Thresholder

The mech didn’t close the distance to the millipede city right away. There was a door at the back of the millipede, like a butt-flap, which probably led into a hangar of some kind if he had to guess. The area around the flap was replete with guns of all kinds, the most heavily defended part of the moving millipede, which reinforced the idea that it was probably one of the main entrances.

“Explain where the micromech came from,” said the voice. The mech was walking now, but only enough to keep pace with the enormous moving machine.

“It’s going to take a long time to explain,” said Perry.

“That’s fine,” said the voice.

Perry wasn’t sure how much to explain. He seemed outgunned in a very literal sense, even if the technology on the space station wasn’t that advanced. March had blown through their encryption and harvested everything there was to harvest, and even this mech seemed like it was a step down from the power armor he wore, in sophistication if not firepower. Information was one of his advantages, and it wouldn’t serve to give it up lightly.

“Are you aware of the existence of the multiverse?” asked Perry, which was a hell of an opener.

“We are aware in principle,” said the voice.

“I came here from another world, though not on purpose,” said Perry. “The armor I wear came from there.”

There was a long pause. Finally, the voice came through, still digitally masked. “Why?”

“It was an accident, like I said,” replied Perry.

“No, the micromech,” said the voice. “Why do you have it? What design constraints led to its construction?”

Perry paused, and once again, March took that as his cue to speak up in Perry’s voice. “Power armor doctrine was driven by a need for mobility and versatility as well as operation within confined, human-centric environments such as residences.”

There was another pause. “What powers the micromech?”

“That’s something we can talk about later,” said Perry. “I think we’d have a more fruitful relationship if it were possible for us to talk as equals. It’s going to be difficult to do that if I’m under arrest.”

“You seek refuge?” asked the voice.

“I do,” said Perry. “A place to sleep, a place to eat, some information about this world, and ideally, someone to call a friend.”

There was another long pause. “We are within effective range of numerous weapons. Compliance is the only path forward.”

Perry looked at the ass end of the moving city-ship. There were people on the decks, some of them looking at him, small as ants from that distance until Marchand tracked Perry’s eyes and zoomed in on the small figures. They were blonde-haired and pretty normal looking, though they didn’t fit the profile of an aircraft carrier or a Disney cruise, instead running the gamut of ages. There were quite a few children among them, and a woman with a baby.

“No,” said Perry. “The moment I landed on this planet, that suit and the information contained in its hard drives became the single most valuable object within light-years.” He hoped that translated, or that March was making the translations on the fly. “I’ll comply, but I have conditions. One of the conditions is that I won’t remove the armor until after I’m confident that you’re not going to try to kill me or take my armor. Everything is heavily encrypted and won’t work for anyone but me anyway.”

He was hoping that they didn’t think the next obvious thought, which was that he might surrender control of the power armor under torture or the threat of it, or that his encryption might be slightly less bulletproof than he was saying. Both were real concerns, but he was hoping they could make peace anyhow.

There was another long silence, but this time, rather than a reply from the mech, the butt-flap of the centipede cruiser opened up. The interior was massive, four stories tall, and Perry very briefly saw the other mechs, rows of them, with sizes ranging from the ten feet to a hunched-over fifty, nothing in the way of standardization — but what his eyes were drawn to was the small four-legged mech that came slipping out of the back on legs that looked like they’d be way too thin.

This new mech was shorter than the one he was riding, but much wider, with a thick belly that was kept off the ground by long legs. Its motion was what Perry could only think of as dorky, an awkward little goose-step that he imagined might have had some kind of reason to it.

“Go inside,” said the voice over the comms. “Power down weapons systems. This is where you’ll be quarantined. The entrance is on the top.”

Perry didn’t need to be told twice, even though he was primed to think of this as a trap. The suit had recovered at least another ten minutes of oxygen, which would help keep him from being poisoned in the short term. The filters would ideally do the rest, and those had been freshly cleaned during his time at Moon Gate, and were maybe auto-cleaning given he was second sphere.

He went over to the wide-bellied mech, which had stopped in place for him, then leapt up into the air, sword in hand, and landed on the roof of it. He was holding off on actually using the sword’s flight for the time being, because the existence of magic was going to be a whole different conversation.

The hatch was easy enough to figure out, and Perry climbed down the ladder, into the interior of the mech.

You know what, he thought, if these people have a special prison mech with some way to gas me to death, fair play to them.

