Out of This World Read online

  “Which, even if it’s true, doesn’t mean any of these better weapons would work in our space, or in Shadow’s space.”

  “True, sir,” the telepath admitted.

  The Under-Secretary shoved papers across the desk, letting the telepath continue standing at attention. After a moment he looked up.

  “The natives think our people are crazy?” he asked. “I mean, certifiably insane?”

  The telepath nodded. “Yes, sir,” she said. “Either that, or perpetrating a hoax of some kind.”

  “Will they gas ‘em?”

  The telepath hesitated. “I don’t think so, sir,” she said. “When they were taken into custody, the arresting officers read each of the crewmen a statement of rights and privileges. It’s Prossie’s... it’s Telepath Thorpe’s impression that the culture is relatively non-violent and benevolent. Her cell is equipped with its own plumbing and electric light, and no one has struck her; she’s still wearing her own uniform, in fact, though they did take her helmet and search her for weapons. She’s seen no sign of a gallows or whipping post, nor any other means of torture or execution.”

  The Under-Secretary stared at her. “Bunch of wimps,” he said. “Just like she said. And these are the people we thought might have super-weapons for us?”

  The telepath didn’t respond. She resisted the temptation to ask just who had said what about wimps, and the even stronger temptation to snatch the answer from the Under-Secretary’s mind.

  “All right,” he said. “Go away. Dismissed.” He turned back to his papers.

  “Sir?” the telepath said.

  The Under-Secretary looked up. “What is it?” he demanded.

  Hesitantly, the telepath asked, “Will we be sending a rescue mission? What should I tell Prossie?”

  “I’ll be taking it under advisement, Telepath, but you can tell her, provisionally, that we plan no rescue mission,” the Under-Secretary said. “It’d be a waste of time and money and manpower. How would we rescue anyone, anyway, when our warp comes out in mid-air and our anti-gravity doesn’t work there? And blasters don’t work; how would we get them out if our weapons won’t fire? No, they’re on their own. We can keep in touch, and re-open the warp if they can find a way to get to it, but beyond that I’m writing the whole thing off as a failure. We’ll take care of Shadow ourselves.”

  “But, sir...” The telepath didn’t finish her protest; even before the Under-Secretary spoke she had inadvertantly, and against all her careful training and discipline, read his response.

  “No buts. Ruthless was expendable, or we wouldn’t have sent her, and she’s lost. No point in wasting any more men trying to get her back. Copley probably shouldn’t have sent her in the first place, not without more advance work. It sounds to me as if Cahn and his crew aren’t badly off—hell, we’ve got plenty of men on active duty who live in worse than those cells, from what you’ve said. They may even be let go, and then they’ll be free to look around and maybe find a way back. You’ll be checking in with Thorpe every so often—say, every forty-eight hours, if your other duties allow. They’ll be all right. So we’ll get on to other things. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.” The telepath offered no further argument. For one thing, she had seen at least part of the real reason underneath Under-Secretary Bascombe’s thoughts.

  There were the usual petty political concerns that flavored almost everyone’s motivations, the personal jealousies and competitions that every telepath learned to ignore—in this case, the project was associated with Major Copley, who had been falling out of favor even before his appendicitis sent him to the hospital and knocked him out of the inner circle, so continuing it was a bad career move. Underneath that, though, Carrie found a good and logical reason.

  If they sent in a rescue mission and shot up a jail in this other universe, they would be making an enemy of the people there, of the dominant nation, the United States of America, as it was called. If the super-weapons really did exist, they would then be more likely to be turned against the Empire than against Shadow.

  She couldn’t argue with that.

  “Dismissed,” the Under-Secretary said.

  * * * *

  “Our messenger is bespoke,” Valadrakul reported.

  Raven sat up and thumped the chalice onto the table by his chair. “And?” he demanded.

  “The sky-ship is fallen, and its crew prisoners in the land of Earth.”

  “Ah, evil tidings, ‘twould seem,” Raven muttered. “Fallen, you say?”

