Pale Boundaries

by Scott Cleveland

  “Would an outfit as big as say, Sorenson Exports, risk poaching of that sort?” Bragg was asking.

  A startling transformation contorted Toners face: shock, grief, guilt and under it all a long-smoldering rage. “The bastard’s a drift-netter! Of course he would! Now get out! Both of you! Out! Come back with a warrant or not at all!”

  Bragg’s mouth clamped shut and he followed Terson back outside, treading on his heels in his rush. Toner’s door slammed shut behind them. The officer wiped at the sudden perspiration on his face. “Damn! What the hell set him off?”

  “What’s a drift net?” Terson asked.

  “Fine filament fishing net,” Bragg said, pulling his lower lip, “about ten kilometers long or so, hundreds of meters deep that kill everything in their path. Poachers buoy them with a beacon and set them adrift for weeks at a time, then come back and haul in whatever hasn’t rotted.”

  “And Sorenson Exports uses them?”

  “I wouldn’t think so,” Bragg said absently, “but the name keeps coming up. Sorenson Exports owned the cargo on that shuttle and I’m starting to wonder…

  “What’s your boat’s maximum range, round-trip?”

  “Officially, about eight hundred kilometers,” Terson told him. “Three to four times that if it has extra fuel bladders installed in the hull cavity, but that’s illegal, you know.”

  “Plenty, then,” Bragg said, still preoccupied. “Are you up for an extended fishing trip?”

  Terson vacillated between telling him where to shove it and curiosity. “Possibly…”

  “Tomorrow, first light unless I let you know otherwise. I’ll have to pick up some gear.” He spun and headed up the pier without a word of explanation.

  Terson tried Toner’s door, found it unlocked, and went back in. Toner sat hunched over his desk with his face in his hands. Tears dripped out of his beard when he looked up. “Sorry, Reilly. It’s not you. It just…he asked out of nowhere. Didn’t expect it.”

  “Your wife?”

  “Yeah. It was some Belter clients, real good money. Ran over a drift net, fouled the props. We worked at it most of a day and night. Next morning, right at dawn, we saw the ship recovering the net. The registration was tarped over, but when you been at sea long as I have, you don’t need a name to recognize a boat. It was one of Sorenson’s.

  “They just cut the rest loose and took off. When the storm hit we wallowed. Hell, I been through worse, but I couldn’t maneuver. Wave rolled us. She went down like a rock in thirty, forty seconds.

  He sucked in a ragged breath. “Janny got tangled in the net.”

  “The Coast Guard found you,” Terson guessed. “They didn’t believe you?”

  Toner uttered a single barking laugh. “I didn’t tell’em. We were way outside the coastal boundary.” He regarded Terson with naked grief. “If I hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t have hit the net.”

  Beta Continent: 2709:08:21 Standard

  McKeon had just shut down his office and was preparing to hoist himself to his feet for the painful trip to the command post garage when Tamara Cirilo entered. He hadn’t seen her all night, but she looked like she’d gone without sleep for a while.

  “Stan, do you have a minute?”

  “Can it wait? I’m not feeling—”

  “Please?” The sincerity of the request took him aback. ‘Please’ was a word rarely used in Tamara’s vocabulary, reserved for subordinates when she wished to appear considerate while issuing commands they dared not fail to obey.

  McKeon settled back onto his chair. “What can I do for you?”

  “I was going to kill that Minzoku girl living with Hal today,” she said. “I gave her a knife so it would look like she attacked me, but she wouldn’t touch it.”

  The same chill washed over him as when he’d heard that Tennison had been captured. “Lieutenant Dayuki is a trained martial artist,” he said. “You’re lucky she didn’t kill you.”

  “I know; I saw it in her eyes,” Tamara said. “She knew she could, but didn’t. It was like she didn’t believe I would shoot—or didn’t care.”

  “If you expect me to run interference for you, it’s not going to happen,” McKeon said. “Problems between Family are just that. I won’t get in the middle.”

  “No,” Cirilo said. “If she told Hal I would have heard about it by now.”

