Thresholder, ch 176, Culture Clash

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My aim is for a new chapter of Thresholder at least once a week, ideally on Mondays (today is Tuesday).

~~~~

Perry came out of the Farfinder to find them nearly at the point of standoff. Guns had not been drawn, but it was clearly a close thing, and more than one hand was touching a grip.

“It’s not like that, you imbecile,” said Dirk Gibbons. “There are a million worlds out there, and they’re all different from each other. The fact we’re speaking the same language, it’s a part of it, but the words don’t match up with each other all the time, the concepts aren’t the same.” He turned to look at Perry. “Tell them.”

“Sorry, what’s the matter?” asked Perry.

“It’s the matter of elves,” said Hella. “The word means something else here.”

“It’s not the word,” said Purple. “It’s the seeming as well. Lustful creatures, wild creatures, fey blood, visible in his memory.”

“It’s a cultural misunderstanding, that’s it,” said Hella. She had her hands folded across her chest.

“Sorry, can we get names?” asked Perry. “If we’re not going to come to blows, and I think it’s in everyone’s interest to take that off the table, then I want to know who we’re dealing with here.”

“Paul Amanaco,” said the guy that Perry had been calling Yellow.

“Do you have a title, Paul?” asked Perry.

“Do you?” asked Paul.

“Thresholder,” said Perry. So far as he’d been able to find out, that meant nothing here, but if it did, and these people knew it, better to get it out in the open. It would help to explain about Queenie. There was no recognition in anyone’s eyes though. “You can call me Perry, Perry Holzmann.”

“I’m the Head of Walkers,” said Paul Amanaco. “Call me Amanaco.”

“I’ve been here for some time,” said Perry. “I haven’t heard of Walkers, if that’s … your organization?” He looked around. They had uniforms, at least.

“The name is not Walkers,” said Purple. “It’s different, more cloaked, a collective that exists outside the permeable barriers of the Commission, if you’re familiar, in much the same way that entities exist outside the permeable barriers of this world.” He looked at Dirk. “Including the fey. And if the fey are involved, then names should not be passed from person to person. Mine, for this conversation, will be Pippin Lindgard.”

“An alias?” asked Green, whose name Perry already knew. “So late?” He turned to Perry. “Rynn van Hegel.”

“Good, sorted,” said Perry. Marchand had helpfully labeled them all in the HUD. “Now, tell me what you think an elf is.”

“Fey,” said Amanaco. “Tricksters. You can tell them by the ears, but they know that, so they hide them, the women with long hair and the men with broad-brimmed hats. They’re gracile, beautiful, and incredibly immoral. They kill for sport. They can’t lie. They trick people with their words, but words can also bind them. Silver is proof against them — they won’t take it. And we kill them on sight.”

“Right,” said Perry. “Sounds like a bad kind of thing to have around. But the word and concept exists across worlds, and it means different things. In the world that Dirk comes from, they’re a species of near-human that goes into a cocoon, like a butterfly, being reborn every few decades. Are your elves like that?”

“No,” said Amanaco. “At least, not to my knowledge.”

“And there are other elves,” said Perry. “On other worlds. The same word means different things. Okay?”

“A misunderstanding,” said Amanaco, nodding. His hand had left the butt of his gun. “But you can understand how, if he calls it that, and shows it to us, that we might think he’s from a foul civilization.”

“Show us these cocoons then,” said Purple/Lindgard. “Conjure the image of them.”

“It’s private,” said Dirk. “I’ve never seen one in person. They’re not put on display. And even if they were, what would that get you?”

“I’ve seen one,” said Perry. “Will that do?”

“When?” asked Dirk. “Where?”

“You know I’ve seen a lot,” said Perry.

“Show us then,” said Rynn. “Display the truth of your assertion. Push the image to me, here.” He gave a sample image to Perry, a simple wooden room, just to establish the link between them, and Perry immediately pushed back with an image of a cocoon.

“Fascinating,” said Rynn.

“This doesn’t clear them,” said Amanaco. “We still need proper interrogation, more information from them about the world they come from. Just because they’re not demons, or working with them, that doesn’t mean that they might not be bringing some pollution here.”

“With your permission, I’d like to return to Charlonion,” said Perry. “I can take the wounded with me, and we can find a doctor there, though your medical technology is lacking.”

“Permission denied,” said Amanaco. “The Walkers exist to prevent breaches from beyond this world, and this is definitely a breach, whether you’re demons or fey or anything else.”

“We need someone to stay behind, to anchor the ship,” said Perry. “That’s your leverage over me.”

“Every moment out in the Dusklands is a risk,” said Amanaco. “We’re not staying out here, we don’t have the food and water for it, and we’re not leaving one of your people alone, anchor or not.”

Perry thought again about trying to kill them all. He would need to get Hella and Dirk into the safety of the shelf space if he was going to attempt that.

“I can hold my own here,” said Hella. “I’m the logical choice to stay.”

Amanaco grimaced. “This thing can fly?”

“Not currently,” said Hella. “It’s going to take a few days of work, and that’s only a guess, because I’m not an engineer. We have two of those, but both are injured, and my guess is that Perry is taking them to the hospital.”

“Fine,” said Amanaco. He rubbed his chin. “Then you stay, I’ll stay, and the rest will head back.”

“Is that wise?” asked Rynn.

“Not particularly,” said Amanaco. “But I can hold my own better than any of them, and it’s a gesture of goodwill. Sleeping arrangements … we have a door, at least, and there aren’t too many moons I’m worried about.”

“Moons?” asked Hella.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Perry. “He can fill you in. I need to get moving. Dirk?”

“If I’m free to leave, yes,” said Dirk, looking around with an undiplomatic scowl on his face.

“I suppose we’re not going to stop you, so long as we have leverage,” said Amanaco. He looked at the ship. “This thing doesn’t fly without my say so, that’s clear?”

“Clear,” said Perry.

He opened up the shelf space, and Dirk went in without further discussion. The Walkers regarded this display of magic with curiosity but no questions, and before they could grill him, Perry lifted off up into the air, leaving them below him. It was slower to fly, but he wanted a good overview of the land, which would stay mostly fixed if two people were staying down there.

“We do need to fix the computer, sir,” said Marchand.

“Later,” said Perry. “When we come back.”

“If Amanaco takes Hella and leaves, the ship will disappear, sir,” said Marchand. “We would be stranded.”

“No,” said Perry. “We would just portal out. But I take your meaning, it would make it much more difficult and less likely for us to ever get back to Earth 2.”

“Yes, sir,” said Marchand.

“You have schematics for building a new jump drive, don’t you?” asked Perry.

“I do, sir,” said Marchand. “But it would be difficult in this world, and the primary component that the Farfinder hopefully brought with them is the ability to aim the portal, which might be more difficult to synthesize.”

This was all true, and Perry didn’t have that much more to add. He was hoping that they had some kind of weapon to help him against Queenie, who was the immediate concern. He would also have to protect them against Queenie, not just in the sense of staying alive, but also keeping their minds from being broken by the machine.

It was only then that he realized just how much of a threat they represented to each other — Queenie on one side, trying to tear apart a civilization so it could hopefully rebuild itself without social obligations and roles, and the Farfinder on the other, trying to bridge the universes to each other. If Queenie learned about their existence and mission, she would aim her guns, metaphorical or otherwise, right at their heads.

