Threshold

by Janet Morris

  When he got downstairs, he needed to find a public tubeway. Then he could get started on his mission.

  He took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in the Customs garage. The garage was the most familiar thing he'd seen since he left the ConSec docking area and Birdy's care.

  There was a guard in a little glassed-in kiosk and he asked the guy what the best way to get to Loader Level was. "I gotta find this aftermarket shop ..."

  The guard tipped his hat. "Okay, hotshot. Don't try your cover out on me. You want to just gimme your card and we'll get you set up?"

  Thinking that there was no harm in trying, South handed his new credentials to the guard, who slipped the card into a viewer. "You'd want a pretty beat-up taxi with a human, then, huh?"

  "You bet," said South, having no idea why he'd want that, or exactly what he was going to do with a human when he got one.

  But the guard handed back his credentials card and punched some buttons. Then he leaned out of his window and said, "You guys have all the fun. Bet you're going to load up your per diem on this one, eh? I got you a real scuzzy taxi-driver, one of the best we've got around here."

  "Thanks," said South when the guy paused for his approval.

  "Ain't seen you around, so that means you've been out in the boonies for quite a while. We don't get many of your kind in here." The guard had a conspiratorial tone in his voice and an admiring look on his face. "You need any special sort a' orientation, you feel free to ask for me. That's Bubba Ryan, in Technical Services. We're the ones who really know what it takes to shake up the underside."

  "I'll do that."

  "And if you want any afterhours, you just holler."

  "Like I said . . ."

  Up to the barrier at the kiosk came an electric car with fenders of different colors, dents all over it, and a driver with pink paint covering one side of his face and what looked like a toilet-plunger dangling from his left ear.

  "He'll take good care o' you, sir," said Bubba Ryan with a wave as he slid back into his kiosk and raised the barrier.

  A human driver. Made sense now. South got in the back of the taxi and said, "I need to go to an aftermarket shop in the Loader zone run by a guy named Sling. I'm not sure just where it's—"

  "I been there. No problem," said the driver, and gunned the car's motor. Music in a foreign language, polyphonic and strident in 7/4 time, filled the vehicle.

  Fine. South didn't want to talk, either. If he said anything wrong, he'd probably lose his ride.

  He had no idea whether he had to pay this guy, or not. He decided he'd assume it was on the house, and sat in the back reading his papers until the car stopped and the rear door was opened remotely by the driver in the front.

  The guy didn't ask for money, and South didn't volunteer any.

  But when he was out of the car, he realized he wasn't in front of anything remotely resembling what he remembered as Sling's aftermarket shop.

  South said, "Wait a minute. This isn't where I'm supposed to be ..."

  And, over the music, the driver snarled, "Asshole! It's right up the street there. You want to look where you're going?" and pulled away in a whine of ill-tuned motor.

  South shrugged off the critique. He didn't know what he was doing. Somebody was bound to notice.

  He craned his neck. Overhead, you could see the strutwork of the module. No pretty false ceilings down here. The street was full of rubbish—food and drink containers, twisted hunks of metal, wires and cables and chipboards—and the lights overhead were mimicking daytime.

  Of the half-dozen people he passed on the way to Sling's door, no one gave him more than a sidelong glance.

  When he knocked and no one answered, he thought maybe he shouldn't have come. He was taking an awful lot on faith, leaving Birdy to fight her own battles just because Riva Lowe had told him everything would be all right.

  And he hadn't mentioned coming down here to Lowe, though she'd certainly be able to find him—or find out he'd come here—if the Customs people behaved anywhere near like MPs. It'd be logged that he'd taken a car with a driver down here.

  Well, she hadn't told him not to come.

  And it was seeming like a waste of time. Maybe he could call that Bubba guy and get some "technical services" for STARBIRD right out in the open, since she was sort of a commandeered Customs vehicle.

  But his gut told him not to draw attention to the fact that his ship might have a mechanical problem. And he didn't want just anybody messing around with her.

  He knocked again, got no response, and was about to leave when he saw the little button you were supposed to press for entry.

