Scott Cleveland - Pale Boundaries

“And the people looking for him aren’t his friends,” O’Brien groaned. “What the hell are we going to do?”

“They can’t search forever,” Mackey shrugged again. “We can wait them out if we have to.”

Which meant nothing if the Embustero left without them. Shadrack might be inclined to set up an account for them with enough credit to survive on until the ship returned, but then again he had to consider the possibility that they’d get caught, in which circumstance a paper trail leading back to the ship wouldn’t be the best idea. Even if he was successful in disavowing knowledge of their activities, the scrutiny might reveal secrets that made poaching a minor footnote.

They had to leave soon, if for no other reason than that a truly significant snowfall would trap them for good if it buried the entrance to the cave before they got the sled out. O’Brien strode back to the common. “Where’s Grogan?”

Lad Hussein pointed to another doorway. “In the trap room.”

Dozens of snares and springtraps hung from spikes in the walls, clean, oiled and ready for the next expedition. Grogan and Berriochoa hovered over a workbench with a toolkit trying to rebuild the cargo sled’s FLIR pod, though it was roundly accepted by the rest of the party that the blow it took when Grogan hit the trees—again—was irreversibly fatal.

“How’s it going,” O’Brien asked.

“Just about got it,” Berriochoa replied with the same conviction as the last four times she’d asked. “We need a little more time.”

“A little time might make the difference between getting back to ship and getting stranded here,” O’Brien told him. “We have to be ready to go when Shad gives the word, and we can’t fly with a hole in the hull. You need to have that thing installed, working or not.”

“Quit bitching!” Grogan growled.

It was hard to ignore the man’s incessant barbs, so most of the crew pretty much did whatever it took to elude them, which often meant giving in to his petty demands and withholding valid criticism. It was the effort to avoid a confrontation that led O’Brien to hold her tongue when he let the sled’s altitude drop uncomfortably close to the treetops, even though she knew that his irrational self-confidence often resulted in his repeating the same mistake.

“It goes back in when the link with the ship comes up,” O’Brien told them. “You’ve got until then.” Both men studiously failed to acknowledge the ultimatum, and O’Brien opted not to play the game by insisting they do so.

A fit of coughing erupted from the makeshift infirmary between the trap room and bunkhouse, a wet, whooping explosion of breath painful to listen to. The spasms carried on and on, increasing in length and intensity until each ended in a choked, gasping wheeze just before the diaphragm rebounded to begin the cycle again.

Grogan spun toward the door and hurled the tool in his hand against the wall with a clang. “Shut that fucker up!” he bellowed. “I have to listen to this shit one more night I swear I’ll bust his head!”

“I’ll take care of it,” O’Brien hastened, stepping to the door to block his way if he decided to make good on the threat. He glowered at her, but snatched the tool from the floor where it landed and turned back to the pod.

It was hard to believe that a person could remain unconscious through the paroxysm. The dirtsider lay against one wall on a doubled-up sleeping pad, covered by a thin, sweat-soaked blanket. Leprous-looking gray patches of frostbite marred his face and Liz hovered over him, covering his mouth with a cloth to catch the blood-flecked sputum and muffle the sound as best she could.

“How’s he doing?” O’Brien asked.

“I finally got some meds down his throat,” the younger woman replied tonelessly, “but it’s a waste of time. You should have left him.”

O’Brien wasn’t certain which made her feel the most uncomfortable: hearing someone talk about another human being as if he were a piece of equipment that was too much trouble to fix or the fact that, for just a split second, she agreed.

Dozens of aircraft icons crawled across a map of the Great Northern Preserve, a near duplicate image of the one that sent Hal on the disastrous foray to confront Sorenson and locate Reilly less than forty-eight hours earlier.

“They began to move in the moment the storm broke,” said Tamara Cirilo via video link from the safe house in Saint Anatone. “Based on the chatter, I’m confident that they’re only looking for their missing aircar.”

“Can you call them off?” Hal asked.

“Possibly, but I recommend against it. They’ve got more resources than we can field, and if they do find Reilly we’ll know it.”

“Agreed. Anything else?”

“We’re getting a good picture of Sorenson’s illicit operations now that we have access to his network,” Tamara said. “Apparently Sorenson Exports sells poached animal protein to the Belters in return for refined elements, most of which they ship out-system. Some of it gets smuggled back to Nivia and traded to the Minzoku for grains, fruits and so on.”

“What elements was he selling to the Minzoku that they couldn’t get themselves?” Hal demanded.

“Indium, gallium and antimony,” Tamara replied glumly.

“That doesn’t make any sense!” Hal asserted.

“Unless he and Den Tun were stockpiling it for large scale production of Tiger Opal,” Tamara suggested.

“How did he move that volume of material off-world without getting caught?”

“The company that handles ninety percent of Nivia’s toxic waste disposal is a subsidiary of Sorenson Exports,” Tamara said. “I suspect we’ll find that he accomplished most of his out-bound smuggling by disguising the cargo, including ours, as waste. That’s one export the federal authorities don’t look at too closely—they’re happy to see it gone and don’t ask questions about where it ends up.”

“Did you find anything likely to lead back to us?” Hal asked.

Tammy pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Not directly. His poaching operation involves most of his company, but effectively camouflaged his interaction with the Minzoku from even his own people. He played that aspect of his operation close to his chest.”

“Lucky for us,” Hal sighed.

“Not entirely,” his cousin said. “It appears that he managed the Family/ Minzoku facets of his operation personally.”

“And I killed him,” Hal groaned. “The Old Lady is going to have a fit when she finds out!”

“Probably,” Tamara smiled, “but my report could read several ways. We’ll talk about it when I return. One last thing,” she added. “Sorenson’s death will draw a lot of attention from the local authorities. I recommend we come clean about it with our federal contact—as clean as we need to, anyway.”

“Fine,” Hal sighed. “Set it up.”

“Done. I’ll see you when I get back.”

The connection faded and Hal ran both hands through his hair. I did it to myself. Built the trap for her and walked right in. The fact of Sorenson’s death would be of less interest to the Family than the repercussions it had on their currently unfulfilled obligations and future operations. Blaming the assassination on a fit of pique would do him no good at all and Tamara knew that.

Hal left the command post and headed straight back to his quarters to check on Dayuki. The Fort’s physicians had confirmed the field diagnosis—a lung punctured by a broken rib, a serious injury but survivable with adequate care. The trick, it turned out, was convincing Dayuki that her greatest obligation to him was to recover, not to concern herself with his comfort.