{"id":3,"date":"2007-04-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-15T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/?p=3"},"modified":"2022-11-28T19:38:11","modified_gmt":"2022-11-29T00:38:11","slug":"threshold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/articles\/threshold\/","title":{"rendered":"Threshold"},"content":{"rendered":"

D<\/strong><\/span>arrent knew right away she was going to be a problem. He\u2019d been keeping the company of Uranium miners for too long, they came in all sweaty and desperate. She was a marked change from that. Lean body, short skirt\u2014she would have turned heads anywhere, but out there in the threshold she was coming close to breaking necks. Pickings were slim. The twin dwarf stars made for plenty of heavy elements, but not much else. It was the kind of place you ended up as a last resort. At least people didn\u2019t ask too many questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you him?\u201d she said shrewdly.<\/p>\n

So much for anonymity.<\/p>\n

He sighed in annoyance. The voice was rough and innocent all at the same time, kind of beautiful in its mixed melody.<\/p>\n

She wasn\u2019t as tough as she was pretending to be, that much was obvious. Still, girls like that tended to send him spinning. He gripped his drink like a lifeline.<\/p>\n

\u201cDepends on who \u2018he\u2019 is?\u201d he responded finally.<\/p>\n

Darrent knew what she was talking about, he just wanted to see how she\u2019d handle a little difficulty.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was told there was a man at this bar who could solve problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

He shook his glass. The ice rattled against the whisky.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell I don\u2019t see a guy like that, plenty of problems though, like the fact that my drink is almost empty.\u201d<\/p>\n

She nodded to the bartender and sat down next to him. Her skirt slid up as she took her seat giving him an eye-full he wouldn\u2019t soon forget. She noticed him looking because he lingered. She spun around without comment, he didn\u2019t offer one either.<\/p>\n

The barman set down two glasses. That was a fine start.<\/p>\n

She sipped. Pulled out a credit disk and set it on the bar.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome might say such a thing is a little incriminating,\u201d Darrent said nodding coolly at the slender, circular card.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some places maybe, but not here.\u201d<\/p>\n

She threw back the rest of her drink without a wince and slipped off her seat. She then fixed him with a firm gaze that aroused him even more than the way she handled her liquor, and that was saying something.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe specs are on the disk along with two grand. You get another two when the job\u2019s done.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cThe specs are on the disk along with two grand. You get another two when the job\u2019s done. You\u2019ll also find my name and number.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCan\u2019t you just tell me now?\u201d<\/p>\n

She shook her head slow and teasingly. \u201cIt\u2019s all part of the job.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything strictly professional?\u201d he asked, his eyebrow curling up.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, well, you can turn the whole four back over to me if you want your universe to explode. But we\u2019ll talk about that after.\u201d<\/p>\n

She spun and strutted out of the bar. His eyes were on her the whole way. She knew it. There was no reason for her to turn around to verify.<\/p>\n

The disk sat on the table for a long time. It stared at him as he finished his drink and he stared back hard, but he knew who was going to win this contest.<\/p>\n

\u201cShit,\u201d he said as he took his last draught and snatched the disk up off the greasy surface and into his leather coat.<\/p>\n

I<\/strong><\/span>t was a set-up. It had to be. They\u2019d never send a woman like that for a job like this otherwise. But he didn\u2019t care, he didn\u2019t have much to live for so why not go after a risk like her?<\/p>\n

Somebody was getting played. If it was supposed to be him, that just made it easier to skip the gig on a free half salary. A disk like the one she\u2019d handed him was hard to track.<\/p>\n

But damn, she was something else. He slipped the slender circlet into his mini-player and scanned the information. The money was there, but that meant nothing to him. It was the name he was after.<\/p>\n