  He pressed it, and the outer door drew back.

  How could he have forgotten that?

  But he'd been pretty drunk the last time he was here. He'd been more than pretty drunk, and Sling had led the way.

  In the vestibule, the outer door closed behind him as if he'd entered an air lock. He searched for another depressible switch, and found one.

  This time, the door didn't open. Instead, a voice came from a speaker grill above the door: "Yeah, who is it? I'm busy."

  "Sling? It's me—Joe South. I need something."

  "Crap. Hold on." Sling grunted and then the speaker chirped off.

  The door opened and South stepped inside.

  The shop smelled of torches, tortured metal, and hot insulation. So did Sling, when he came ambling out of the lab room. "Hey, there. Long time no see. Not that we were seein' much the last time. What's up? I'm on a tight schedule."

  "I've got a delicate problem with an ... antique piece of equipment." It hurt to talk about STARBIRD that way. "I want somebody I can trust to look at it while I stand there."

  "Oh, boy. I knew you were . . . never mind. What's the problem, and what's the equipment?"

  "Possible faulty heat sensor; possible overheating for real in a fusion power plant ..." As he explained just what he needed, he saw Sling's eyes widen.

  "You got one of those things and it's in working order? Man, you're curiouser and curiouser. you know? Can this wait until I get my rush job done? I'm getting lots of money for doing almost nothing, but the package is taking some time to put together. . . ."

  "I need to take somebody for a ride, and I need this problem not to be a problem."

  "You going to pay me for this, or am I doing it because I like you?" Sling pulled a rag out of his back pocket and wiped his hands.

  "I can pay you for it. And for a little extra help, maybe, too."

  "Come on back. We'll talk while I work." Sling led the way, stuffing the antistatic rag into his coveralls' rear pocket as he went.

  Sling stopped before an assembly bench that was clean and white and dust-free, spread with micro parts and tools to work on them. He put on magnifying goggles and said, "Let's hear the rest."

  "I got to take a guy out to look at something. The guy's a salvage specialist. I need the—"

  Sling looked up at him, the goggles making him seem like a giant fly with a human mouth. That mouth curled. "I knew you were heat the minute I looked at you. Keebler sent you to check up on me, right?"

  "Keebler?" That was the name on his orders. "No way. But I've been looking for him. What's he like?"

  "Pain in the butt. Crazy-ass. Throws his weight around. Just your average bucket of trouble. You're beginning to seem like his only son."

  "Come on, Sling. You volunteered to do whatever I needed done. Now all of a sudden you don't like the company I'm keeping. Sounds to me like you can't deliver. If the project's too tough for you, recommend somebody who's got a real working knowledge of vintage spacecraft. ..."

  Long shots don't always work.

  This one did. Sling pulled off his goggles, rubbed his hand over his mouth, and said, "Whatever you're into, don't get me busted, okay?"

  "Promise."

  "Let's see, we'll need . . ." Sling circled around the lab, picking up test kits and equipment and putting everything into a satchel. When he'd filled t
he satchel, he said, "You going to give me a taste up front?"

  "Taste?"

  "Pay me something in advance. So that I can at least prove I was hired for whatever this is, on the up-and-up, if the cops come to get you while I'm working on the . . . antique. By the way, where is it?"

  South already had both of his credit cards in his hand. One had a low limit, he knew. The other was government.

  He shrugged and handed both of them to Sling. "Whichever of these'll take your fee, charge the whole thing now."

  "Worble eggs! This is a fucking Customs—"

  "I just got that card."

  "Oh, man, if this is forged, you've got more balls than your average crazy. If it's not . . ." His eyes narrowed. "Better not be stolen. Tell me it's not stolen."

  "It's not stolen."

  "Okay. Nine C's okay with you?" Sling took the Customs card into his office, lugging the satchel, which was so heavy it threw his gait off; the aftermarketeer nearly limped.

  "Fine." What difference did price make, when you didn't understand the currency? Even if he could have evaluated the price, fixing STARBIRD was South's first priority. When your life hangs in the balance, there's no such thing as too expensive.