The interior didn’t look like a prison, it looked like a pretty minimal hotel room with some screens in place of windows. They showed the exterior view from around the mech, and if they were meant to take the place of windows for aesthetic reasons, they failed at that. The image wasn’t even high def.

Aside from the ‘windows’, the place had a kitchen, a tiny bathroom with a sink, toilet, and shower awkwardly shoved together, and a fold-down bunk bed, with the remainder of the space being taken up by storage. Maybe a better comparison than a hotel room would be a tiny house, though in a very real sense, the mech was a tiny house, minimal square footage translated into as much room for living as possible. The whole thing swayed surprisingly little as the mech kept moving.

“Is this wise, sir?” asked Marchand.

“I have no idea,” said Perry. “Keep radio silent, don’t let them know you exist yet, and don’t give anything away unless you have to.”

“You are aware that I was built with military matters in mind, sir?” asked Marchand.

“Sure,” said Perry. “I’m partly talking to myself, I wasn’t thinking you were going to give any cryptographic keys away. We’re going to pretend, for as long as we can, that we don’t know anything about magic, that we’re not thresholders, just more mundane world hoppers, and ideally do that without any actual lies. When the other thresholder shows up, if they haven’t shown up already, we don’t want to stick out like a sore thumb, which we definitely do with the blue power armor. It doesn’t seem fashionable in this world.” Some of the mechs he’d seen were painted, and some in bright colors, but most weren’t.

“If another thresholder has already been on this world for a great deal of time, might it not be much more likely that this is a trap?” asked Marchand.

“Ah,” said Perry. That hadn’t occurred to him. He’d thought he was dealing with a civilization rather than an individual. That had been reinforced by all the looky-loos on the deck. “You’re monitoring signals?”

“I am, sir, but as I’ve said, encryption is tight,” said Marchand. “They appear to have learned a thing or two in the past three hundred years. As an aside, you would do well to assume that all communication within this … facility … is being recorded by third parties.” The word ‘year’ surprised him, given they had different words for other units.

“Shit,” said Perry. “You can’t mute our conversations to the outside?”

“It’s a matter of degree, sir,” said Marchand. “With the level of technological sophistication on display here, no, I don’t believe I can keep us secure against a prepared and determined eavesdropper.”

“Noted,” said Perry.

Perry’s misgivings about that were interrupted when the hatch up top opened up and a woman began climbing down. She was some flavor of Scandinavian, at least to look at her, with long blonde hair and an athletic build, tall and toned. The phrase ‘Nazi poster child’ popped into his head, but he was pretty sure the Nazis hadn’t liked their women like this. She dropped the last few feet off the ladder and turned to look at Perry. She had on a tank top and cargo shorts, with heavy black boots made from some kind of plastic instead of leather. Her eyes were light blue, and she smiled at Perry, then approached closer.

“There,” she said. She pointed to herself. “Someone to call a friend.”

“Er,” said Perry. “Peregrin Holzmann.”

“Yes, you said,” she replied. She had an accent, impossible to place, though Perry thought it sounded a bit like Swedish, maybe. That was what he was going to assume, until told otherwise, and since these people were probably descended from those on the spaceship, they had come from a world that was only sort of like Earth. “Brigitta Karlquist. Sorry for earlier.”

“You … were piloting the mech?” asked Perry.

“Yes,” she nodded. “And now I’m quarantined here with you, two cycles.” She looked the armor up and down, then got in closer, examining every little piece of it from the cameras to the joints. “Another world, you said?”

“How does a quarantine work if it’s just two people?” asked Perry.

“It’s not enough to see whether you’re sick, we need to know if you’ll get us sick too,” she replied. She had gotten into a squat and was looking at the ‘boots’ of the armor. “I volunteered.” She looked up at him. “And you said you wanted a friend.”

“I didn’t think it would be like this,” said Perry.

“This promena had its weapons stripped,” said Briirgitta. “And there are plenty of guns pointed at us.” She pointed to one of the screens, which showed the back end of the millipede. There were definitely weapons pointed at them. “And if something happens to me, they go off.” She pointed to a black bracelet on her wrist, which Perry gathered was probably a Fitbit or something like it.

“Got it,” said Perry. “So the stick is still there.”

“The stick?” asked Briirgitta, cocking her head to the side.

“The stick you’ll hit me with if I misbehave,” Perry replied.

“Ah,” she nodded. “Yes, it’s good to have sticks.” She got on her tiptoes to look at the suit’s helmet. “Are you going to take that off?”

“No,” said Perry. “Not yet.”

“You’re worried we’ll steal it, even though you’ve said you locked it?” asked Brigitta.

