Lawrence Watt-Evans - Out of This World

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.

“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.