The Midnight Shower (Beyond the Impossible Book 3) by Frank Kennedy

Author:Frank Kennedy [Kennedy, Frank]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-12-30T16:00:00+00:00

22

H OSHI NEGANI DID NOT FEEL like an assassin. She wore the simple wrap of a Huryan marsh farmer, her hair tucked inside a green putan, and she smelled of two-day perspiration. Her second-class ticket aboard the intersystem ferry provided no access to showers during the twenty-hour flight. She was hungry and exhausted.

Yet, as she stepped from the ferry onto the welcome platform of the Pinchon Interstellar Spaceport, she breathed in crisp air free of humidity. She felt a cooling breeze off the ocean. In the distance, she saw the Isthmus of the Redeemer and hundreds of ships docked at the port. It was big, bold, modern, and alive. Though she did not grow up on this island, it felt familiar enough to call it home.

She carried a small handbag with Dim credits and an InterPass that gave her a fifty-day grace before deportation. She posed as a pathetic creature: A disaffected Huryan looking for a new start on the mother world. A few thousand people like her threw all their savings into an InterPass each year and took a chance. They had less than six weeks to find work or return to Huryo.

“Sela Woon,” a uniformed agent with a tablet called.

Hoshi stepped forward in her new role. The port agent pointed her to queue A, where a customs interrogator awaited. She pressed on, looking around as if in wonder. Lan’s contact in Quanteel trained her to appear awestruck. The more like a rube, the less suspicion she might draw.

Hoshi’s companions, borrowing from the same playbook, were pointed to queues B and C. Mosh Koo-Ti was now Lem Drash, a trained marsh digger from the southern outskirts of Quanteel. Muna Fei carried an InterPass for Cho Brees, a street cleaner who never finished an apprenticeship because of disciplinary problems. People like her faced years of hard labor if deported back to Huryo.

For now, Hoshi couldn’t be concerned about her friends. They were on their own before the interrogator. Their contact in Quanteel, a corrupt customs agent named Dy-Won, warned them of the interrogators’ ability to sniff out fraud.

“They will try to trick you,” Dy-Won said when he handed over their forged InterPass documents. “If you cannot answer even the smallest details with perfect accuracy, they will not allow you to leave the port.”

By details, he meant the eight-page biography accompanying the InterPass. Hokkaido Customs required all new arrivals to fill out an extensive questionnaire before landing, documenting every aspect of their lives, including their family history dating back at least three generations, and the name and address of their Hokki benefactor. The quota law permitted Huryan immigration under strict conditions. Visitors handed over their documents to the interrogator; he took time to read and highlight details of interest.

“Memorize every line and quiz each other,” Dy-Won advised. The biographies were prepared in advance, always based on the lives of deceased Huryans and crafted by destitute freelance writers. “Know it so well, you become this person. You will use it every day.”

Hoshi’s

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