Out of This World Read online

  The man in black raised his head and looked at her. “Grant me your pardon, Mistress Rachel, please. Say you forgive me,” he begged.

  “It’s okay,” Rachel said. “I think. Isn’t it, Daddy?”

  “I think so,” Pel agreed.

  “Thank you,” Raven said, rising to his feet and brushing the dust from the knee of his hose. He stood, waiting.

  Nancy still didn’t say anything.

  “Shall we go back upstairs?” Pel suggested.

  Nancy didn’t say anything, but she turned and marched back up.

  A moment later all four of them were back in the family room, and Nancy finally spoke.

  “Pel,” she said, “come in the kitchen for a moment.”

  Pel came.

  When they were out of sight of Raven and Rachel, Nancy whispered loudly, “Do you really believe him?”

  Pel shrugged. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I don’t have any better explanation.”

  “It could be some kind of trick,” Nancy suggested. “Some kind of illusion.”

  “Sure, I guess it could be,” Pel agreed. “But why?”

  “I don’t know,” Nancy said, fretting, “but I don’t like it.”

  Pel sighed again. “Nancy,” he said, “the guy is not selling me anything. I’m just talking to him. He turned up in the basement, with this whole story about some kind of cosmic war, and I’m just listening to it. That’s all. And frankly, I want to hear some more. If you want to go upstairs or something, go ahead.”

  “All right,” she said. “You can talk.” She turned and led the way back into the family room, then stopped suddenly.

  “Can I get you a drink?” she asked Raven.

  He glanced at Pel, then back at Nancy. “Thank you, aye,” he said, “I judge I could put a drink to use.”

  “Um... beer?”

  “Yes, that would suit me well, thank you.”

  Nancy spun on her heel and marched back toward the refrigerator while Pel resumed his seat on the recliner. Rachel was sitting on the couch, not touching Raven, Pel noticed, but staring at him intently. His performance in the basement had obviously impressed her.

  “Now,” Pel said, “you were telling me that you came here to talk to us about maybe joining forces with your people against something you call a Shadow?”

  “Yes,” Raven said, with a nod. “That’s exactly right.”

  “Shadow is magical, right?”

  “Aye,” Raven said. “’Tis magical in nature. We know little enough of its true origins, but we know that much. It has gathered to itself all the magic that its evil allowed it, the greater part of all the world’s magical might, leaving only crumbs for our wizards to pick at. Because the good magicians were not united against it, it has triumphed.”

  “But magic doesn’t work here. No one in our world has any magic.”

  Nancy appeared from the kitchen, carrying two cans of Miller.

  “You have nothing you call magic, perhaps, and nothing like our magicks, it would seem,” Raven agreed, “but you have magicks of your own, I am sure, though perhaps you call them by another name. The Galactic Empire calls its magic ‘science’; do you use that, perhaps?”

  “Science isn’t magic,” Rachel said scornfully.

  Raven turned to her, startled.

  “She’s right,” Pel said. “Science isn’t magic. It does some pretty amazing things, though.”

  Nancy put the two cans of beer on the table, then seated herself on the arm of the couch behind Rachel, at the far end from Raven. Pel leaned forward, picked one can up, and popped the top.

  Raven blinked, then picked up the other.

  “Cold!” he exclaimed, startled, as he quickly put it back down. He stared at it.

  Rachel giggled. Pel and Nancy exchanged a glance.

  “Maybe he’s British,” Nancy said, sotto voce.

  “’Course it’s cold!” Rachel said. “It just came out of the fridge!”

  Raven glanced at her, then reached down and cautiously picked up the beer can. He held it up with one hand while the other explored it carefully, stroking beads of condensation from the side, feeling the smooth, thin metal. He studied it intently.

  “I’d wondered,” he said, “why you had no bottles or barrels in your cellar. It seems you have other ways of keeping things cool.”

  “The refrigerator,” Pel agreed. “I guess that’s some of the scientific magic you were asking about.” He remembered his own beer and took a pull on the can.

