Scott Cleveland - Pale Boundaries

They didn’t.

The illumination emitted by the flashlight in the water below slowly faded as the night wore on. Hunger began to gnaw at Terson’s gut, but it was far less an issue than the cold working its way back into his body as the battery built into his coverall expended itself. His only satisfaction was that the animals below him were going cold and hungry, too, though he was at a loss to explain why. Rather than gathering around the water or cannibalizing the one he’d brained, they paced round the tree yowling their displeasure.

Terson began to shiver. He blew into his hands, beating them against each other to elicit sensation but they were no more responsive than a pair of sticks. He leaned against the trunk despondently. I’m as dead as if the sons of bitches shot me, he thought. The only difference is I’ll die by centimeters.

As if it mattered. Everyone died sooner or later; at that moment hundreds and thousands of people across human space were dying, some innocent, some not. In the end it did not matter who deserved it.

Terson recalled the young sailor he’d killed on the boat again and the surprise on his face—the surprise of someone expecting to live forever, barring accident. But it was no accident that killed him—Terson Reilly did, abetted by the decisions that led him to that moment with anger in his heart and a finger too tight on the trigger. “I’d take it back if I could,” he croaked.

The wind quit at dawn. Visibility increased to a quarter of a kilometer. Clouds drifted overhead, seemingly close enough the reach up and touch. It was as if Terson sat in the center of a quiet, peaceful box lined with white satin.

His coffin.

His eyes grew heavy. He shook his head trying to stay awake, but the inexplicable warmth he felt made it harder and harder. His shivering slowed. Warm front moving in, he thought. Okay to sleep…

Benjamin Grogan and Sheila O’Brien made their way down the ravine on showshoes.

“You picked a hell of a time to go hunting,” O’Brien told him.

“I didn’t ask you to come,” Grogan replied, an uncharacteristically civil response given his propensity for obscenities and expletives. O’Brien had toyed with the idea of letting him go alone, to fall victim to the elements or wildlife, but he was the only decent pilot in the group.

They reached the bottom and paused to listen. After a moment or two the sound that brought Grogan on his last minute hunt reached them again from the forest ahead. The half-bark, half-roar of the creatures Grogan referred to as hellcats.

Grogan and O’Brien crept into the trees upstream and kicked off their clumsy snowshoes. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” O’Brien whispered. Grogan unslung his rifle and pulled it from its protective scabbard.

“Belters’ll pay a months pay for a mangy hide,” he whispered back. “Imagine what they’ll pay for one of these beauties. You just keep’em off my back.” He stalked forward, leaving O’Brien to uncover her shotgun and follow.

The poachers had encountered hellcats on several occasions. The creatures were territorial and hunted in packs using a cunning method of ambush that sometimes suggested they were smarter than they were. Once hellcats chose their prey the pack leader exposed itself, drawing the attention of the intended victim while the others came at it from behind. The animals used the same method in every circumstance, even when the ploy was inappropriate. Still, O’Brien found it difficult to look behind her when the danger was so obviously ahead.

Grogan stopped suddenly and brought the rifle’s scope to his eye. O’Brien scanned the forest behind them with her finger on the trigger. “They treed something,” Grogan reported. “We can get a little closer.”

O’Brien relaxed considerably. The other characteristic she’d noted about hellcats was their tendency to forget everything else once they’d cornered prey. More than once she’d seen slower, weaker wildlife dart from cover only meters from a hellcat whose attention remained riveted on something beyond any hope of reach.

Grogan rested his shoulder against a tree trunk once the snow-blurred forms of the hellcats came into view. They sat in a circle at the base of a tree, heads elevated toward a large animal ensconced on a branch above them. The muzzle of the poacher’s weapon settled on a target.

The barrel jumped with a crack.

The pack scattered with howls of terror, leaving behind one hapless member who spun circles where it landed, painting the snow crimson with its lifeblood. The hunters didn’t approach until they were satisfied that the surviving pack members were gone for good. O’Brien peered into the tree to see what manner of creature they’d saved from tooth and claw.

“I’ll be damned!” she exclaimed. It was a man . He didn’t acknowledge their presence and did not appear to have moved despite the gunshot. “You think he’s still alive?”

“Only one way to find out,” Grogan replied, bringing the rifle to his shoulder.

“Grogan, don’t you dare—”

The base of the branch supporting the man exploded. He tumbled backward, bouncing off branches as he fell and landed in a heap in the soft powder below. O’Brien dug him out and felt a faint pulse in his neck.

Grogan slung the hellcat carcass around his shoulders, gathering the limp front and hind legs together at his chest, and started back up the ravine. O’Brien stood, cursing him furiously. “Where do you think you’re going? He’s still alive!”

“I come for a hellcat, I got a hellcat,” he shrugged. “You wondered if he was breathing, now you know.”

“Help me move him,” she insisted.

“Worst thing about you, Sheila, is you’re never satisfied,” Grogan sighed. He clutched the hellcat’s paws together with one hand and grabbed one of the unconscious man’s sleeves with the other. Together they pulled him through the snow back to their camp.

It was a rare occasion when someone arrived at work before Colonel Cai, and unheard of that they could gain access to the building and enter her office without setting off myriad alarms, but that was precisely what the elderly gentleman she found waiting for her had done. He sat behind her desk with his hands folded in front of him, the ornate handle of his cane just visible near his right hand.

His face was dignified, calm, and friendly in the sort of way that put people at ease very quickly. He smiled warmly when she noticed him. “I hope you don’t mind, Colonel. It’s been a long time, and I wondered if the desk still fit.”

“I don’t mind at all, Mr. Undersecretary,” she replied, hiding her sudden anxiety as best she could. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

“Likewise, Colonel. We have a matter to discuss.”

“Of course, sir. I’ll only be a moment.” Cai put up her coat and lifted the cover of her aquarium. Her hand exhibited a slight tremor as she sprinkled food flakes across the surface of the water. The gentleman’s appearance outside his official scope foreshadowed an event of import.

Mitchel Gidden and his cohort were fixtures of Nivian politics, though not a one of them had ever held elected office. Their appointments changed with administrations, but despite long tenures none had become partisan and always found a niche no matter how inauspicious.

Gidden had been commander of the Federal Police garrison at Saint Anatone when Cai joined the force. He was elevated to Commissioner shortly thereafter, serving five more years before retiring from the Federal Police and embarking on his career as an appointee. Currently he was Undersecretary of Economic Development. Ten years prior he’d been Director of Reclamation. If anyone doubted his influence, they had only to recall what the man responsible for garbage collection and recycling had done to the career of a certain popular and powerful political aspirant.