Private Pieces of Shade

[Jud Renrok]

Jud spent the next day doing exactly what he'd told Shade he would do. He kept being Jud Renrok. There was no sudden attempt to become louder or more conspicuous. He didn't start asking questions he wouldn't otherwise have asked merely because he wanted someone to overhear them. If Darik Sorn's people had decided the Frontier Warden was worth watching, Jud wanted them comfortable with the version of him they'd already seen. So he talked.

A shipping clerk explained the difference between three categories of freight permits in considerably greater detail than Jud had required. A warehouse supervisor complained about inspection delays. Two drivers gave contradictory opinions regarding which eastern road was safer, then spent five minutes arguing with each other about it while Jud listened. He bought lunch from a market stall and ate it standing beside a cargo hauler while its owner complained about fuel prices.

None of it looked particularly exciting. That was usually when people told you useful things. By late afternoon, Jud had collected enough pieces to notice something. The missing caravans hadn't all belonged to the same company. That was important. Different owners. Different dispatch procedures. Different crews. In one case, even a different primary route before the caravan reached the eastern trails.

A single compromised freight company suddenly seemed considerably less likely. Shade's warning from the previous afternoon returned to him. The person who knew the cargo might not know the guards. Jud started looking for what the shipments shared instead. He didn't find an answer.

He found another question. Every caravan had generated records somewhere outside the company operating it. Cargo declarations. Route permissions. Warehouse releases. Inspection records. Insurance filings. Jud hadn't yet determined which, if any, provided the common point between all of them. But there were fewer possibilities than there had been yesterday. That counted.

As evening approached, Jud stopped asking questions. He didn't head west immediately. Instead, he found caf. The place was small enough that calling it a café seemed ambitious, but the caf itself was respectable. Jud bought two cups without thinking particularly hard about why he needed the second.

Then he did think about it. He didn't know how Shade took hers. Jud stared down at the second cup. "Huh." Plain it was. He resumed walking. Jud was under no illusion that he could disappear through a town the way Shade apparently could. The woman had managed to turn walking into something resembling a professional qualification. That wasn't his skill. People noticed Jud. The hat alone saw to that. What he could do was determine whether anyone seemed unusually committed to continuing to notice him.

He stopped beside a vendor and examined a rack of hydrospanners he had absolutely no intention of buying. Several streets later, he turned back because he'd apparently forgotten something, spent another few minutes speaking with one of the drivers he'd interviewed earlier, then headed west by a different road. At one intersection he paused long enough that anyone maintaining the same distance behind him would either have to stop or cross into the open. Nobody did anything Jud considered meaningful. That didn't mean nobody was following him. It meant Jud hadn't found anybody following him. There was a difference.

He kept walking. The old transit shelter eventually came into view. Jud didn't look toward it immediately. He crossed the street farther down, continued along the opposite side, and stopped once to inspect a public notice board. Nothing behind him changed in a way he could identify. Good enough.

Jud approached the shelter. Shade was already there. He didn't greet her. Didn't smile. Didn't acknowledge that they'd ever met. Jud simply stepped beneath the shelter roof, looked up at the half-missing route board, and frowned at it as though personally offended by the municipal government's inability to maintain basic public transportation information.

He sat several feet from Shade. One cup remained in his hand. The other he placed on the bench between them. "Bus late?" Jud continued looking toward the road. A beat passed. "Mine too."

He nudged the second caf slightly in her direction. "Didn't know how you take it." The words were quiet enough to belong only to them. "Figured plain was harder to get wrong." Whether Shade drank it or not wasn't particularly important. Jud took a sip from his own and settled back against the shelter.

For several moments, he looked exactly like a tired traveler waiting for transportation. Then he got to business. "Three companies." Another sip. "Different dispatch procedures. Different crews. One didn't even start out using the same road as the others." His attention remained outward. "So if there's one person inside a freight company handing Sorn everything, they're having a very busy week."

Jud's mouth twitched faintly. "I'm thinking you were right." He explained what he'd found without turning the conversation into a report. Every shipment had produced records beyond the company carrying it. Manifests and declarations. Route information. Warehousing paperwork. Inspections. Insurance. "I haven't found the common point yet." There was no frustration in the admission.

"But there has to be something that tells whoever's choosing these caravans enough to know which ones are worth the trouble." Jud finally glanced toward Shade. "That's my exciting day." The look carried a trace of humor. "Hope yours was better."

He listened while Shade described what she'd observed. The woman with the commlink was worth remembering. The hurried departure was worth remembering. Neither interested Jud nearly as much as the man. Once yesterday. Again today. Different places. Never approaching Jud. Never obviously watching him.

Jud took another drink. "Twice makes him interesting." Not guilty. Not involved. Interesting. There were plenty of innocent reasons someone might appear in the same places as Jud Renrok twice. There were fewer innocent reasons if it happened three times.

Jud considered Shade's description of the man. Nothing. He couldn't remember seeing him. That bothered him considerably less than it might have before meeting Shade. "Don't recognize him." A small shrug followed. "You've got a talent for finding folks standing where I ain't looking." The words were almost complimentary. Almost.

Jud stared across the street for several seconds. Yesterday they'd deliberately refused to chase the first suspicious movement. Today Shade had seen the same man again. Tomorrow could tell them whether they had coincidence or pattern. "If he shows up again..." Jud rolled the caf cup slowly between his palms. "...stop watching me." His gaze moved briefly toward Shade. "Watch him."

Not confront him. Not grab him. Not even necessarily approach. "See where he goes when he's done being interested in whatever I'm doing. Who he talks to. Where he stops." Jud considered the other part of their investigation. "I'll keep working through the freight records. See if I can find something all those caravans touched before they headed east."

That gave them two possible routes upward. Shade could follow the human connection. Jud could follow the paperwork. If both roads eventually arrived at the same place, Darik Sorn was going to become considerably more than a name muttered over drinks.

Jud drank again. The caf wasn't bad. He wondered whether Shade would agree. That was a remarkably ordinary thing to wonder about someone whose former occupation he increasingly suspected involved classified identities and professionally inconvenient deaths. Jud decided not to examine the thought too closely. Instead, he glanced toward the battered route board.

"Beginning to think the road wasn't working alone." His expression became grave. "Public transit's in on it." Another small sip concealed most of the smile. Then his tone quieted. "Anything else?" It wasn't merely asking whether Shade had additional surveillance to report. Jud wanted her judgment.

Something about the arrangement they'd settled into yesterday had already begun to feel surprisingly natural. He found the obvious trail. Shade watched the places he couldn't. One of them noticed something, the other tested it. Neither needed to pretend certainty where there wasn't any. It worked. That didn't mean he trusted Shade. Not yet. But Jud was beginning to think he could. For now, that was enough.

Jud Renrok

• Location: Frontier Settlement, Raxus territory
• Objective: Investigate
• Outfit: Warden Attire
• Company: Shade

 

[Shade]

Shade noticed the second cup before Jud explained it. She hadn't expected him to bring her anything, and for a moment her attention rested on the caf he'd placed between them before she reached over and drew it toward herself. Plain was perfectly acceptable. More than that, the small gesture was unexpectedly thoughtful from a man she'd known for approximately a day and spent most of that time deliberately pretending not to know at all. "Plain is difficult to get wrong." She took a cautious drink and found nothing objectionable about it. "Thank you." The words were quiet but sincere, accompanied by a slight warmth in her expression before her attention returned to the street. Jud had apparently managed to investigate freight records, make himself visible enough to whoever might be watching, check whether anyone followed him, and acquire caf along the way. Shade found herself wondering where he was actually staying while he worked here. She hadn't asked, and there had been no reason to. There still wasn't, really. The thought nevertheless remained for a moment before she let it go. If they continued working together, ordinary details would probably reveal themselves without either of them turning cooperation into an interrogation.

His findings interested her considerably more than any single suspicious face she'd observed. Three separate companies with different procedures made an isolated internal leak less likely, while the external records Jud had identified offered exactly the kind of overlap she'd been hoping might emerge. "That's useful." Shade held the caf loosely between both hands as she considered it. "If the common point exists outside the companies, it would explain why changing carriers or procedures hasn't protected anyone. I'd look particularly closely at anything created late enough to contain the final cargo and route information but early enough for someone to act on it." She didn't try to narrow it further without evidence. Jud had the paperwork and knew the local systems better than she did. When he suggested she stop watching him if the man appeared again, Shade nodded. "Agreed. If he gives me a third appearance, you become considerably less interesting." Her eyes shifted briefly toward him, amusement faint but unmistakable. "Professionally speaking." She took another drink before adding, "I won't approach him. If he's watching you for someone else, I want to know where he goes when the job is finished and who he's comfortable being seen with once he thinks nobody is paying attention."