  Sling ran the card through the slot and it came out the other side. "Okay, it's not stolen. Print here."

  South stuck his thumb in the square of the receipt as if he'd been doing it all his life.

  "Let's go. Where'd you say we were going?"

  "The ConSec docking bay." South headed for the door.

  "Aw, crap, South."

  South turned around. Sling hadn't moved, except to put down the satchel. He had his hands on his hips. In one of them was the crumpled receipt.

  "You're telling me you're a cop? For real? Customs? Is this a bust? Because if it is—"

  "Why would it be?"

  "Uh—then I'm just helping the law, right? About the scavenger? About Keebler?"

  "That'll do."

  "Promise."

  "I really just want you to fix my ship. Then, if you can tell me anything about this Keebler, or help me get in touch with him, that's great. I'll appreciate it."

  Sling twirled his braid's tip in his fingers. Then in an absent, habitual motion, he put the very end of the braid in his mouth and sucked on it.

  South waited, wishing he understood the protocols around here a little better. He'd been honest with Sling. Sling had just taken everything South had said and turned it around, preferring to believe the opposite.

  Sling's cheek quivered with the motion of his tongue as, inside his mouth, it twirled the braid's tip.

  Eventually, after a long measuring interval during which South didn't flinch, Sling took the braid out of his mouth and said, "Okay, I'm helping Customs on this one. But just take it from me up front, that black box that Keebler's ordered won't work. I'm building him exactly what he asked for, which isn't illegal; but it won't work. And whatever he's doing besides that, I don't know squat about."

  "Good enough. Now can we go fix my ship?"

  "Yes, sir." Sling hoisted the satchel.

  "After that," South said, sensing his advantage and pressing it, "you and I'll get a drink and figure out how you can help me connect with this Keebler. If he's going out to that parking site, he's going with me, on my terms. Or he's not going."

  "I knew I shouldn't have gotten involved in this," Sling said. "But there was nothing I could do. At least you're on the right side of the law. Maybe you guys can keep Keebler off my back when he realizes this box won't work ..."

  "Maybe. But my ship better work."

  "That's no problem, South. I can fix a cold fusion plant in my sleep. My granddaddy taught me all about 'em. I'll give you a torque boost while I'm at it—on the house."

  So maybe it was fixing the ship in the ConSec bay that made Sling so nervous.

  Or maybe it was South who was nervous, letting somebody whose credentials he couldn't evaluate mess around with STARBIRD.

  But Birdy seemed to think that Sling was doing a decent job.

  And since Sling agreed with Birdy, that it was just a faulty sensor, and the power plant's readings spec'd out nominal when they fired her up and monitored the numbers, South relaxed.

  Now he didn't care if he got the salvage expert, Keebler, to come along without bitching about STARBIRD's space-worthiness.

  If the scavenger was going out to that spacedock, according to Riva Lowe, he was going out as South's passenger.

  It shouldn't be too hard to convince some marginally legal player where his best interests lay. It sure wasn't hard to get Sling's cooperation once South had flashed his Customs card.

  But if it all came to nothing, Birdy was happy again, and so was South. They could break for the unknown with STARBIRD's optimized power plant, and never look back.

  If worse came to worse and this place just kept getting more unbearable, that was exactly what Joe South was going to do.

  It was nice of Riva Lowe to have faith in him, and to give him a mission.

  But nobody seemed to understand how hard it was to come home and have home not be there anymore. Or to listen to people tell you that the Earth—the place that had borne and bred you—wasn't somewhere you were welcome. The whole Earth, off-limits.

  And Sling thought it was weird that South had STARBIRD's original milspec operating manual. . . .

  When it was time to leave with Sling, South almost couldn't bring himself to go. But the salvage expert named Keebler was waiting out there, somewhere. The least South owed Lowe and her Customs service was to give the mission a try.

  There'd always be time to chuck everything and run like hell. It just wasn't Joe South's idea of something to be proud of. And he was proud of his performance so far, even though all he'd done was keep his temper and tough things out.

