Lawrence Watt-Evans - Out of This World

She could sense Susan waiting calmly on the other end of the line.

“I called 9-1-1,” Amy said at last, “when the thing first fell here, because I thought it was a crashing airplane or something. So the police and the firemen came out and looked at it, and they took away the people who had been in it, and then the FAA came out and looked at it, and they said it wasn’t a private plane, it was some kind of military thing. So now…”

“Wait a minute, Ms. Jewell,” Susan said, interrupting. “There were people in it?”

“Yes! About a dozen of them, in silly purple uniforms. One woman and a bunch of men. All white, most of them blond, like a bunch of Nazis, with things like rayguns that didn’t work. The police took them all away and charged them with trespassing. And I want you to find them and find out who’s responsible and make them get this thing out of here!”

“I see,” Susan said. “Was it the county police that took them?”

“I think so,” Amy said. “Someone said something about taking them to Rockville, I think.”

“Well, that would be the county, then,” Susan agreed. “So you want to know who they are, and get the… the thing off your property. Anything else?”

“I want these people out of here. The FAA man called the Air Force, and one of them was here all night, sitting in his car, and a lot more got here this morning before I even woke up, and now there are a bunch of people out there taking pictures and measuring everything, and I want them off my land.”

“Air Force?” There was a long pause before Susan said, “I’m not sure how much I can do about them, Ms. Jewell, but I’ll try.”

“I don’t care who they are, I want them off my land!” Amy shouted. “Isn’t there something in the Constitution about soldiers in people’s houses?”

“Third Amendment,” Susan replied automatically. “I doubt it applies in this case, but I’ll see what I can do. I need to make a few calls, and then I’ll probably want to come out there and see just what the situation is. I have your address and phone number in the files; are they still current?”

“I haven’t moved,” Amy said.

“Good. Just hold on, Ms. Jewell, and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you,” Amy said.

“Goodbye.”

“’Bye.” She hung up the phone and looked out the window at the photo team. Now they were pacing off the dimensions of her patio.

What business of theirs was that? She clamped her lips tight and turned away.

Maybe, she thought, if she didn’t watch, it wouldn’t be so annoying.

* * * *

“What I can’t figure out,” the detective lieutenant said, “is that not one of them wanted to use the phone. You’re sure of that?”

The booking sergeant nodded. “Absolutely,” he said. “We read them their rights individually, just to be on the safe side, and we explained it all, and we told each of them he was entitled to one phone call, and all we got was blank looks. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that none of them had ever heard any of it before.”

“What, they never saw cop shows on TV?”

“That’s what it seemed like. I mean, when I read the line about if you can’t afford an attorney one will be appointed for you, I got these looks you wouldn’t believe-they were all of them astonished, like they’d never heard of such a thing. One of them, I mean, man, his jaw dropped open. And one said, ‘Really? It’s not a trick?’ and Jesus, he sounded sincere.”

The detective shook his head in wonder.

The sergeant slapped a hand on the desk. “It’s weird ,” he said. “I mean, I know there are nuts out there, I’ve seen plenty of them. I’ve seen guys dragged in here trying to pick invisible bugs off their skin, and guys hopped up on PCP who needed a dozen men to hold them, and guys that looked like they’d been dead for a week and I was afraid they’d drop dead on the floor for real before we could get a doctor in, and I’ve had guys swear at me and curse me up one side and down the other, I’ve had rich guys screaming at me and street punks being Momma’s little angel, but I have never seen anything like this bunch!”

“Gave you a lot of trouble?”

“Hell, no-that’s what’s so strange! They all of them looked around like this place was something out of a fairy tale, and did just exactly what they were told, and they gave us names and ranks and serial numbers, like they were prisoners of war instead of just busted for trespassing and littering, but they wouldn’t tell us anything else . They didn’t ask for lawyers, didn’t make phone calls, nothing. It’s like they really believe they’re soldiers from another planet!”

“Maybe they do,” the detective suggested.

The sergeant spread his hands wide. “ Ten of them? Ten nuts with the same delusion?”

The detective shrugged. “So they were all ten like that?”

“Well, eight of ‘em, anyway. The woman was a little different, I guess. She seemed real upset, where the others were calm as anything. And the captain, as he’s supposed to be-he wanted to talk to someone official, and no, I wouldn’t do, he wanted somebody from the military or the State Department. I told him I couldn’t do that, especially on a weekend.”

“Did he say why?”

“Well, yeah. He’s an envoy, he says, from the Galactic Empire, and he wants to talk to someone about arranging a mutual defense treaty with Earth, or at least the United States. He can’t make a treaty with local cops.”

The detective considered that silently for a moment, then asked, “Think it’s a movie stunt?”

“At first I did,” the sergeant said, “but now… I dunno. Wouldn’t they have called in the reporters by now? Wouldn’t they have made some phone calls? And why would they pick this lady’s back yard way the hell out in Goshen? Her lawyer just called, y’know-the lady’s really pissed about it.”

The detective nodded again. “So they all claim to come from the Galactic Empire?”

“As much as they claim anything, yeah.”

“They’re consistent?”

“Oh, yeah, absolutely. Not one of them has slipped out of character for as much as an instant, I swear.”

The detective sighed. “All right,” he said. “Where should I start?”

“Wherever you like,” the sergeant said, pushing a clipboard over.

The detective picked it up and scanned the list of names. “Prosser-pine Thorpe?” he said. “Is that the woman?”

“Proserpin- AH ,” the sergeant corrected him. “Yeah, that’s her.”

“Gave her rank as ‘registered master telepath’?”

“That’s what she said, yeah.”

“She try to read your mind?”

The sergeant just shrugged.

“Not so you could tell, huh?”

“So how am I supposed to know? But she sure didn’t talk about it, if she read anybody’s mind.”

“You said she was nervous?”

“Well, upset about something, anyway. Had a sort of trapped look-like a junkie who suddenly realizes she doesn’t know where to get her next fix. You know what I mean.”

“Sure,” the detective said. “She a looker?”

The sergeant shrugged. “She’s okay,” he said. “Nothing I’d leave home for, but okay.”

“What the hell,” the detective said, dropping the clipboard back on the desk. “I’ll start with her.”

* * * *

Proserpine Thorpe stared at the walls of her cell, baffled and frustrated.

Nothing. She had been straining her every nerve, focusing all her being on her telepathic sense, and there was simply nothing there.

This universe had some characteristics that nobody had mentioned or thought about in any of the briefings-presumably because nobody knew about them. The ship’s main drive didn’t work here. The crew’s blasters didn’t seem to work, either, though she wasn’t sure they’d really been tested.