The accusation against public transportation earned Jud a sideways glance. Shade looked deliberately toward the battered route board as though reassessing the evidence. "I suspected as much." Her expression remained grave for almost a second. "The road was too obvious. Public transit had access to our meeting location from the beginning." The corner of her mouth betrayed her before she took another sip of caf. As for whether she had anything else, Shade gave him the observations that mattered and no more weight than they deserved. The woman with the comm remained a single occurrence. The hurried departure remained unidentified. The recurring man was the only element that had repeated, and even he was not yet evidence of Darik Sorn. "Nothing I'd act on yet. Tomorrow may change that." She glanced toward Jud. "Your records and my watcher are independent lines for now. If they eventually touch the same person or organization, then we have something considerably harder to explain away." That was enough for tonight. Neither of them needed to manufacture progress simply because they'd agreed to meet.

They separated without ceremony after finishing their caf, leaving the transit shelter as independently as they'd arrived. Shade didn't immediately begin another circuit of the town or turn the evening into an extension of the investigation. She checked that she hadn't acquired company, changed direction twice for reasons that would have looked perfectly ordinary to anyone watching, and eventually found somewhere to eat. Dinner was simple and warm, and for a little while she allowed herself to be merely another traveler occupying a table rather than an intelligence operative dissecting everyone who entered the room. Her thoughts wandered once toward Jud and the question of where the Warden disappeared to at night, then toward the man she'd seen twice. The second question was professionally relevant. The first was harder to justify, which was probably why she noticed herself wondering about it at all. Shade let both questions remain unanswered, finished her meal, and left the evening alone.

The following day, she resumed the same patient method rather than hunting for the man directly. Shade positioned herself around the places Jud's investigation brought him, without attaching herself to his movements; she changed her appearance enough to avoid becoming part of anyone else's developing pattern, and watched the spaces around him instead. For several hours there was nothing. That was useful too. Then, later in the day, she saw the familiar face for the third time. He wasn't standing exactly where he'd been before, nor was he doing anything so convenient as staring openly at Jud. He appeared occupied with his own business, another ordinary figure among ordinary people, except Shade now had three separate appearances in proximity to the same Warden across different locations and different days. Coincidence remained possible. It had simply become considerably less persuasive.

This time, Shade did exactly what Jud had asked. She stopped watching him.

Her attention transferred entirely to the other man without any outward change in her behavior. She didn't close the distance, didn't alter her pace to match his, and certainly didn't follow the instant he moved. She allowed him room enough to believe he was alone in whatever routine came next, using crowds, reflections, intersections, and occasional parallel routes rather than remaining behind him. Losing him would be preferable to letting him discover he had acquired a shadow. What mattered now wasn't where he stood while Jud was nearby. Shade wanted to know where he went afterward, who he spoke to when there was no Warden around to occupy his attention, and whether the trail eventually led toward Darik Sorn or somewhere neither of them had thought to look.

For the first time since they'd begun watching the watchers, one of those questions might actually be willing to answer itself.

Jud Renrok

 

[Jud Renrok]

The third caravan had been carrying agricultural equipment. That wasn't particularly interesting. At least, it hadn't been until Jud learned the second had been carrying replacement power couplings and the first a mixed shipment of medical supplies, machine components, and enough preserved food to keep a small settlement fed for several weeks. Different cargo. Different companies. Different crews. Different points of origin.

Jud sat opposite a tired-looking freight clerk who had spent the last twenty minutes explaining the settlement's shipping bureaucracy with the particular enthusiasm of someone who rarely encountered an audience willing to listen. Jud was willing. Mostly. "So this one's the final declaration?"

The clerk nodded. "Cargo declaration."

Jud looked down at the datapad. "Thought the other one was the cargo declaration."

"Preliminary declaration."

"Right." Jud stared at him. The clerk stared back. Jud slowly looked toward the ceiling. "Government's a beautiful thing." The clerk laughed. That was useful too.

Jud returned his attention to the datapad. The distinction mattered more than his expression suggested. Preliminary declarations were generated when freight entered the local distribution system. They could change. Cargo could be added or removed. Departure schedules shifted. Routes changed depending upon weather, road conditions, maintenance, or whatever other unpleasant surprise frontier transportation decided to manufacture.

Final declarations came considerably later. Late enough to contain what Shade had suggested he look for. Final cargo. Carrier. Departure window. Intended route. Not everything. Guard assignments were maintained elsewhere, and exact departure times remained with individual companies until shortly before the caravan moved. But somebody with access to the final declaration would know enough to decide whether a shipment deserved further attention.

Jud scrolled through the record. "Who gets these?"

"Local freight authority. Carrier. Receiving office if there's one registered."

"Inspection?"

"Gets access."

"Insurance?"

"If the cargo's insured."

Jud nodded. "Who can pull one after it's filed?" The clerk gave him a look. Jud smiled. "Just curious." That earned him another explanation. By the end of it, Jud had learned something considerably more useful than who could theoretically access the records.

All three attacked caravans had been processed through the same municipal freight-clearance system. That wasn't surprising by itself. A considerable amount of legitimate freight passed through it every day. What was interesting was timing. All three final declarations had been accessed after submission. Not necessarily suspicious. Records were accessed routinely for inspections, amendments, receiving confirmation, and half a dozen administrative reasons Jud was beginning to regret learning existed. But each attacked shipment had received an access from the same terminal group. Eastern Freight Administration.

Jud looked at the identifier for several seconds. "Where's this?"

The clerk leaned closer. "Building over on Harrow Street."

"Public office?"

"Mostly."

Mostly. Jud liked that word considerably less than the clerk seemed to. "Mind if I take copies?" The clerk hesitated. Jud tapped the badge on his coat. The hesitation ended.

Harrow Street wasn't particularly interesting either. Jud was beginning to suspect that interesting things survived by surrounding themselves with boring ones. The Eastern Freight Administration occupied the first two floors of a squat commercial building with a warehouse annex behind it. Drivers came and went. Clerks carried datapads. A loading droid complained electronically about something nobody appeared interested in fixing. Jud went inside.

He asked questions. Nothing accusatory. Nothing about Darik Sorn. Nothing about stolen caravans beyond what anyone already knew a Frontier Warden was investigating. He wanted to understand how records moved. Who processed them. Who amended them. Who had access.

He discovered approximately fifteen people could legitimately interact with the terminal group. That was disappointing. He discovered another thirty could theoretically gain temporary access under the right circumstances. That was worse. Jud thanked everyone anyway.

One clerk recommended another office. A supervisor explained their security protocols. Someone offered him caf considerably worse than what he'd brought Shade the previous evening. Jud drank it anyway. Listen longer than you speak. By the time he left, he didn't have a culprit. He had a place. That was enough for one afternoon.

Jud stepped onto Harrow Street and adjusted the brim of his hat against the lowering sun. He wondered whether Shade was watching. Then immediately decided that wondering defeated the point. If she'd found their man for the third time, she wouldn't be watching him anymore. Good. Jud continued walking.

He reached the transit shelter ten minutes after their agreed time. Nobody had followed him that he could identify. Jud approached by a different route than yesterday, made the same reasonable attempts to expose anyone maintaining a tail, and eventually crossed onto the western road.

The battered shelter appeared ahead. Jud looked at the route board first. Still broken. Suspicious bastard. Then his attention moved naturally across the bench. Empty. Jud kept walking. No hesitation. No sudden examination of the surrounding streets. No searching rooftops, alleys, windows, or reflections for a flash of blue skin.

Shade wasn't there. That was all he knew. She could have detected someone following her. She could have decided the shelter was compromised. She could have found the recurring man and still be following him. Any of those possibilities meant exactly the same thing according to the rules they'd established. Keep walking. Try tomorrow.

Jud passed the shelter. Half a block later, he realized he was wondering whether she was all right. That was irritating. Not the concern itself. The timing. He'd known Shade for what? Two days? Two days during which she'd deliberately collided with him, pretended to be drunk, informed him he'd missed someone watching him, revealed that somebody was selling pieces of her life, and somehow implicated the municipal transportation system in a conspiracy with the local roads.

Jud shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat. "She's fine."

A pedestrian passing in the opposite direction gave him a strange look. Jud tipped his hat. "Evening." The pedestrian walked faster. Jud sighed.

Shade was extremely capable. Possibly one of the most capable people he'd encountered in quite some time. Whatever occupation had taught her to disappear into crowds, track financial intermediaries, carry multiple identities, and discuss keeping information brokers alive with unnerving practicality had presumably included lessons on looking after herself.

Going searching for her wouldn't help. Worse, if Shade was following the man, Jud blundering around trying to locate her might compromise exactly the opportunity they'd spent two days creating. So he wouldn't. That didn't make him stop wondering. It merely meant he trusted her judgment more than he trusted the impulse.

Jud continued toward the center of town. He had his own piece now. Eastern Freight Administration. Shade might have another. Tomorrow they'd compare them. If she appeared. Jud frowned. "When." He corrected himself quietly. Tomorrow they'd compare them when she appeared. The distinction made him feel marginally better.