  “Then I don’t know what I can do for you.”

  “You can be honest,” Cirilo said. Her eyes became desperate. “Would you do that for me, Stan? Please?” McKeon’s head spun with the outrageousness of hearing the word yet again, but replied in the affirmative. Tamara Cirilo began to cry, right there at his desk. “What am I doing wrong?” she sniffed. “Why did he choose her over me? How could he humiliate me like this?”

  “The problem,” McKeon said, “is that you come across like a cheap whore.”

  Tamara sat up straight. Her wet eyes narrowed angrily. “You’ll regret that, McKeon!”

  “The fact remains that it’s true, and everyone sees it but you. You act like a dog whining for a bone when he’s around; all you see is a ride straight into the Family’s inner circle. Why would Halsor Tennison be interested in a woman who only sees him as a means to an end? Why would anyone?”

  “But I’ve got something to offer!” Tamara exclaimed. “That Minzoku bitch is the gold digger!”

  “The difference is that you scheme; she just gives. You might take a lesson from that, whatever the outcome between you and Hal.”

  McKeon expected a blast of fury, but her face relaxed instead, calm and thoughtful as she turned to leave. “Thank you, Stan. I appreciate your candor.”

  FIFTEEN

  Saint Anatone: 2709:08:22 Standard

  Sunrise cast spears of light into the morning haze from the summits of the coastal mountains east of Saint Anatone as it approached. The peaks blazed as the sun lit their tips, driving back the pale face of the false dawn and cooking the dampness out of the air.

  Mac Toner’s heavy tread rocked the deck. He planted a foot on the rail next to Terson and handed him a cup of brew the locals called coffee. It tasted nothing like coffee from Algran Asta, derived from a root rather than bark. A new planet deserved to be described in unique terms, but the old ones clung to the human psyche. Birds were birds because they flew; things in the water were called fish.

  Something hot you drank in the morning was coffee.

  “Beautiful morning,” Toner noted.

  “Yeah,” Terson agreed. He’d risen early to watch the sunrise for weeks after his arrival on Nivia, gorging on the sight like a child locked in a confectioners shop. Catching a clear view of it on Algran Asta was nearly impossible due to the nightly fog, which refused to relinquish its hold until the sun was well along its journey and settled in again hours before sunset.

  The allure waned with time and troubles. He abandoned the practice after the cynic in him decided that the sun’s course must be dictated and enforced by the same regulations that controlled everything else on Nivia. It wasn’t until he watched it rise with Virene in his arms for the first time that he realized what it was that drew him to the event: each day dawned innocent. It rarely ended that way but the certainty of its return, clean again, afforded him the barest hint of hope when nothing else did.

  It was his first sunrise without Virene and he was glad he didn’t have to spend it alone.

  “What got you up in the morning?” Terson asked at last. “How did you get through it?”

  Toner blew steam off his cup. “Moment by moment. Then day by day and year by year.”

  “Ever think about getting married again?”

  “Not very long. For me it was Janny or nobody.”

  “Were you ever sorry she met you?” Terson asked.

  Toner looked him in the eye without any sign of the emotion he’d exhibited the day before. “You mean because of what happened; she wouldn’t’ve died if she’d never met me and all. I did, for a while. Sometimes I still catch myself thin
king I got her killed.” He took a noisy slurp of coffee. “It’s easy to think that; comforting, because it spares her any guilt. The truth is Janny made her choices; she was as much a poacher as I was. If I’d gone down, she’d stand here telling you she wished it had been her instead.” Toner pitched the dregs overboard and stepped back across to the dock. “Here comes your probation officer.”

  Bragg arrived moments after Toner’s steps faded, huffing under the load of two hand trucks bearing a stack of rotation-molded equipment cases. “That’s not fishing gear,” Terson commented.

  “Not in the common sense, no,” Bragg agreed. “Can we get it stowed before it attracts attention?”

  Terson cleared space in the midship storage compartment while Bragg fidgeted like a kid with a pocketful of stolen candy. “The only thing attracting attention is you,” Terson said as they stowed the containers. “What’s this stuff for?”

