Threshold

by Janet Morris

  They drank in four bars, then they drank in five more, and South began having difficulty with the zipper on his coveralls.

  He knew he was in trouble when he couldn't quite recognize Sling, among the patrons of the joint he was in. Rather than yell and see who turned around, he sat in a corner.

  That was a mistake. He began thinking about his dead parents, and his dead lady love, Jenna, and his dead culture. And he was feeling pretty dead himself. A girl came up, and this one was identifiable as a member of the opposite sex to his various inboard sensing systems. She had a head of blond curls like a halo and she was obviously in it for the money, but she took credit cards. He made sure of that right away.

  So he wasn't really all that surprised when he found himself lying behind a truck with huge wheels, his head pounding, and his credit card and ID missing.

  Well, at least he hadn't ended up in jail. And he still had his pocket guide, though he didn't have his discharge papers.

  Figuring he could walk where he was going, he tried to stand.

  He couldn't do that, not just yet. He slid back down, onto the cold surface of the street. The MPs would find him eventually, he thought, still so drunk he was thinking like a Space Command officer.

  Which he wasn't, not anymore, he told himself in a savage burst of clarity, just before he passed out again.

  CHAPTER 8

  In Search of Harmony

  Mickey Croft was feeling much older than his forty-five years when the three-hour session on the "Regulation of Commerce in Life-Forms and Controlled Substances" drew to a close.

  As protocol demanded, he stood by the dais from which he'd been chairing a panel discussion that kept threatening to degenerate into a shouting match. Now Croft was shaking the black, white, yellow, brown, purple, mottled, webbed, clawed, and mechanically cold hands of every conference member who wanted to congratulate him or stroke him or tell him (very politely) that he was an asshole.

  He'd been sure that the human/subhuman/alien rights conference was going to spontaneously abort, at least three times this evening, which made his average that of one crisis per hour.

  He was getting too old for this crap. He was also getting tired of being called "Honorable Sir" and "Your Excellency" and "Mister Secretary" and "Sirrah" and "Croft-San" and "Mahlik" by men with lasers in their eyes who'd prefer to spit on his corpse, and women who'd like to do so after they conquered him sexually, because as the most powerful man in the room he had a certain deadly attraction for both sexes.

  He was getting along best with the bioengineered, the computer-designed, and the provisionally admitted alien "subs," because at least they didn't feel this peculiarly human need to challenge him for dominance or co-opt him. The nice thing about subhuman and alien races, as well as the technologically derived mules in attendance, was that all of them lacked the human need to count coup.

  The not-so-nice thing about them was that, to a person, they all longed for human status, for acceptance, for recognition, for protection under laws never designed to protect them. Croft was working at his job today. Humanity needed every wile at its command to keep the interstellar expansion rolling on without tensions exploding into energy-wasting, expensive conflicts.

  Exploration and expansion had proved to be the only antidote for humanity's addiction to warfare, and with the present technological level of the human race, wars could obliterate entire planets. So you had to solve your problems. You couldn't let interstellar or interspecies relations degenerate. A diplomat's task was a difficult one.

  Secretary General Croft sighed and turned from the last admiring Epsilonian, who was lisping his praises through furry, camel-like lips. Somebody human was calling his name.

  He searched the thinning throng, nametags firmly in place, headed for the UNE buffet. Somewhere must be a familiar face, to match the voice he couldn't quite place.

  Then he saw Riva Lowe threading her way toward him and admitted to himself how tired he was, not to have recognized her voice.

  He'd been on the go since well before he'd had Medina's head mullah dropped in his lap. Since then, he'd been a court magician and jester rolled into one, trying to finesse the mullah into attending the evening session.

  Croft hadn't thought of anything else since it had appeared that he might have a chance to do the impossible.

  Now, having not only brought the mullah with him to the session, but survived the session without an irremediable break in interstellar relations, exhaustion threatened.

  He vaguely recalled telling Riva Lowe to keep him informed about her progress, and that he wouldn't be available until now.