  “Aye,” the wizard said. “The magicks that hold it aloft failed, when the new realm was reached.”

  Raven considered that for a moment, then asked, “Wherefore was this word so tardy—was it said?”

  The wizard nodded. “Aye,” he said. “’Twould seem that the spells of telepaths have no virtue in Earth, as the flying spells have none, and as our own magicks do naught in the Empire.”

  Raven nodded. “I see,” he said. He rubbed his temple, trying to think. “Prisoners, say you? Of whom, and wherefore?”

  “Of—an’ it be I have this right—of the constabulary of the County of Montgomery, in Mary’s Land.”

  “And wherefore?”

  “For trespass upon a lady’s park, and the unlawful casting of debris upon the land, in that thereupon the ship was fallen.”

  Raven stared for a moment, then started to speak, then thought better of it.

  Valadrakul waited.

  “At first,” said Raven, at last, “I thought to shout at you, good wizard, and denounce this tale as madness—knights held for letting fall their transport—but upon consideration, I fear you speak only simple truth, for the land of Earth is strange indeed. I saw as much with mine own eyes.”

  “Aye, marry,” Valadrakul replied.

  “What does the Empire intend, then? Have we word? Does mount an expedition to free the men, or offer ransom?”

  “Nay,” said the wizard. “That lordling John Bascombe, him that they call Under-Secretary for Interdimensional Affairs, has but moments ago said that such an effort would serve no good purpose, that the people of Earth do not harm prisoners. Among themselves, the mind-readers say he fears lest Earth be affronted thereby and fight on the side of Shadow ‘gainst the Empire.”

  “Think you this is truth?” Raven asked.

  Valadrakul shrugged. “Who can say?”

  “Think you, perhaps, that this Under-Secretary Bascombe might himself be a creature of Shadow?”

  Valadrakul considered that carefully before replying, “In truth, I know not, but methinks he be otherwise. His reasoning is not valorous, yet ‘tis sound enough. Perchance he has such creatures among his counsellors, but I think he be not one himself.”

  Raven nodded.

  “What think you would befall,” he said, “should we free these men from durance, and bring them hither?”

  Valadrakul spread his hands. “Who can say?” he said.

  “Perhaps,” Raven said slowly, “Messire Pel Brown can say.”

  * * * *

  There was nothing on the six o’clock news Sunday evening about a spaceship, nor on the ten o’clock on Channel 5, nor the eleven o’clock; in desperation, Pel even tried CNN and CNN Headline.

  “They wouldn’t have anything,” Nancy told him. “Not if the networks don’t.”

  Pel protested, “Sometimes they have stuff the networks don’t. You remember the boys in Baghdad, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do,” Nancy said. “And I know they break a lot of stories. But that’s different, it’s all international stuff. They wouldn’t have something like this if the networks and locals don’t.”

  “I know,” Pel admitted. He put out the cat, and they went to bed.

  It gnawed at them both through the night; at breakfast they were both surly, even after coffee.

  Nancy spent most of the morning at job interviews, while Rachel was at her kindergarten. Pel made his Monday morning calls, but had no all-day projects or out-of-town appo
intments, so he was home again for lunch five minutes after Rachel’s bus dropped her off.

  Ordinarily, a family lunch together was a cheerful event, but the tension still lingered, poisoning the atmosphere; Rachel wolfed her sandwich and left the table, while Pel and Nancy ate in sullen silence.

  “It was a joke,” Nancy said, without preamble, as she carried her plate to the sink.

  Pel didn’t have to ask what she was referring to. He shook his head. “How could it be a joke?” he asked.

  “What else could it be?”

  “I don’t know, but it wasn’t any joke.”

  “Of course it was.”

  “No, it wasn’t, damn it.”

  Nancy turned to face him, hands on hips. “It had to be, and don’t you swear at me!”

  “It was not a fucking joke!” Pel shouted.

  “Well, then, what the hell was it?” she shouted back.

