Lawrence Watt-Evans - Out of This World

But had those dictators used poisoned showers? Was anyone else here making the same connection she was?

Probably not. She was probably just being paranoid. And Prossie Thorpe must have called for help. Even the people at Auschwitz had been saved eventually, when the Allied troops came marching in.

A few of them had been saved, anyway.

A few of them.

She turned to Susan. “What do you think?” she asked. “Should we go?”

The lawyer shrugged.

“Do we really have a choice?” she asked.

Pel Brown was arguing with the announcer as Amy left the cafeteria. She couldn’t make out the words, and decided against snooping; instead she just followed the little crowd through the indicated door.

Once inside, she looked around the bare little room and noticed that there were no lockers in the changing room, just cardboard boxes-stacks of them, grey inside, blue outside, with loose- fitting lids. There were no markers, no pens, no labels, no serial numbers, and Amy found herself very suspicious indeed.

How would they ever get the right stuff back?

Did anyone ever expect to return anything?

“Just put your clothes in there, dearie,” the blue-uniformed woman with the billy club told her. “They’ll be safe.”

“How’ll I find the right box?” Amy asked. “I mean, afterward?”

The guard, or matron, or whatever she was looked annoyed. “Write your name on it if you like,” she said.

“There aren’t any pens,” Amy pointed out.

“We ran out; don’t you have anything in that purse you’re carrying?”

Amy was not satisfied, but she began fishing in her purse, looking for a pen. If nothing else, it let her stay dressed a moment longer. The room was not particularly warm-and there were those other fears, not entirely suppressed.

Around her the other women were slowly, reluctantly removing their clothes. The first shower was turned on in the tiled room beyond and for a moment Amy froze, listening for the hiss of gas.

There was no gas; just water, splashing on the tiles. Someone squealed. “It’s cold!”

“It’ll warm up,” the guard called.

Amy felt an altogether unreasonable rush of relief, and was annoyed at herself. Had she really thought they were about to be gassed?

Did she really know they weren’t going to be killed by some other method?

She shook her head. She was being paranoid again, and it wasn’t going to do anybody any good. Her hand brushed through the contents of her purse, and for a moment she could see an old Bic, and then something slid over and it was lost again.

Someone knocked on the door from the cafeteria, interrupting her thoughts, and a male voice called, “Is there an Amy Jewell or a Susan… Susan Goyen in there?”

Amy looked up, then quickly scanned the room. Susan was already naked and about to step into the shower room, but incongruously, she still had her purse, held so the matron could not see it.

“I’m Amy Jewell,” Amy called back.

“We have a… could you come to the door, please?”

Cautiously, Amy approached the door. It swung open a few inches, then stopped.

“Excuse me, miss,” the voice said, and Amy recognized it as the man who had made the announcement about showers. “I don’t want to intrude on anybody’s privacy.”

“It’s okay,” Amy said, leaning around the edge of the door, “I’m still decent. What is it?” She looked out.

The cafeteria was almost empty now, and a man in a dirty apron was collecting trays and debris. The announcer was standing with his back to the door, holding it open with one hand.

His other hand was on Rachel Brown’s shoulder.

“We have a bit of a problem here,” he said. “It seems this little girl doesn’t have her mother here. She wants to stay with her father, but I’m afraid we have very strict rules about that; we just can’t let her through the men’s side. So could you please take charge of her for now? Her father says she knows you.”

Amy looked down at the child; Rachel looked back, her eyes wide. She had been crying, and Amy had the distinct impression that the wrong word would start more tears flowing.

Amy had never been very good with children, and had always been relieved that she and Stan had never had any. Still, this poor thing needed somebody to look after her, and her mother, Amy remembered… well, her mother wasn’t here.

And it was only for a few minutes.

“Would that be okay, Rachel?” she said. “It’ll just be until we’re washed up, and then you’ll be back with your father, I’m sure.”

The announcer’s face was carefully expressionless, and Amy suddenly knew, beyond any question, that it would not just be a few minutes before Rachel was returned to her father. She knew that these people had no intention of ever returning the child to her father, and she knew that this time she wasn’t just being paranoid. Still, she could hardly back out now.

And they weren’t planning to return those personal belongings, either. She threw a glance at Susan and her purse; Susan was being smart, if she could get away with it.

Just what they did plan, Amy didn’t know. She pushed that thought aside, though, at least for the moment, and forced herself to smile at the girl.

Rachel stared at her for a moment, then pulled away from the announcer’s hand and slipped through the door.

* * * *

Pel watched Rachel go, then reluctantly allowed himself to be pushed through the door into the men’s changing room.

He took his clothes off with dull mechanical efficiency, trying not to think. Nancy was dead, and now Rachel had been taken away; he was lost two universes away from home-he didn’t dare think. He knew that Rachel was supposed to rejoin him after they had showered, but on some level he didn’t dare believe that, couldn’t believe it, because the possibility of disappointment was too horrible to contemplate. Better to give her up as lost now, while he knew she was still alive and in the hands of someone who, if not exactly a trusted friend, was at least familiar and not obviously hostile or alien.

If he let himself think, he knew he would start anticipating Rachel’s return, would start wondering if Nancy was really dead, would start planning a return to Earth-and Rachel was gone, Nancy was dead, and he would never get home, he knew that and dared not let himself hope.

So he dared not let himself think. He peeled off his worn clothes quickly and dropped them in the box provided, focusing his eyes and mind on the texture of the concrete floor, the scuffmarks on the steel bench, the grain in the box’s cardboard-all of it simple visual data that occupied his attention and filled his mind.

Some part of him probably wondered how he would reclaim the right box, but right now he really couldn’t worry about it.

Mechanically, he walked naked into the shower room, where the other men were already bathing themselves, Cahn and his surviving men, passengers and crew of Emerald Princess , Raven and his companions. Ted Deranian was not merely bathing, he was singing quietly.

Pel plodded into the room, but made no move toward the showerheads.

And behind him, between the shower room and the changing room, a heavy steel door dropped into place.

The others started, turned, shouted. Pel didn’t bother; he stood, spray from the showers splashing his legs, water running down across his ankles and onto the tile floor.

He had known. Something like that had to be coming. He had known. And it didn’t matter any more.

Nancy was dead. Rachel was surely gone now, closed off by that metal barrier, as he had known she would be. He was trapped. He was doomed.