~~~~

Perry dipped down into Charlonion, trying his best not to be seen, but it was still daylight and he was one of the only things in the air. He slipped into the shelf space as quickly as he could, and saw the assembled people he’d stuffed in there waiting for him. Thankfully, Grayspear was still chained up.

“No changes with Eggy?” asked Perry.

“Stable, for now,” said Mette.

“We’re away?” asked Dirk. “Hella’s with them? No complications?”

“None,” said Perry. “We’re taking them at their word, and hoping that Hella has enough power to blast them out of there.” He paused. “She does have powers, doesn’t she?”

“She does,” said Mette.

Perry took his helmet off and began stripping his armor off. “We’re going to get Eggy to what passes for medical care soon, I’ve been running on aura and werewolf powers.”

“We have a stock of teeth,” said Mette. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to give her one if we can’t contain her, but you could, in theory, overpower her for the duration.”

“Doable,” said Perry. “Not ideal. Oh, also, the moons are weird here, the effects variable, I don’t have a full database yet.”

“Wonderful,” Mette grimaced. She was a werewolf too, which Perry often forgot.

“I don’t fully understand what’s going on here,” said Anaksi. She had Grayspear in chains. Anaksi’s dagger was drawn, and it was clear that the subject of the captive and the dagger were both being avoided for the time being.

“I don’t either,” said Grayspear. “Though I suppose I’m not leaving captivity anytime soon, unless there’s a chance of rescue?”

“I do want the story,” said Dirk. “But until I get that story, I’m trusting Perry, sorry.”

“Who are these people?” asked Anaksi.

