and put a hole in both their heads.

  I made my point, he decided. They would not trifle with him again, although he had to be careful not to give them any opportunity to come back at him. He’d learned enough from his father to recognize when the time came to bank political capital, and he thought he knew how to do it.

  Dayuki greeted him from where she lay curled beneath the plush bedclothes. “Is something wrong?”

  Hal sat on the edge of the bed and kicked off his shoes. “I had an argument with Tamara and Sergio. Would Den Tun tell me who his gaijin contacts are if I asked?”

  “If it offered him sufficient advantage,” she replied.

  Hal’s shirt and trousers followed his shoes. “Is there anyone at the Minzoku base willing to turn informant?”

&nb
sp; “The officer’s servants are peasant stock, always alert to improve their lot. Many would accept a bribe without hesitation.”

  “Contact them. We need to know about any dealings Den Tun might have with the gaijin.” Hal slid under the covers, where he discovered that Dayuki had decided to forgo her nightclothes. She slid against him with a sly smile and proceeded to take his mind off the evening’s concerns.

  Saint Anatone: 2709:16:16 Standard

  “Captain Bragg, I am Christopher St. Germain, from Malone Institute. I believe you wished to speak to someone in our legal department?”

  “Yes,” Bragg said. “I called in regard to an act of vandalism against one of your training platforms.”

  “I was handling that case for the university,” St. Germain said. “I wasn’t aware the Federal Police had any interest in it.”

  “Not the case in particular. I’m also Terson Reilly’s probation officer.”

  St. Germain consulted something beyond the range of the video pickup. “That would be the student who apprehended the alleged vandal. The university appreciates his actions. I hope he didn’t violate any of his conditions.”

  “Not at all. Were you aware that Mr. Reilly and his wife were assaulted a few days ago?”

  “Yes, a terrible event, terrible. How can I help?”

  “I’m interested in any unusual evidence you may have happened upon.”

  “I can transmit you a copy of the entire file,” St. Germain said.

  “That may undermine your case,” Bragg warned.

  “There is no case,” the lawyer said, “and I don’t mind telling you I’m not disappointed.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Mr. Sorenson intended to fight every step of the way. I believe he preferred the expense of a criminal trial to settling with us. He filed a motion to dismiss based on the Castaway Act.”

  “Which is?”

  “Essentially it allows persons to utilize, consume, or damage another party’s private property without consent as a matter of basic survival. Sorenson asserted that his son had been marooned.”

  “And so the university dropped its claim?” Bragg asked.