  “You’ll see when the time comes,” Bragg replied. “Suffice it to say I broke a few rules signing it out. You’ll find plausible deniability advantageous if the Department figures out before we’re on our way.”

  “Do you mind telling me where we’re on our way to, and what we’re doing when we get there?”

  “Plausible deniability,” Bragg reminded him, “but you’ll want to refuel at the Archipelago.”

  They were underway minutes later, observed by a handful of early risers aboard nearby boats who gestured greetings as the hydrojet made an unremarkable departure. Terson gave the impellers more power beyond the no-wake zone, boosting his speed to twenty knots, and proceeded to the take-off buoy three kilometers from the marina. Bragg adjusted the copilot’s seat along the way to accommodate his legs, severing Virene’s last connection to the boat.

  The surface of the water developed a moderate chop as the offshore breeze strengthened. Terson surmised that Bragg didn’t have much experience on the water, if his white-knuckled grip on the armrest was any indication. The chop got worse during take-off; Terson held the craft to the surface longer than necessary, using the bone-jarring impacts to visit his revenge on the man for his unknowing offense.

  He pulled the yoke back sharply. The boat left the water with a stomach-tossing hop before settling onto the ground-effect cushion between the hull and the water. Terson spent a few minutes trimming WIG’s and flaps, watching the radar for any approaching surface vessels with a superstructure or mast high enough to clip.

  Bragg drew deep, measured breaths through clenched teeth. His face was white and glistened with sweat. Terson experienced a twinge of shame at what he’d done, given the officer’s concern for him weeks earlier. “There’s a bottle of motion-sickness pills in the head,” Terson told him.

  “I’ll be okay,” Bragg insisted.

  “Not if you’re queasy already,” Terson replied. “It’ll get worse when we land again.”

  “You’ve convinced me.” Bragg unstrapped and made his way down the narrow steps from the cockpit to the main cabin. Terson heard him retch once in the head. He came back looking a little less uncomfortable.

  “I think you owe me an explanation, now,” Terson told Bragg after he strapped in.

  “Mac Toner isn’t the first person to claim that Sorenson Exports is engaged in organized poaching,” Bragg said. “All exporters get accused of it, but Sorenson’s name keeps popping up. I’m wondering if that shuttle cargo could tie them to it, and by inference to the attack on us and Virene’s death.”

  If Bragg’s only interest in finding out was to satisfy his own curiosity, he must not have a high regard for his own life, Terson decided. Knowing and proving were distinctly separate activities. People tended to turn up dead somewhere between the two.

  “Except for the escape pod, Virene and I were nowhere near the shuttle,” Terson reminded him.

  “I know,” Bragg acknowledged, “and I remember what you said about the universe being full of bastards, but even bastards have motives. So far I’ve had to stretch incredulity to come up with any. That means I’m missing something.”

  “So you’re willing to break the law and risk your career to find it,” Terson said. “That meets the definition of obsession, in my book. Maybe you ought to consider the possibility that you aren’t missing anything. The universe is full of coincidences, too.”

  “I don’t understand how you can be so sanguine about this,” Bragg exclaimed. “Your wife is dead, and you’re not a bit concerned about why!”

  “I don’t need to know why!” Terson shot back. “No answer can bring her back; no reason can justify what happened! I’m satisfied with killing the sons of bitches that did it. If it turns out that there is some great conspiracy at work, then by all means send them my way so I can put a bullet in a few more!

  “In the meantime, don’t use Virene as your excuse to turn your life inside-out. Every bit of guilt for her death belongs to me, and I’ll be Goddamned if I share it!”

  Bragg’s jaw clenched in anger; he turned to glare out his side of the cockpit. “Turn around, if you want to.”

  “You were there for me, as much as I hate to admit it,” Terson replied, reigning in his own temper. “If this is what you need to find peace, fine, but admit that you’re doing it for you, not Virene. Or me.”