“Yes,” said Perry.

Brigitta shrugged. “Fine.” She was trying to look him in the eyes, but couldn’t decide where to look. “How long can you stay in it?”

“A long time,” said Perry.

She clucked her tongue and continued looking him over. “Are you human beneath there?”

“Yeah,” said Perry. “More or less.”

“Because if there’s another world, is there a reason it should have humans instead of aliens?” asked Brigitta.

“I don’t know,” said Perry. “But I’m human.”

“More or less?” asked Brigitta.

“I don’t know what DNA testing would show,” said Perry. “Maybe the same, maybe not.” Perry had no idea whether the spirit root or being a werewolf would change anything, or if the alternate world he came from would have different genetic markers. Probably? He also didn’t know if they would call it DNA, and expected she would call it something different.

“So you poop?” asked Brigitta.

“I what?” asked Perry.

“Poop?” asked Brigitta. “Defecate?” She pointed at the toilet. “We do it there, liquid and solid waste, dumped into management. Your suit handles that?”

“No,” said Perry. There was an option for a catheter, but Perry had never used one. He had pissed himself while wearing the suit, early on when he was playing a knight on Seraphinus, and had then spent most of a day cleaning it up and washing his skinsuit. That had been a nightmare, but it had allowed him to win a siege.

“Then you need to come out soon enough,” said Brigitta, nodding to herself. “You have water, in the suit?”

“Yes,” said Perry. There was a small bladder which he’d filled with boiled water. It was just about empty. From Perry’s experience, it was best to save the last few drops to wet his mouth when he was feeling uncomfortably dehydrated. Per the original design, the internal bladder wasn’t supposed to be reused much if at all, but overengineering had meant that he’d gone half a year on the same wonder-plastic bladder being repeatedly filled and emptied, sometimes with less than pure water.

“Hmm,” said Brigitta. “I’ll wait then, for you to feel safe.” She went over to the fold out bunk beds. With a smooth motion she unfolded the bottom one from the wall, then sat down on it, laying back.

“You won’t talk to me until the armor is off?” asked Perry.

She shrugged. “We can talk.”

“I’m a foreigner,” said Perry. “I’m under the impression you don’t have a lot of them here. I have things you probably want — information — and you have things that I want, mostly information, protection, food, water —”

“Kitchen is there,” said Brigitta, pointing at the tiny food prep area. “Bottom drawers have meals, just heat and eat. Water is triple-filtered, same stuff we drink on the Natrix.” She pointed above her. “Place to sleep too, if you need it.”

Perry kept his eyes on her. She wasn’t treating this like it was high diplomacy, nor like he could kill her in an instant, nor like she had giant guns pointed right at them and ready to fire. She was, in fact, lounging on the bunk bed, propped up by her elbows.

“Fine,” said Perry.

He removed the helmet first, and finally got his first smell of the place. It was sharply metallic and synthetic in a dirty way, sealants that hadn’t quite set and lubricants that were evaporating or aeresolizing. Small fans were circulating air, and he could smell the filters. Mostly though, he could smell her.

Brigitta had a salty tang to her, from sweat that wasn’t quite dried, but there were so many other smells layered on top of her that it was hard to make out. She smelled of gunpowder and grease, of metal filings and corroded bolts, and there was sawdust in there too, mixed with a bit of dried blood. He hadn’t realized it when he’d been in his suit, but she was fresh out of a mech suit, where she must have been for hours.

“You’re handsome,” she said. She was looking at his face. “Lots of hair. Kempt.”

Perry had a bit of a beard, which he’d had trouble keeping in check since becoming a werewolf. Probably there was some kind of meridian that controlled hair growth he could try to strangle, but it hadn’t been a priority.

“Thanks,” said Perry.

She was beautiful, in that tall Nordic way. She had sharp incisors and a way of smiling that showed them off, and she was laying on the bed like it was an invitation. Perry was probably reading it wrong, he was well aware of that, but he felt an instant attraction to her.

The attraction was soured a moment later when he realized the similarities to Richter.

Richter had been an engineer, a highly paid one who had made her fortune and then bought her way into fabrication and testing of power armor. She had been, in some sense, a mech pilot, if you counted the power armor as a mech. She’d had the same sort of curiosity that Brigitta was showing, a probing inquisitive nature that had been directed toward what she considered to be one of the greatest discoveries a person could make.

