Lawrence Watt-Evans - Out of This World

One of the creatures landed black and writhing on a crewman’s back-Cartwright’s, Pel thought it was-and the man screamed. Susan turned the gun, aimed at the monster, and then stopped as she realized she would have to shoot Cartwright, too.

Godwin was pulling at her arm, and she finally yielded; he yanked her around and thrust her through the door into the shed.

Something flashed red, and one of the monsters near the shed door exploded silently into bits of meat and bone.

“Valadrakul!” someone called.

Another creature exploded, this time with an audible bang.

Something was chewing on Pel’s ankle, and he kicked it away and ran.

Godwin was by the door of the shed, herding people in; he grabbed Nancy’s shoulder as she came within reach and shoved her through into the darkness.

Pel stopped, ready to turn and join Godwin in guarding the door, but Godwin’s hand closed on his upper arm, closed tight , and Godwin’s voice barked, “No civilians!”

He stumbled into the dark, into the shed that had now added the stink of urine to the smells of pine and earth; someone unseen, someone large who smelled of sweat, took him and thrust him at the back wall.

Pel’s hand flew up to fend off a collision with the wall, and the wall wasn’t there, he tumbled through the darkness into light, and fell forward rolling on sand, thinking for an instant, once again, that it was all a dream and now he would fall forever, or maybe wake up on the bedroom floor.

Then he landed, grit scraping his arm and cheek.

He blinked, and saw sunlight on fine white sand, sand that was cool against his cheek and hand, while the air was warm.

Sand?

Shouldn’t he be back in his own basement?

Someone else tripped over his legs and fell, and Pel gathered his wits sufficiently to roll out of the way as others continued to appear.

He rolled over twice, ending on his back, and then sat up and looked around.

He was definitely not in his basement.

He was sitting on drifted sand, sand that stretched off in all directions, pierced here and there by outcroppings of weathered white stone. A few feet away was the largest outcropping in sight, a diagonally-upthrust slab of stone at least ten feet high.

The sand reached the horizon, but the horizon was too low, as if they were all sitting atop a gigantic dune.

As he watched, Amy stepped out of the slab of rock-that was clearly where the portal was. She was bleeding from scratches on her forehead, and something had torn up one side of her skirt.

Pel realized that his own ankle was bleeding; he dabbed at it ineffectually, getting blood on his fingers. The sand seemed to be helping it clot.

He hoped that that thing hadn’t been venomous. The wound didn’t look bad. It certainly didn’t look as worrisome as the surrounding landscape.

This was not his basement. He had a horrible suspicion that it wasn’t anywhere on Earth. It would appear that Elani had opened her portal to the Galactic Empire.

The plot thickens, he thought, fighting back an insane urge to giggle.

* * * *

When Prossie fell through the back of the woodshed it was as if a door had been flung open, as if a faucet had been turned on; the wool was gone from her mind, and she could hear again!

For a long moment she gloried in the sensation, letting the shapeless thoughts of the entire galaxy pour through her. She didn’t look for meaning, didn’t try to find any individual thoughts; it was enough to have the raw “sound” of all those minds reaching her again.

But after a moment the realization came-that sound was weak and distant. Compared to Earth or Shadow’s world, it was a thunderous, constant roar, of course, but still…

This was not Base One, obviously. There were no telepaths close by. There weren’t even any people close by-not really-except for the ones who were coming through the warp.

It was only after she had come to this realization that she bothered to use her eyes, and noticed the barren wasteland around her.

* * * *

Pel hadn’t expected the Empire to be an uninhabited wasteland; that didn’t fit very well with any story he had read. He had been thinking more in terms of huge buildings and broad avenues.

Of course, Luke Skywalker’s home planet had been a desert, hadn’t it? Was that part of the Galactic Empire?

He knew he should stop thinking in terms of falling into a story; this was real . The idea, however, wouldn’t go away-particularly not when the whole bizarre episode didn’t end, but kept on happening. He left the wound on his ankle alone for a moment and looked around.

Nancy was sitting crosslegged on the sand a few feet away, holding Rachel tightly, rocking back and forth, trying to comfort the child. Rachel was crying, and her thin sobs were the only sound Pel could hear.

Susan was standing, watching the portal, her revolver in one hand, her purse hanging from her shoulder, the flap closed now, but the clasp still unfastened.

Squire Donald, too, stood a few feet away, his hands swinging uneasily at his sides, as if looking for something to hold onto.

Prossie Thorpe was walking slowly away, in the direction Pel tentatively identified as east, assuming that it was morning wherever he was. It felt like morning, somehow. She seemed to be paying no attention to anyone else.

* * * *

Carrie sat up abruptly.

“Prossie?” she asked, inadvertantly speaking aloud.

The contact was weak; wherever Prossie was, it was still a long way off.

“Hi, Carrie-I just wanted to let you know that I’m all right. We’re back in Imperial space, I think, but I don’t know just where. I’m going to track down someone local and find out. I’ll get back to you when I know more.”

“Prossie,” Carrie said, “I was so… I thought you were dead!”

“For awhile,” Prossie told her, “I thought so, too.”

* * * *

The sun, Pel noticed, was the wrong color-it was very small and intensely white, not the washed-out pale yellow of the sun in Raven’s world, but white . The sunlight was, for lack of a better term, richer than in the forest they had just left, but it was still not right. The air was thin and he felt light-headed.

The person who had tripped over Pel’s legs was Soorn; like Pel, he was now sitting on the sand.

Ted had followed Amy out of the stone; he was apparently uninjured.

Two of the little people, Grummetty and the woman, were standing beside Squire Donald-Pel had missed them at first. The woman had her hand to her stomach, as if she were ill, and Grummetty’s expression was worried.

A fluttering black thing burst out of the rock, soaring upward into the thin air; Susan started to raise her pistol, but Squire Donald had his sword out before she could take aim. He shouted, “Leave it to me!”

The shout was startling-until he heard it, Pel hadn’t realized how quiet this place was. It was as if everything was muffled somehow. Even Donald’s shout seemed thin and weak.

The Squire slashed, and the thing tumbled to the sand, one wing hacked halfway off. Once it was down, Donald stepped up and proceeded to methodically chop it to pieces. His movements seemed oddly sharp, almost jerky; experimentally, Pel lifted his own hand, and found it seemed to almost fly up. It was bouyant, as if he were in water.

Even without Godwin telling him, he guessed that wherever he was now, the gravity was weaker than in Raven’s world, weaker than on Earth.

Mervyn backed out of the stone, followed closely by Lampert.

“Where the hell are we?” Mervyn asked, as he looked around. As with Squire Donald’s shout, his voice was muffled.

Before anyone could answer, Smith appeared, holding up what looked like a plastic club of some kind, and then Peabody. Peabody was holding his right arm in his left, trying to staunch the bleeding of a long gash in his forearm. His uniform sleeve hung in bloodstained tatters, and there were several scratches on his face; blood trickled down one cheek. Pel realized that Mervyn and Lampert and Smith had all been scratched up, as well.