“They were supposed to introduce themselves,” said Perry. He looked around. “That’s Mette, she’s from a world with giant bugs and walking machines, she’s a werewolf. That’s Dirk, he’s from a world where there’s no war or conflict — he’s a clone, a duplicate of other Dirks, an agent of their culture. Eggy is the one who’s unconscious, I don’t know where she’s from, she’s our engineer.”

“I’m our engineer, she’s our science officer,” said Mette.

“Right,” said Perry. He kept stripping his armor off. “And then there’s Hella, who we left behind, she’s from a world like the one I was originally from.”

“Where the indigenous peoples died?” asked Anaksi.

“I actually never asked, but yes, almost certainly it was the same story as on my Earth, and Marchand’s,” said Perry. He turned to the others. “This is Anaksi, a member of the Eshkee tribe. Their tribe was attacked by Queenie, in a manner of speaking, she’s the other thresholder, we’ve been going at it for a little bit. She has a weapon that can erase a person’s social and familial affiliations, which almost certainly would include any shared sense of purpose in this group. She also has a sniper rifle and can hit a target from maybe as much as a mile away, so if you go out of this shelf, you’re in immediate danger.”

“Lovely,” said Dirk.

“I don’t have any idea where Queenie is,” said Perry. “She could be in Charlonion, that’s the only major city here, where we’re going to exit from shortly, or she could be somewhere else. I’m hoping that we can get the panopticon back online?”

“We’d need the computers back online,” said Mette. “But the magic for that is available, yes, in greatly reduced capacity, no ability to do a full search. We’d have to follow her worldline. That’s assuming that we can get the computer back up and running, and that we don’t run into a million other problems along the way.”

“I’m going to get Eggy to a doctor,” said Perry. “They’ll make sure she’s stable, fix whatever is wrong with her, then we’ll get back to Hella and hope that things haven’t blown up.”

“Sorry,” said Dirk. “Are you going to explain the prisoner or what?”

“Oh,” said Perry. “This Doctrix Grayspear, she invented the device that wipes people’s connections and worked with Queenie, we’re holding her in the hopes that she can figure out a way to reverse it.”

“Unlikely,” said Grayspear.

“Unlikely,” Perry agreed. “And if this world is going to be a waystation in the Loop, which it’s enormously ill-suited for, then obviously we need to do some serious work here, which is going to start with not letting Queenie make everyone here into an asocial savage.” He considered only afterward that perhaps ‘savage’ wasn’t the right word to use, but the motley collection of people assembled weren’t going to call him on it.

“For what it’s worth, I don’t want the machine unleashed,” said Grayspear. “Not in that form.”

“That’s for later,” said Perry, holding up a hand. He’d completed his costume change and was checking himself over. He looked normal enough. They were probably looking for him, but not looking that hard. Queenie was also watching, which was the bigger problem. “There’s a chance that when I step out there, I’m going to get a bullet in the head and this whole thing is over. If that happens, you’ll need to get out of the shelf and catch a ride through the portal, because congratulations, you’re thresholders now.”

“If you die, we stay here and wait for another ship from Markat,” said Dirk.

“Is it coming?” asked Perry.

“Probably,” said Dirk. “The resources have been put toward it. Not on a timeline to help us though, and you’re not the only one they’re sending a ship after, just the biggest dog in the pile.”

“And there’s a way to alter the landing?” asked Perry.

“We should get Eggy out of here, if their doctors really can help,” said Mette.

“Right,” said Perry. “But answer the question.”

“It’s untested,” said Mette. “We didn’t have a way to test it. But … maybe. Call it a 60% chance, if we can get back to the ship, if the computers can be brought online, if Eggy is there to help me troubleshoot. And if all that goes right, we’re depending on Markat science and technology that was mostly theoretical.”

“Great,” nodded Perry. He went over to Eggy and frowned at her. “I’m going to find the doctor, close down his practice, then pull out Eggy. Back soon.”

“Try not to get shot in the head,” said Dirk.

“No promises,” said Perry.

He was anxious moving through the city streets while worried about Queenie, but there was no way to get any medical attention while wearing the armor — or at least, not without also attracting a whole lot of attention that Perry didn’t want. He had his cowboy hat on and was keeping his face shielded, but there was too much about him that drew the eye. He was going to have to get a bucket of dirt and position it next to the entrance to shelf space, just so he could have everything more roughed up. As it was, incidental second sphere fixes had made him too clean and put together.

Finding a doctor wasn’t all that hard, but finding out that he thought wouldn’t immediately rat him out was more difficult, and he was very conscious of the ticking clock. He eventually found a small place with a sign in the front and no obvious foot traffic, which he slipped into with a feeling of relief that he hadn’t been shot — he’d been watching his sightlines, though he was fairly sure that Queenie wasn’t camping out and watching random streets for him.