  Croft straightened his shoulders as the woman approached, a determined look on her face.

  "Hello, sir," she said, herding him toward a corner.

  "Good evening, Director Lowe. Come for a snack? The buffet's open."

  "Come to tell you what I'm about to do." Riva Lowe reached into her purse and pulled out a little privacy generator. She flicked it and everything around them disappeared. They were then in a silvery tube of excited atoms that blocked out sight and sound, although Croft could have pushed his way out of it with no more than a tickling sensation to mark his passage through the security measure.

  "I hope this is necessary, Riva. We're making quite an overt display of ourselves," he said disapprovingly.

  "Sir, do I look like I'm dressed for dinner and drinks with the high-and-mighty?"

  She didn't, of course. She was dressed in a black pressure suit liner, but Croft wasn't much on women's fashions and, for all he knew, Rowe's outfit was some nouvelle fashion statement. Government functionaries tended to run about conferences of this sort with their status blazoned on their sleeves (as hers was) whenever possible. This separated them from the rank and file and made sure that no visiting dignitary accidently snubbed them. Purposeful snubs could then be evaluated.

  The hardest call in intelligence, or diplomacy, was intent. He wished he could make a stab at calling Riva Lowe's, right now. Croft blinked at the woman awaiting a response and said, "I'm sure you realize you look perfectly appropriate, and that I'm a bit too harried at the moment to evaluate domestic nuances. Can we get to the point, please? Your mystery, which is justification—let's hope—for a privacy shield here and now?"

  One had to keep one's staff under control.

  The woman licked her lips and raised her eyes to his. "Sir, I've got a scavenger—member of the Salvagers' Union in good standing—who has a unique and possibly dangerous artifact he's towed in as far as spacedock. He wanted to import it. I want to impound it, at least until this is over, if I understand your guidelines. I need to know that you'll back me if my actions cause a flap."

  "We don't want a flap, Lowe. We can't afford one right now. I thought I'd made that clear."

  "Oh, you did, sir. But I can't make this one go away. I have to deal with it." Riva Lowe had slanted eyes with a hint of epicanthic fold. They gave her an exotic aura, especially since she didn't in any other way resemble a Eurasian mix. Right now, those eyes seemed sinister. And the posture of the body forcing her pressure suit into a distractingly female shape was too challenging.

  Whatever this was, Riva Lowe was even more upset about it than she'd been earlier. Croft said, "Then deal with it, Director. I told you before, you have my authority."

  "Yes, all right. I talked to Remson about the other matter— the Relic. That's containable. But I'm going out there to spacedock, to look at this other thing. If anything odd happens, I need to make sure you understand that I'm considering this . . . object ... as possibly dangerous to Threshold. ..."

  "So that if you disappear, I'll not just assume it's an accident?" People tended to wax theatrical when they knew you were too busy to pay attention if they didn't. "I promise, I'll look over any file you'll be so kind as to send me, Director. If you're concerned about your safety and yet insistent on going yourself, why don't you take some of your staff, or even Remson or young Reice with you?"

&n
bsp; Riva Lowe blushed. "I don't need help that badly. Remson's got his hands full, and Reice's Relic still needs to be watched. I just wanted to report, the way I said I would, if things were escalating."

  "Well, now you have. And you've gotten a reiteration from me that you have full authority to deal with this . . . thing. Whatever it is, unless it's directly threatening to disrupt my conference, I won't need to hear from you again about it until you've something more in the way of hard evidence. Until, one hopes, this conference is safely ended and all the attendees packed off to their respective solar systems. Isn't that so?"

  "Ah . . . yes, sir. Unless a threat is imminent."

  "Your job, my dear, is to make sure that doesn't happen."

  "Yes, sir." She retreated a step, her face immobile.

  "Good. Then we're done. Unless you'd care for a shrimp cocktail or a drink before you leave to risk your life examining the unknown?"

  Croft didn't wait for the intense young woman to respond to his dry invitation. He stepped through the privacy tube and back into the ken of the folk remaining in the conference room.

