Out of This World

Chapter Twenty-Five

They had offered him a set of fatigues, but Pel had kept his gray miner’s pants. He had accepted a military-issue T-shirt, though-purple, of course, but comfortable and practical. Thus outfitted, he had settled in aboard one of the spaceships to wait while the other survivors from other universes were gathered.

Several ships were collecting freed slaves; two of them, however, were special. The passengers and crew from the Emerald Princess were being taken aboard one particular ship, where they would be treated, questioned, and taken home; the people from Earth, from Shadow’s universe, or from I.S.S. Ruthless were all sent to another.

It was a big ship, a military ship, and when the soldiers took him aboard they led him to a large room apparently intended for meetings or briefings of some sort. A long metal table stood at one end, with a row of chairs behind it, and a dozen uneven rows of folding chairs faced it from elsewhere.

Prossie Thorpe was there, behind the table, back in uniform, checking each person as he or she was brought aboard. She smiled at Pel.

Captain Cahn was there, also in uniform, but he was not behind the table. He was obviously not in command. Not only was he not in command of the rescue force, he did not seem to even be in command of himself. One side of his face was a huge purple bruise, the cheekbone obviously broken, lips swollen, drool seeping from the corner of his mouth; he sat motionless near the back, saying nothing, barely moving at all.

Arthur Smith and Bill Mervyn sat beside their captain, exchanging silent glances.

Stoddard stood against one wall, arms folded across his chest. He wore only a sort of fur loincloth and open black felt vest-Pel wondered how he had come by such a costume. It seemed to suit him. His sword and armor were gone, but even half-naked he still looked dangerous enough; he had no bruises or welts, and his hair had been cut short, where the others, including Pel himself, had gotten rather shaggy. Pel wondered what could have happened to Stoddard while he was a slave to leave him thus. His expression gave no clue.

Elmer Soorn arrived just a few moments after Pel, back in uniform, and he seemed cheerful and healthy-but then, as Pel knew, life in the mines had not been all that harsh, really. Soorn greeted the others, grinning broadly, then got a look at Cahn.

The grin vanished.

“What the hell happened to the captain?” he asked.

Cahn closed his eyes.

Smith explained. “He tried to lead a revolt. Two days ago. Thorpe had told him help was coming, and he wanted to hurry things along a little. Didn’t work. In the fighting someone threw him off a building.”

Soorn dropped into a seat. “Shit,” he said. “He couldn’t have just laid low and waited?”

Smith shrugged; Cahn turned his head away.

Embarrassed, Soorn scanned the room. “Hey, Pel Brown,” he called. “Saw you at the mine-I’d hoped we’d be on the same bus, so we could talk.”

Pel just shrugged.

“Looks like we’ll get you home this time,” Soorn said. “We must have half the Imperial Fleet here!”

“I hope so,” Pel muttered.

“Don’t everybody cheer at once, or I’ll go deaf,” Soorn said. “Hey, we’ve all just been rescued; why are you people so miserable?”

“Well,” Mervyn said sourly, “we don’t know how bad the captain’s hurt, for starters. Pete Cartwright is dead. Jim Peabody is dead. Lieutenant Godwin is dead. Ben Lampert and Lieutenant Drummond are still missing. Nancy Brown’s dead. Rachel Brown and Susan Nguyen are missing. That twit who called himself Squire Donald is dead-hanged, I heard. What’s-her-name, Elani, is missing, and the lady gnome. Will that do?”

“You’re sure Nancy’s dead?” Pel asked.

Mervyn glanced at Prossie Thorpe, who nodded. “She’s dead,” Prossie said. “I’m sorry, Mr. Brown. They’ll try to recover the body, so you can arrange a decent… burial, is it? Yes, you bury your dead.” She winced at the pain her clumsy phrasing caused, and wished she could read the future, as well as minds-just a few seconds of precognition would let her avoid such awkward moments.

After a moment of uncomfortable silence, Soorn tried to change the subject. “What happened to him?” he said, pointing a thumb at Stoddard.

“I don’t know,” Prossie said. “I try not to snoop, you know. Sometimes I can’t help it, but I do try.”