Perry was mildly surprised that the doctor — doctrix, technically — was a woman. She was short and blonde, so short that it was notable, with a fair few ten-year-old boys probably clearing her height. She was wearing white, unspotted with blood, and looked Perry over.

“You need services?” she asked.

“My friend is badly injured,” said Perry. “What I need is for you to set her right. Is there a bed I can put her on?”

The woman looked behind Perry for a moment, then back at him. “Your … friend?”

Perry waved a hand and opened up the shelf space. “In there,” he said. “But I don’t want to move her unless it’s to a bed.”

The doctor nodded slowly. “I have a bed, let’s see her.”

Perry went into the shelf space, and was mildly relieved to see that Grayspear had been cleared off, almost certainly put behind a screen somewhere to shield her from view, and also probably with a knife to her throat. Anaksi and Dirk were both also absent, probably hiding behind a blanket.

“Here,” said Perry.

The doctor moved in slowly, but when she saw Eggy sitting there, she moved faster.

“You can deal with this?” asked Perry.

“In the here and now, yes,” said the doctor as she looked at the wounds and probed Eggy. “Her life will hang in the balance over the next few days. Infection and sepsis would be what would kill her, if something did.”

“I can help with that,” said Perry. “What are you doing in the short term?”

“You, ah, burned the liver?” asked the doctor.

“Cauterized the wounds, yes,” said Perry.

“I see,” said the doctor. “Then what she needs is to lay in a bed and rest up. There’s not much to be done, aside from cleaning her up. And it’s likely that she’ll die.”

“That’s it?” asked Perry. “You can’t give her blood?”

“Blood?” asked the doctor with a slight laugh. “Ekker’s technique?”

“Yes,” said Perry.

“You know that’s liable to kill a person, don’t you?” asked the doctor.

“I have instructions on how to do it properly, if we’re talking about the same thing,” said Perry. “But getting a doctor to do something that I could do on my own … you can do it?”

“I have tools,” said the doctor with a nod. “If you want Ekker’s, if you can speak for this woman, then yes. And then all that’s to be done is to clean her up, give her something for the pain, sit her in a bed, and pray to the sun.”

“Fine,” said Perry. “Get your equipment, we’ll do it here.”

“Here?” asked the doctor. “This … strange place?”

“We can’t keep her in your bed,” said Perry. “You get the stuff for Ekker’s.”

He followed her out, not trusting her, and closed the space after himself.

“You’re not with the Commission, are you?” asked the doctor as she gathered material from her shelf. Perry had expected rubber hoses and a frighteningly thick needle, but she was gathering up very different material instead, including an implement that looked like a gyroscope and a small rock that had been bound with delicate string.

“I’m not, no,” said Perry. “Sorry, what are you doing?”

“Ekker’s,” said the doctor. “A connection to the Reservoir of Blood.”

“This is safe?” asked Perry.

“Not at all,” said the doctor. “So far as I can tell, it will increase her chances of survival, but it might also kill her.” She looked at Perry. “If you don’t want it for her, that’s not my business, but as a doctor, it’s what I think is best.”

“I don’t actually have any special techniques to help you then,” said Perry. “We’d be flying blind.”

“I’ve done Ekker’s before,” said the doctor. “The biggest risk is that she fills up with more blood than she needs. The heart needs to work hard to compensate for the volume, blood backs up into the lungs, it’s a disaster that you’re not likely to recover from. But you were the one to suggest Ekker’s.”

“No, I was going to suggest a different technique,” said Perry. “But fine, use Ekker’s, it’s not as though we have blood types anyway.” For all he knew, Eggy was a different, incompatible type of human altogether. And yes, that meant that Ekker’s technique, whatever it was, also came with risks.

The doctor returned to the shelf space without complaint and set up above Eggy, first stripping her shirt entirely, then setting the bound stone just between her breasts and holding the thing that looked like a gyroscope on top of it.

The doctor began to chant, and Perry was a little surprised to find that he couldn’t translate, though it was monotonous enough that maybe it wasn’t a language at all. The gyroscope spun wildly in the doctor’s hands, but after three minutes, it slowed down and the doctor quickly yanked everything away from the body.

“Done,” said the doctor. She felt for Eggy’s pulse and nodded. “I don’t think I killed her.”

“Great,” said Perry. “The blood came from … ?”

“We don’t know,” said the doctor. She looked at Perry. “Is this one of those situations where I’m meant to look after her now?”

“No,” said Perry. “Clean the wounds, then you can go, with ample payment.”

