Lawrence Watt-Evans - Out of This World

It was only when he ran water in the sink, and found himself bothered by something about how it flowed, that Pel was reminded that this was not Earth.

The difference wasn’t really very great at all, he decided, watching the water, but any change in how water flowed was enough to make him uneasy.

It was slower, he realized. In the lighter gravity of Psi Cassiopeia Two, objects-including water-fell more slowly.

He had more or less adjusted to how the air and gravity felt , but he had had few opportunities to see anything fall. He stared.

Then he shrugged, and went on washing.

After clean-up came food-cafeteria food, served in a more or less standard-issue cafeteria, but that was quite good enough for the Browns at this point. Rachel gobbled two hot dogs-which were labeled “hot reds”-along with several dozen sugared french fries and large quantities of canned milk; Nancy tried the macaroni salad, frowned, and then settled on ham slices, green salad, and cold tea.

Pel took a “Homburg shrewsbury,” which looked like a cheeseburger, and discovered that there was cornmeal and chopped onion in the meat, which appeared to be a blend of pork and beef, rather than pure beef.

Another quirk in the local cuisine, obviously, like the confectioner’s sugar on Rachel’s fries, or for that matter, the word “shrewsbury” replacing “sandwich.”

It was edible, though, and he ate it, washing it down with watery root beer.

“Everything tastes funny,” Rachel said, staring at her empty plate.

“Well, we’re on another planet,” Nancy said, throwing an uneasy glance at the smear of potato salad on the edge of her plate.

Pel said nothing; he had sampled a french fry and decided against eating any more. Rachel was quite right; everything did taste funny.

Well, why shouldn’t it? This wasn’t their own land. Foreign food was always strange at first.

He hoped that the stuff would nourish them. This was not only another planet, as Nancy had pointed out, but another universe . The molecules in the food could well be arranged differently-he vaguely recalled reading something about right-handed and left-handed proteins.

Well, the crew of the Ruthless hadn’t had any visible problems with the pizza.

He wondered about the people from Shadow’s universe-was this food strange to them, too?

What about the little people? Were they all right?

The later arrivals had not seen anyone from the first carload since arriving in Town, nor had Cahn and Raven rejoined them. The purple uniforms had denied knowing anything at all except where the group was to go next.

Pel stared down at the table, which was topped with black glass.

The cafeteria wasn’t quite standard issue, really. The tables were steel and glass, the chair seats made of something like fibreglass on steel frames. It struck Pel suddenly that except for some trim in the aircar, he hadn’t seen any wood in this entire place-none of the rooms had any woodwork, the chairs and benches and tables were all stone or steel or glass. Plastics and paper products were present, but scarce-the men’s room had been equipped with fluffy white terrycloth towels, rather than paper towels. The cafeteria plates were ceramic, the napkins cloth, the flatware steel.

He hadn’t seen any trees, anywhere, on this planet. There was nothing to make paper or wood out of. And most plastics were made from petroleum, weren’t they? Petroleum came from dead dinosaurs-well, maybe not dinosaurs, but dead things from millions of years ago. A planet as lifeless as this probably had no oil deposits. For all Pel knew, there was no native life here at all.

“Okay, folks,” someone called, “let’s clean up and move on.”

“Hell,” Pel muttered. “Let them clean it up themselves.” He did not find himself exactly brimming over with gratitude for the treatment he and his family had received here; while it was true they had been cleaned up and fed, they had hardly been pampered. After waiting around without any explanation, or any contact except the silent guards, Pel was hardly in a mood to show his hosts much consideration. He stood up and headed for the door, leaving his tray where it was.

Nancy and Rachel followed.

In a moment, the full dozen-the Browns, Valadrakul, Stoddard, Donald, Ted, Godwin, Smith, Soorn, Mervyn, and Lampert-were marching down another bare concrete corridor, with purple-clad guards ahead and behind.

Double doors swung open, and while two guards held them, others indicated that the visitors were to turn right into another corridor-but this one was not entirely empty. Captain Cahn and Raven of Stormcrack Keep were waiting there.

Smiles broke out, but after a few quick words of greeting there was no conversation.

Fourteen strong, the party continued down this new corridor, and through another set of doors-glass doors, this time-into a large glassed-in vestibule.

Pel scarcely had time to look out through the glass at the vast expanse of flat gray before he was swept on through another set of doors, out onto the gravel pavement.

Gravel-the tar in asphalt is another petroleum by-product, Pel realized.

For the first time he saw the exterior of the building he and the others had been in-a blank white concrete facade, only two stories, few windows. (Well, who needed windows? What was worth seeing on this bleak little world?) It extended several hundred yards in a gentle concave arc; the glass vestibule was the rightmost one of three, spaced well apart along the curve.

Red letters were painted above each of the vestibules, reading, “Welcome to Psi Cassiopeia II.” The lettering had clearly been done by hand, and the letters were shaped a bit oddly.

That was to his left; to his right the gravel pavement ran for perhaps a hundred feet, and then gave way to white concrete.

The broad strip of gravel ran the full length of the building, however, and in fact continued on past each end of the arc; it appeared to Pel that it formed a full circle, around the circular concrete.

And on the concrete-

There were three of them.

The smallest and farthest away, almost directly across the circle from them, was about the size of a tractor-trailor combination, back on Pel’s Earth; it had once been painted white, with red trim, but the paint had worn away in several places, exposing dull grey metal. A small bubble cockpit protruded from the top; two huge, swept-back fins adorned the sides. It rested on three legs; a hatch in its belly was open, and a ladder descended from the hatch to the pavement. Its lines were graceful, but it had obviously seen better days.

Flash Gordon, twenty years after, Pel thought.

He had never seen the Ruthless ; had it looked something like that?

The largest, its bullet-shaped nose near the middle of the circle, was gigantic-the size of an ocean liner, perhaps, its tail assembly projecting well out over the gravel ring on the far side. It was also squat and ugly, its gray paint obviously several layers thick, its surface dented here and there. Three glass-and-steel observation blisters, reminding Pel of the gun turrets of a B-17, protruded near the nose. There were no fins or foils or trim, simply the immense cylinder, rounded at one end, flaring slightly at the other. Two support struts kept the thing from rolling over on its side in one direction; Pel assumed there were similar struts on the opposite side. He could see the outlines of three hatches in the behemoth’s side, any one of them large enough for the smallest ship to fit through sideways, but all three were closed.

A freighter, probably, Pel guessed.

They were headed toward the third and closest spaceship-the three craft had to be spaceships. This one was midway between the others in size, and apparently newer, with green and gold paint that had not yet begun to flake or peel. The stern was adorned with a profusion of gracefully-swept-back fins. A door in the side was open, and a boarding stair in place.