“’Twill bother me none that you read my thoughts,” Stoddard said, startling everyone. He had looked so motionless that it was hard to remember he was alive and able to talk. “Doubtless you’d speak better than I on what befell.”

Prossie smiled wryly. “I’d be none too sure of that,” she said. She blinked, as if startled by her own words, then continued. “He was a wrestler,” she said. “The woman who bought him challenged all comers to beat him, best two falls of three, in fair fight. She made that costume for him, called him the Space Barbarian, said he came from a lost colony somewhere. He was undefeated in twenty-three matches.”

Stoddard nodded an acknowledgment.

Prossie started to say something else, then stopped, hesitated, and announced, “Latest reports are in. They’ve found Lieutenant Drummond and Susan Nguyen, both alive and well, but Alella is definitely dead-they’ve found her body, pickled in alcohol.”

The men exchanged uneasy glances.

“What about the others?” Pel asked. “What about Rachel?”

Prossie shook her head. “Still no word on Rachel or Elani or Spaceman Lampert.”

“What about the others?” Soorn asked. “That guy Raven, and the wizard, Valdakrul, or whatever it is. And the other Earth people?”

“Amy Jewell, Lord Raven, and the wizard Valadrakul are all alive and on their way here,” Prossie said. “Miss Jewell will be coming aboard in just a few minutes-she may already be aboard, in fact. And Ted Deranian definitely is on board now, but he’s in the ship’s infirmary.”

“They found Amy? Rachel isn’t with her?” Pel demanded angrily.

“No,” Prossie said, uncomfortably. “They were separated at the auction. I saw it happen, but there wasn’t anything we could do.”

“Damn it!” Pel growled. Then something else struck him. “You said Ted was in the infirmary,” he said. “Why?”

Prossie sighed.

“Two reasons,” she said. “First off, he got the crap beaten out of him several times when he just stopped what he was doing and refused to move, so they’re setting broken bones, checking him over for internal damage, and so forth. Second, he did that because he’s convinced himself that this entire universe isn’t real, that he’s still at home in bed, dreaming all this-either that, or that he’s gone mad and is imagining it all. The alienists are trying to find some way to cure him of this delusion.”

That led to another uncomfortable silence.

“What about the people from the Princess?” Mervyn asked at last.

“Well, they aren’t really my department,” Prossie said, “but last I heard there were three dead, a fourth probably dead, and eight still unaccounted for. But they aren’t our problem any more, the Empire’s taking care of them.”

“So,” Soorn asked, “what happens when we’re all present and accounted for here?”

“This group, you mean? We go to Base One,” Prossie replied. “At full boost. About four days. In fact, we’ll be leaving in a few hours even if the others aren’t found. The Earth people, and Shadow people, are a top priority right now.”

As she spoke, Amy Jewell stepped into the room. Pel looked up.

She looked older; her hair was partly grown out straight and a shade darker. One eye was spectacularly blackened. She wore a military-issue white blouse and purple slacks, but instead of the shiny black boots that went with the uniform she had ragged bedroom slippers on her feet. She stood by the doorway, looking the room over and listening.

She wasn’t his problem, though. “What if they haven’t found Rachel?” Pel asked.

“Then we’ll leave anyway,” Prossie said. “And when someone finds her they’ll send her on another ship, as quickly as possible. We don’t have the time to wait around; the search might take awhile. It’s a big… well, no, it isn’t really that big a planet, but any planet is a big place.”

“Who’s going to take care of her?” Pel demanded. “Listen, if she isn’t found, I’m not going-she’s my daughter. I need to stay here until she’s found.”

Prossie shook her head. “I don’t think they’ll allow that,” she said. “You people are absolutely a top priority; they want you at Base One as fast as possible.”

Amy made an unpleasant noise, and all eyes turned toward her.

“We’re a top priority?” she asked, her voice a trifle unsteady. “They want us there fast?”

Prossie nodded. “That’s right.”

Pel could see that Amy was angry-in fact, furious, and trying hard to restrain herself, to calm herself down. He thought at first it was because of Rachel, but then caught himself. Rachel wasn’t that important to Amy.

She wasn’t that important to anyone, it seemed, anyone but him.