Jud stopped at the same caf stand he'd visited yesterday. "One." The vendor reached for a cup. Jud watched. Then frowned again. "Two." The vendor glanced at him.

Jud glanced toward the second cup. There was absolutely no reason to buy it. Shade wasn't at the shelter. He wasn't going back. Jud considered this. "One."

The vendor stared. "Long day?"

Jud rested his forearms on the counter. "You have no idea." A minute later, caf in hand, the Frontier Warden continued through town alone. He didn't go looking for Shade. That was the important part. The fact that he'd wanted to? Jud decided nobody needed to know about that yet. Least of all him.

Jud Renrok

• Location: Frontier Settlement, Raxus territory
• Objective: Investigate
• Outfit: Warden Attire
• Company: Shade

 

[Shade]

Shade had intended to be at the transit shelter.

The man appearing for a third time changed that. She had kept her word to Jud and stopped watching him the moment she was sure it was the same face, letting him move ahead while she settled into the less direct rhythm of following someone who already believed himself the observer. Enough people moved through the town to make that easier. Shade crossed streets when others did, stopped where there was reason to stop, and occasionally let him disappear altogether rather than protect the trail too carefully. She looked no more remarkable than anyone else passing through the frontier settlement, dressed for dust and practical necessity rather than a fight, her weapons present without being unusual enough to invite attention. By the time the watcher began drifting away from the busier center of town, the agreed meeting with Jud had already become secondary. An empty shelter would tell him everything he needed to know.

The route took her into a part of town she hadn't explored yet, where storefronts gradually surrendered space to repair shops, storage buildings, cheap apartments, and businesses whose signs had survived longer than their paint. The man didn't seem to be hurrying, but his route didn't feel aimless either. Shade kept far enough behind that she sometimes had only his direction of travel rather than the man himself, picking him up again at intersections or through gaps between pedestrians. She was beginning to wonder whether he was finally going somewhere worth remembering when a delivery speeder crossed between them. It should have been an inconvenience lasting a few seconds. When it cleared, the man was gone.

Shade didn't stop. She kept going past the intersection at the same pace, resisting the instinct to scan the surrounding windows and doorways, because that would tell anyone watching exactly what she had been doing. He could have gone several places, but the speed of his disappearance bothered her. More than that, something about the last few minutes no longer sat correctly when she replayed them. She couldn't identify the mistake. Perhaps the man had noticed her despite her precautions. Perhaps another set of eyes had been involved, and Shade had focused so carefully on avoiding her quarry's attention that she had missed someone watching his back. Neither possibility pleased her, and without evidence there was no point choosing between them.

She turned down another street and kept moving, using the next block to put distance between herself and the place where she'd lost him. If she had been compromised, pretending otherwise would only make the situation worse. Shade took the first useful opportunity to leave the open street, slipping through a narrow passage between two buildings and into the recessed entrance of a closed repair shop on the other side. Ordinary concealment had carried her as far as it could. For what came next, she reached into the Force and drew her presence inward until the woman standing beneath the weathered awning simply ceased to be visible.

Shade had never needed a vast collection of Force abilities. She had practiced the ones she possessed until they were useful, and disappearing was very useful indeed. She remained motionless within the concealment and watched the street she had just entered, giving whoever might be behind her the opportunity to reveal themselves rather than immediately trying to recover the man she'd lost. Less than a minute passed before someone came through the same passage.

It wasn't her quarry.

The stranger slowed after emerging onto the street, looked one way and then the other, and lingered long enough to hold Shade's attention. She couldn't tell whether they were looking for her or simply deciding where to go, and she refused to turn coincidence into evidence merely because the timing was convenient. Shade stayed invisible as the stranger eventually moved on, then remained where she was long after they had disappeared. Whoever had compromised her had already taken one advantage. She had no intention of giving them another through impatience.

Only when the street had remained quiet for several minutes did Shade release the concealment. Her quarry was gone, and she accepted the loss, though she didn't like it. She still had his route, a much smaller area of town to investigate later, and the possibility that he wasn't operating alone. That was less than she'd wanted, but considerably more than she'd had that morning. She wouldn't try to salvage the evening by heading for the transit shelter. If someone had seen through her surveillance, the worst response would be to lead them straight to Jud.

The thought of him brought an unexpected flicker of amusement. He knew the rules as well as she did. If one of them failed to appear, the other kept walking, and they tried again tomorrow. Jud struck her as disciplined enough to do exactly that, though she found herself wondering whether knowing why she might be absent would keep him from worrying. The question was strangely personal for someone she'd known only a few days, and Shade let it pass with a small shake of her head as she started farther into town.

"Keep walking, Warden."

No one nearby would understand why she said it, which suited her perfectly well. Shade wasn't going anywhere she intended to sleep yet either. She had already missed one person who might have been watching her tonight, and whether that person existed or not, she wasn't inclined to make the same mistake twice. Tomorrow she could tell Jud why the shelter had been empty and find out what his own investigation had uncovered. For now, she took the long way through a part of town she had no reason to visit and made certain that when she finally disappeared for the night, she did it alone.

Jud Renrok

 

[Jud Renrok]

Jud kept walking. That had been the agreement. No Shade at the shelter meant no meeting. No waiting around to see if she was late. No circling back. Certainly no wandering through town asking whether anyone had seen a blue-skinned woman who was considerably better at not being seen than he was. Didn't mean he liked it.

By the time Jud reached the next intersection, he'd already produced several perfectly reasonable explanations for her absence. She'd picked up the watcher. She'd detected someone following her. The shelter had looked compromised. Something else had happened that made approaching him a bad idea. All perfectly reasonable. None particularly comforting.

Jud shoved his hands into his coat pockets and continued toward the center of town. The temptation to look for her lasted approximately three blocks. He ignored it. Shade knew what she was doing. More importantly, she'd trusted him to follow their rules if something went wrong. Charging off in search of her because she missed one meeting wouldn't be concern. It would be interference. Jud could worry and still trust her. Apparently. He wasn't entirely sure when he'd started doing the first part.

Morning found him back among freight records. Not immediately at Eastern Freight Administration. That would have been too obvious. Jud had already spent enough time asking questions there to make himself memorable, so he worked outward instead. Carrier offices. Inspection desks. A warehouse dispatch station. Two drivers who disagreed about nearly everything except the quality of the settlement's roads. Jud listened.

He asked how final declarations were handled after submission. Who could amend them. Which offices received copies. Whether inspectors accessed them remotely or traveled to the freight authority. Whether temporary credentials were common. The answer became considerably messier than he'd hoped. Eastern Freight Administration appearing on an access record did not necessarily mean someone physically sitting inside the building had opened it. Several municipal departments possessed remote access. Inspectors could receive temporary authorization. Certain freight coordinators could retrieve records under specific circumstances. Credentials were supposed to be logged individually. Supposed to be.

Jud had spent enough time around governments to know how much work that word carried. So he changed the question. The attacked caravans told him what had happened. He needed to know what hadn't. Jud spent the next several hours identifying shipments that should have been tempting. Valuable cargo. Eastern routes. Similar departure windows. Comparable security. Caravans that had nevertheless reached their destinations without anyone stealing so much as a ration pack. Those became his comparison.

The first few records told him nothing. Neither did the next. Jud sat behind a borrowed terminal, hat resting beside his elbow, slowly working through access histories while a clerk several desks away repeatedly assured him the system was normally faster. Jud wasn't convinced the system had ever been faster.

Then he found it. He leaned closer. The first attacked caravan had been accessed through Eastern Freight Administration. He already knew that. This time he looked beneath the office designation. EFA-7. Jud pulled the second. EFA-7. The third. EFA-7. He stopped.

Then started opening the untouched shipments. EFA-2. Remote inspection authorization. EFA-11. Carrier amendment. Another had never been accessed by Eastern Freight Administration after its final declaration was filed. Jud went back through them again. Then once more. Three attacked caravans. Three accesses through EFA-7 after their final declarations were submitted. Comparable caravans without the same pattern. That wasn't proof. It was considerably better than coincidence.

"What's EFA-7?"

The clerk looked over. "Terminal."

"Figured." Jud turned the screen slightly. "Whose?" That required checking. Jud waited. The answer eventually came back. Nobody's. EFA-7 wasn't assigned to a particular employee. It was a shared terminal near the rear records section, mostly used when the primary stations were occupied or someone needed to access archived documentation without tying up a front desk.

Jud's expression tightened slightly. "Who can use it?"

The clerk gave him the sort of answer Jud had begun to dread. "Depends."

Of course it did.

Jud spent the afternoon learning what depends meant. He didn't interrogate employees. He talked to them. A maintenance worker told him EFA-7 was old enough that everyone expected it to be replaced eventually and nobody believed it actually would be. A records clerk used it occasionally. Inspection personnel used it. Supervisors used it. Temporary staff sometimes used it when desks were full. Someone from maintenance had access when the terminal malfunctioned. Which, apparently, it did frequently.