  If Riva Lowe had any idea what kind of man it took to grit your teeth and look Threshold in the face, she'd have been thinking of him as more than a charity case.

  But maybe he should be glad she was thinking of him any way at all, South told himself as, after locking up his ship, he followed Sling out of the docking bay.

  It wasn't until he actually met the hoary old scavenger and started hearing about the "gen-u-ine ball from a superior civ'lization" that South began to feel his memories stirring.

  But he couldn't be worried about his dreams. Or about aliens. There were aliens all over Threshold: green-skinned ones and hairy-lipped ones and human ones, as well.

  But every time he looked up from his drink and saw that scavenger sitting in Sling's office, sucking on his yellow teeth, South would remember the aliens in his dreams.

  Which was just what he didn't need, since nobody on Threshold gave a damn about his dreams or his spotty memory or anything to do with his exploratory flyby of X-3 . . . not even enough to download his trip log.

  So the scavenger probably wouldn't care, either. All the scavenger cared about was his black box and his chances of getting into the artifact at the spacedock.

  He reached out a gnarly hand and patted South's shoulder. "Don't worry, sonny. Y'll be rich 'n famous along wit' me. An' y' tell yer Customs office that I'm real grateful they come to their senses about this. Real grateful."

  Over the scavenger's head, South could see Sling roll his eyes.

  But Sling hadn't seen what South had seen. Sling had never been on an x-mission. He'd never jumped out of spongespace into uncharted realms. And he'd never had dreams with sad-eyed aliens in them, under lavender skies with a ringed planet just setting in the purple haze.

  CHAPTER 18

  Justice of the Peace

  "Comments, anyone? Before we adjourn and I bring the kids in to face the music?"

  Mickey Croft was nearly through with his staff meeting, and facing a camel-trading session with Cummings, Jr., after he'd walked the two children through a disciplinary session meant to protect them from the harsher discipline of their families.

  Hopefully, all damages were subject to limi
tation. Everything could be mediated, that was Croft's credo.

  This conference was testing that credo, and Mickey's faith in himself.

  Not only had the Medinans walked out, they were threatening to disrupt the remaining activities, planning demonstrations in the street, and whipping themselves into a fervor of religious zeal that might actually erupt into violence.

  If Croft had even guessed that the hajji—pilgrims—could be organized to support political ends during the conference, he'd have set the conference for a different date.

  It was an oversight that might haunt him for the rest of his days.

  Vince Remson, his resident expert on fundamentalist cultures, said, "Sir, I'd like to ask for increased security, not only for the two children, but for all the conference members. And I think a curfew is in order, for visitors of all sorts, so that we're not accused of persecuting the faithful. And let's provide busses to the Meccan viewstation, so that those that want to take part in the religious ceremonies are not obstructed, and must make a choice: either attend their ceremony, or Forat's demonstrations. I think that should take care of at least half of the pilgrims—those who aren't here specifically in the service of the Medinans."

  "Yeah, but how do we know," said the ConSpaceCom general in attendance, "that the Medinans haven't orchestrated this whole thing—every misstep, even the girl's purported love affair?"

  The ConSpaceCom general was a paranoid by profession, but Croft was in no mood to look on the dark side of things.

  "Because, General," he told the heavy-set, bull-necked officer, "they'd never sacrifice a woman of such stature, or embarrass their chief mullah. Right, Remson?"

  "Right," said Remson. "And, if I may say so, they'd never have put themselves in a position where the sentient service personnel issue came under such hot debate. The possible destruction of the Alis, due to their failure to prevent the girl's escape, has brought them unwanted scrutiny. I modelled Ali-7, with Mickey's permission, and I'm absolutely convinced that we're dealing with human—not subhuman —rights violations of the highest order. Not that I can prove it yet. But I will, given time. And if we treat the issue as a subhuman rights question, we'll have the support of all the subs gathered here. The Epsilonians, for one example, will rush to the defense of any subhuman culture that's being so overtly exploited. They need an extreme case to buttress their own. We'll be able to ram through an execution prohibition, at least; probably property and reproductive rights as well."