“If we’re so damned important,” Amy said through her teeth, “then why didn’t they rescue us sooner? I’ve been through three weeks of hell out there-I’d given up! I could have killed myself before these idiots bothered to come save us!” She lost control, and began shouting wildly, “I could have died out there! I was beaten and raped and abused, and they could have stopped it!”

“Miss Jewell,” Prossie called. “Please, Miss Jewell…”

Amy continued to shout.

The others looked helplessly at each other, impotent and embarrassed, while Prossie tried to make herself heard without screaming.

All except Stoddard, who straightened up from where he had leaned against the wall. Without a word, he crossed the room and put a hand on Amy’s shoulder.

Startled, she broke off and looked up at him.

“Sit,” he said, pointing to a chair. “Listen. An you be not satisfied, I’ll side you, and we’ll have what you will of them.”

Slowly, Amy sat, watching Stoddard as if hypnotized.

When she was sitting, Stoddard turned to Prossie.

“And now, Mistress Thorpe,” he said, “what is it you would say?”

Amy, too, turned to look at the telepath.

Prossie paused to catch her breath and clear her throat, then began, “Miss Jewell, I’m very sorry for whatever indignities you may have suffered. You aren’t alone, you know; I was raped, too, and if you’ll look around, I think you’ll see bruises on several faces. And the preliminary report I got on your barrister seems to indicate she had it worse than any of us.”

“Susan?” Amy asked.

Prossie nodded. “She’s on her way. She’s all right, more or less-just as you are. No permanent physical damage. Not everyone was as lucky-Mr. Brown’s wife was killed, as were at least two of my crewmates, and some of the people from Emerald Princess. And there are some we still don’t know about.”

“So why didn’t somebody do something…” Amy began. Stoddard silenced her with a hand on her shoulder.

“We did,” Prossie said wearily. “I sent an alarm as soon as I knew Emerald Princess was under attack, and the Imperial High Command responded immediately-but space travel isn’t instantaneous, and there were no warships nearby. So Emerald Princess was captured, and all of us were taken prisoner aboard the raider. I was able to disguise myself as a civilian passenger, and the pirates never found out I was a telepath; if they had, they’d have killed me instantly. Since they didn’t, I was able to stay in communication with the High Command-but because telepathy is non-directional, they couldn’t use that to locate us. They knew where Emerald Princess was, but not the course the pirate ship took after capturing it.”

Amy started to interrupt again, then glanced up at Stoddard and thought better of it.

“I tried to ask where we were going, but nobody bothered to tell me-I was locked in a room, just the way you were, with nobody who knew anything. I read a few minds, very carefully, trying to find out something useful, but I never managed it. So the pirates were able to reach their home base unmolested-and that made the job harder, because you can’t defeat an entire planet with a single warship, no matter how much firepower it carries. You can’t even free a bunch of slaves, not once they’ve been scattered all over two continents the way we were-you’ll just wind up with a hostage situation, a stand-off where you have to deal with criminals. In case you didn’t notice, that isn’t what happened; nobody sent just one ship. The Empire put together a task force-Task Force Umber, it’s called, and you’re currently aboard its flagship, I.S.S. Emperor Edward VII. They put together a force that could do the job, could conquer the entire planet so fast that nobody would have time to fight back, to take hostages. They got eighty-two ships and eleven thousand troops organized and supplied in about two weeks, and then got them all here at top speed once my reports of the nighttime constellations had been analyzed and the planet located. It worked-you’ve seen that. It was a huge operation, but it worked, and it went as smooth as ice. They took the entire planet without losing a ship, without more than a dozen casualties, and you’re complaining because they couldn’t do the impossible any faster than they did.”

“I didn’t see any fighting,” Amy muttered.

“You were way the hell out on the southern plains,” Prossie reminded her. “Besides, they didn’t put up much of a fight.” She took a deep breath, and smiled crookedly. “I haven’t done this much talking out loud since I was a girl,” she said. “I think my voice is worn out!”

* * * *

Raven had three broken fingers on his left hand. He walked stiffly, slightly bent, like an old man, and flinched when anyone came near his back. Ridges of fresh scar tissue broke the line of the borrowed shirt he wore.