Jud bought caf for one employee and endured another explanation of municipal credential protocols. Eventually he found himself standing near the rear records section looking at EFA-7 from across the room. Nothing remarkable. A terminal. A chair. A stack of archived shipping notices waiting to be processed. A rear corridor nearby led toward loading access. Plenty of legitimate people could sit there.

Which meant someone illegitimate could probably find an excuse too. Jud didn't touch it. Didn't ask for fingerprints. Didn't request security recordings. Not yet. The moment he started treating EFA-7 like evidence, anyone using it for the wrong reasons might realize somebody had found the pattern. Instead, Jud scratched his jaw. "Think I understand it now." The records clerk smiled. Jud absolutely did not understand their filing system. But he understood EFA-7. That was enough.

He encountered the freight-yard foreman again shortly after leaving. Jud saw him first. The man was standing beside a cargo hauler talking with a driver when his attention drifted toward the Warden. Recognition came quickly. The foreman excused himself and crossed toward Jud.

"Still here?"

Jud stopped. "Starting to think you don't like me."

The foreman's expression didn't change much. "Thought you were passing through."

Jud looked down the street in one direction. Then the other. "Been passing through all day."

The foreman stared at him. Jud smiled. Something about the exchange bothered him. Not because of anything the man said. Because of what he didn't. No warning this time. No questions about whether Jud worked alone. No suggestion that the eastern roads were dangerous. The foreman merely studied him for another moment. "Find what you're looking for?"

"Found lunch." Jud considered. "Pretty good sandwich."

The man's mouth tightened. "Safe travels, Warden."

"You too." They separated. Jud didn't look back. Yesterday, Darik's people—or whoever the foreman represented—had wanted to know what Jud knew. Today the man seemed considerably less interested in pushing him away. Maybe they'd become accustomed to him. That was what Jud and Shade had wanted. Comfortable people developed routines. Shade had said that.

Or maybe someone had decided they understood him. Jud liked that possibility considerably less. He filed it away with EFA-7. Shade would—Jud stopped the thought. Then frowned. Shade would want to know. That was different. Probably.

He ate an early dinner alone. Nobody followed him that he could identify. Nobody approached him. Nobody threatened him. The quiet should have been reassuring. It wasn't. Jud caught himself looking toward the entrance once when someone walked inside. Blue skin. Wrong person. He returned to his meal. A few minutes later he realized what he'd done. "Huh." Jud finished eating.

He gave himself plenty of time before the meeting. There was no reason to approach the shelter directly from anywhere connected to his investigation, so Jud spent part of the evening accomplishing absolutely nothing useful. He wandered through the market. Stopped to look at equipment he didn't need. Talked briefly with an elderly merchant about fishing despite there being very little obvious fishing anywhere nearby. Then he returned to where he'd been staying long enough to wash the dust from his face and change his shirt beneath the coat. The hat remained. There were limits.

By the time Jud left again, the work shifts were beginning to change. He took a different route west. Not because he expected to catch Shade's shadow from yesterday. Because yesterday had reminded him that not seeing someone didn't mean they weren't there. Jud crossed open intersections when convenient. Stopped once to check a public notice. Doubled back half a block under the entirely plausible pretense of having gone the wrong way.

Nothing persisted. Or nothing he could identify. That distinction mattered. Before continuing toward the western district, Jud stopped for caf. The same vendor recognized him. "Two?"

Jud looked at him. There was a moment yesterday when that question would have irritated him. Today it didn't. "Two."

The vendor prepared them. Jud watched without comment. One his usual way. One plain. He didn't have to think about the second order this time. That realization arrived only after the cup was already in his hand. Jud looked down at it. Plain. Shade took her caf plain. A completely useless piece of information. No connection to Darik Sorn. No connection to disappearing caravans. No tactical significance whatsoever. Jud found himself smiling faintly.

"Something funny?" The vendor asked.

Jud picked up both cups. "Nope." He paid. The western edge of town grew quieter as Jud approached. He didn't head directly for the shelter. Same rules. Same precautions. If Shade wasn't there again, he would keep walking again. He knew that now. Didn't mean he'd like it any better.

Jud crossed to the opposite side of the road before the shelter came fully into view. Steam curled from the two caf cups in his hands. Eastern Freight Administration. FA-7. A shared terminal. The foreman's changed behavior. He had plenty to tell Shade. Assuming she could make the meeting.

Jud approached the final intersection before the transit shelter without looking toward their rendezvous yet. He'd check his surroundings. Then he'd look. If the bench was empty, he would keep walking. If Shade was there—Jud glanced down at the plain caf. Well. Then she wouldn't have to drink alone.

Jud Renrok

• Location: Frontier Settlement, Raxus territory
• Objective: Investigate
• Outfit: Warden Attire
• Company: Shade

 

[Shade]

Shade was already at the shelter when Jud reached the final intersection.

The previous evening had ended without anything she considered a satisfactory answer. The man she had followed had disappeared after the delivery speeder crossed between them, and Shade knew better than to turn uncertainty into certainty merely because she disliked an unfinished question. She hadn't seen him afterward. She also hadn't established how he'd slipped away, whether he'd known she was following him, or whether someone else had been involved. What she had established was that returning to Jud immediately afterward would have been an unnecessary risk, so she'd stayed away.

She hadn't spent the day idle. Shade returned to the places where the watcher had appeared before, never taking the same routes she'd used before and never lingering long enough to make her interest obvious. She didn't expect to find him waiting. Instead, she studied the ground he'd chosen. Sightlines, pedestrian traffic, alleys, loading access, public transportation, and the ordinary little interruptions that could break one person's view of another for only a few seconds.

She returned to where she'd lost him. The delivery speeder was long gone, and nothing she found provided a convenient answer for where he'd gone afterward. That was useful in its own way. Shade could construct several plausible routes from the point where he'd disappeared, and none of them could be proven. Chasing him again under the same circumstances would simply reproduce the same problem.

By afternoon, she'd stopped asking how she could follow him more effectively and started looking at the problem from the opposite direction. Three appearances were beginning to make the watcher more interesting than his disappearance. He had watched her before. He had returned to do it again. Unless yesterday had frightened him away for the day, she had every reason to try a fourth time. Shade had spent enough time following people to appreciate the irony. She didn't necessarily need to become better at following him.

Next time, she needed to choose where he followed her.

That thought was still occupying her when Jud came into view. Her crimson eyes found him first, then dropped toward the two cups in his hands. For just a moment, the investigation gave way to something warmer. He had brought two again. Shade hadn't asked him to, and after she'd failed to appear yesterday, he'd been entirely justified in arriving with only his own.

The small smile that touched her lips was genuine. "I'm beginning to think you're trying to establish a precedent."

Shade waited until he reached the shelter before accepting the plain caf, her fingers curling around its warmth. "Thank you." This time there was no teasing attached to it. She took a drink before settling back against the bench, appreciating both the caf and the fact that Jud had followed their arrangement yesterday rather than coming to look for her.

"I lost him." There was no embarrassment in the admission. It was simply the truth. "A delivery speeder crossed between us. By the time it cleared, he was gone. I couldn't establish whether he'd realized I was following him, and I couldn't establish that I was alone afterward, so I didn't come back here."

Her gaze shifted toward the street before returning to Jud. "I spent today going back over the places he's watched me from, including where I lost him. I didn't find an answer for how he disappeared." She turned the cup slowly between her hands. "I did find several ways he could have done it, which isn't nearly as useful."

A faint trace of dry amusement accompanied the observation, but her thoughts had already moved beyond yesterday's failure.

"We've spent a great deal of effort trying to avoid him, identify him, or follow him without being noticed. I think we should stop." Shade paused long enough to take another drink. "If he appears again, I want him to follow me."

They could choose the route beforehand, somewhere Shade understood better than the watcher did. Limited exits, enough ordinary movement to keep her path believable, and places where Jud could observe without trailing either of them. Shade could let their watcher believe he'd found another opportunity while Jud waited somewhere ahead, entirely separate from her.

"He's already interested in me. We may as well make that useful. Next time, we choose the ground instead of letting him choose it for us."

Her attention settled fully upon Jud again. Whatever he'd been doing today, she suspected he hadn't spent it sightseeing. The Warden had the look of someone carrying information he hadn't had yesterday, and Shade was curious to see whether his day had been more cooperative than hers.

"That's what I found." The corner of her mouth lifted slightly. "Or mostly what I didn't find. What did I miss?"

Jud Renrok

 

[Jud Renrok]

Jud saw Shade before he reached the shelter. Good. The thought arrived quickly enough that he didn't have much opportunity to examine it before something else caught his attention. She smiled. Jud had seen Shade smile before. Little expressions used to support whatever role she happened to be playing, traces of dry amusement when the roads developed hostile intentions, the occasional curl of her mouth when his particular approach to investigation entertained her.