  Raven watched him, then looked at the top of the can he held. “How... there are letters here, stamped in the metal, or etched, perhaps. I cannot read them.”

  “Oh,” Pel said. He put down his own beer and leaned over. “Let me show you,” he said.

  He took the can and popped the top, while Raven watched, fascinated. Beer foamed up, and Pel handed it back.

  Raven tasted it.

  “Good,” he said, though his expression contradicted his words.

  “It’s American beer,” Pel remarked. “I like the European stuff better.”

  “This is a trifle thin, perhaps,” Raven agreed.

  “So I guess we have technology you don’t, like refrigerators,” Pel said, leaning back with his beer in hand. “Is that what you came looking for?”

  “I’d nothing specific in mind,” Raven said, “but if you have this science, or... technology, did you call it? If you have this, and use it for weapons, perhaps we could use it against Shadow.”

  “I suppose you could,” Pel agreed. “If it works in your world.”

  “Why shouldn’t it?” Nancy demanded, addressing her husband rather than their guest.

  “Magic doesn’t work here,” Pel pointed out.

  Raven sipped beer. “There is that,” he agreed. “So you do have technology weapons? Rayguns, perhaps, like the Galactic Empire’s? Or mayhap you call them blasters? The Imperials use both terms.”

  “Not exactly,” Pel said, amused. “The closest we have to rayguns would be lasers, I guess, and they only work as weapons in the movies.”

  “In the...?” Raven began.

  “Never mind,” Pel said, cutting him off. “In stories, I should have said.”

  “What works in reality, then?”

  “Bombs,” Pel said. “Guns. Tanks, airplanes, nuclear warheads. Poison gas.”

  “I know bombs,” Raven said, a little hesitantly. “And I think I know what you mean by guns, but these others—what sort of tank is a weapon? What is a nuclear war head?”

  “A nuclear warhead,” Pel explained, “is a bomb that can destroy an entire city.”

  Raven sat silently for a moment, staring at Pel. Rachel got up her nerve to stroke the fine black velvet of his cloak, and Nancy got up to go to the kitchen again.

  “How big be these warheads?” Raven asked at last. “Be they real, not just another fancy found in stories?”

  “Oh, yes,” Pel said. “They’re real. But they’re very big and heavy, and besides, only a few governments have access to them.”

  “You don’t want them,” Nancy said, startling both Pel and Raven. “Besides destroying cities they poison the air and soil, and kill or deform unborn children.”

  “In truth?” Raven asked, looking at Pel.

  “Truly,” Pel said, nodding. “They use atomic energy—the same thing that keeps the sun burning—and that produces radiation.”

  “Our sun burns with magic—I know nothing of yours. But your people fight with these bombs?”

  “No,” Pel said. “We keep from fighting because we’re scared of them.”

  “Don’t forget Hiroshima,” Nancy interjected.

  Raven looked a question.

  “We used them once,” Pel admitted.

  “Twice,” Nancy said.

  “Right, twice. On Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Two cities in Japan. That was when the bombs were first invented, at the end of a long war, when we didn’t know any better. Almost fifty years ago.”

  “Ah. So y
ou know they work, then.”

  “Oh, yes, they work,” Pel said bitterly.

  “And are they strong enough to break through fortress walls?”

  Pel stared at Raven for a moment, then said, “I don’t think you understand. A nuclear bomb can totally obliterate an entire city—flatten it, leave nothing but a crater. When they tested them in the desert they fused the sand into glass. The Hiroshima bomb killed a hundred thousand people—and that was a small one, much less powerful than the ones we have now. If you dropped a nuclear bomb on a fortress, any fortress, the fortress would be gone. There wouldn’t be any walls left.”

  “Even a magical fortress?”

  “There’s no such thing.”

  “There is in my world.”

  Pel had no immediate answer to that, but Nancy said, “It doesn’t matter, anyway—you can’t get a nuclear warhead, not even a Russian one. They’re kept sealed away, heavily guarded. And you wouldn’t know how to use one if you had it.”

