Scott Cleveland - Pale Boundaries

They rounded a corner to find a herd of knee-high herbivores in the road. McKeon turned off the headlights and didn’t slow down. Hal braced against the inevitable impact, but the ORV roared through the spot and there was no sign of the animals when the lights came on again.

“Sorry about that,” McKeon said, noting Hal’s alarm. “They freeze in the lights. Couldn’t move if they wanted to.”

“Must make hunting a breeze,” Hal noted.

“Hunting quixok with lights is a Minzoku idiom for unscrupulousness or villainy,” McKeon said. “It means to take advantage of inherent weakness. Like shooting someone in the back.”

“You know a lot about these people,” Hal said.

“More than any one person in the last fifty years,” he agreed.

“Do you like them?”

“I admire their way of life,” McKeon said. “Day to day living is more defined and basic. Everybody knows their purpose.”

“But…” Hal prodded.

“I speak their language, live among them, and married their women, but they never let me forget I’m not one of them and never will be. They’ll bend over backward for us, but it’s giri, not respect.”

“Giri?”

“Moral debt. Repayment of giri is a matter of honor with them. They’ll do almost anything to satisfy it, which gives most Onjin the impression they worship us. They don’t—they just owe us.”

“Den Tun must figure his giri is about paid up,” Hal noted wryly.

“Sure he does,” McKeon chuckled. “The coot’s almost a hundred years old.”

Hal hadn’t eaten anything since a sparse breakfast that morning and the aroma of spices and stir-fried vegetables set his mouth watering as he entered his quarters. Dayuki knelt by the low table, pouring tea. She rose as he approached and held out the cup.

“What’s this?” Hal asked.

“Spicebark tea,” she said, ushering him to the sofa. “Some find it energizing.”

He sipped the brew dubiously while she dished out rice and stir-fry. Strands of hair sprang haphazardly from her hastily pinned tresses. Even disheveled, she was alluring.

Hal folded his legs beneath him and accepted the plate gratefully. “This is a pleasant surprise.”

“It need not be,” she chided. “Engage your mind with your tasks; I will see to your well-being.”

He wolfed down two helpings and quaffed half a liter of tea. While Dayuki cleared away the dishes he slowly unfolded and arched his back, wincing at the twinge that lanced his spine. “I have got to get a real table in here,” he grimaced.

Dayuki put her hands on his shoulders before he could rise. “Lay down.” He stretched out on his stomach stiffly. Dayuki’s fingers worked across his back with an almost painful vigor, overpowering each muscle in turn, leaving them placid. The knots eased one by one. Hal’s consciousness drifted, as if it were about to float out of his body. She paused at the straps of his shoulder holster.

“I must tell you something.”

“Umm?”

“It was an accident,” she said. Her fingers moved around each vertebra, aligning them with subtle pressure. “I made a mistake, and it went off too late.”

“What did?”

“The explosive I put in the container.”

Hal lunged away from her. Dayuki followed with two nimble steps and struck him in the middle of his back. His legs went dead under him and he crashed to the floor, twisting to get to his needle-beamer. She touched his neck, light as a feather, and Hal’s arms quit working. He collapsed on his face, chin tucked into his chest so far his airway closed. He realized that he was suffocating with rising panic and strained to rise, to roll over, to move anything. Just when it seemed his brain would reconnect with his body, the most excruciating pain he’d ever felt coursed up his spine and spread to his limbs.

“Stop!” Dayuki commanded. “Struggling will do permanent harm!” She rolled him onto his back and lifted his chin. A shuddering gasp filled his lungs with sweet air. Hal tried to calm his breathing. It wasn’t easy; the memory of the paralysis after his injuries in the car bombing was terribly fresh, and this was worse. He could manipulate his eyes, but nothing else.

Dayuki took his head in her hands and turned his face toward her. Sadness marred her beauty. Gold flecks floated deep in her brown eyes, conveying a serene, deadly resolve. “I have disgraced the covenant between our people,” she said. “I will do what I must to restore honor, but first you will listen:

“Den Tun has betrayed you to the gaijin. They have helped him infiltrate your systems and take your secrets. His researchers have grown a Tiger Opal, which he intends to give to the gaijin. I did not discover his betrayal in time to warn you. My attempt to stop him went terribly wrong.”

With that pronouncement she rolled him onto his stomach. Oh, God, what now? “What the maki suru steals, the kaidokuzai restores,” Dayuki explained. “Lie still until your strength returns.” Her hands worked up his spine again, and something in his neck popped.

Sensation rolled back into him like a wave, bringing both relief and pain. Dayuki turned him onto his back again. A long, involuntary groan rattled his lips as millions of white-hot needles pricked his skin.

Hal’s mind raced with the implications of her charge while his body slowly regained control of itself. It was not inconceivable that Den Tun could develop his own lines of commerce with the gaijin. The Onjin had become insular over the years, complacent in the Minzoku’s history of obedience. Given the freedom they enjoyed, some kind of contact was inevitable.

Dayuki moved about the room purposefully. She retrieved a lacquered wooden box, an objet trouve’ collected by a previous occupant, and set it on the table. Her loose cotton pajamas fell in a heap at her feet. Naked, she knelt facing him from the other side of the table.

Her skin glowed the hue of ripe barley in sunlight. The sleek, tight lines of her stomach and hips spoke of lithe strength, guiding his eyes to the shadowed dip of her navel. High, full breasts swayed as she opened the box and removed its contents. She wrapped herself in a light silk kimono, white as milk, knotting the sash at her waist.

Dayuki untied her mane and flung it forward, brushing until the locks separated and layered in fluid waves. Satisfied, she flipped them back over her shoulders where they flowed with life of their own. Her delicately boned hand dipped into the box and came up with a twenty-centimeter tanto, a wickedly sharp dagger with the angled tip distinctive of Minzoku cutlery.

“N-nogh…”

Without the force of his lungs behind it the sound barely escaped his lips, but it was progress. Oblivious, the woman inspected the blued steel in the light, fogged it with her breath and buffed away some blemish. She set the blade on the polishing cloth and held her palms beneath her chin, eyes closed, and began a prayer-like chant.

The tingle in Hal’s limbs had diminished. He tried to move his hand and was rewarded with a single twitch. Dayuki’s voice droned on; Hal caught himself echoing the cadence in his mind, mesmerized by the narcotic rhythm.

The mantra ceased abruptly. Dayuki lifted her chin and positioned the blade to sever her trachea and jugular. She held it at arm’s length for a moment, and then drew it to herself as if embracing a child.

Hal strained against the fading paralysis. His body still couldn’t perform to his will’s expectations—pain flooded back down his nerves and he groaned again, loudly. The sound startled Dayuki. She faltered and the blade entered her flesh less than a centimeter. She raised her arms to strike again; by that time Hal had her by the wrists.