  A little knot of people had gathered before the tube. Remson was with them: tall, hefty, bull-necked Remson was unmistakable, with his shock-white hair and his youthful face and his welcome knack for holding things together, no matter the difficulty of the task at hand.

  Croft's aide plucked an imaginary speck of lint from his dinner jacket and said, "Ah, here's the Secretary now, and just in time. We were all ready to go ahead to the buffet without you, sir."

  Mickey Croft seriously considered putting Remson in his will.

  Behind him, the privacy tube disintegrated, and he saw, out of the corner of his eye, Riva Lowe striding determinedly toward the other exit.

  Infuriatingly officious woman. But good at her job. Croft, freed from the privacy tube and greeting Remson's handpicked clutch of lesser mullahs and other distinguished guests, was willing to wait and see whether her concern was justified before he marked her down for a reprimand later.

  If and when, of course, he ever found the time.

  CHAPTER 9

  Love Will Find a Way

  Dini Forat was having more fun than she'd thought possible. She had found paradise, here on Threshold. She had found herself.

  She was dancing with someone in a club, someone whose name she had forgotten. This someone had picked her out of a group of girls she'd met, and whisked her off in a round of sightseeing the like of which, she was sure, short, fat Dodd could never have provided.

  This someone was tall and blond and he had access to "all the best places, m'lady." He was blue-eyed and his smile was as wide as her heart.

  He was a marvelous dancer, and obviously a person of impeccable breeding. And yet, he was no boring law student or diplomatic scion. He was adventurous.

  Then she remembered: his name was Rick. He had found her and coveted her and now, she was sure, he would truly claim her.

  He had his own car, a great car as fine as Secretary Croft's, with a human driver. In it, not long ago, he had shared a treasure with her: they had eaten a strange fruit that tasted like lettuce and now her head was swimming and the air was full of colors.

  Rick had said, "Now, don't tell anybody we did this, Dini. It's not legal, but all the best fun isn't." And he'd winked, while his arm slid around her shoulders and his fingers trailed against her heaving, uplifted breasts.

  She was on fire. She was light-headed. She danced, now, with this boy again and he was incandescent against her. The music was special, here. The people were special, here. Her father couldn't find her here.

  She'd warned Rick about Father, with her head on his shoulder as the music played: "My father is very strict, the head mullah of Medina. You must understand. If we're caught together . . ." She'd let it trail off, exchanging a confidence for his earlier confidence about the little fruits called Leetles.

  "So we're both breaking some laws?" He shrugged and leaned back to look at her without breaking step. "I'm not afraid. You're worth it."

  And he'd kissed her, in public, right on the lips.

  Her heart was going to break out of her chest, she was sure. She no longer had any idea of where on Threshold she might be, but she was in the arms of the man of her dreams, and nothing else seemed to matter.

  Not the time. Not the danger. Not anything but pressing herself against him.

  Eventually, he wanted to leave. She was suddenly disheartened. What had she done to offend him?

  In his car, out on the strange level where the roof showed the stars above, she said, "I'm not going home, so you can drop me anywhere there is a hotel."

  "Of course you're going home," he said. His eyes were very wide and as blue as the sky on Medina. "I've just met you. You can't go getting in trouble until we've . . . well, until we know each other better."

  "Then let's get to know each other better, for by dawn, everyone on Threshold will be looking for me. They mustn't find me." She crossed her arms and slid against the car's doors. "I'm not going home. I'm running away. I shall stow away on a freighter and make a new life on a new colony, where no one's ever heard of Medina, or my father, or—"

  Rick reached out and put a finger to her lips. "Let's think about this. If you don't want to go home yet, perhaps you'd let me show you my place? Just for a few minutes, of course. A tour, a coffee to sober you up ... And we'll talk."

  He was so much more knowledgeable than she. His eyes bored so deeply into hers. It was as if he'd known her and she'd known him forever.