  “Fine.” Bragg left Terson to his piloting, intent on the view out his side of the cockpit. Soon, though, the coast vanished behind them leaving water and sky to dominate the horizon in all directions. Bragg succumbed to a side effect of the medication and began snoring softly into his chest.

  The hydrojet’s radar showed empty sea to the limit of its range. Not even a contrail marred the sky overhead. Terson enjoyed the peaceful isolation. It was easy to imagine himself the only person on the planet, Bragg’s rhythmic breathing aside.

  Terson felt a mild resentment at the officer’s presence. On duty or not, the man was an extension of Nivian regulation that now intruded into the safe haven he’d shared only with his wife. How did I let this happen? Had Virene’s death left him so desperate for human contact that he was willing to tolerate the man who represented everything he hated about the damnable society he’d landed in?

  Yet he didn’t hate Maalan Bragg, or even dislike him, though that had once been the case. Perhaps he’d simply grown accustomed to the man during their long association. Perhaps recent events had eroded Bragg’s status as an authority figure and Bragg, through those events, was now closer to understanding Terson Reilly than anyone else on the planet.

  Their relationship had certainly changed in the last few weeks, as Bragg’s experiences catapulted him into territory where Terson was the one better equipped to function, reversing their roles. Terson knew he had to be cautious, had to avoid becoming the means by which Bragg pursued his obsession beyond the point he would if limited to his own resources.

  Terson would have made this flight on his own eventually, with considerably more preparation, but without the intention of returning if Maalan Bragg had not invited himself along. Any ties to Saint Anatone unraveled with the loss of Virene and the only career he expected to embark on. Not even the contradictory craving for and revulsion of human company that afflicted him on his arrival to Nivia existed.

  He could survive in Nivia’s remote reaches unencumbered by rules, regulation, or the frailty of any man but himself if he exercised a little patience, planning and bought the right equipment.

  Regrettably, his little island was not suited to this purpose. Its edible flora and fauna were too limited to sustain him and replenish themselves; it was too close to the Alpha continent and known to too many people. It would make a secure place to stockpile fuel and supplies while he found a better location across the sea, however.

  The first of the Archipelago’s tiny outlaying atolls appeared on radar an hour later.

  Terson slowed and veered north, following the designated air corridor skirting the concentration of islets. Air and surface targets bloomed as he approached the larger developed islands. He performed the requisite
fly-over of the landing buoy to inform nearby vessels of his intent, then lined up and brought the hydrojet down, skipping across the wave tops until he’d shed enough speed for the water to seize the hull and drag it to a stop.

  Bragg straightened in his seat and rubbed his face, bleary-eyed and dazed from his nap. “Umph. Where are we?”

  “The Archipelago. Round trip to the marina for fuel will take about an hour.” It was still early in the day due to their sunrise departure. The vacationers were still berthed or ashore, taking advantage of the languid island pace. Terson only had to wait for a single floatplane to clear the fuel bay at the marina and sent Bragg on deck to toss the mooring lines to the attendant. Fifteen minutes later, with tanks topped off, the hydrojet cruised back into open water.

  Bragg gave Terson the coordinates and Terson punched them into the boat’s Global Positioning System Transponder. The point was just over half the hydrojet’s maximum range. If Bragg intended to dally in the area they would have to stop in the Archipelago again to fuel up on the way back.

  Terson turned his bow south. “That’s the wrong way,” Bragg noted.

  “I’m the expert here; trust me.” Radar hits and transponder signals increased steadily as they approached LaCrosse Island Resort, playground of Saint Anatone’s rich and famous. Terson cruised through the private offshore moorings past large motor yachts, hydrojets, and a lavish sailboat crewed by half-naked female sailors. No one spared the interloper a second glance, assuming anyone with the money to operate such a vessel must be a fellow member of the elite. He finally spied what he wanted: a mooring with the tell-tail signs of long-term vacancy. Terson released the controls and unstrapped. “Take the wheel,” he told Bragg. “Veer left at the buoy.”

  “I can’t drive this thing!” Bragg exclaimed.