Lawrence Watt-Evans - Out of This World

“Then the pirates couldn’t have a telepath working for them, could they?” Susan asked. “Wouldn’t he or she be spotted by the Empire’s telepaths?”

“What if he were?” the woman asked. “Those mutants all stick together against us. They wouldn’t squeal on one of their own.”

Nobody bothered to argue with that-not because they agreed, since in fact none of the others believed it, but because there was no way to prove anything.

A moment later, the young man said, “Suppose they had their own family of telepaths? I mean, suppose the telepathic mutation happened again , and this time working for the rebel worlds instead of the Empire?”

“The Empire’s telepaths would have spotted them,” the navigator said.

“Are you sure?” the young man asked. “Suppose they communicated on a slightly different level, as it were; suppose that there was some sort of mutual interference, in fact, so that the two families blanked each other out, couldn’t detect each other.”

“You’re just guessing,” the navigator said. “I never heard about anything like that.”

The young man shrugged. “Sure, I’m guessing,” he said. “But it could be true.”

“I still think it was Shadow,” Susan said.

* * * *

The discussion, and sometimes argument, continued off and on for hours, perhaps days; no one was quite sure how long they were confined to that room and ignored. Long enough to grow very hungry, certainly, and no one brought any food. They were left entirely to their own devices.

They took turns sleeping; there were enough mattresses for everybody, but it seemed like a good idea to always have someone awake.

Rachel gradually calmed down; sleeping helped. She and Pel listened to some of the conversations, but neither of them had much to add. Topics included the nature of their captors, their destination, the fate of the other people who had been aboard Emerald Princess , and other such matters.

The navigator confirmed, out of Rachel’s hearing, that the woman he had seen raped and murdered fit Nancy’s description, and not Elani’s.

More generally, the four Earthpeople learned that the Galactic Empire did not actually rule the entire galaxy, or even the majority of it; most of it was still uninhabited, at least by humans-and so far, no intelligent aliens had been encountered, though that didn’t mean there weren’t any. The female passenger, whose name turned out to be Arietta Benton, took any suggestion that a non-human could be sentient as a personal affront, apparently on theological grounds; the navigator and the other passenger were more open-minded, but neither one had ever heard anything more than tall tales about aliens.

Even among human-inhabited worlds, the Empire was not as all-powerful as it might have liked. The galaxy was vast, and space travel fairly cheap and easy; anyone who could get a ship could reasonably hope to find himself an uninhabited planet of his own. It might take a few years of looking, and if the Empire found the planet later it would promptly be conquered, but people were willing to try it. A good many of them succeeded, and set up their own little fiefdoms.

Nobody was sure just how many of these independent worlds were out there-that was inherent in their nature, since if they were sufficiently well-known to be counted, they would already have been conquered.

The male passenger, Alex Gorney, was of the opinion there were a hundred or more rebel worlds; the navigator, Lieutenant Martin, put the number much lower, at maybe half a dozen. “Ships aren’t that easy to come by!” he insisted.

Gorney argued that one ship could colonize a dozen worlds, and Martin agreed it could , but maintained it wouldn’t. One habitable planet, after all, was big enough for a few dozen miniature empires.

All three of them, Gorney, Benton, and Martin, agreed that the sort of people who wound up on the rebel worlds tended toward the fringes of sanity. The colonies the Empire had found so far had ranged from eccentric to downright bizarre; some had destroyed themselves before the Empire ever got there, and atrocity stories were common.

Naturally, some had turned to piracy. And some had turned to slavery. Not to mention those that had taken up communalism, theocracy, torture, murder, cannibalism, and any number of other barbaric practices.

The Earthpeople listened to these explanations-Amy with visibly-growing worry, Susan with a veneer of calm acceptance, Pel far too concerned with Nancy’s fate and Rachel’s reaction to care much at first.

As time wore on, though, the subject percolated in Pel’s mind, and finally he found himself sitting on his mattress grinning wryly at the thought.

The clean, hard frontier, where men were strong and brave; the fine new worlds beloved of science fiction writers, away from the decadence and bureaucracy of old, worn-out, overpopulated Earth-all that was a cliche, of course.

And here was the reality, it appeared-pirates and slavers and lunatics.

That he and his daughter were about to be delivered into the hands of these pirates, slavers, and lunatics did not fully register until the hour-day or night he could not tell-when Lieutenant Martin shook him awake and said, “The drive’s shut down. We’ve landed.”

They were all awake when the door finally opened, all of them dressed and waiting. Martin and Gorney were standing straight and tall, waiting to face whatever might come; the others were sitting in a group on two of the mattresses, waiting with more resignation than defiance.

“Come on,” one of the grey-clad pirates ordered. “Out of there.”

“Where are you taking us?” Benton demanded. “To see the captain?”

“Just get out here,” the pirate said, gesturing with a blaster.

Pel, Susan, and Amy got to their feet, Pel giving Rachel a reassuring hug. Benton crossed her arms over her chest and looked defiant.

“I want to know where you’re taking us,” she announced.

The pirate in the doorway cast a disgusted glance over his shoulder, then stepped aside. Two men entered, stepping past him; they carried no guns, but in Pel’s opinion they didn’t need them. Both of them were huge, built like linebackers or pro wrestlers.

Pel glanced doubtfully at Amy, who returned the look uncertainly. Susan stepped out of the way immediately, her back against one wall. She didn’t meet anyone else’s eyes. She held her black purse tight to her side and didn’t move.

Gorney and Martin stood firm, unyielding and motionless, between the door and Benton.

The first of the oversized pirates reached out and grabbed Martin around the throat, one-handed. Pel immediately remembered the scene in “Star Wars” where Darth Vader picked up a rebel one-handed and broke his neck; the pirate was not doing anything quite so dramatic as that, but the gesture was still extremely effective.

Martin’s hands flew up, trying to pry the death-grip loose; Gorley, horrified, flung his own weight on the outstretched arm.

The other large pirate marched past, undaunted, to where Benton sat on the mattress, glaring up at him. He pushed past Pel and Amy as if they weren’t there, and neither of them dared resist; instead they backed away, one on each side. Pel almost stepped on Rachel in his retreat.

“You coming?” the pirate asked, as he looked down at the disobedient captive.

“No,” Benton began, a bit less steadily than before. “Not until…”

That was as far as she got; the pirate kicked her in the belly, hard. The air burst out of her lungs, and she curled forward, gasping. Rachel let out a little wail and buried her face in her father’s shirt, clutching the fabric with both hands; Pel put a soothing hand on her head.