Alicia.<\/p>\n

Dangerous.<\/p>\n

She was already playing, now he wanted to play too.<\/p>\n

He smiled contentedly and chomped on his cigar.<\/p>\n

There was another name amongst the papers and a picture, but he didn\u2019t need it. He\u2019d recognized the name. John Emmerson, newly promoted. Navy guy, there to clean up the threshold. He\u2019d already been shooting his mouth off back planet side and as a result his name had reached the deadbeats before he\u2019d had time to make his first arrest.<\/p>\n

Stupid punk, he\u2019d already blown his biggest advantage.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh my sweet Alicia, what kind of nonsense are you getting yourself into?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The kingpins always took a shot at buying these newbies off.<\/p>\n

Then they called Darrent.<\/p>\n

He laughed.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh my sweet Alicia, what kind of nonsense are you getting yourself into?\u201d<\/p>\n

He had all he needed, so he slipped into his cylinder. There were few pilots skilled enough or crazy enough to run the gravity wave between the two dwarfs. You had to do the whole thing on touch, one false move and you were pulled down into a vortex neither God or Isaac Newton could have saved you from. For that reason, the navy base at the artificially stabilized center thought they were safe.<\/p>\n

No further checkpoints.<\/p>\n

They didn\u2019t even stand watch.<\/p>\n

The cylinder started to shudder and Darrent nodded glumly. For a ride like this, he preferred to be drunk, and to be concentrating on other things. His hands worked the controls absently as he reflected to himself.<\/p>\n

John Emmerson.<\/p>\n

Pledging his war on corruption.<\/p>\n

It\u2019d all end tonight.<\/p>\n

The ship stabilized. He was through.<\/p>\n

It was easy to pick out Emmerson\u2019s ship among the rif-raff. They all got scratched up from teleporting in. His was nearly untouched.<\/p>\n

He pulled up alongside and melted a hole in the wall. That was the standard way. But it was noisy. He sat in his cylinder and had a look into the commons hall. The fringes of his incision cooled spitefully.<\/p>\n

Somebody turned on a light in an adjoining hallway and a silhouetted figure appeared. Darrent wanted to snort.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a mistake,\u201d he said in a loud voice. \u201cYou just highlighted yourself and destroyed your night vision all with one quick flick.\u201d<\/p>\n

A beam shot from Darrent\u2019s hand to the shadowy figure. A detention field enveloped him. What were they teaching their cadets these days?<\/p>\n

\u201cWho are you?\u201d<\/p>\n

There was a bit of grit in the voice and that impressed Darrent. There was a tremble too, though that was reasonable enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just stopped by because I couldn\u2019t get an appointment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emmerson scowled but Darrent waved all that away.<\/p>\n

\u201cSit, we\u2019ve got a lot to talk about.\u201d<\/p>\n

The command was whispered into a small microphone and Emmerson had to obey, the beam made sure of that.<\/p>\n

Darrent gave a quick look around the room. A picture caught his eye, he lingered on it for a moment before turning back to the young captain.<\/p>\n

The picture changed things. But all wasn\u2019t lost, he could still make this worth his while. It was going to take some scheming now though.<\/p>\n

\u201cIndeed, it\u2019s looking to be a very long night.\u201d<\/p>\n

T<\/strong><\/span>he phone rang several times in its distant, watery loneliness before she picked it up. Same raggedy voice, this time tired from sleep.<\/p>\n

\u201cHello?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s done. I want to collect.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the morning, I…\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow. Or else. Murphy\u2019s, room 12 upstairs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The phone came crashing down.<\/p>\n

Murphy\u2019s was built for meetings like this, it was probably ninety percent of the revenue. The room couldn\u2019t have been worse. They\u2019d tiled the floors over completely because they\u2019d gotten so tired of trying to mop the blood up. Looking around, Darrent wondered if anybody\u2019d ever slept the full night there. Still alive anyway.<\/p>\n

About a half hour later, there was a knock. She stepped in twice as beautiful as before, his chest ached.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you prove it?\u201d<\/p>\n