  “I see. But guns and bombs and... and tanks?”

  “You can get guns easily enough. And make bombs. I don’t think you could get tanks, though.”

  Raven nodded. “I see. Thank you.” He put down his can of beer and spoke slowly, as if making an effort to phrase clearly what he wanted to say. “I think perhaps I have imposed enough upon your hospitality,” he told the Browns. “I’m very grateful for your kindness, but perhaps I had best return home now, to discuss what you have told me with my people.”

  “You haven’t finished your beer,” Nancy pointed out.

  Raven looked at the can. “I fear my thirst is gone,” he said, rising.

  “All right,” Pel said. “I’m sorry we couldn’t be more help.”

  “I may return, sometime, if you have no objection,” Raven said diffidently.

  “We’d be glad to see you,” Pel replied, getting to his own feet and not adding that he would be glad mostly because it would be further evidence that this wasn’t all simply a dream or hallucination.

  “I like your cape,” Rachel said.

  Raven smiled down at her. “I like it, too, child,” he said kindly.

  Pel led the way to the basement, and together, the Browns watched Raven vanish into the wall again.

  As Pel had feared, there were cat hairs on the black velvet cloak.

  * * * *

  “Are you people finished?” Amy asked.

  “I don’t know,” the FAA man answered, not looking at her, “I really don’t.”

  Amy stared at him without trying to hide her annoyance. “Why don’t you know?” she demanded.

  “Because I don’t know what the hell is going on here,” he told her.

  She stared at him, and he explained, “That thing out there—it’s not an aircraft. There’s no way it could ever have flown under its own power. There’s no engine, just this weird contraption of crystals and metal plates that doesn’t do anything, attached to what looks like a pressure chamber. Some of the equipment aboard is ordinary electrical stuff, and works fine; other equipment is more of this crystal-and-metal nonsense that doesn’t do anything. Those weapons those people were carrying—they have little batteries, but they don’t do anything. All of them, the big one and the ones that look like pistols, they’re harmless. They don’t even light up or make noise like my kid’s toy rayguns.” He shook his head.

  “It’s some kind of hoax, I guess,” he continued, “but why would anyone go to all this trouble? And all the expense? Some of the stuff in there looks like it’s made out of gold and platinum, and if it’s all a gag, wouldn’t copper or tin do just as well? And how did the thing get here, anyway? Nobody tracked anything flying around here that shouldn’t have been, and this thing would show up on radar like a Christmas tree, not to mention whatever must have carried it in and dropped it.” He sighed. “Lady, you’ve got a really major mystery sitting in your back yard, and I’m glad I’m not the one who has to figure it out.”

  “You’re not?”

  “Nope.” He smiled uneasily. “I passed the buck. This close to Washington it’s all restricted airspace, you know—or just about. So I called the Air Force. They’re sending someone out to take a look, and if he’s as impressed as I am—which he will be—they’ll be doing some serious investigating in the morning. And I think they called the FBI, too. I’m waiting around until their man gets here, and after that it’s up to them. I’m hoping he’ll just tell me to go home and forget any of this ever happened.”

  “But...” Amy turned and stared around the corner of her house at the huge purple object. “I can’t go home and forget about it! It’s on my land!”

  The FAA man shrugged. “I know,” he said, “and I’m sorry. You might want to start thinking about how much to ask if the national security folks decide to buy your property.”

  “What?” Amy whirled back.

  “Well, they probably won’t,” he said, trying unsuccessfully to sound reassuring. “They may just haul the thing away.” He paused, then added thoughtfully, “Though I’m not sure how they’d do that.”

  Amy stared around wildly, looking for a solution and seeing none.

  “Listen,” she said, “where’d they take the people who were aboard it?”

  The FAA man shrugged. “County jail down in Rockville, I guess,” he said.

  “Thanks,” Amy said.

  She turned, leaving the FAA man leaning against the maple tree by the driveway, and went into the house. She wasn’t sure just who to call to find out how she could get to talk to those people, the people who had been inside the thing, but she thought she could figure it out eventually.