This one seemed different. He wasn't entirely sure how he knew that. Jud decided he didn't need to. He approached the shelter and offered over the plain caf. "Wouldn't want to disappoint you."

Her thank-you earned a small nod before Jud settled onto the bench, leaving the familiar few feet between them. His hat came off and found its place beside him. Shade didn't waste time. Neither did he. Jud listened without interrupting as she explained what had happened the previous evening. The delivery speeder. Losing the man. The uncertainty over whether he'd recognized the tail. The possibility that somebody else had been involved. More importantly, she hadn't come here afterward because she couldn't establish whether she was alone.

Jud took a slow drink of caf. "Figured you had a reason." That was all. No question about where she'd gone afterward. No demand to know where she'd spent the night. Their arrangement had worked exactly as intended.

Shade moved into what she'd learned today—or hadn't learned—and Jud's attention sharpened when she reached her conclusion. Let the man follow her. Jud leaned back against the shelter. "I like it." A beat passed. "Which probably means there's something wrong with it."

His mouth twitched around the edge of his cup. He considered the problem for another moment. "Only part bothers me is we don't know why you lost him. If he spotted you, he's got reason to be careful next time." Jud glanced toward the street. "But if he shows up again after that..." That changed things.

Either Shade hadn't been compromised, or the watcher was confident enough to approach again despite knowing what she was. Both were useful. "We don't spring anything just because he appears. You keep doing whatever you'd normally be doing. Don't even have to notice him." Jud looked back at her. "You choose the route. You're better at this part than I am." No discomfort accompanied the admission. Jud knew what he was good at. He was also becoming increasingly aware of what Shade was better at.

"Pick someplace you know. Enough people that it doesn't look arranged. Limited ways for him to leave without us seeing which one he takes." He tapped one finger against his cup. "I stay ahead of you. Not behind him. Somewhere I'd have a reason to be whether you're there or not." The Warden badge made that considerably easier for Jud than it would have been for most people. Nobody questioned a lawman standing around nearly as much as they probably should.

"And we don't grab him." That part mattered. "If he follows you all afternoon, good. If he follows you somewhere and reports to somebody, better. If he walks straight up to Darik Sorn and introduces us to him..." Jud shrugged. "Reckon we buy the man a fruit basket."

That brought him around to his own day. Jud lowered his caf. "Mine was a little more cooperative." He explained what he'd found. Not merely that all three attacked caravans had passed through Eastern Freight Administration. He walked Shade through the comparison he'd made after their last conversation.

The attacked caravans weren't enough. So he'd found shipments that should have been attractive targets and hadn't been hit. Similar routes. Valuable cargo. Similar departure periods. "Three caravans that got hit had their final declarations accessed through the same terminal." Jud paused. "EFA-7." He let the identifier sit between them. "Comparable shipments that made it through didn't show the same pattern." Not proof. Jud made that clear. But enough to narrow their attention considerably.

"EFA-7 isn't assigned to anybody. Shared terminal. Records section near the back of the building." He described what he'd learned about access. Clerks. Supervisors. Inspectors. Temporary staff. Maintenance personnel under the right circumstances. "Which means I've narrowed our list of suspects from half the settlement to..." Jud considered. "A disappointingly smaller portion of the settlement." Still progress.

"The terminal's close to a rear corridor and loading access. Somebody who belonged there could use it without attracting attention." He took another drink. "Somebody who didn't belong there might still manage it if they knew when to go." That was the part that interested him. Three accesses through the same shared terminal suggested either someone regularly inside Eastern Freight Administration or someone who knew enough about its routines to exploit it.

Jud hadn't touched EFA-7 or asked anyone to treat it as evidence. "I left it alone. Far as anybody there knows, I'm still a Warden who's having trouble understanding freight paperwork." He paused. "Wasn't entirely an act."

His attention returned to Shade. "There was something else." He described encountering the foreman again. The man who'd originally tested whether Jud was alone and suggested he leave town had seen him again. This time there had been no warning. No probing. No effort to frighten him away.

"He asked if I'd found what I was looking for." Jud rolled the cup slowly between his palms. "Yesterday they wanted to know what I knew. Today he seemed comfortable." Comfort had been what they wanted. People made mistakes when something unusual became familiar. Still...

"Could mean they're getting used to me." Jud's expression tightened slightly. "Could mean they think they've figured me out." He didn't particularly care for the second possibility. "But that's what I've got."

Jud looked toward the street again, then back toward Shade. "Now I want to see yours." A glance from Shade earned clarification. "The route." He produced his datapad. "Show me where your friend went yesterday. Where you first picked him up, where he turned, where you lost him."

Jud brought up a rough local map. "Eastern Freight Administration has rear loading access here." He indicated the building. "If your man went anywhere near it, that's interesting." His finger moved away. "If he didn't, that's interesting too."

Two separate investigations had begun with two entirely different problems. Missing caravans. Pieces of Shade's past. Now one had produced a terminal. The other had produced a watcher. Jud wanted to know whether geography put those two things anywhere near each other.

Only after Shade had the opportunity to look over the map did Jud relax back against the bench. The investigation had moved forward. Tomorrow might produce their watcher again. If it did, they could choose the ground this time. Shade would determine the route. Jud would find somewhere ahead of her from which a Frontier Warden could naturally watch without appearing to watch anything at all.

Abort if either detected something wrong. Protect civilians first. Don't take the watcher merely because they could. Let him lead them somewhere useful. Simple enough. Which usually meant it wouldn't be. Jud finished his caf. His attention wandered toward the cup in Shade's hands. Then he remembered her first words when he'd arrived. Establish a precedent.

Jud's mouth curled slightly. "About that precedent." He nodded toward her caf. "Could be worse ones." There wasn't much more to it than that. At least, Jud didn't think there was. Two people meeting at an old transit shelter. Comparing notes. Planning an investigation. Drinking caf. Perfectly ordinary.

Jud looked toward the broken route board. "Still no bus." A thoughtful pause. "Starting to think this whole system might be corrupt."

Jud Renrok

• Location: Frontier Settlement, Raxus territory
• Objective: Investigate
• Outfit: Warden Attire
• Company: Shade

 

[Shade]

Shade listened without interrupting as Jud worked through his side of the investigation, occasionally taking a drink from the caf he'd brought her. His concern about the watcher was reasonable, and she gave a small nod when he agreed they shouldn't spring anything merely because the man appeared again. If yesterday's disappearance had been deliberate, letting him follow her would have required more patience than leading him into a prepared trap. Fortunately, neither of them seemed particularly short on patience. "Agreed. If he appears again, we let him make the next decision. If he knows I followed him yesterday and comes back anyway, I'd like to know why before we convince him the decision was a mistake."

Jud's information about Eastern Freight Administration drew more of her attention. Three attacked caravans sharing EFA-7 while comparable untouched shipments did not wasn't proof, but it was considerably better than coincidence without structure. She nodded again when he explained that he'd left the terminal alone rather than announcing his interest. "That was the right call. If someone is using EFA-7 to select targets, the last thing we want is for them to realize we've selected it too." The foreman's changed behavior interested her for much the same reason. Comfortable could mean accustomed to Jud's presence, or it could mean someone believed the Warden had ceased being dangerous. Shade wasn't inclined to choose between those possibilities without more evidence.

She glanced at him over the rim of her cup, her expression softening slightly. "You've done quite a lot for someone who technically didn't have to inherit my investigation along with his own." The observation carried none of the distance it might have when they'd first met. Shade knew perfectly well that Jud's missing caravans were his responsibility and Darik Sorn wasn't. Yet he'd continued treating both problems as theirs rather than hers and his, and she appreciated that more than she was particularly inclined to make ceremonial. "Thank you, Jud. For all of it."

When he produced the map, Shade shifted closer on the bench so they could both see it comfortably. Her attention settled on the streets while she reconstructed yesterday from memory, one finger touching the display before tracing the route she'd taken. "I first noticed him here. He stayed with me through this intersection, then I turned here and continued along this stretch." She marked each turn without embellishing what she knew, eventually reaching the intersection where the delivery speeder had passed between them. "And this is where I lost him." Her finger stayed there as she compared the location against Eastern Freight Administration, considering the geography without trying to manufacture a connection just because they finally had two interesting pieces on the same map.

"If we use me as bait next time, I wouldn't repeat the route exactly. I'd rather give him enough familiarity to think I'm behaving normally without offering him yesterday's escape routes a second time." A faint smile touched her lips as she looked toward Jud. "You can find somewhere appropriately Warden-like to loiter ahead of me. Apparently you're developing considerable expertise at looking harmless around freight paperwork."