He dropped a ring on the nightstand. A navy ring, most recent class. Bloody.<\/p>\n

She picked it up without flinching and gazed at the engraving.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, Mr. Darrent, it seems you\u2019ve completed your contract.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cJohn Emmerson,\u201d she read smiling.<\/p>\n

She was gloating! Damn if he didn\u2019t get an electric chill out of that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, Mr. Darrent, it seems you\u2019ve completed your contract.\u201d<\/p>\n

She reached into her jacket for another disk. She had only a nightgown underneath, silken, white, beautiful. He reached out to stop her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m taking door number two.\u201d he said gruffly, and handed back the first disk.<\/p>\n

She smiled.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery well.\u201d<\/p>\n

His world exploded.<\/p>\n

F<\/strong><\/span>orty minutes later he was laying in bed unconscious when the door swung open. A couple ensigns had them in a stasis field almost instantly. Alicia was still handcuffed to the bed. It\u2019d been her idea.<\/p>\n

But now she started screaming on cue.<\/p>\n

\u201cHelp, he raped me, he\u2019s an animal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Darrent rubbed his head. The navy men stepped forward. It was dark in the room and light in the hallway, they were silhouetted, but it was hard to make out their faces.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe bragged about killing John Emmerson,\u201d she yelled, \u201che\u2019s got his ring! He\u2019s an animal!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen he\u2019s a liar!\u201d said a voice.<\/p>\n

Alicia went white.<\/p>\n

John Emmerson entered the room. He looked down at her with an expression of extreme sadness.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlicia, how\u2019d it come to this?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou bastard, you bastard,\u201d she cried.<\/p>\n

Darrent chuckled to himself. He tossed a framed picture on the bed, it was a picture of Alicia and John Emmerson posing together in happier times. The glass was broken.<\/p>\n

Alicia cringed as she saw it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is all getting a little too personal for me. Do you mind if I take my leave?\u201d Darrent asked slyly.<\/p>\n

John Emmerson nodded slowly. Whatever feelings of betrayal he was going through at that moment were beyond Darrent\u2019s comprehension. He\u2019d always paid cash and never seen them in the morning afterwards.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood alibi Alicia. What were you going to say, you were abducted and raped?\u201d<\/p>\n

Darrent stopped at the nightstand and picked up the disk she had given him at their first meeting and then new one she had brought earlier that night.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then you would have been left with everything free and clear.\u201d<\/p>\n

She spit and squirmed in the handcuffs, the stasis field allowed her that much.<\/p>\n

Darrent went for the door.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey,\u201d John Emmerson belted, and Darrent turned to absorb his stern look. \u201cDon\u2019t expect any free passes after tonight. And don\u2019t think we won\u2019t maintain a regular perimeter out on the threshold from now on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Darrent nodded, but he decided it wasn\u2019t worth pushing his luck with any smart talk. If the Captain got to thinking about it too seriously he might tap into the explosive, righteous anger he should deservedly be feeling. Darrent wanted no part of that, he had money in his pocket, the scent of woman on his body, and the hallway full of navy men was parting before him like the red sea.<\/p>\n

Usually he was the one who did the parting.<\/p>\n

He stepped outside and they regarded him with the rage of a fisherman contemplating a lost marlin.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood morning gentlemen,\u201d he smiled, \u201cwhat, no workout for me today? I guess I\u2019ll have to go to the gym.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the ensigns lunged at him but an older sergeant pulled him back.<\/p>\n

Now Darrent laughed, he\u2019d see them soon enough to finish it. He\u2019d see them back out on the threshold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ben Jonjak’s story Threshold<\/em> holds the honor of being the first original story accepted by Space Westerns. All we can really say about it is… he had us at “Uranium miners”. — ed. N.E. Lilly<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":572,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,5],"tags":[43,44],"media":[299],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1226,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3\/revisions\/1226"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3"},{"taxonomy":"media","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacewesterns.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?post=3"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}