“And my mouth shut?” asked the doctor.

Perry nodded.

He watched as the wounds were cleaned and treated, mostly to make sure that nothing happened. Eggy was given some painkillers, thick pills that she was forced to swallow, and a blanket was placed on top of her once the gauze was in place. The doctor gave detailed instructions, but they were mostly about the infection risks and getting through the worst of the pain.

He gave her a fair amount of money for her trouble, gold that she would have to change. When she had left with a second glance back at Eggy, Perry slipped out of her office, down the alley, and into the city before finding a hidden spot and going back into the shelf.

“This is what we’re dealing with here?” asked Dirk. “This place is rotten.”

“Rotten?” asked Perry. “Why?”

“Paying for medical care,” said Dirk.

Perry laughed. Of all the things to get on their case about, it wasn’t the ritual that pulled in blood from nowhere, probably from an entity like Shoreboth, it was that you had to pay for your doctors. He realized he hadn’t warned Dirk that this was also true of Earth 2, though he actually didn’t know whether it was — perhaps they had socialized medicine too, he had just never had cause to use it right up until the end. It was likely that Marchand, or the copy of Marchand, had given a better download of the information than Perry ever could.

“Mette, you’ve talked to Marchand?” asked Perry. “You understand what will need to be done to get the Farfinder back online?”

“I have workable theories,” said Mette. “March seems to have a better handle on it than I do. Three to six hours is my current estimate.”

“Which means as much as twelve hours, from past experience,” said Perry.

“Depends on if Eggy is able to help,” said Mette. “I knew we should have brought another Eggy.”

“Wasn’t room,” said Dirk. “And it’s a good thing we planned for the worst case.”

“Feh,” said Mette.

“Oh, there’s a dead body in here, just to warn you,” said Perry. “We’re trying to use it to give me better powers, in theory I’d be able to tank a bullet to the head if it works right, but it’s down to Grayspear. Mette, you’ll probably be working with her. Right now, the priority is finding Queenie and minimizing the damage she can do, while also keeping her from finding out about the Farfinder, something that’s going to be impossible if we limp into Charlonion with it.”

“If Eggy is stable, we should get back to Hella,” said Mette. “I don’t trust those people.”

“No,” said Perry. “I don’t either. Armoring up, then I’m out.” He started grabbing pieces from the ground. He’d really hoped that at some point he’d come across a power that let him have the armor on and off instantly, but no. “Also, I have the power to look into any bit of the past that someone presents me, let me know if that comes in handy.”

“Right, of course,” said Mette. “Naturally you have that power.”

“Same as they used back there?” asked Dirk.

“Yes,” said Perry. “Not sure how it interacts with clones — you’re a clone, right?”

“I am,” said Dirk. “We’ve met.”

“Sure,” said Perry. He put the legs and boots on, moving as fast as he could. “I think we’re on the same page. Anything else I need to know?”

“No,” said Mette. “It’s all in your hands. We’ll keep your prisoner, I guess, but it seems like you haven’t endeared yourself to the locals.”

“As Perry, I’m a wanted man,” said Perry. “With the armor on, I’m also a wanted man, for different reasons. But I’m hoping that we can sweep all this under the rug as the inevitable bumps and warts of first contact.”

Dirk held up a hand. “The less I know, the better. We’re still going to have to do diplomacy with these assholes.”

“Strong start,” said Mette. “Calling them assholes.”

Dirk rolled his eyes.

The two of them had apparently spent some time together, and they talked like they were friends, or at least colleagues, in a way that made Perry slightly uncomfortable. Bonds, of a sort, had formed in his absence. He didn’t feel left out, necessarily, but there was familiarity and context he was entirely missing, and no way for Marchand to get him up to speed, not until the AI had spent some time talking to them and taking in their conversations.

Perry slipped out of the shelf space, armor in place, and ascended into the air, tensed up and waiting for another hit from the sniper rifle. The armor was thankfully stronger, the alloy blend and second sphere enough to overcome a hit or two, but it was still nerve-wracking to think that at any moment he might get violently hit and need to immediately go into combat. He didn’t enjoy that — it felt like Queenie wasn’t fighting fair.

It took time to fly back out to where Hella was, and after Perry was free of Charlonion without bullets flying his way, he dropped to the ground and started running, covering ground far faster, burning through some of his energy reserves.

The terrain he flew over was different, and he was depending more on the radio signal than anything else. The message was still on a loop, which was a good sign. Perry was hoping that it would just be Hella and Amanaco, the better to put himself in a position of power. He prepared himself for the negotiations.

But when he arrived at the Farfinder, the bullets were flying.