Perry took off the rest of the armor, feeling a bit more circumspect. He was left in clothes from Worm Gate, silks that clung to his skin and helped to keep the suit from chafing, not that it was much of an issue anymore. Once he was free from the armor, all its individual pieces removed, he stretched out as a matter of habit, reaching up to touch the ceiling and then rotating his joints.

“Can I see the armor?” asked Brigitta.

“I feel like you won’t want to talk about anything else,” said Perry.

“You’re right we don’t get many foreigners,” said Brigitta. “Another world, I don’t know if I believe that, but the armor I do believe, because I see it here. And you, I think, are probably just a man like other men.”

“I guess I might be,” said Perry. “I don’t know what your men are like.”

“So can I see the armor?” asked Brigitta. Her eyes had gone to it again.

“Sure,” said Perry. “I’m going to get something to eat and drink. Don’t take anything apart.”

Perry took a metal cup from the shelves and filled it from the sink, sniffing the water before he drank any. There was a mild chemical smell to it, maybe bleach or some other disinfectant, or fluoride if that was something they added in. He questioned how much it had actually been triple filtered. Maybe he was smelling whatever they used to clean the tank. It was still a step up from Teaguewater.

The meals were in a tiny fridge, one made of metal rather than plastic, with a build up of ice near the top. Each of the meals was inside a metal container, sealed with a little latch, and the first one that Perry opened was three kinds of sludge, one brown, one orange, and one white. The smells were good though, with the orange one sweet and spiced, and once he found a metal fork, he was quickly eating, not bothering to figure out the heater.

Meanwhile, Brigitta was looking over the armor.

“This is a failure point,” she said, turning the helmet to Perry. “What happens when the screen goes dark?”

“It’s resilient,” said Perry. “Mostly, the screen doesn’t go dark. And if it does, I take the helmet off.”

He ate some more as she poked around.

“How do you control it?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” asked Perry. “It amplifies strength, you move, it moves.”

“No,” Brigitta, shaking her head. “It’s more than that, there’s a weapon in the shoulder, and there are cameras, microphones, all sorts of things, filters, air intake, but — how does it work?”

“Ah,” said Perry. “It’s … complicated.” The real answer was the AI co-pilot, but he wanted to keep March under wraps for as long as possible.

“Fine, keep your secrets,” said Brigitta with a shrug. “In time though, yes?”

“Yes,” nodded Perry. He looked down at his empty metal tray. “Can I have seconds? It’s been a while since I’ve eaten.”

“It’s fine,” said Brigitta with a wave.

Perry opened the second pack. If the first pack had been potatoes, pumpkin, and pork, then the second pack was spinach, rice, and some chicken. That wasn’t actually what they were, his nose was well aware of that, but he couldn’t place what the foods were, if they were anything he would recognize.

“Alright, tell me about you and your people,” he said.

“Hrm,” said Brigitta. “You know nothing?”

“More or less,” said Perry.

“You came to this world without a clue?” she asked.

Perry nodded.

“The planet is Esperide,” said Brigitta. “Fire on one side, ice on the other, and a thin strip of moving life between them. That’s where we are now. Go too far west, you get frozen, too far east, you get burnt. Our people were space-farers, with ships that could hop between the stars, but one day the big station exploded and stranded us down here. Natrix is our home, more or less, moving to keep from having too much sun shining down on us, like the plants and animals move.”

“The plants move?” asked Perry.

“Some,” said Brigitta. “The winds move east to west, and carry seeds, so many plants grow in the ice then mature in the twilight zone until they get too hot and toss their seeds into the wind. The movement is slow, a tenth-famen a cycle, two hundred cycles for the westernmost portion of the twilight zone to become the easternmost. We migrate, as the animals do. Most of the time the Natrix stays still, a month in one place before a week of travel to the next.” Perry’s translation kicked in late for ‘tenth-famen’, which was about a mile, and ‘cycle’, which was about a day. He gave a silent prayer of thankfulness that he wouldn’t have to bother with learning their units of measure, because he was pretty sure tenth-famen had already been heard and forgotten.

“You have a lot of guns for nomads,” said Perry.

“We are not nomads,” said Brigitta. “We are temporarily displaced star-travelers.”

“With a return to the stars on the horizon?” asked Perry.

Brigitta shrugged. “It is the work of generations.” She got up from the bed and stretched out, long arms to the sides, and when she lifted them up behind her head, Perry saw her exposed midriff. When she finished the stretch, she stared at him. “No, we’re not getting off this planet.”

“Why not?” asked Perry.

