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Bounty hunter (man, dark hair, blue eyes, weathered skin, cowboy hat, worn leather duster, scuffed leather boots, holstered pistol on his hip, futuristic blaster slung over his shoulder) and his yellow Labrador Retriever (off-leash) walking toward the viewer, futuristic spaceship (exploded view, details) landed hovering above the ground behind them :: alien world rugged terrain rising into backdrop of snow-capped mountains, stunning nebula glows softly in hues of blue and violet, otherworldly ambiance :: by Roger Dean, Boris Vallejo, Stephan Martiniere :: wide shot, eye level, soft focus :: hyperrealistic, hyper detailed, photorealistic :: masterpiece, incredible composition, amazing depth, imposing, meticulously composed
You learn early that the frontier charges interest. Not all at once, not cleanly—just a
little more every year. Jobs in bad air and worse gravity. Worlds where the rain
stripped paint and the plants hunted anything that moved. Atmospheres that change
the sunlight into a quiet kind of poison, and you don’t feel it until your hands won’t
stop shaking weeks later. Long nights listening to radiation tick through the hull like
an insect behind the walls, and wondering if the engines would answer when it was
time to leave.
I used to think the frontier was a place. Took me years to learn it’s a condition.
Engines fail out there the way hearts do—suddenly, without regard for your plans.
I’ve rebuilt drives with scavenged wire and prayer, hands numb, knowing that if I got
it wrong I wouldn’t die heroically. I’d just stay. Forever. Another cautionary blip no
one bothered to mark.
The work paid well on paper. In practice, it paid in scars, replacement parts, and
promises that went thin once the bounty was delivered and the contract filed away
somewhere civilized. Employers smiled, nodded, discovered clerical
misunderstandings. Payment looked fine until delivery, when signatures went
missing and accounts froze and men who’d never left orbit discovered
misunderstandings. Out here, enforcement cost more than betrayal, and they knew
it. I kept records anyway. Names. Places. Debts. The frontier has a long memory... if
you remind it often enough.
I wondered, more than once, if I’d last long enough to become what I was already
working for: an old hand with more stories than future. Turns out you do it one
problem at a time, until the problems stop feeling temporary.
Now I walk more. It lets the dust settle in my head. The ship stays close, watching
my back the only way a machine can—sensors up, systems warm, ready if I need to
run. The dog walks with me because he always has. He’s pulled me out of bad air
when my legs wouldn’t answer. I’ve dragged him clear of things that kept kept trying
to eat you after you shot them full of holes. Somewhere along the way we stopped
keeping score. He doesn’t care about contracts or atmospheres or whether a world was meant for people. He cares where I am, and I care where he is. Out here, that’s
not comfort. That’s survival. When the frontier forgets you’re human, he doesn’t. And
most days, that’s the only reason I remember it too.
