Lawrence Watt-Evans - Out of This World

And, it seemed, telepathy didn’t work here.

They should have expected this, or at least considered the possibility. After all, they had known that at least some of Shadow’s magic didn’t work in Imperial space. That demonstrated that there were differences. Why hadn’t they considered what other differences there might be?

She felt as if her head were packed with wool, shutting out the constant background hum of other people’s thoughts, and it was not a comfortable feeling at all. She had never experienced anything like it before.

What was even worse, though, was that no one had yet contacted her.

The plan had been that once they were through the warp she would send a quick verification that they had arrived safely, and that she then would devote her attention to the usual duties of a ship’s telepath-accompanying Captain Cahn on his diplomatic mission, reading the minds of those around them, advising him when they were lying, and so on and so forth. All of that had obviously become impossible when the ship had crashed twenty miles from their objective and they had all been taken prisoner by the local constabulary, and when most of their equipment wouldn’t work.

And she hadn’t sent any verification because her telepathy didn’t work, either.

Which meant that as far as she could tell, nobody back at Base One had any idea what had happened to them.

So why hadn’t they gotten another telepath and contacted her? Surely, she could still receive as well as the natives here could, and her team had managed to make limited contact with half a dozen of the native psychics. Didn’t they realize something had gone wrong? She had been here, isolated, all night, and there had been no contact.

Surely they knew something had gone wrong. Surely they had had plenty of time to try to get through.

Then, at last, something stirred in her mind, as if a mouse were moving inside that mass of wool. She tried to focus on it, and it became clearer, she could sense a sort of shape to the message.

And then it was through, it was Carrie back at Base One, calling her, calling desperately.

“Here!” she thought. “I’m here, Carrie!”

“Prossie!” Relief flooded through the contact, flowing both ways.

She didn’t reply with words, but with reassuring thoughts roughly equivalent to, “It’s okay, Carrie, I’m fine.”

Carrie’s thoughts caressed hers for a moment, and then a question came through, so clear that for a moment Prossie thought she had heard it spoken aloud.

“Prossie,” it said, “what happened ?”

“No telepathy? No anti-gravity?” The Under-Secretary frowned at the papers on his desk.

“No, sir,” the telepath standing stiffly before him reported. “Neither one. It appears that the laws of physics are totally different there-it’s not just that the telepathic mutation never happened, or AG wasn’t discovered. Not only do they have no telepaths or AG of their own, but ours don’t work there; that’s why the ship crashed, and why Prossie… why Telepath Thorpe didn’t report in. It’s a miracle that there are human beings so much like us in a place so alien, let alone that they speak the same language.”

“But they have some sort of technology, don’t they?” the official demanded. “I mean, they aren’t just using sticks and stones?”

“Thorpe says that they have a different technology from ours, sir,” the telepath explained, “but it’s one that’s very nearly as advanced as ours in some ways, sir, maybe even higher. She reports seeing a recording machine of some kind that’s unlike anything we’ve ever imagined, and they appear to have a sophisticated mechanical communications system.”

“But if our machines won’t work there,” the Under-Secretary asked, tapping the desk, “will their machines work here? Will their weapons work here? Or in the Shadow realm?”

“I don’t know, sir,” the telepath said. “Nobody knows.”

“The reports say these people do have advanced weapons,” he said. “Did Thorpe say anything about them?”

“Well, sir,” the telepath said cautiously, “you have to remember, she was taken into custody before she’d ever had a chance to leave the landing site, and she can’t read minds there, she has to rely on her eyes and ears, like anybody else. She spent the night in their jail, and there wasn’t much to see there. And I didn’t take time to go over every detail; I came directly to you to report.”

The Under-Secretary’s manner made his impatience clear as he said, “Yes?”

“So far as I know, she hasn’t seen any weapons except the handguns the law enforcers carry,” the telepath said. “And she hasn’t heard anything about any others.”

“Handguns?”

“Yes, sir. Projectile weapons, apparently, like the pistols of a century ago. She saw bullets on the law officers’ belts.”

“Bullets,” the Under-Secretary said, frowning.

“Yes, sir,” the telepath said.

“We’re looking for help against the alien super-science of another universe,” the Under-Secretary demanded, “science so advanced that they call it magic, and the best we can find is people who still shoot bullets at each other?”

The telepath shifted uneasily, struggling to stay at attention. “Well, sir, bullets can be very effective, really, and these were civilian law officers, after all, not military personnel. We’ve all read things in other minds there that hint at much better…”

“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.”