Lawrence Watt-Evans - Out of This World

“I’ll see what I can do,” Ted said, gulping the rest of his scotch. “If it’s just trespassing and vandalism-they broke something?”

“Tore up someone’s yard, I think,” Pel said.

Ted nodded. “Simplest thing, then, would be to get the complainant to drop the charges; are you good for the damages, Pel, if that’s what’s wanted?”

Pel had to think for a moment before reluctantly agreeing. “I guess,” he said. “If it’s not too much.”

Ted stood up. “Well, thanks for the drink, then, and I guess I better get down to Rockville and see what the story is. Ah… do you have names for these people?”

Pel looked at Raven, who said, “Tarry a moment, please.” He turned and hurried to the family room, leaving Ted and Pel standing where they were.

Pel looked apologetically at Ted. “Another drink?” he asked.

“No, no,” Ted said. “I’m working, and I’m driving, and it’s too early anyway.”

“Coffee, maybe, or water?”

“No, thanks.”

They stood, awkwardly waiting, for another few seconds; then Raven reappeared.

“Your pardon, sirs,” he said. “The captain of the crew is one Joshua Cahn; his second is Alster Drummond. The lady with them is Mistress Proserpine Thorpe. Is that sufficient?”

“Should be,” Ted said. “Joshua Cahn-how’s that spelled, with a K?”

“I fear I know not, sir,” Raven replied.

“Doesn’t matter, I’ll find him. Cahn, Drummond, and Thorpe. Got it.”

“My thanks, sir, for your efforts in our behalf,” Raven said, bowing again as Pel showed Ted to the door.

* * * *

“Somebody named Ted Deranian wants to talk to you,” Susan’s voice said. “He’s a lawyer, has an office in Germantown.”

“A lawyer? What does he want to talk to me about?” Amy asked, puzzled.

“About the people from the thing in your back yard. He says he represents a friend of theirs who’s willing to pay for the damages if you drop the charges.”

Amy looked out her kitchen window at the ship, still lying where it had fallen. The Air Force people had not come back; she hoped they never would, though that did still leave the question of what she was going to do with the thing.

“I thought none of them knew any lawyers,” she said.

“I don’t think they do,” Susan said. “They got Jerry de Lillo from the public defender’s office appointed to represent them-he’s okay. This isn’t him. This Deranian person doesn’t claim to be representing anyone directly involved in the case; his client is just a friend of one of them.”

“If they’re supposed to be from outer space, how can they have friends in Germantown?”

“That’s a very good question,” Susan said.

Amy considered for a long moment, then said, “I don’t suppose it can hurt to talk to him.”

“I wouldn’t think so,” Susan agreed.

“Maybe I’ll finally find out what the heck is going on.”

“Maybe. Should I send him out there?”

“ Here ? Oh, no. Not here. I can come to your office, or his office-I don’t want him here.”

“All right. I’d like to sit in, so how about my office? When can you be here?”

* * * *

“I want to talk to them,” Amy said. “The people who were in it.”

“Fine by me,” Ted replied, smiling.

“I mean, I’m making that a condition. If I drop the charges, I want to talk to these people. That’s besides payment for the damages.”

Ted leaned back in the chair. “Ms. Jewell,” he said, “that’s fine with me, but I don’t know whether they’ll say anything. I don’t represent them; I’m acting on behalf of a third party.”

“Who?”

“His name is Pellinore Brown. He’s something of an old friend of mine.”

“Pellinore?” Susan said, startled.

Ted swiveled in his chair and said, “His mother got it out of a book somewhere.” He turned back to Amy. “Ms. Jewell,” he said, “I can’t make them talk to you, but how about this-you come to Mr. Brown’s house, and I’ll bring them there, and the lot of you can talk to each other all you want or not, whatever suits.” He smiled. “It should be interesting; I’ve already met another of Mr. Brown’s guests.”

Amy considered for a moment, glancing from Ted to Susan and back. Susan shrugged.

“Okay,” Amy said.

* * * *

“Somebody’s put in for a writ to get those people out of jail,” the lieutenant reported, holding the phone.

Major Johnston looked up, then back down at the reports spread on his desk.

Design analysis-nothing. The unidentified machines can’t possibly do anything.

Field trials-nothing. The machines don’t do anything.

Materials analysis-nothing. Steel, glass, simple plastics and ceramics, polished redwood, assorted metals-copper, brass, gold, platinum. Nothing untoward, unless you asked what the gold and platinum were doing there. No unidentified or unusual substances. No petroleum-based plastics, which was odd, and no aluminum, which was even odder. Who ever heard of any sort of flying craft made entirely without aluminum?

Electronics analysis-nothing. Not just nothing comprehensible, like the other reports, but nothing at all. No silicon chips anywhere, not so much as a single printed circuit. Everything electrical was hardwired, with simple copper wires and connectors. No transistors, not even any vacuum tubes-the most advanced equipment aboard that was recognizable at all was solenoids. Good solenoids, but solenoids.

This all assumed, of course, that the stuff that looked like random bits of wire, metal, and crystal wasn’t some sort of circuitry, but whatever it was, it didn’t do anything.

Aerodynamics analysis-nothing much. No airfoils. The guidance vanes were just that-guidance vanes. They would provide no lift to speak of. You could drive the thing up to Mach 1 and it still wouldn’t fly, just fall. Air resistance would be very low, the streamlining was perfectly sound, there just wasn’t any lift built into it anywhere.

Tracking analysis-nothing. The ship appeared out of nowhere about three hundred feet up, just barely high enough to show up as a blip at the county airport, and immediately plummeted to the ground. It didn’t come in from above; if it had flown in below the radar, it had somehow done so without a single report being filed anywhere. No complaints from homeowners, no sightings by UFO spotters, nothing.

Document analysis-still to come.

Somebody was supposed to analyze the food that had been stored aboard the ship, but that hadn’t been done yet, either. At first glance it looked ordinary enough-canned goods, freeze-dried stuff, and so forth.

The thing didn’t really look like a hoax, exactly; he would have expected hoaxers to rig up fancy displays and use lots of electronics, for effect. Hoaxers wouldn’t use gold and platinum; they would use aluminum.

Unless, of course, they were very clever hoaxers indeed, trying to not look like a hoax.

The whole damn thing made no sense at all.

“The hell with it,” he said, shoving back his chair. He looked up to see the lieutenant still holding the line. “Screw it,” he said. “Tell ‘em they can let ‘em go. It looks like we aren’t going to figure this one out until someone tells us something, and if those people haven’t talked yet… just screw it.”

“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant replied. He uncovered the mouthpiece and spoke into it as Major Johnston angrily shoved the reports to one side and glared at them.

* * * *

“Ms. Thorpe?”

Prossie looked up, startled. The jailer who brought her meals never called her that, never said “Ms.”, and it was too early for dinner, anyway-she had only finished her lunch an hour or so ago. She wasn’t expecting that wonderful Mr. de Lillo again until tomorrow.