“Raise no hopes, friend Pel,” Raven said. “Mayhap the death is slower here, for ‘tis plain truth that this realm is not your own, but death is certain, all the same.”
“Unless you can get them back through the... the warp in time, anyway,” Nancy suggested.
Pel looked at her, and realized that Rachel had fallen asleep in her mother’s arms.
“Do you want me to take her for awhile?” he offered.
“No, that’s all right,” Nancy said. “We’re fine.” She hesitated, then asked, “Can you get them back through the warp in time?”
Raven looked at Captain Cahn; he wasn’t listening. He was discussing something else entirely with some of the others.
Pel looked at Peabody.
“Doubt it,” he said, frowning. “I don’t know just where the hell we are, even with the name, but if I never heard of it, it’s got to be at least a week, probably a lot more, from Base One. If those gnomes could last a week here, we’d probably have caught a few of them alive sometime.”
Pel’s jaw dropped.
“A week?” he shouted.
“Yeah,” Peabody said.
Pel turned and grabbed Raven by the front of his embroidered jacket. “A week? I can’t spend a week here! I didn’t even want to spend an hour! I have a business to run! I left the lights on, and the cat—what’s going to happen to our cat?”
“I’m sorry, Pel Brown,” Raven said, pulling Pel’s hands away from his garments with surprising ease; he was even stronger than he looked.
“Pel,” Nancy said worriedly, watching Grummetty and Alella, “this isn’t our space any more than it’s theirs. Are we going to be all right here?”
Pel glared at Raven.
“I know not, my lady,” the nobleman said. “But I see no reason to fear. My people and Messire Peabody’s have lived in each other’s lands for months, even years, and suffered no ill; likewise, the neither took harm from our stay in your own realm. ‘Tis only the creatures of Hrumph and Shadow and Elfindom, the creatures of magic, that cannot abide here.”
“Sure, lady, don’t worry about that,” Peabody said. “You’ll be fine.” He hesitated, then added, “I’m sorry about your cat, though. Maybe the neighbors’ll do something?”
“Yeah,” Nancy agreed, stroking Rachel’s hair. “Maybe. He’ll have water, at least, if nobody closed the bathroom door.”
For a few seconds they were silent, sunk in gloom; then a joyful shout, audible even in the thin air, roused them.
“Aircar on the way!” Prossie called. “No Imperial ships are available, so they’re sending a car. Be here in a few hours!”
A ragged cheer went up, and quickly faded.
“We need to put up a marker, so it can spot us,” Prossie added. “I’ll tell them what it is.”
That brought on a puzzled silence, followed by disjointed muttering, until finally somebody thought to start collecting the dead monsters, and fragments of monsters, into a heap.
“Should really show up, against all this white,” Peabody remarked, wincing, as he used his injured arm to help steady a mashed spider-thing before heaving it onto the growing mound.
Pel, dragging something resembling a saber-toothed wolf, nodded. He hesitated, and then said, “I’m sorry about that man Cartwright,” he said. “Was he... Did you know him well?”
Peabody turned away from the pile and shrugged. “Well enough,” he said. He sighed. “It’ll probably be me has to tell his wife back on Terra.”
“Wife?” Nancy, still seated holding Rachel, looked up, startled.
Peabody nodded. “Cute little thing. Her name’s Maureen; last I saw she was about seven months pregnant, probably had the kid by now. She and Pete have a place in New Dorset, in North Columbia.”
Pel looked uneasily at Nancy; she stared at Peabody in horror.
“They sent him out there with his wife pregnant?” she demanded.
Peabody shrugged again. “Sure. It didn’t look all that dangerous. It was supposed to be a diplomatic mission, after all—we didn’t know we’d wind up fighting monsters in the middle of nowhere.” He gestured at the surrounding landscape. “And we didn’t expect to wind up here, either, but this doesn’t look too bad.”