Their conversation paused when someone else entered the shelter. Shade looked up automatically as an unfamiliar woman walked into the stop and took up a position against the wall, carrying herself with the unremarkable impatience of someone waiting for transport. Shade didn't stare or allow the interruption to change her posture. Her attention returned to Jud and the map, although awareness of the newcomer remained comfortably in the background along with the street beyond them.

For once, the broken route board seemed unnecessarily pessimistic. A transport rounded the corner and slowed beside the shelter, prompting the stranger to push away from the wall as its doors opened. Shade's attention caught the small piece of folded paper that slipped from the woman's hand near the bench. An accident would have been perfectly plausible until the woman looked directly toward the two of them and gave the briefest wink before stepping aboard.

Shade's crimson eyes narrowed slightly as the doors closed and the transport pulled away. She watched it disappear down the street before lowering her gaze toward the folded paper resting where the woman had left it. She made no immediate move to pick it up, instead looking toward Jud with quiet amusement mixed with considerably greater curiosity. "Well. You complained about the bus often enough that apparently one finally came." Her gaze dropped to the paper once more. "I'm less convinced it was here for us."

Jud Renrok

 

[Jud Renrok]

Jud didn't answer immediately. Shade's thanks had been quiet enough that pretending not to notice the weight behind it would have been easy. Jud wasn't particularly interested in easy. He looked toward her, one hand still curled around his caf. "Didn't inherit anything." His shoulders lifted slightly. "You found somebody hurting people. So did I."

A faint smile appeared beneath the brim of his hat. "Turns out we might've had the good fortune of finding the same bastard." There wasn't anything else to say. Shade didn't owe him for helping. As far as Jud was concerned, that part had been settled somewhere between the tavern and the freight yard.

He turned his attention back to the datapad as Shade shifted closer. Her shoulder wasn't quite against his, but the distance between them had become considerably smaller than the careful space they'd left during their first meeting. Jud registered it only long enough to angle the datapad slightly toward her.

Shade traced the watcher's route. Jud followed her finger. First sighting. Intersection. Turn. Long stretch through the repair district. Then the place where she'd lost him. Jud expanded the map around the final intersection and compared it against the location he'd marked for Eastern Freight Administration.

"Hm." Not the satisfying convergence he'd hoped for. Not useless either. He marked the route. "No sense making these fit just because we want 'em to." That seemed to be becoming another thing they agreed upon. Evidence could be incomplete. Questions could remain unanswered. Neither of them seemed particularly inclined to fill the empty spaces with whatever answer was most convenient.

Shade moved on to the next attempt. Similar enough to look natural. Different enough that the watcher couldn't simply repeat yesterday. Jud nodded. "Different exits." His finger traced another street. "Could bring you through here." A reasonably busy commercial stretch connected the district to one of the older freight corridors. Pedestrians wouldn't make Shade conspicuous, but the surrounding buildings narrowed the practical routes away from it.

Jud tapped another location farther ahead. "And there's a customs office here." He looked at Shade. "Pretty sure standing around looking confused outside government buildings is officially part of my job now."

Her comment about his freight-paperwork expertise earned a quiet chuckle. "Years of training." He leaned closer to the map. "We let him make the first choice. You don't change anything just because he appears. If he follows, you bring him through the route." Jud tapped the customs office again. "I'll already be here."

Not following Shade. Not following the watcher. Just another Frontier Warden spending an unreasonable amount of time around freight bureaucracy. "If he leaves before then, let him." Jud's gaze shifted briefly toward Shade. "If anything feels wrong, you leave too. We can always try again." No argument about whether she could handle herself. Jud knew she could. The objective wasn't catching their watcher. It was learning something.

"If he stays with you, I watch what he does after." A pause. "And if he walks straight to Sorn..." The fruit basket remained an option. Jud was about to say as much when someone entered the shelter.

His attention moved toward the newcomer without his head immediately following it. Woman. Unfamiliar. Waiting for transportation. Nothing particularly unusual. Jud returned his attention to the datapad. Shade did the same. Their conversation continued, although Jud became vaguely aware of the woman behind them in the same way he remained aware of passing speeders and pedestrians.

Then something remarkable happened. A bus actually arrived. Jud looked up. His eyebrows rose. "Well, I'll be damned." Apparently relentless criticism really did improve public services. The stranger moved toward the opening doors. Something fell from her hand. Jud noticed the motion. Paper. Folded. His attention remained on the woman. She looked directly toward them. Then winked.

Jud's amusement disappeared. Not dramatically. Nothing in his posture changed enough to announce alarm. He simply watched the woman step aboard. The doors closed. The transport pulled away. Jud followed it with his eyes until it disappeared down the street.

Shade broke the silence first. Her observation about Jud finally complaining a bus into existence brought some of the humor back into his expression. "Knew it'd work eventually." He looked toward the folded paper. "Service still leaves something to be desired."

Jud made no move to retrieve it. Instead his gaze drifted naturally beyond it. Across the street. Nearby windows. Pedestrians. Anyone lingering. Anyone suddenly leaving. Anyone paying too much attention to two people sitting at an old transit shelter.

The woman could have simply delivered a message. She could also have delivered a test. Jud took another drink of caf. "Don't suppose your friend from yesterday changed careers." His tone remained casual. His eyes continued moving. "Anybody interested in whether we pick that up?"

Shade was considerably better at this part than he was. Jud concentrated on the places he'd learned he tended to miss while allowing her to examine the others. Nothing about the situation required hurry. The paper wasn't going anywhere. After a few moments, Jud's gaze returned to it. Then to the road where the transport had disappeared.

Something bothered him more than the mysterious delivery itself. "She looked at both of us." Their original arrangement had depended upon Sorn's people believing Shade and Jud were separate. The Warden asking questions. The stranger watching the people watching him.

Maybe the woman wasn't connected to Sorn. Maybe nobody else knew. But somebody did. Jud glanced toward Shade. "Think we can stop pretending nobody knows we're acquainted." There was a strange familiarity to the word that Jud chose not to examine too closely.

He waited until both of them had given the surroundings enough attention before finally leaning forward. Jud didn't simply snatch up the paper. He caught it carefully along one edge, lifting it without unnecessarily handling the rest. He inspected the outside first. Nothing obvious.

Jud looked at Shade. "Your admirer or mine?" A faint smile returned. "Suppose it'd be rude to fight over her." He unfolded the paper only enough for both of them to see it at the same time. The movement naturally brought him closer to Shade again, their attention settling together upon whatever waited inside. Jud didn't read ahead. Didn't turn it away. Whatever message someone had gone through this much trouble to deliver hadn't been addressed to the Frontier Warden alone. "Reckon this one's yours and mine."

Jud Renrok

• Location: Frontier Settlement, Raxus territory
• Objective: Investigate
• Outfit: Warden Attire
• Company: Shade

 

[Shade]

Shade's attention followed Jud's across the street while the paper remained where it had fallen. Windows, pedestrians, passing speeders, the entrances to nearby businesses all received a quiet inspection. Nothing immediately announced itself as an audience, though after a woman walked into the shelter, dropped a message at their feet, winked, and left on the first functioning transport either of them had seen, Shade wasn't prepared to assume they were alone just because nobody was staring.

Jud's suggestion that their watcher might have changed careers brought a quiet laugh from her. "I'd be impressed. Although I suppose we should be grateful. Yesterday he ran away from me. Today he's apparently leaving correspondence." The humor lingered until Jud pointed out the more important detail. The woman had looked at both of them, and Shade let out a soft sigh as she settled back against the bench. They had been careful. They hadn't behaved like partners while investigating the freight yard, and yesterday she'd deliberately kept Jud separate when she'd gone after the watcher. Apparently somebody had put the pieces together anyway.

"Yes. I think we can retire that particular performance." She glanced toward him, one corner of her mouth lifting. "We did our best. Somebody noticed us anyway. I'm offended on principle, but I think I'll survive." In truth, it was almost relieving not to have to maintain the fiction anymore. Shade hadn't minded the caution, but working beside Jud had become comfortable enough that pretending they barely knew one another was beginning to feel considerably more artificial than it had when they'd started.

She waited until he'd checked their surroundings and finally reached for the paper. His question about whose admirer had delivered it brought her gaze back to him. "Oh, no. You don't get to hand her to me that easily. You said it yourself. Yours and mine." Shade leaned in as he unfolded the note between them, her shoulder brushing his without either of them needing to make anything of it.

Only three things were written inside:

Marek Venn
17 Calder Street
Bellhaven

"Well. That's concise." Shade reached for the datapad still resting between them and entered the name. A local record appeared in a few moments, and the instant the accompanying image loaded, recognition settled across her features. She enlarged it and angled the datapad, so Jud had a clear view of the man looking back at them. "That's him. Our friend from yesterday."

Shade looked from Marek's image to the paper in Jud's hand and sighed again, this time with far more resignation than concern. Whoever their helpful stranger had been, she hadn't merely known Shade and Jud were working together. She knew exactly who Shade had followed. "All right. I'm slightly more offended now."

