Further: Beyond the Threshold by Chris Roberson Read Free Book Online Page B

glances like devout fans unsure what to do now that they’d caught a pop idol’s attention. Which, I suppose in a way, I was, not that I deserved it. All I’d managed to do was not die yet.
    As I approached, the group reluctantly separated out from the rest, and I was able to get a better look at them. There were three of them—two men and a woman. If I squinted, the two men might have passed for 20C Americans, but they wouldn’t have stood up to any kind of scrutiny. They wore suits, ties, and hats such as were common in that era, but exaggerated to ridiculous extremes. The result was a sort of stylized zoot suit, such as those worn by lecherous wolves in old Tex Avery cartoons. As I drew near, the look on their faces was so hungry, so near lust, that I almost fancied I could see their hearts pounding out of their ribcages, their tongues rolling out like red carpets.
    The woman, for her part, was dressed in a form-fitting body stocking that left her arms and legs bare, with high flared boots and an elaborate headpiece, all in bright and contrasting primary colors. A cape hung from her shoulders and fluttered slightly in the breeze. I thought she might have been meant to resemble a circus performer, but the geometric design that served as a belt buckle was more suggestive of a logo or shield, and I realized she was dressed as some variety of superheroine.
    “Um, hello again?” I gave a little wave, stopping just in front of the trio.
    They exchanged excited glances, and then all began speaking at once, loudly.
    “Shall I translate?” my escort said in my ear.
    I winced at the volume of their voices, and nodded.
    In the next instant, three voices shouting in English issued from the eagle’s silver beak, the words all blending into one another.
    I held up my hands. “One at a time, one at a time, please!”
    The trio fell briefly silent, exchanged more nervous glances, and nodded. The superwoman took half a step forward and presented me with some sort of salute.
    “We welcome you, O Captain,” came her voice from the eagle’s mouth, after she once more began to speak. “We would be honored if your august person would join us for the evening meal—”
    One of the zoot suits reached over and tapped superwoman on the shoulder, and in strangely accented English, said aloud, “ Grub. ”
    The superwoman glanced daggers back at him, but nodded. “…would join us for grub ,” continued her voice from the eagle, “in the plaza just north of the public threshold terminus on Cronos, at local sunset.”
    I turned my attention to my escort.
    “Is that far from here?” I asked.
    The eagle made a slight noise that, in other circumstances, I might have interpreted as laughter. “No, sir,” it said after a considerable pause. “Nowhere in the Entelechy is what you might classify as ‘far.’ Cronos is a terraformed world in orbit of the star your era named Eighteen Scorpio. Though it is forty-five-point-seven light-years from Sol in flatspace, it requires only three threshold transits. From Central Axis, depending on your walking speed, we could be there in anywhere from two-thousandths to one-thousandths of a day.”
    I looked at the eagle with a blank expression.
    “As you might say, sir, in ‘a matter of moments.’”
    “Ah.” I nodded. “Thanks.” I turned my attention back to the trio, who had been watching the exchange between the escort and me with interest. “Um, is something wrong?”
    The superwoman leaned forward, narrowing her eyes and examining me closely. She began to speak, and the escort translated. “You are receiving vocal translation from the agent you carry, who is also providing glosses and additional context, correct?”
    I blinked a few times before answering, I suspect. “Yes,” I said slowly.
    The woman clapped her hands together, like a kid first tearing the wrapping from a gift. “Oh, what a delightfully authentic primitive experience!”
    “Perhaps it would be more historically