Pel glanced around, at the cold white sand, the various people with torn clothing, bloodstains, and improvised bandages, the pale sun and too-close horizon. He stared for a moment at the heap of fanged, clawed, and tentacled horrors, all of them dead. He took a deep breath of the warm, thin, oddly flavorless air.
“Well, no one’s attacking us, anyway,” he said.
Peabody grimaced.
“At the moment,” Pel added.
“Hours,” Nancy said, looking at the corpses. “She said a few hours?”
Pel frowned and nodded.
“I’m going to get some sleep, then,” Nancy said. “It must be after ten back home, and I’m tired.”
Pel looked at his watch, and saw nothing; the display was blank. The light came on when he pushed the appropriate button, but had nothing to illuminate.
He shrugged. “I don’t think it’s really that late,” he said, “but sure, if you like.”
Nancy lowered Rachel gently to the sand, arranged her comfortably, then curled up beside her. Pel watched them silently.
He sat up himself for awhile, but eventually, for lack of anything better to do, he joined her.
He was awakened by Peabody jostling him. He blinked, sat up, and looked where the crewman pointed.
At first he didn’t see anything. The sun had crossed the sky and was descending toward the western horizon; the air had progressed from warm to hot, while the sand on which he lay had also warmed, though far less. He peered out over the sand and rock, and finally spotted it.
A glittering object had appeared over the horizon and was coming quickly nearer.
“Oh, my God,” he said, tensing. “Now what?”
“It’s okay!” someone shouted. “That’s our ride!”
Pel relaxed slightly, but remained wary as the thing neared. Someone—in the dimming light it took Pel a moment to recognize Mervyn—had improvised a small torch, somehow, and was waving it enthusiastically over his head, signalling to the approaching craft.
The vehicle was roughly the size and shape of a car, but had no wheels; instead it cruised along at roughly the height of Pel’s head, with no visible means of support.
“It is just like Luke Skywalker’s landspeeder,” Nancy said, sitting up.
Pel looked at her questioningly. “Prossie said they had cars with anti-gravity—aircars, she called them,” Nancy explained. “And I told Rachel they were like the one in ‘Star Wars.’ And they are, see?”
Pel nodded. The thing certainly traveled like the one in the movie.
It didn’t much resemble it otherwise, though. It wasn’t pink and battered. The cockpit wasn’t open, and the lines were more bulbous than sleek. It was glossy black, with elaborate brass trim and numerous running lights in various colors, and it reminded Pel more of a 1953 Buick Roadmaster his father had once had than it did of anything else—though of course, the Buick had been festooned with chrome, rather than brass.
By this time the entire assorted party was awake, and everyone had noticed the approaching vehicle. They were all watching it, with varying intensity. Susan was frankly staring, her mouth open; Amy was a bit more restrained, while Ted was grinning like an idiot, as if the thing’s appearance were something he had contrived himself that had turned out better than expected. Stoddard was watching other people as much as the aircar itself, judging their reactions to it; Squire Donald’s expression was unreadable; Valadrakul’s gaze seemed coolly appraising.
Most of the crew of the Ruthless seemed mildly relieved and completely unsurprised.
The aircar glided to a standstill and hovered over a slab of white rock, a few yards away. A window whirred open and a white-haired head thrust out.
“Proserpine Thorpe?” the man in the aircar called.
The head swiveled around to peer at the telepath, then turned back to the main party and called, “Captain Cahn?”
“Yes,” Cahn answered.
The man nodded, and pulled his head back inside the vehicle. An instant later, with a high-pitched whine, the aircar settled slowly to the ground.
Pel glanced at Nancy, making sure she and Rachel were all right, and then jogged toward it.
As he drew nearer, he saw that the resemblance to an old Buick was less than he had initially thought. The thing was bigger and far more complex, with exposed tubing in several places, running lights in yellow and green and red, and protuberances that Pel couldn’t identify at all.