  “Daddy?” Rachel said from the doorway.

  “I don’t know what it was, but no goddamn joker would be able to walk through our basement wall like that!”

  “It was a trick, Pel! A hologram or something!”

  “Daddy?”

  “You think a hologram sat on our couch drinking beer? You think a hologram would wear a velvet cape that Rachel could feel?”

  Nancy had no immediate rejoinder, and as she fumed, trying to think of one, Rachel was able to get Pel’s attention by yanking at his sleeve.

  “Daddy!” she yelled. “The man’s back!”

  For a moment, Pel didn’t understand. Nancy was quicker; her mouth opened, then closed, and she demanded, “Where?”

  “In the basement, of course.” Rachel looked as disdainful as only a little girl can. “I heard him knocking and calling for Daddy.”

  That got through to Pel; he stood up so fast his chair started to topple over backward. He snatched at it and caught it before it fell, jostling the kitchen table. His coffee sloshed onto the placemat; he ignored it as he headed for the basement stairs.

  * * * *

  “They may be back with a court order,” Susan said. “They may even try to condemn your property and take it by eminent domain.

  Amy sipped tea before replying. “Then what?” she said.

  “Then I try for a restraining order, claiming their order violates your property rights and your right to due process.”

  Amy glanced out the window at the thing in her back yard; it was still damp from the morning dew and gleamed gold in the sun. “Then what?” she asked.

  Susan shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “This isn’t really my field. I’ve never done a national security case before.”

  Amy shuddered slightly and put down her teacup. “Do you think it’s really a national security thing?” she said.

  Susan considered carefully before answering, “I don’t know.” She took a deep breath and continued, “That’s what the Air Force people claimed, but if that thing out there is a fake, the way they say it is, I don’t see how they can make a national security claim stick.” She picked up her own cup, which contained instant coffee rather than tea. “Of course, if it’s a fake, there is the question of how it got here,” she added just before she sipped.

  “It fell out of the sky,” Amy said.

  Susan nodded and lowered her cup. “I know it did,” she said. “So does the Air Force; they’ve measured the thing’s mass and the effects of impact and can probably tell you exactly how far it fell and how fast it was going when it was hit. What they can’t tell you, though, is how it got up in the air in the first place, because they don’t know—and that’s what has them so worried.”

  “So you think they’ll be back?”

  “Ms. Jewell... Amy, I really, honestly don’t know.”

  Amy accepted that and delicately sipped more tea. Susan gulped coffee.

  “At least you kept them from setting up those lights,” Amy said a moment later.

  Susan shrugged deprecatingly. “For now,” she said.

  “Thanks,” Amy said. “I know I would never have gotten any sleep tonight with those things out there.” She hesitated, then asked, “Did you talk to any of the people who were inside it?”

  “No,” Susan said. “I probably can, if you think it would help, but I haven’t yet.”

  “Are they in jail?”

  Susan looked at her watch. “So far, they probably still are,” she said, “but the police won’t be able to hold them for very long unless you press charges.”

  “Me?”

  Susan nodded. “They were charged with trespassing, vandalism, and malicious mischief—they dumped that thing on your land, smashed your hedge, ruined your lawn—you could probably claim reckless endangerment, too, since you were out there at the time. But if you don’t press charges, the cops will have to let them go. You don’t hold people without a charge, not in the U.S.”

  “And if I press charges?”

  Susan sighed. “None of them could give an address or show any means of support. None of them had any money or identification except for their ‘Galactic Empire’ stuff. None of them have asked for a lawyer, or used their phone privileges. They’re all staying strictly in character. You can probably get them held for a couple of weeks, at the outside, since they can’t make bond and the feds don’t want them released, but more than that...” She shrugged.

  Amy put down her cup and picked up the teabag by the string, toying idly with it.

  “Susan,” she said, watching the teabag, “what do you think is really going on here?”

  Susan chewed her lower lip, then admitted, “I don’t have any idea.”

  Amy looked up. “Do you think they could really be from some Galactic Empire?”