Valadrakul’s remaining braid had been cut off, but he was otherwise unharmed.

Susan Nguyen had burns on her back and arms, and scars on her back, but insisted she was fine. “I’ve had practice with this sort of thing,” she said bitterly.

Elani was found, finally, hiding in a cave-she had been the only one to successfully escape from slavery, using tricks learned in years of avoiding Shadow’s agents. She had, of course, avoided all contact with other people thereafter, so that she had been slow to learn of the planet’s liberation by Imperial forces.

Ben Lampert seemed to have disappeared without a trace. The auction records listed him as sold for three hundred and ninety crowns, paid in cash, no name or address given-a dead end. No one who had been at the auction and was still alive was willing to admit knowing anything about him. Prossie could not locate him telepathically-but because he had no trace of psychic talent, no particularly distinctive thought-patterns, that didn’t mean much. She couldn’t pick out one ordinary person on an entire planet without a little more to go on.

Several boxes of personal belongings were recovered from the auction house, to everyone’s surprise-apparently the people in charge of sorting and pricing such things for resale had not been in any hurry. Susan’s purse was found, apparently unopened, where she had hidden it-she would not tell the others where that had been-and it was returned to her intact shortly before Emperor Edward VII lifted off.

Prossie noticed Susan radiating a certain morbid pleasure upon the return of her purse, even while her face remained absolutely blank, and couldn’t resist snooping a little. She found that Susan was pleased because her gun was still there, untouched, apparently undiscovered.

Prossie also inadvertantly shared Susan’s wish that she’d had the gun with her on a few occasions during the past three weeks.

Emperor Edward VII launched on schedule, despite Pel Brown’s protests. Rachel’s probable location had been traced through the auction records and eyewitness reports, but she had not yet been found; Pel had to be sedated and confined to his assigned quarters to keep him from interfering with the flagship’s departure.

Prossie tried to tell him that she would stay in touch with the search teams on the newly-liberated Zeta Leo III, and would let him know the minute Rachel was found, but that failed to comfort him.

And in fact, it was a lie.

Telepaths can lie quite effectively when they choose to. After all, they can tell when they’re believed and when they aren’t.

It was only partly a lie, though. She had every intention of telling him immediately when Rachel was found, on one condition-that she was found alive.

And Prossie didn’t think she would be.

* * * *

Nothing would interfere with an Imperial fleet at full strength, and nothing did. Emperor Edward VII reached Base One on schedule and without incident.

The body now called Base One had once been an asteroid of no special distinction. It was mostly nickel-iron, but so were a million other asteroids. The only things that marked out Base One were that it was about the right size, and it was about where the Empire wanted to put their military headquarters. By hollowing it out and using the material they thus removed to build on additional sections the Empire had transformed it into a vast deep-space complex, the heart of the Imperial military, and home to the High Command.

Pel never did see what it looked like from the outside during the approach; Edward VII didn’t bother with unnecessary viewports. His primary impression of the inside was of endless corridors-not spotless, gleaming white corridors, as he had seen in any number of science fiction movies, but steel corridors, painted in battleship gray or olive drab or maroon, most of them floored with worn linoleum tile in various colors-sometimes mismatched. He found black grit in the cracks between floor tiles, black streaks on the wall here and there where a cart had rubbed, and other signs of long and heavy use on every side.

He had to be dragged off the ship; he was demanding to be taken back to Zeta Leo III, to find his daughter. He was dragged off and given a small room, with a cot and a bureau and a chair, and he was locked in.

By the time he had been there a full day he had calmed down enough to be interviewed-they didn’t call it interrogation, but that term would probably have been more accurate. He answered as honestly and completely as he could-and there was no reason not to, as a telepath always sat in on the sessions. It wasn’t Prossie Thorpe; instead, it was a young man named Theobald Carver who appeared, from comments various people made, to be Prossie’s second cousin.

There were many sessions.

He was questioned about Zeta Leo III, about Psi Cassiopeia II, about Shadow’s realm, about Earth, and he answered as well as he could.

Between interviews Pel was given a brief tour of parts of Base One, including an observation chamber where thick windows looked out onto the surface of the asteroid and gave a view of a gigantic complex of equipment-copper busbars at least ten feet in diameter supported a ring of intricate crystal and metal gadgetry.

