Lawrence Watt-Evans - Out of This World

Prossie paused, and listened.

She sensed uneasiness on the other side of the conversation, as if Carrie doubted her, or as if she knew something Prossie did not. She certainly wasn’t sharing Prossie’s relief.

That troubled Prossie, but she thrust it aside as a new idea struck her.

“Listen, Carrie,” she said, “once I’m free, what if I were to track down some of the people we contacted-Miletti, or Blaisdell, or Aldridge? Wouldn’t they help us?”

“I don’t know,” Carrie answered, startled. “I hadn’t thought of that. Are you sure they’ll free you?”

“Well,” Prossie admitted, “I have no way of being sure the attorney didn’t lie to me-I don’t have my telepathy here, so I couldn’t check. I hadn’t really thought about it-why would he lie? And if he told the truth, they definitely won’t keep me here more than, I think he said thirty days, at most. They might try to send me to a madhouse, though-I think that was what he meant, anyway, though he didn’t come right out and say so. But I’m not mad, and I ought to be able to avoid that.”

“I see,” Carrie said, and again Prossie sensed doubt. “There’s something else, though; I don’t know if any of the contactees are near where you came out. Some of them were thousands of miles apart. I’ll have to see if we have any maps.”

“Do it, Carrie, please-for me.”

“Sure, Prossie. Hey, whatever happens, it’s good to hear you sounding so much more cheerful!”

“It’s good to be more cheerful, Carrie. Do check those maps for me, please. And thanks.”

The contact broke.

Silent, Prossie sat on her bunk, puzzled.

She had been so pleased with her conversation with Jerry de Lillo, the attorney from the public defender’s office, that she had not really considered the possibility that it was all a fraud, or that things might not work out as well as Mr. de Lillo said. Carrie, however, seemed to be taking it for granted that there was something wrong somewhere.

Why?

What could Carrie know that she, Prossie, did not? Had they been reading other minds here in Montgomery County, or whatever this place was called?

No, that couldn’t be it; she knew perfectly well that contacting anyone in this universe was difficult, and only a handful of people had been sufficiently receptive to manage any sort of communication at all. Out of that handful, only three had been able to both send and receive.

Prossie hadn’t been in on all the initial contacts, but she had done her share, and had carefully studied the files on those she hadn’t personally attempted. None of them had been connected with law enforcement or government.

The chances of locating another new contact who just happened to know something about the fate of the crew of I.S.S. Ruthless had to be just about nil. Whatever Carrie had learned, she must have learned back at Base One, or through a contact somewhere else in the Empire.

Prossie tried to remember the conversation and spot just where it had begun to go sour.

When Prossie had first mentioned being freed, there had been a lack of certainty, but that was just an insufficiency of evidence-Carrie had been eager to be convinced, at that point. Then Prossie had gone on to describe her hopes for after her release…

That was it.

It was when she had mentioned going back through the warp that Carrie had started hiding something.

Any ordinary person would never have noticed it, but Prossie was a telepath; she knew how minds worked. Carrie would never have tried hiding anything from another telepath that way ordinarily, she would have known better, but where Prossie’s talent was stifled she must have misjudged.

It must be that Carrie knew something about the warp that Prossie did not, and Prossie did not have to think very hard about the situation to guess what it might be.

The Under-Secretary had said that there would be no rescue, that the attempt to contact Earth was being abandoned; the next step was obvious and logical.

They must have shut down the warp.

Prossie slumped back against the wall. They had shut down the warp. The opening between universes was gone.

It would be possible to re-open it, she was sure. It had to be possible.

But would they do it?

“Ted, this is Raven,” Pel said.

Ted held out a hand, but Raven was already bowing and did not see it. Discomfited, Ted pulled back his hand and stuck it in his pocket.

“Raven, this is our lawyer, Ted Deranian.”

“’Tis an honor, good sir,” Raven said, flourishing his hat as he rose from his bow.

“Uh, yeah,” Ted said. He glanced at Pel, silently asking what the hell was going on.

“Raven’s not from around here,” Pel said hastily. “I mean, he’s not just dressed up; that’s his native costume.”

Ted looked over the black velvet and elaborate embroidery, the sword and the bobbing ostrich plume. “I didn’t know they still dressed like that anywhere any more,” he said.

Raven cast a questioning glance at Pel, who quickly said, “Don’t worry about it. Come on into the living room and sit down, Ted, let Nancy get you a drink or something.”

“Sure,” Ted said. He turned toward the living room.

As he did, behind his back but in sight of Pel, Raven jerked his head toward the family room, down at the far end of the hall; Pel shook his head no. There was no need to bring Stoddard or Donald or the wizard into things at this point.

Ted accepted a scotch and water from Nancy, then settled into the fake-antique wing chair by the front window. Pel gestured for Raven to take the other armchair, while he seated himself on the couch and Nancy slipped out through the dining room, back to the kitchen.

“Look, Ted,” Pel explained, when they were all seated, “Raven’s got a problem. Some friends of his are in jail down in Rockville, charged with trespassing and vandalism. They’re probably more or less guilty, but it was an accident, nobody meant any harm, and they’re all foreigners, they don’t understand the American courts and they haven’t got any money for fines or bail or anything. We’d like you to go and look after them, get them out if you can-we need to talk to them, if you can arrange it.”

“Foreigners?” Ted pursed his lips and put down his glass. “Do they speak English?”

Pel glanced at Raven, who nodded. “Aye,” he said. “’Tis their native tongue.”

Pel improvised, “They’re from the backwoods of New Zealand someplace, I think.”

Ted nodded. “Ordinarily, I’d say no problem,” he said. “Do they all dress like, uh, Raven, here?”

Again, Pel glanced at Raven, who answered, “Nay, their garb is like neither mine nor your own.”

Pel shrugged.

Ted hesitated, and then said, “I can’t place your accent, Raven; where are you from?”

Raven glanced at Pel, then turned up a palm. “I come from Stormcrack Keep, in the Hither Corydians.”

“Is that in New Zealand?”

Raven just smiled and didn’t answer.

“Listen, would you do me a favor?” Ted asked.

Raven looked politely inquiring.

“Would you say, ‘Yonder lies the castle of my father’?”

Puzzled, Raven looked at Pel, whose expression shifted quickly from thunderstricken to suppressed giggling.

“Yonder lies the castle of my father?” Raven said.

“No,” Ted said. “Declaim it, announce it-you know.”

“Ted,” Pel interrupted, “Raven isn’t Tony Curtis, and he doesn’t know what you’re talking about. The accent’s real, he can’t help it.”

Baffled, Raven looked at Pel, who explained, “It’s a line from an old movie… oh, never mind.” He turned to Ted. “So can you get these people out of jail for us? As soon as possible? I’ll stand bail, if it’s not too much, or agree to be responsible for them.”