  And if she couldn’t, her lawyer could.

  She chewed her lower lip. It was probably time to call her lawyer in any case.

  But then she remembered—it was Sunday. No one would be in the law offices on Sunday.

  “Damn,” she said, staring out the kitchen window at the ship. Then she shrugged. “So I’ll have to wait ‘til morning. It isn’t going anywhere.”

  Chapter Four

  “Any word yet?”

  The lieutenant started, and looked around. The question had come from a woman in a major’s uniform, a woman he did not recognize immediately.

  “No, ma’am,” he said, saluting.

  She returned the salute briskly.

  “Thorpe should have reported in hours ago, even if Cahn couldn’t,” the major said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” the lieutenant agreed.

  “You haven’t done anything about it?” she demanded sharply.

  “No, ma’am,” the lieutenant answered. “There’s nothing in my orders that says I should, and after Major Copley took ill no one told me anything different.”

  The major’s expression made clear what she thought of that argument. “You’ve dropped all the other contacts with that universe?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am—at least, the telepaths were instructed to do so, as soon as the ship went through the warp. I was told that we wanted to be sure Captain Cahn didn’t have any of our contacts interfering.”

  “That’s right.” The major chewed her lower lip for a few seconds, then ordered, “Get another telepath down here—one who’s done those interdimensional contacts. I want to know what the hell Thorpe is doing.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The lieutenant started to reach for the telephone, then stopped.

  Why bother? His post was supposed to be monitored at all times; the telepaths had already heard him.

  Or if they hadn’t, they were in trouble, which would suit him just fine.

  * * * *

  “And this device of theirs, which they say will destroy an entire city and leave no stone upon another—believe you that it exists, and is not but some mad dream, or a tale to frighten strangers?”

  Raven turned up his palms. “Who can say?” he replied. “They spoke of it as though ‘twere but simple fact, they named names to me that meant nothing but had the ring of truth, yet how am I to know whether they
speak lies? I’m but a man, not a wizard who can read men’s souls.”

  The other snorted. “Would that I could!” he said. “I can see a lie betimes, when ‘tis spoke, but beyond that I’ve no more insight into a man’s secrets than you, my lord. I’m not one of these the Empire has, who claim to hear the innermost thoughts of others as if they were spoken aloud.”

  “Telepaths,” Raven said.

  “Aye,” the other agreed. “That’s the word.”

  For a moment the two were silent. Then Raven spoke.

  “What of the Empire’s expedition to this new world?” he asked. “Have we word of their success, or perchance their failure? Have they made contacts, perhaps obtained these terrible weapons?”

  “Word is not yet received,” the wizard replied.

  “No?” Raven turned, startled, to look at the door of the chamber, as if he expected it to burst open on cue.

  The door did not move.

  “Did not Elani open the way for our messenger this hour past?” Raven asked.

  The other nodded. “Aye,” he said. “That she did, yet there’s no word.”

  Raven stared at him.

  “Why?” he demanded.

  “Because the messenger tells us that the Empire has had no word of their sky-ship’s fate, and our spies can hardly learn what is known to none,” the wizard explained.

  “No word?” Raven’s brows drew together as he frowned. “Why would there be no word? They have their miracle-workers, their telepaths—why have they not heard?”

  The wizard turned up his palms. “Who knows?” he asked.

  * * * *

  “I may have to start believing in UFOs and Bigfoot,” Nancy said, as she slumped on the couch and stared at the spot where Raven had sat.

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Pel said.

  “Why not?” she asked, turning to face him. “I mean, if we can have swordsmen and elves walking through our basement wall, why are space aliens bringing Elvis back from the dead any less likely?”

  Pel opened his mouth, then closed it again and considered the statement. He looked at Raven’s unfinished beer, still sitting on the coffee table.

  “I don’t know,” he said at last. “Maybe they aren’t any less likely, but the evidence for them is pretty damn weak.”