“Your people have crossed universes,” said Brigitta. “According to you, anyway. Could you take us with you?”

“No,” said Perry. “I don’t really have it … under control.”

“I thought not,” said Brigitta. “You don’t come across as someone who got here on purpose. Not a diplomat, maybe a soldier, not prepared for first contact.”

Perry shrugged. “I did my best.”

“And in your world, do they have a way to get across the stars?” asked Brigitta.

“No,” said Perry. “We just had the planet we were born on.”

“Our people had spread far and wide in our home system,” said Brigitta. “We had a population of a hundred billion. They found a way to slip out of time and space, at great expense, projects so large a single person couldn’t hold even a fraction of a fraction of them in their head. With all their might, they became capable of colonies on other worlds.”

“Alright,” Perry said.

“We have nine thousand people,” said Brigitta. She turned to the monitors. “Esperide is not a planet like the one our ancestors knew. It’s not a gentle planet, it’s a place of extremes, constant motion, the threat of heat and cold. I could spend a day telling you about the problems with logistics, with resource extraction, getting anything more than fuel, water, and food.” She turned back to Perry. “The wildlife here is a constant threat.”

“The bugs?” asked Perry.

“The bugs,” nodded Brigitta. “You saw the infants feeding. When they get large and fat in the waning twilight, they move on us, large groups all at once. They die, but it’s a constant drain, and comes with costs.”

“You were out there to kill the infants,” said Perry. “That’s why you had so many guns?”

Brigitta paused for just long enough to be suspicious. “It’s one of the reasons I was out there. Maybe someday the work of generations will come to fruition, maybe we’ll spread across this ribbon of liveable land, have a hundred like the Natrix, but we’re staving off a death of a thousand cuts.” She sat back down on the bunk bed. “You understand my interest in your micromech?”

“I do,” said Perry. “And whatever help I can offer to help you get off this planet, to reunite with the civilization your ancestors came from —”

“It’s unclear whether they still exist,” said Brigitta. “The space station was struck down three hundred years ago. Travel between the stars was rare, but not that rare. From what we know, there were yearly journeys to refuel and resupply, or to bring people home. Either we were abandoned, or they found themselves in no position to help us. Reunion isn’t what we hope for.”

“A more verdant home then,” said Perry with a nod.

Brigitta nodded back.

“You don’t happen to have brought a wealth of schematics and knowledge between worlds, did you?” asked Brigitta.

Perry frowned. “Before I get to that … there are other people, like me, that travel between worlds. We’re opposed in one way or another. When I said I needed food, water, and a place to rest my head, I was leaving out the other help that I might need. Access to your surveillance capability would be a start, and the use of your guns would go a long way, but a pact — a promise — is what I’m after.”

“Worlds?” asked Brigitta. “More than one?”

“Yeah,” said Perry. “This is the sixth world I’ve been to. There will be someone like me, probably without the micromech, with technology or powers or something. And if you can protect me, then I can do my best to solve all your problems. You let me know who I can talk to, who I can make deals with.”

Brigitta pointed at herself.

“You have authority?” asked Perry.

“I do,” she said. For a moment it seemed as though she might not elaborate. Instead, she crossed her arms. “I run engineering.” She said it like a boast.

Perry thought about this for a moment. “You’re young,” he said. It was hard to peg, but she was, at most, in her mid-thirties, and maybe much younger.

“What of it?” asked Brigitta.

“Senior positions go to people with experience,” said Perry. “That’s all.” Senior positions also went to people who knew someone, like the daughter of someone important.

“I apprenticed when I was ten,” said Brigitta. “I have fifteen years experience. The new breed, they’re all with my input. The updates to the Natrix, that’s me. Chemical processing lines, the new maintenance schema, it’s fallen on my shoulders.”

Perry was watching her. The defense response was almost immediate, and he had no idea whether it was backed up by material reality. The whole thing smelled funny to him, which was compounding with the other things she wasn’t telling him.

On the one hand, she seemed pretty straightforward, maybe even fun, in the way Richter had been. On the other hand, it was no coincidence she’d put herself in a position to be the one to talk to him, alone, on behalf of her whole colony. Maybe it wasn’t a calculated move, but it was the kind of thing that he would have done, or that someone might have done. Maybe she was just the sort of person who took charge and got things done, and getting all the negotiation done with him was a part of that.

“Heavy burdens,” said Perry. “I know a thing or two about that.”

“You help us get off this planet, we’ll protect you with our lives, and more importantly, our guns,” said Brigitta.

“Deal,” said Perry.