Bram Ash stepped into the circle of lantern light at the south end of the assembly table. His right shoulder was bound tightly in clean linen bandages soaked in witch hazel and antiseptic wash, the cloth pinned to the breast of his black wool coat to immobilize the shattered collarbone he had suffered during the oil depot raid on Track Five. His face was gray with the persistent, gnawing pain of the wound, his dark mustache drooping over the grim set of his mouth. But his stance kept the rigid, upright discipline of a veteran border court guard.
Beside him stood Corin Petch, the chief transfer clerk of the southern boundary clinic. The old clerk looked fragile beneath the vaulted iron roof of the tram shed. His shoulders were hunched from forty winters spent bent over town ledger desks. His steel-rimmed glasses were held together at the bridge by a wrapping of waxed thread. In the pockets of his dark gray alpaca coat, his thin, ink-stained fingers nervously turned two brass measuring tongs—the standard instruments used by customs officers to verify the thickness of shipping crates and toll seals. Behind them stood two junior customs inspectors in green wool service vests, their thumbs hooked into the leather belts of their dispatch cases.
