Scott Cleveland - Pale Boundaries

“I fear we tempt Fate with our recklessness,” Cha’Cain replied. “We were fortunate to recover the Tiger Opal and mislead the Onjin as we did. Do you truly think it wise to risk it again by placing it in the hands of one who may yet realize our part in his misfortune?”

“No,” Den Tun answered. “But Fortune favors the bold.”

“Yes, but—”

“Enough,” Den Tun declared firmly. “Forgive me yet again; I must hear no more of this. Seek to make arrangements with our contact—swiftly—for each moment this gaijin remains here is a knife in our side.”

The Minister bowed and withdrew. A nostalgic fantasy sprang to mind as Den Tun watched him go, one he often retreated to when the burden of leadership seemed too much: Den Tun, the aged farmer, warming himself before a winter fire, surrounded by his children and their children’s children, with no worry but when to cast the next branch on the fire.

His own decisions had cost him that dream three quarters of a century earlier.

“Someone in the village has information for us,” Hal -san told Dayuki.

The young woman spread a pinch of powdered spice over the contents of her wok. “Word came in the manner I prescribed?”

“Yes,” he said.

“I must go alone.”

“It could be a trap,” Hal -san said. “Even if it isn’t, your life isn’t worth a plugged nickel in the village. McKeon says Den Tun put a price on your head.”

“Is the blood-price higher than what we offered?”

“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.