It also bore an elaborate gold seal on its side, showing a lion and unicorn rampant against a sunburst. That was not something Pel had expected—a ringed planet or a spaceship would have struck him as more appropriate. The gold-leaf beasts looked positively medieval, and made a curious contrast with the multicolored lights and all the other signs of a fairly high technology.
By the time Pel reached the aircar’s side Captain Cahn had strode the three paces necessary to reach the vehicle and was already bent down, talking quietly with the driver through the open window.
Pel frowned; the vehicle had a pair of bucket seats in front, and two rows of three behind, rather than the two bench seats his father’s car had had, but even so, there was no way the entire party could fit into it at once.
“It’ll take three trips,” the driver said, looking past Cahn, seeing Pel’s expression and guessing the reason.
“Couldn’t you have sent something larger?” Pel asked, struggling not to shout.
The driver grimaced. “Nope,” he said. “This is it. Psi Cass the Deuce isn’t exactly London; this bucket’s about it for official transport. They were trying to scrounge up more, but for the first run, I’m all you get.”
“We’ll take the wounded first,” Captain Cahn said, in a tone that implied argument was flatly impossible.
The driver nodded. “And I take the telepath, of course, right?”
“Of course,” Captain Cahn agreed.
“What about my wife?” Pel asked. “And our daughter?”
“Second trip, probably,” the driver replied, reaching for a lever.
Captain Cahn stepped back and turned, looking the group over and choosing who would go.
“Peabody, you go and get that arm looked at,” he called. “Drummond, you’re in charge, and get the leg taken care of. Wizard...” Elani and Valadrakul both looked up. Valadrakul’s face was bloody, but he was basically intact; Elani was unmarked, but clearly suffering from exhaustion.
Pel was distracted by the driver clearing his throat. He turned, startled.
The driver’s hand was on the polished wood knob atop a black lever, and he was glaring at Pel. Pel blinked.
“Step away, please,” the driver said.
“Oh,” Pel replied. He took a step back.
The driver pulled the lever, and the aircar made a noise like a vacuum cleaner warming up. It stirred, and then hovered, a few inches off the ground.
As the machine rose Pel felt suddenly off-balance, as if he were about to fall toward the aircar; he backed away another step, and the feeling vanished.
Peabody stepped up, apparently untroubled by any falling sensation; he opened a door and climbed in, then turned and held it open. Valadrakul handed in first Grummetty, and then Alella—they were far too small to board without assistance.
The two little people both rode in a single seat, the center one of the back row, with Peabody to one side. Elani went in next, taking the other side.
“Nobody else’s hurt that bad, sir,” Peabody said, leaning forward. “Why not take Mrs. Brown and the girl?”
Cahn frowned. “All right,” he said. “If they want, but there isn’t room for all three of them. If the mother and daughter go, the father waits here. You want to do that, Mr. Brown, or would you rather wait and all go together?”
Pel turned to Nancy.
Nancy looked down at Rachel, who was huddled, sound asleep, in her arms. She looked around at the empty sand, the descending sun, and the gleaming aircar.
“We’ll wait,” she said.
Cahn looked around.
“You two, then,” he said, pointing to Susan and Amy. “I want somebody from your world in this group.”
The two women glanced at each other, then stepped forward together and boarded.
A moment later the aircar was loaded—Prossie Thorpe rode shotgun in the front, Susan, Amy, and Lieutenant Drummond were in the second row, and Peabody, Elani, and the little people rode in back. Doors slammed, the engine sound rose to an ear- piercing shriek and then upward in pitch, into inaudibility, and the vehicle lifted from the ground, swung around, and began to pick up speed, back the direction it had come.
Pel had been standing too close; the backwash of the anti-gravity drive left him dizzy.
“Next load,” Cahn said, “Lieutenant Godwin, you’ll be in charge. You’ll take the Browns, the other wizard, that Squire Donald, and Ben Lampert. The rest of us should all fit in the third.”
There were answering nods, but Pel paid no attention. He was too busy watching the aircar as it disappeared over the horizon.