  "Talk, yes. You'll tell me all about Threshold, and about how I can evade my father's henchmen."

  "Sure thing," he said, and talked to the glass beyond which a human driver—not a bodyguard—waited for instructions.

  Then he turned back to her. "I've never met anyone like you, Dini. I don't want anything bad to happen to you. And I'm good at figuring things out. I want you to tell me as much as you can about yourself, and I'll think of some way you won't have to go back to Medina, if that's really what you want. I promise."

  "Oh, that would be—"

  His mouth silenced hers as he pulled her across the seat. One of his hands held the back of her neck. The other stroked her thigh, then kneaded it. It was as if he were a magnet, pulling her to him.

  And then, somehow, everything disappeared but the track of his fingers against her skin.

  When the car stopped, she was gasping and his hand was under her blouse.

  Nothing else was real but that touch, and when the touch was gone, she felt suddenly exposed, foolish, vulnerable and cold.

  "You're shivering," he said. "Come on, we'll fix that." His nostrils were flaring with each breath he took.

  She hardly noticed the building into which he brought her, past a doorman who bowed and greeted him as "Meester Cummings."

  She didn't care that his apartment had a clear roof and through it she could see what he assured her were real stars.

  She didn't care about the beautiful art on the walls or the coffee he made her.

  She wanted him to hold her.

  When he brought the coffee, there was an animal on his shoulder, a big, masked cat. He smiled at her and the animal seemed to smile, too.

  He said, "Let me show you the rest of the place," and with the animal still balanced on his shoulder, held out his hand. She took it.

  A thrill ran through her.

  In the bedroom, the animal hopped onto the bed. Rick sat down beside it, stroking its fur. "Pet him. He likes you. See?"

  She stroked the furry, ringed tail, and the animal reached for her hand with black, manlike fingers.

  As it took hold of her, she became suddenly very tired.

  Dini leaned back, then lay back on the bed and stared up at the stars beyond. There were no stars on the ceiling of her hotel suite. Staring at these, the points of light seemed to rotate. The motion made her dizzy. She closed her eyes.

  She heard the animal chitter, then the bed sank a bit as Rick lay
back beside her.

  "Rick," she said. "I wish to stay here. I don't want to go home. Ever."

  He rolled toward her and his breath tickled her ear. "We'll stay awhile. Then I'll take you home. You'll go, for me. We don't want to cause an incident. Then tomorrow night, we'll meet again and by then I'll have something figured out. Trust me, Dini. If you knew me better, you'd know I'm as good as my word. And I can't resist a challenge."

  His hand closed on her throat.

  She opened her eyes in surprise.

  He was staring down at her. "Any challenge," he said, and started unfastening her blouse with his other hand while he watched her face through blue, half-closed, beautiful eyes.

  She was late getting home, but home she went, a changed woman. A woman at last.

  Rick Cummings himself drove her, and all the while he was telling her not to be afraid, not to let on that anything out of the ordinary had happened, and especially not to mention his name.

  "But you don't understand," she tried to tell him. "I'm so late . . . and I ran off without my bodyguard—my escort. My father will be furious."

  "Your father will pretend nothing is wrong. He's got more at stake here than a teenage daughter's curfew," Rick Cummings predicted with worldly certainty.

  She wanted to believe him. He was the man she was going to marry. She cuddled against his arm as he stopped the car a few yards short of her hotel. "You get out here. Walk in smiling, as if nothing's wrong. You've memorized my number. Repeat it."

  She did. She'd never forget anything about this boy—this man—who'd made of her a woman. His vidphone number had seared itself into her brain the way his manhood had penetrated her heart.

  She thought he loved her. He must love her. They were risking so much together.

  "Great," he said, when she'd successfully repeated the number. "This is going to be tricky, but it'll be worth it. You do just as I say, and everything'll be fine."

  Dini could feel his passion. He, too, knew that their love was worth the risk. He was excited by it, not frightened. Even though she'd told him how dangerous it was to help her, he was not afraid.