  Susan hesitated, then said, “I don’t believe in little green men.”

  “Neither do I—but how else do you explain those people, and that thing in my yard?”

  Susan frowned. “If they’re really from outer space, then why won’t their ship fly?”

  “But maybe it did fly—how else could it get there?”

  “I don’t know,” Susan said. “I don’t understand any of it.” She rubbed her temple. “Maybe if I’d gotten more sleep over the weekend, but I didn’t expect anything like this first thing on a Monday morning.”

  “Thank you for coming so early,” Amy said gravely. “I appreciate it.”

  Susan waved away Amy’s gratitude. “No problem,” she said. “Shall we get down to Rockville and fill out the papers?”

  * * * *

  Prossie lay curled up on the cot, staring at nothing.

  She was betrayed.

  She was trapped here, a prisoner, completely cut off from the minds of others, and most particularly from the minds of her fellow telepaths, the minds of her family and her community.

  She was in jail, for reasons she did not understand—listening to words without being able to read the minds behind them was hard for her, and although she had heard the charges against her, she did not see why they had been leveled at her and the rest of the crew. Their ship had crashed; how could that be a crime?

  And she knew that there would be no rescue. The brief moment of hope when Carrie had first reached her had died again when the news came through—her people had written her off. They had declared her expendable and expended. Carrie had told her—the mission had been abandoned as a failure, I.S.S. Ruthless given up as lost, and she and Captain Cahn and the other eight were considered prisoners of war. No efforts would be made to rescue them.

  And since there were no other contacts between the Empire and this Montgomery County, there could be no negotiated freedom, no exchange.

  She would rot here, in this bland little cell.

  This was almost worse than a dungeon, really. If she were confined behind cold stone walls, in darkness and filth and hunger, she would be able to concentrate herself on resistance, on courage; she would have the romance of all those childhood stories to fall back on, all the tales of heroes who endured monumental
suffering along the way to magnificent triumphs. The Earl of the White Mountain, the Man in the Sealed Helm, the people of Camp Eight—all the old stories of famous prisoners came back to her.

  What romance was there in concrete block walls, a steel cot, and porcelain fixtures? What suffering did electric light and three meals a day provide?

  She was no swashbuckling hero; she wasn’t even a real soldier. She was just a telepath, sent along on this expedition because telepathy was the only good way to communicate over long distances.

  Maybe, she thought, she should ask for an attorney—the officer had said that if she could not afford one, one would be provided for her.

  But no; what good would that do? Why would a native attorney want to help her? How could an attorney get her out if the authorities wanted to hold her? If she got out, where would she go? What would she do?

  She wished that Carrie hadn’t told her Bascombe’s decision. Captain Cahn and the others presumably didn’t know about it, and they were probably stewing in their uncertainty, but that was better than despair.

  She curled up more tightly, her head full of telepathic wool, and stared at nothing.

  Chapter Six

  “She’s not taking it well.” The telepath sat slumped in her chair, staring unhappily at the floor.

  “Carrie, don’t let it get to you,” her supervisor said. “Prossie’ll be okay, I’m sure of it.”

  Carrie looked up.

  “I’m not,” she said. “I read her mind, and I’m not sure at all.”

  * * * *

  There were four of them this time. Nancy hung back as they emerged from the basement, and despite their deferential manner, Pel found their numbers and armament somewhat intimidating himself.

  Raven came first, and stood to one side, introducing the others as they stepped out into the hall and bowed.

  “Stoddard, man-at-arms and a loyal friend to me since I was a lad,” Raven said, describing a man who stood six feet tall and wore a dirty and somewhat faded red tabard over a stiff leather garment Pel had no name for. Stoddard bowed—more than a mere bob, but not a particularly deep bow. His hair was black and shaggy, his face brown and rugged; besides the tabard and leather, he wore baggy brown hose and brown leather boots. A scabbard hung from his belt, and from the look of it Pel judged his sword to be somewhat heavier than Raven’s.