Lawrence Watt-Evans - Out of This World

Then it clicked into place.

She had been captured by pirates. Spaceships and drab grey uniforms notwithstanding, she had been captured by pirates.

And they were going to sell her into slavery.

The image of the “wenches” being auctioned off in Disney World’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” came unbidden to her mind. She had ridden through with her ex-husband years ago, and had found that bit of scenery slightly offensive and oddly uncomfortable, though she knew it was intended to be harmless fun. Now, in retrospect, it seemed downright horrible-there was nothing at all amusing about auctioning people off.

But this wasn’t the eighteenth-century Caribbean; she was in a spaceship. The Galactic Empire had anti-gravity and rayguns; didn’t that mean it was more advanced than Earth? Didn’t that mean they would have no use for slaves, would have no tolerance for slavery?

Didn’t they have robots, or something?

“What sort of slaves?” she asked.

The passenger shrugged. “Labor for the mines and farms, I suppose,” he said. “And… well, other things.” He blushed faintly.

He actually blushed. It wasn’t a bright red, but it was unmistakably a blush. Amy hadn’t seen a man blush in years. She didn’t inquire any further.

“I still don’t understand,” the female passenger announced, “why they picked on the Princess . There must be dozens of ships out there that would have been worth more-the big liners, or freighters. Why pick on us ?”

“Maybe it was random,” the navigator suggested. “Maybe they just saw the gravity field and attacked because it was close, without even knowing what ship it was.”

“That seems stupid,” the young man said. “What if they hit a warship that way?”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” the navigator admitted.

“They must have known what ship it was,” the woman said.

“I guess they must have,” the navigator agreed.

“How could they?” Amy asked. “I mean, aren’t we sort of in the middle of nowhere? And they couldn’t have gotten close enough to see it until after they’d decided to attack, could they?”

“Shadow,” Susan suggested, gripping her big black purse tightly. Noticing the bag, Amy wondered whether it had been searched; no one had bothered to check her own. “It was Shadow,” Susan said.

“What’s Shadow?” the female passenger asked.

Susan looked helplessly at Amy, then glanced at Pel and Rachel, still huddled together in the corner.

“It’s this thing from… from another universe,” Amy explained. “It’s why we’re here.”

“Why who is where?” the young man asked. “Do you mean why all of us are here , in this room?”

Amy shook her head. “No,” she said, “I mean it’s why Susan and Pel and the rest of us are in your universe.” She sighed. “It’s a long story.”

The passengers and the navigator glanced at one another, puzzled.

“Are you claiming you’re from another universe?” the young man asked.

Amy nodded.

“We are,” she said. “That’s why we were important enough to need your ship to get us to… to wherever they were taking us. Some military base, I think.”

The navigator nodded. “Base One,” he said. “It’s the headquarters for the entire Imperial military.”

Amy nodded again.

“So this Shadow thing,” the navigator asked, “it’s from your universe? It followed you, you think?”

“No,” Amy said. “It’s from a third one. There are three. Some of those other people are from Shadow’s world, but we aren’t.”

“But it followed you?”

“Maybe,” Amy said. “We don’t know.”

“This Shadow,” the young man asked, “just what is it, exactly?”

Amy looked at Susan, who shrugged.

“We don’t know that, either,” Amy said. “I don’t think anybody does, really.”

“How could it have known anything about us, anyway?” the middle-aged woman asked. “Does it have a telepath working for it, or something?”

“I don’t know,” Amy said. “Maybe Shadow didn’t have anything to do with it; maybe the pirates just have a telepath of their own.”

The navigator shook his head. “All the telepaths work for the Empire,” he said. “They always have.”

“Maybe one went rogue,” the young man suggested.

“If that ever happened,” the navigator said, “the Empire would hunt it down and kill it.”

“I wonder what happened to Prossie?” Amy said, more to herself than anyone else.

“Prossie?”

“Is that the bitch telepath that came aboard with you people?” the woman asked.

Startled by the harsh term, Amy didn’t answer immediately.

“She was in the lounge,” the navigator said. “I saw her there right before they brought us across.”

“If the pirates know she’s a telepath…” the young man began.

“She’s probably working for them,” the woman snarled. “She probably called them down on us!”

“She’s an Imperial officer,” the navigator objected. “And her entire family works for the Empire. Why would she work for pirates?”

“Because she’s a stinking mutant, and she hates everybody normal!” the woman replied angrily.

“I don’t think that’s true,” Amy objected. “I’ve talked with Prossie-I don’t think she hates anybody.”

“Well, of course you wouldn’t think so,” the woman retorted. “She can read your mind and act however you want her to act, do whatever it takes to fool you, and you’d never know the difference.”

Startled by the woman’s anger, Amy didn’t reply.

“If she’s not working for the pirates,” the young man said, “she’s the best hope we’ve got.”

Amy and Susan looked at him inquiringly.

“Well, it’s obvious-she can call for help. Maybe she already has. If she’s not working for them, they’ve made a big mistake, not killing her the minute they got aboard.”

“Maybe they don’t know she’s a telepath,” Susan suggested quietly.

“She was in uniform,” the female passenger said scornfully. “Of course they know.”

“But she wasn’t,” Susan said. “In the lounge she was wearing a dress.”

“Her uniform was aboard the Princess , though,” the young man pointed out. “When they find it, they’ll know.”

“Well, let’s hope they don’t find it, then,” the navigator said.

“Of course they’ll find it eventually,” the woman said. “I mean, won’t they strip everything out of the ship?”

Amy glanced at Susan’s purse again.

“They might not look at it closely enough,” the navigator suggested. “And even if they do, she’s probably already called for help.”

“But when they find it, they’ll kill her,” the young man pointed out. “That would make it harder for any pursuit to track us.”

“Serve the bitch right,” the woman muttered. “Snooping in people’s heads. Mutants.”

“They may have killed her already,” the navigator said, “but let’s hope not.”

“Can she really call for help from way out in space?” Amy asked. “I didn’t know telepaths could do that. I thought they had to be close to someone.” She remembered the distance from Town to where the portal had first delivered them all to Psi Cass the Deuce, and corrected herself. “I mean, on the same planet, anyway.”

“Oh, sure,” the young man said. “She could call the other telepaths from clear across the galaxy. I don’t know about reading minds, or anything to do with normal people, but telepaths can reach each other , no matter how far apart they are. That’s why the Empire uses them, they’re the fastest form of interstellar communication we’ve got.”