Despite the hot, dry air, he shivered.
A thought struck him, and he snatched out his camera; it appeared to have survived undamaged, thus far. He pointed it after the aircar, but it was too late; the vehicle was out of sight.
He sighed, and contented himself with snapping a quick shot of the remaining group, scattered on the sands.
Chapter Fifteen
Amy found herself seated in the exact center of the aircar, between Susan Nguyen and Lieutenant Drummond. The sound of the engines was not the same as any car or plane she had ridden before; it was a steady whine, and it took a few moments before she could adjust to it and block it out.
Drummond was obviously back on familiar ground—so to speak, since they were cruising about eight feet up. He was leaning back, relaxed and smiling. His injured leg was stretched out, the foot under the seat in front of him, while the other leg was bent, knee out to the side. His blond hair was matted with blood, and Amy wondered what had happened to his helmet. He had had a helmet before, she was certain.
Then she realized where she had seen him with his helmet on—stepping out of the Ruthless in her back yard. He had been the first to emerge from the ship.
Despite his wounds, he looked a lot happier now than he had then—and why not? He was on his way home.
Amy wasn’t so lucky. She didn’t know where she was headed.
She hoped it was home.
* * * *
The richness of telepathic contact was so wonderful, after the long drought on Earth and in Shadow’s realm, that Prossie was tempted to just lean back in her seat and let the whine of the aircar’s engine shut out distractions while she soaked in impressions—but she knew she couldn’t do that. She had duties to attend to.
She sent a wordless status report to Carrie, back at Base One—Carrie and the family were always her first concern, of course, whatever her official orders might be. And Carrie would keep the higher-ups in the military hierarchy informed and happy, anyway, so that was all right.
Then there were plans to be made here on Psi Cass Two. They would need a ship, to get everybody back to Base One as soon as possible. That barbarian who called himself Raven, and his bodyguard Stoddard, and the rest of them, she supposed they would all be unspeakably valuable to Imperial Intelligence; Shadow was a top concern, and this was the first time a group of friendly natives from that universe had ever been found.
At least, as far as Prossie knew, it was, and as far as she was concerned that was definitive—if any telepath knew it, now that she was back in normal space and in contact with the family, she would know it, on some deep unconscious level. And if anyone who ever came anywhere near a
telepath knew it, or if anyone a telepath contacted from a distance knew it, then the suspicion would leak through.
The telepaths all knew things they didn’t know they knew, things that had registered deep in the back of the mind, far below consciousness—it was one of the more useful side-effects of their talent, really.
It was also one that they tried not to let normals know about. Prossie wasn’t going to tell anyone that she knew how important these people were; she would let her superiors tell her how important they were.
And not just Shadow’s people; the Earth people were potentially valuable, too. An entire new universe, with its own science—even if much of it didn’t work here in the real world, that still had to be valuable.
Not that Under-Secretary Bascombe thought so. He thought the Earth people were barbarians.
Prossie knew better; she hadn’t snooped deeply, but even a light brush showed her that their minds were rich, sophisticated, crammed with a wealth of stories and information. She couldn’t even understand much of what she found in there—especially when she tried this Susan Nguyen, whose background was so different from the others, and who had spent her early childhood speaking an utterly alien language.
Raven and company, on the other hand, were barbarians. Oh, they had their own culture, with plenty of elaboration and ritual, and their wizards had a great deal of esoteric knowledge about their “magic,” but they had the singlemindedness and ethnocentricity typical of primitives.
She conveyed all that to Carrie, in mental shorthand.
But then she turned her attention to the governor in Town—Psi Cass Two had only one settlement, and nobody had bothered to think up a fancy name for it yet.
A ship. They needed a ship. And Captain Cahn held a special commission as emissary to Earth that, despite what he had told Raven, gave him plenipotentiary powers.
And there were all those people still stuck out in the desert.
She had some arguing to do, to speed things along.
* * * *
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