“That’s the warp generator,” his guide explained. “The gateway to your home universe.”

Pel took more of an interest once he had heard that; he looked out at the huge tangle of machinery.

Soon, when they found Rachel and brought her safely back here, he would be going through that thing, back to the safety and sanity of his own world, his own home, his suburban quarter-acre twenty miles from Washington.

As soon as they found Rachel.

It was three days later when he was brought into the interview room again. This time, though, instead of his usual questioner in the standard purple uniform, he found himself facing an older officer in more ornate garb, with gold braid and a row of medals.

“Mr. Brown,” the man said, folding his hands on the table in front of him, “this time, instead of asking you to tell us things, we’ll be telling you what we’ve found out.”

Pel took his usual seat and said nothing.

“You were captured by pirates and sold into slavery on Zeta Leo III,” the officer said. “While it’s true that pirates and slavers are a recurring problem on the fringes of the Galactic Empire, they are a minor problem, and the odds of the particular ship that Captain Cahn had commandeered being attacked-well, let’s just say that it was unlikely enough that we were very suspicious indeed.”

Pel listened without much interest. The attack had happened; he didn’t really care why.

“With that in mind, once we had taken control of Zeta Leo III, we began a thorough investigation of pirate activities based there, and of the attack on Emerald Princess in particular. We took a dozen telepaths with us to aid in the investigation-an unheard-of measure. I don’t suppose you realize just how extreme a measure that is, unfamiliar as you are with our society, but let me assure, it’s extreme. Never before have we allowed more than eight telepaths to gather in a single place, other than at military transfer points or this base.” He raised a hand to make a gesture at the ceiling.

Pel sat, listening. He blinked occasionally.

“We found what we’d expected,” the officer said. “Several people died inexplicably under interrogation, not from anything we did, but eventually we found what we were after. Agents of the extra- universal thing known as Shadow had secretly controlled the government of not just Zeta Leo III, but an entire network of rebel worlds-the others are being reduced even as I tell you this. It was already expanding its sphere of influence from its own universe into ours, and it was this thing, this Shadow, that ordered the attack on Emerald Princess.”

That was scarcely a surprise, really, Pel thought. They had guessed at it, without any evidence at all, aboard the pirate ship.

“That means that it was Shadow that was responsible for the death of your wife.”

Pel blinked. He really hadn’t thought of it that way, but it was true-Nancy hadn’t just died. Someone had killed her. Some person had deliberately killed her.

He sat up a little straighter.

“And I’m afraid that I have some very bad news.”

Pel knew, with a cold, crawling certainty, what was coming. His lips formed the word, “No.”

“I’m afraid we found your daughter, Rachel. And… well, we’ll be bringing the remains here to Base One, so you can make your goodbyes.”

“No,” Pel said, quietly.

“That’s another death that this Shadow is responsible for, indirectly,” the officer said. “More directly, of course, someone else was, and while I can understand it if you find this a disappointment, if you’d have preferred a more personal vengeance, I’m afraid that the procedures of military justice have already taken care of him. A man named Lemuel Burgess has been hanged for your daughter’s murder. If you wish, transcripts of the tribunal and other evidence can be provided to satisfy you that we found the right man.” He cleared his throat. “Your wife’s killers were never specifically identified, but the entire crew of the ship Reaper has been apprehended and executed for piracy, slave-trading, and other high crimes, so she, too, is avenged-in part.”

Pel stared at him.

The Empire did things with despatch, certainly, if this man was telling the truth-and why would he lie?

They were all dead-Nancy and Rachel and the men who had killed them, all dead.

“Thank you,” Pel whispered, unsure why he said it.

The officer hesitated. “There’s a little more,” he said.

Pel sat motionless, watching him.

“As I said,” the man continued, “this Shadow is responsible for the deaths of your wife and daughter. And it’s waging a sort of secret war against the Empire, as well. We can’t just march in and bring Shadow, whatever it is, to trial; we can’t hang it or shoot it, much as we’d like to. In plain truth, we don’t know much about it. We do know, though, that it’s evil, that it’s criminal, that it’s responsible for the deaths, not just of your family, but of hundreds of innocents.” He paused dramatically.