She entered the address next. Seventeen Calder Street was local, only another part of the town they were already sitting in, which gave them somewhere they could investigate without going far. Bellhaven was different. Shade brought up the regional map and found the other port marked some distance away, then set the datapad where Jud could see both locations. "Calder Street is here. Bellhaven is another port." Her eyes returned to the sparse note. "No address there, no contact, nothing telling us what we're supposed to find. Apparently whoever left this has confidence in our ability to improvise."

She lifted the caf Jud had brought her and found it had cooled considerably as their supposedly simple evening took another turn. Still, when her eyes returned to him, they held more amusement than irritation. "You know, when you brought me caf, I thought we might have a relatively quiet evening." Shade raised the cup slightly toward him. "I'm beginning to suspect we have some bad luck."

Jud Renrok

 

[Jud Renrok]

Jud studied Marek Venn's face on the datapad. Having a name changed things. Not necessarily for the better. "Marek Venn." He leaned back slightly, considering the image. "Almost gonna miss calling him our friend." Almost.

Jud's attention shifted from Marek's record to the paper still held between them. Seventeen Calder Street. Bellhaven. Three lines. No explanation. No instructions. Whoever had delivered it apparently trusted them to work out the rest. Or wanted to see what they'd do. Jud wasn't particularly fond of either possibility.

He folded the paper once along its original crease. "She knew we'd be here." That concerned him more than the address. Maybe the woman had followed one of them. Maybe someone had been watching the shelter. Maybe their repeated meetings had established enough of a pattern for somebody to recognize it. Jud glanced toward the street. "Or somebody did." Whatever the answer, the shelter wasn't private anymore. Neither, apparently, was their partnership.

Shade's remark about being slightly more offended earned a quiet chuckle. "Think you've got a right." Jud looked toward her. "You're supposed to be the sneaky one." A pause. "Apparently I've been ruining your reputation." The smile that accompanied it lingered for a moment before his attention returned to Marek.

They'd been planning how to make him useful. Now someone had handed them his identity and an address. That changed the equation. "I think we forget about making him follow you." Jud tapped the datapad lightly. "Least for now." There was no sense executing a plan built around yesterday's information when someone had just dumped considerably more into their laps. "Somebody knows who Marek is. Knows you followed him. Knows we're working together." His gaze dropped toward the note. "And they want us looking at Calder Street and Bellhaven." Maybe.

That was another assumption Jud wasn't willing to make yet. "They gave us places. Didn't tell us what we're supposed to find there." He looked at Shade. "I'm not inclined to let somebody I don't know decide where we go next just because they wrote an address on a piece of paper." That didn't mean ignoring it. Quite the opposite. It meant finding out as much as possible before giving their anonymous helper the satisfaction of watching them run directly toward whatever waited at Seventeen Calder Street.

"We've got his name now." Jud indicated Marek's image. "I can work that side tomorrow. Local records. Employment. Property. Complaints. See whether our friend has any legitimate reason to be around Eastern Freight Administration." A connection to EFA-7 would be particularly interesting. "If Calder Street's actually his residence, I'd rather know that before we walk up to it." Jud glanced toward Shade. "And I'm guessing you can find considerably more interesting things about Marek Venn than the municipal records office can." That wasn't even particularly subtle praise.

Jud had stopped pretending not to know what Shade was capable of. "Bellhaven too. Name showed up somewhere in whatever brought you to Sorn, I'd like to know before we go sightseeing." They could compare what they found before deciding whether Calder Street warranted surveillance, a visit, or nothing at all. The bait operation could wait. Marek wasn't going anywhere. Hopefully.

Shade lifted her cooling caf and remarked that she'd expected a relatively quiet evening when Jud brought it. Apparently they had bad luck. Jud looked at her. For once he didn't immediately hide the fact that the comment amused him. "Nah." He lifted his own cup toward hers. "Bus came." The absurdity of counting that as a victory made the smile underneath his hat broaden. There was something unexpectedly easy about sitting here with Shade. That realization had been creeping up on him for the better part of two days. Jud had mostly ignored it. Tonight, he didn't.

He'd worried when she hadn't appeared yesterday. He'd remembered how she took her caf. He'd caught himself looking for her at dinner. And when he'd seen her sitting here tonight, the first thing he'd felt hadn't been professional satisfaction that his investigative partner had returned. It had been relief. Then he'd seen her smile at the second cup. Jud wasn't foolish. Slow sometimes. Not foolish. He wasn't entirely certain what was developing between them, and he wasn't in any hurry to give it a name.But he could at least admit something was. To himself. That seemed dangerous enough for one evening.

His attention wandered toward the battered shelter around them. The bench. The broken route board. The place where a mysterious stranger had just deposited evidence at their feet. Jud sighed. "Can't meet here again." The words carried considerably more disappointment than a reasonable person should have felt about abandoning a neglected public transit shelter. Shade might notice that. Jud wasn't sure he minded if she did. "Somebody knows about it. Don't know how. Doesn't much matter." He glanced toward the route board. "Shame." Another sip of caf. "Was starting to like this place." That wasn't really true.

Jud knew that too. The shelter remained uncomfortable, unreliable, exposed to the weather, and apparently vulnerable to mysterious women distributing cryptic messages. What he'd started liking happened here. There was a difference. Jud looked back toward Shade. They needed another meeting place.

His first instinct was another quiet public location. Different district. Different route. Somewhere they could arrive separately. Then Jud realized something. They didn't have to. Whoever was interested in them already knew they were working together. Continuing to pretend otherwise offered considerably less advantage than it had yesterday. Which opened other possibilities.

"Suppose we don't need another shelter." Jud rolled the remaining caf inside his cup. "Don't have to pretend we're strangers anymore." The obvious answer came to him. It also sounded slightly different once it reached his mouth. "Dinner tomorrow?"

Jud let that sit for half a heartbeat before adding: "We spend the day finding out everything we can about Marek. Meet somewhere decent tomorrow evening. Compare notes. Decide what we want to do about Calder Street." Perfectly professional. Entirely reasonable. There was absolutely no reason that suggestion needed to feel different from meeting over caf at a transit shelter. It did. Jud found that he didn't particularly mind.

He tipped his head slightly. "Someplace with actual food." The corner of his mouth lifted. "And if somebody drops another mysterious note on the table, least we'll know they're committed." Jud folded the note and slipped it away securely. Tomorrow they could investigate Marek Venn. Tomorrow evening they could decide where the trail went next. For tonight, Jud remained on the bench rather than immediately standing. His caf wasn't quite empty yet. Neither was Shade's. And if this was the last evening they were going to spend in their terrible little transit shelter, Jud figured there wasn't any particular reason to hurry away.

Jud Renrok

• Location: Frontier Settlement, Raxus territory
• Objective: Investigate
• Outfit: Warden Attire
• Company: Shade

 

[Shade]

Shade listened while Jud worked through what the note changed, occasionally glancing between Marek's image and the three sparse lines their anonymous benefactor had left behind. Abandoning yesterday's plan made sense. There was little value in deliberately encouraging Marek to follow her when they now possessed his name, a local address, and another port somebody thought important enough to mention. More importantly, Shade shared Jud's reluctance to obediently walk wherever a stranger pointed simply because they'd gone to the trouble of putting directions on paper. "Agreed. We don't go anywhere just because somebody wants us there. You take the local records. I'll see what I can find through less municipal channels. Employment, financial activity, travel, known associates, anything tying him to Sorn or Eastern Freight. I'll look at Bellhaven separately and see whether the same names start appearing." A faint smile touched her mouth at Jud's assessment of her ability to find the more interesting information. "I do occasionally have my uses."

His accusation that he had damaged her reputation for being sneaky earned a sharper look. "I managed perfectly well until I started spending my evenings at bus stops with a Frontier Warden in a hat." There wasn't enough seriousness behind it to qualify as blame. If anything, Shade found herself increasingly entertained by how quickly this particular shelter had become familiar. It had started as nothing more than a convenient place to exchange information away from the people they were investigating, then caf had become part of the arrangement, followed by conversation that didn't always concern Darik Sorn, freight manifests, or whoever happened to be watching them.

That made Jud's observation that they couldn't meet here again unexpectedly disappointing. Shade looked around the shelter herself and exhaled softly, her gaze passing over the battered bench and broken route board before returning to him. "Probably not. Pity. I was becoming fond of our extremely unreliable headquarters." She knew the shelter itself had little to do with that fondness, and from the disappointment in Jud's voice, she suspected he did too. Neither seemed particularly interested in saying so.

What he said next mattered more. They didn't need another shelter because they no longer needed to pretend they were strangers. Shade considered that for a moment, then nodded. "That might actually be a pleasant change. If people already know we're working together, there's no reason to keep arranging our lives around convincing them otherwise. We can arrive together, talk openly, and stop worrying about whether somebody notices we're comfortable around each other." The last part came easily enough that Shade noticed it only after she'd said it, though she made no effort to take it back.

