Scott Cleveland - Pale Boundaries

The Old Lady’s eyes focused on Hal suspiciously. “How did this happen?” she demanded. The acidic taste of fear rose to the back of Hal’s throat. He ached to backhand the smug smile from Sergio’s face.

“He was murdered,” Tamara said. “Hal found him dead when he went to Sorenson’s estate to confront him about the Minzoku.”

Sergio’s face went blank with shock, and then blushed with anger. Obviously Tamara hadn’t been any more communicative with her father than she had with Hal, and managed to neatly trap them both. She could demand any price she chose from Hal and any attempt Sergio made to set the record straight would perjure his daughter.

“That was a stupid thing to do!” the Old Lady exclaimed. “That half-cocked temper of yours will cross the line some day if you don’t learn to control it!”

“Yes, ma’am,” Hal managed humbly.

“It was fortuitous,” Tamara reminded the Old Lady. “We were able to secure all information linking us with Sorenson. We’d face a more difficult situation had the authorities arrived first.”

“I doubt that you were entirely successful,” the Old Lady snapped. “One man can’t manage so far-flung a deception single-handedly! A murder investigation will certainly shake out something pointing to us!”

“Our contacts assure me they’ll handle that,” Tamara said.

“Their eagerness to cooperate has eroded over the years,” the Old Lady reminded them. “Tamara, I expect a full follow-up within forty-eight hours. What is the status of our last shipment?”

“Well on its way to Caliban,” Tamara said. “Sorenson’s death will not impact materials in the standard transport stream. Our people should receive it within weeks; about the same time our current production cycle ends.”

“Maintain a normal appearance for as long as possible,” the Old Lady instructed. “Anything more out of the ordinary could severely complicate matters.”

“The gaijin have found other things to distract them,” Hal said. “They seem more concerned with some old structure in the Great Preserve than our activities.”

The Old Lady stared at him intently. “What did you say?”

“The gaijin have greater interests than investigating the death of a suspected poacher. They aren’t likely to put much effort into it, reducing the likelihood that they’ll discover anything about us.”

“Not that—you said something about the Great Preserve.”

“Apparently spacers found the remains of some sort of structure while poaching in the preserve,” Hal said. “The gaijin expect us to track them down.”

“I damn well expect so!” the Old Lady exclaimed. “Why didn’t you inform me immediately?”

“It’s not significant,” Tamara replied for Hal, mystified at the Old Lady’s concern. “Their poaching problem has always been just that: their problem.”

“Excuse us for a moment,” she ordered. “I’d like to have a few words with Hal in private.”

The Cirilos looked at each other curiously as they filed out. When they were gone the Old Lady sat back, tilting her head disbelievingly. “Didn’t your father ever tell you?”

“Ever tell me what?”

“Where the Minzoku came from.”

“They’re the remnant of some pre-commonwealth colony,” Hal said. His mother cocked an eyebrow at him. Comprehension sent the blood rushing to his feet. “You’ve got to be kidding!”

The Old Lady shook her head. “They’d devolved technologically,” she said. “There were barely five thousand of them left and the Commonwealth wasn’t so vigilant, then. Nivia’s underwriters hired the Family to remove the Minzoku and the colonial government destroyed archeological evidence of their existence. The most enduring was concentrated in what is now the Great Northern Preserve.”

“We just moved them to Beta,” Hal groaned.

“Not until a decade later,” the Old Lady explained. “We put the Minzoku to use elsewhere. Your great-grandfather extorted the colony when we needed a base of operation. The Minzoku still don’t know they’re on their own planet.”

“What was he thinking?” Hal wondered. “If the Minzoku can be linked to this planet—”

“The Commonwealth will spare no expense to crush us,” the Old Lady confirmed.

It was a little-known fact that the Commonwealth Colonization Board was created not to protect primitive alien races, but primitive human populations. The Terran Exodus had scattered human kind farther than the Commonwealth had yet expanded. Every few decades evidence of the migration emerged: dead ships orbiting inhospitable worlds, abandoned habitats, and other desperate, failed attempts to colonize environments inimical to life. Explorers occasionally found friendlier worlds already inhabited by the descendants of those who blindly fled the Qu’a’i fleet and pushed them aside by whatever means necessary to lay their own claim.

Many populations vanished without a trace. Others fought back, and the bloody massacres on Tammuz led to the creation of an oversight agency to prevent it from happening again. Since then the CCB had ordered the removal of colonies from two worlds usurped from their original inhabitants.

The Old Lady shook her head. “After all this time I never expected it to come to this. Transmit me the information the Nivians provided you about the spacers and initiate Stage One immediately. I’m afraid our presence on Nivia has become untenable whether we find these people or not, and the Minzoku’s existence has become too great a liability.”

“We can’t eliminate them all,” Hal pointed out.

“We don’t have to—just those that know about us.”

Her gaze became pointed. “All of them.”

The elevator doors closed on Maalan Bragg before he could maneuver himself, his briefcase and his cane into the hallway. They sighed open again when they detected the obstruction, allowing him almost enough time to collect himself before they threatened to catch him again.

Colonel Cai appeared at his side and blocked the doors with her forearm. “Let me help you with that, Maalan.”

“That’s not necessary!” Bragg protested as she plucked the briefcase from his hand.

“Nonsense; I can see that it is.” She walked alongside as he hobbled toward his office. “I’m surprised your doctor let you give up the wheelchair so soon.”

Bragg’s doctor had no inkling, of course. The deep ache in the left side of his chest had already convinced him that his impatience was foolish, but his coworkers would continue to defer to him, the wounded hero, as long as his infirmity was visible. He accepted their sympathy and accolades graciously, in public. Privately, he felt dirty. Decency demanded he resign but his courage hadn’t overcome Cai’s unveiled threat.

“I’m glad you’re recovering so quickly,” she said, following him into his office. Bragg settled into his chair with an involuntary sigh. “What did you have planned today?” she asked.

Bragg gestured irritably to the printouts stacked about the top of his desk. “Paperwork.”

“That can wait,” she said. “I’ve got a job for you.” She wrote an address on his blotter pad. “Have Dwin drive you.”

“What is it?” Bragg asked suspiciously.

“A situation requiring a discrete and rapid resolution,” she said. “Someone will fill you in when you get there. Your report won’t take more than a couple of hours.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Cai reached into her pocket and set a pair of major’s clusters on his desk. “You’ll need these,” she said. “I apologize for the informality.”