Pel watched.

“We want it stopped,” the officer continued. “It’s a murderous, monstrous thing, intruding where it has no business, and we want it stopped as quickly as possible. What’s more, we think that you can help us stop it. We want to send you into Shadow’s world, as part of a team effort to track down and destroy it. This is the thing that gave the orders for your wife and daughter to die that we’re asking you to fight; it’s a chance for revenge. Will you take it?” He looked down at Pel, awaiting a reply.

Pel looked back. He stared up into the bright, brown eyes of this man from another universe, this officer in the military of a Galactic Empire, this figure from some pulp space opera, offering him a chance at lurid vengeance against the killer of his wife and child.

It was all like a scene from a novel or a movie, more than ever-he was James Bond being offered his assignment, Mr. Phelps listening to the tape, he was a man being offered a chance to be a hero. He was supposed to say yes, whereupon the officer would shake his hand, and the camera would cut away, and the next scene would be the determined little war party preparing for the assault upon the enemy’s fortress.

It was all laid out in the books. This was where the hero differentiated himself from the lesser characters.

James Bond wouldn’t hesitate in taking his assignment, no matter how risky. Horatio Hornblower would never turn down a command, no matter how outgunned he would be. Indiana Jones would go after the artifact, no matter how many booby traps there might be, no matter how many enemies might try to stop him. Any real hero would answer instantly.

But in the books the officer’s breath didn’t smell of the onions he’d eaten at lunch, and there wasn’t an incipient pimple on the side of his neck; the table didn’t have someone’s initials scratched in it; the hero’s stomach wasn’t wrenched out of shape by the thought of his daughter’s death, there weren’t tears itching at the corners of his eyes, he didn’t feel as if he was about to faint or vomit or, worst of all, burst out in hysterical laughter. In the books the world was all smooth and simple, not hard and solid and arbitrary; there were good guys and bad guys, right and wrong, and right always won out in the end.

Was the Galactic Empire right? Maybe it was better than the alternative, but it was no bastion of purity. Since leaving Earth he had not seen a single black person, or any Oriental except Susan Nguyen-where were they all? What had the Empire done with them? He had heard the Imperials openly voice hatred for “mutants,” he had seen a society that to every appearance was racist and sexist and imperialist and saw nothing wrong with any of it. They had hanged every man aboard the pirate ship, had hanged or imprisoned most of the population of Zeta Leo III-mercy was not one of the Empire’s strong suits. Were these the good guys?

And in truth, all he knew about Shadow he had heard from its enemies. True, it had attacked him, but it might be acting in its own defense.

Was he one of the good guys, really?

The bad guys offered their people these choices, too-the agents Bond sent to gruesome deaths, the assassins assigned to kill the hero, they had these offers and they accepted them. Was the Empire in the right?

And if it was, so what?

This was no story. This was real life. There was no author making sure justice was done. Right hadn’t won against Shadow before; why should it now? And how did he even know whether anything this man had said was true?

Rachel might still be alive; he had only the officer’s word that she was not.

He didn’t know what was true. He didn’t know what was right.

The officer was still waiting for his answer.

This was his chance to be the hero, he knew that. All he had to do was say yes. Be brave and strong and true, and despite tragedy, the hero would win out, the evil would be destroyed, the survivors would live happily ever after.

All the stories said so.

Raven would say yes in an instant, he was certain. Raven had all the makings of a traditional hero. He believed in honor and courage and duty, in right and wrong, good and evil.

And look what it had gotten him; the doctors were still working on his back, and his traitor brother was still lord of Stormcrack Keep.

All Pel had to do was say yes.

James Bond would say yes, Indiana Jones, Horatio Hornblower, they’d say yes in an instant.

But Bond was a spy, Hornblower a sea captain, Jones an archeologist-those were their jobs. Pel Brown was a marketing consultant; his job was telling small businesses why their ads didn’t work.

All he had to do was say yes to be a hero, instead of just a marketing consultant.

All he had to do was say yes.

All he had to do was say yes.

“I don’t know,” Pel said.