It wasn't how she normally worked. Shade had spent much of her adult life becoming very good at existing at the edge of other people's awareness, but secrecy had always been a tool, not something sacred. If hiding her connection to Jud no longer gave them an advantage, there was little reason to cling to it simply because remaining unseen came naturally to her. "I'm still better from the shadows, but I don't need them for everything." Her fingers briefly brushed the familiar outline of a concealed knife before settling again around her cup, the gesture absent enough that it might have meant nothing at all. "There are other ways to get answers."

Then Jud suggested dinner, and Shade's crimson eyes settled on him with a warmth she didn't bother hiding. She had been working her way toward much the same suggestion while he'd been lamenting the loss of their shelter. Somewhere comfortable, actual food, their findings spread between them instead of two cups of caf balanced around a datapad. Apparently Jud had simply reached the conclusion first. Shade kept that particular realization to herself as her smile grew. "Dinner sounds good. We spend tomorrow ruining Marek's privacy, then meet somewhere that serves actual food and compare how successful we've been." She lifted her cup slightly. "Maybe something that doesn't come in a disposable container. We should try luxury at least once."

His warning about another mysterious note being dropped onto their table drew a quiet laugh from her. "If someone follows us into a restaurant just to deliver another one, I'm buying them dinner. At that point they've earned it." There was no particular reason for the arrangement to feel different from meeting here. They would discuss the same investigation, compare the same information, and decide their next move exactly as they had done on this bench. Yet Shade noticed the difference anyway, and judging by the way Jud had let the invitation sit between them before explaining its thoroughly professional justification, she doubted she was alone in noticing it.

She wasn't inclined to examine that too closely tonight. Shade remained beside him instead, taking another drink of caf that had long since passed the point where temperature did it any favors. Neither of them had stood, and she found she wasn't inclined to be the first. Tomorrow could have Marek Venn, Calder Street, Bellhaven, and whatever other complications waited for them. For a little while longer, Shade was perfectly content to let tonight belong to the terrible little bus stop they apparently both regretted losing.

Jud Renrok

 

[Jud Renrok]

The rest of the evening belonged to the bus stop. Not forever. Not even particularly long. But long enough. Jud and Shade finished caf that had grown steadily less deserving of the name, talked about nothing terribly important for a few minutes, and eventually accepted that remaining until morning would probably undermine their complaints about public transportation.

When they finally separated, there was no elaborate procedure. No ten-minute delay. No pretending they hadn't spent the evening together. That particular performance was over. Jud discovered he liked that.

Marek Venn was boring. Jud found that immediately suspicious. Not because ordinary people couldn't become involved in extraordinary trouble. Frontier settlements provided ample evidence otherwise. Marek was simply exceptionally ordinary on paper.

Seventeen Calder Street was his registered residence. Employment records described him as an independent freight and logistics contractor. He'd worked for several local carriers over the years, occasionally coordinating inspections, resolving cargo discrepancies, and shepherding shipments through the bureaucratic machinery Jud had spent the previous two days learning to despise. No serious criminal history. A couple minor citations. Taxes apparently paid with admirable consistency.

Jud sat at a municipal records terminal, chin resting against one hand. "Congratulations, Marek." The clerk nearby glanced toward him. Jud ignored them. He kept digging. The freight connection wasn't particularly surprising. Marek had been watching a Warden investigating freight thefts. Finding freight somewhere in his history didn't prove much.

Then Eastern Freight Administration appeared. Jud straightened. Marek had performed contract work there. Not currently. Eight months earlier, he'd spent several weeks assisting during a staffing shortage. His duties included reviewing freight declarations and coordinating inspection requests. Which meant Marek had possessed terminal access.

Jud requested the authorization record. Expired. Seven months ago. He stared at it. Then requested the corresponding revocation record. Nothing. Jud tried again. Still nothing. He eventually found an administrator willing to explain that contract credentials were supposed to deactivate automatically when an authorization expired.

"Supposed to?" The administrator gave him a tired look. Jud leaned back. There was that word again. "Right." He didn't ask anyone to test Marek's credentials. Not yet. If they still worked, testing them might create a log or alert someone paying attention. Instead, Jud made a note.

Marek Venn — EFA contractor.
Authorization expired.
Revocation unconfirmed.​

That was considerably more interesting than a terminal. It still wasn't proof Marek had accessed EFA-7. But the distance between the watcher and the stolen caravans had just become considerably shorter.

Calder Street received considerably less attention. Jud passed through once. That was all. Seventeen existed. Residential building. Nothing remarkable from the outside. Marek's name matched the public occupancy record. Jud didn't stop. Didn't approach the entrance. Didn't ask neighbors questions.

Somebody wanted them looking at Calder Street. Jud intended to learn why before announcing they'd taken the suggestion. Bellhaven proved less cooperative. Marek had traveled there. More than once. Jud found several ordinary transport records scattered across the previous year, enough to establish Bellhaven wasn't unfamiliar territory without providing a particularly interesting reason for the trips. Freight work made travel unsurprising. Maybe Shade would find something better. She usually did. Jud caught himself smiling at that thought. That was becoming a habit too.

Late afternoon found him finishing the last of his notes. Marek. EFA. Calder Street. Bellhaven. He had enough for dinner. That thought stopped him. Jud looked at the datapad. Enough for the meeting. Dinner. Meeting. Both were accurate. For some reason, only one had been the first word through his head. Jud shut down the datapad.

He returned to his room with enough time to wash away the day's dust. That was normal. Changing his shirt was normal too. Jud selected one. Stopped. Looked at it. Put it back. Selected another. Jud stared at that one. "This is ridiculous."

Nobody answered. He was meeting Shade to discuss an investigation. At a restaurant. Over dinner. Which he'd suggested. And she'd accepted while smiling in a way he'd definitely noticed. Jud looked toward the mirror. He'd apparently become a man who stood around debating shirts. That was concerning.

Eventually he settled on something clean and simple, dark enough to look respectable without suggesting he'd suddenly developed aspirations toward formalwear. His Warden badge remained, though less prominently displayed than it was during the working day. His blaster stayed with him. The lightsaber too. Frontier dinner had standards. Jud picked up his hat. There was no debate about that.

He'd chosen the restaurant himself. Nothing fashionable. Nothing expensive enough to make either of them wonder whether this was supposed to be something it wasn't. Or wasn't yet. Jud refused to examine that correction. It was an older place near the edge of the commercial district, removed from the freight yards and the streets they'd spent the last several days haunting. Warm light spilled through broad windows onto the pavement outside. Inside were worn wooden booths, mismatched chairs, a long bar, and the low murmur of people who'd finished work and weren't interested in talking about it anymore.

Someone played music quietly from a corner farther inside. The food was good. More importantly, Jud actually liked the place. That made choosing it feel unexpectedly revealing. The shelter had belonged to neither of them. This was somewhere Jud would have come anyway. He arrived early. Five minutes. Maybe seven. Not enough to qualify as waiting. Probably.

Jud took a booth where he could see the entrance without putting his back completely to the room. Habit. His hat went onto the seat beside him. The datapad remained on the table. Marek's information waited inside. Jud considered ordering drinks. Caf would have been easy. Plain. He knew that.

Then Jud realized he had no idea what Shade actually liked with dinner. Or what she ate. Or whether she preferred something spicy, sweet, simple, elaborate, expensive, cheap—Jud stopped himself. He knew the woman could disappear. He knew she could follow somebody through a crowded settlement without being noticed. He knew she had once lived under multiple identities. He knew somebody had collected pieces of her past valuable enough to sell. He knew she carried concealed weapons with the casual familiarity most people reserved for pockets. He knew exactly how she took her caf. Jud had absolutely no idea what she'd order from a menu.

A quiet laugh escaped him. The absurdity was difficult to miss. For all they'd learned about each other over the last few days, almost none of it belonged to ordinary life. Maybe that was what tonight was beginning to feel like. Ordinary. Or the opportunity for it. Jud looked down at his datapad. He could open Marek's records. Review them again. Arrange everything so they could begin immediately when Shade arrived. He didn't.

The investigation had already consumed most of the day. It could wait another few minutes. The restaurant door opened. Jud's attention lifted automatically. Shade entered. For a moment, Marek Venn disappeared entirely. Jud smiled. Not the polite smile he used with witnesses. Not the faint amusement Shade had learned to provoke with alarming consistency. Just pleased to see her. "Hey." That was all. Jud gestured toward the opposite side of the booth. Marek could wait until she sat down. For at least five seconds. Tonight, Jud figured they could afford that much.

Jud Renrok

• Location: Frontier Settlement, Raxus territory
• Objective: Investigate
• Outfit: Warden Attire
• Company: Shade