He probably wouldn’t be home for another two weeks, at this rate. He worried about Silly Cat. He was pretty sure he had left the lid up on the upstairs toilet, so even if someone had closed the downstairs bathroom the animal could reach water, but the food in his bowl wouldn’t last more than a day or two. The poor beast might well starve before Pel and Nancy and Rachel got home to feed him.
And God only knew what would become of Pel’s business after more than a week of missed appointments. He had a report to write up for that computer dealer in Rockville, explaining why their radio ads weren’t working—that wasn’t getting done while he was here, instead of home.
“Mr. Brown,” a steward said, startling him out of his gloomy thoughts.
“Yes?” Pel turned and found himself facing a young man in a white jacket and dark pants, with his crewcut and bristling mustache looking oddly mismatched.
“This way.” The steward gestured toward a brightly-lit passageway.
“To where?”
“Your cabin, sir.”
“Oh,” Pel replied, feeling foolish. He brushed Nancy’s arm to make sure she was paying attention, then followed the young crewman. Nancy and Rachel came close on his heels.
Their cabin was the fourth door on the left; it was moderate in size, perhaps ten feet square, with its own miniature bathroom and a more generous closet, all of it decorated in shades of blue. A square of royal blue velvet drapery hung above the bed.
The steward bowed and left, closing the door gently.
While Nancy and Rachel were examining the closet, Pel kneeled on the bed and pulled the curtain aside, revealing, as he had expected, a porthole.
At least, it looked like a porthole, but then he reconsidered. Perhaps it was a backlit painting on glass.
He shifted his angle of view slightly, and decided no, it was definitely a real window.
Beyond the porthole the sky was black and full of stars; the ship had taken off.
Pel had felt no jarring, no acceleration, but with anti-gravity that didn’t seem to mean much. He stopped to listen, and could hear a faint, steady, high-pitched hum, but nothing like the roar of jet engines or rockets.
But then, with anti-gravity drive, why would you need rockets?
And there wasn’t any weightlessness, but presumably, if the Empire had anti- gravity, they could also provide artificial gravity.
That took some of the fun out of a trip among the stars.
Then he paused in his chain of thought. Were those stars? Something looked wrong. They looked fake, somehow.
Was this a video screen, rather than a real porthole, perhaps? Or was it a glass painting after all, done with some unfamiliar technique?
If it was video, it was some kind he’d never seen before, something that made the best HDTV stuff he’d seen look primitive. It was not video. And he couldn’t imagine any technique that would give a painting such a flawless illusion of depth. Was it a hologram, perhaps?
No, it had to be a real porthole. But then, what was it that looked wrong? He stared out at the star-spattered darkness for a moment, and finally figured it out.
The stars weren’t twinkling. They burned as sharp and clear as tiny headlights, out there in the emptiness.
No air, he realized. There was no atmosphere blocking his view.
He had never really thought of stars on a clear night as “twinkling,” despite the popular descriptions—not the way Christmas lights twinkled, or those spinning mirror balls. Stars didn’t blink on and off, or anything even remotely similar to blinking.
He had to admit, however, that in comparison with the steady, sharp brilliance he saw now, stars back on Earth were dim, fidgety things. The intense points of light beyond the port looked quite unstarlike in their stability, their unchanging blaze.
Tearing his gaze away, he turned his attention back to the others. Nancy was bent over, bouncing her hands, stiff-armed, on the cot’s mattress to show Rachel that the cot was sturdy enough to hold her.
“We’re moving,” Pel said.
Nancy looked up, startled; first she looked at Pel’s face, and then past him at the porthole.
“Oh,” she said.
“You stay here,” Pel said. “I’m going back to the lounge.”
Nancy nodded.
* * * *
The stars of the Galactic Empire, Raven noted, did not shine as the stars of home, but instead with a clear, hard light that was not particularly pleasant to look upon. He closed the little drapery.
A ship that sailed above the sky, and yet they disdained all talk of magic. Incomprehensible, these Imperials. The reports he had received had never fully conveyed their strangeness.
Consider, he thought to himself, that their lord Governor’s palace, just departed, was built of bare stone, ugly and harsh—not even a fine stone like marble, nor any polished thing, but that unpleasant substance they called “concrete.” Consider that it was, insofar as he had seen, furnished in the rudest fashion, almost unadorned, and lit everywhere in harsh and discomforting manner.
And then compare this vessel upon which they now rode, this mere transport, that by rights might be cramped and malodorous, bare of all luxuries, as had been every ship Raven had heretofore sailed upon.
Instead, though the chambers were small, it was rich in comforts, with the finest of fabrics and woods, with polished brasses and the warm glow of artificial fires. There was no rocking or sway, no stench; the ceilings rose well clear of even Stoddard’s head. The beds were fine and soft.
What sort of people were these, who made their vehicles finer than the homes of their lords?
It was wisely said that men devote their most thoughts to that which is to them most important, and lavish the most care upon that they value most highly. Did then the Imperials place the transport of goods more highly than the administration of their colonies? An it were so, it spoke ill of them.
Or might it be perhaps that attention was paid to such craft as this because the distances in this realm were so great that more time was spent upon the journey than at the end thereof? This passage was to be nine days, which was no great time—but was this place just departed the most far-flung of the Imperial possessions?
It was all a mystery; indeed, the minds of all those around him, save his own handful of faithful allies, were as inscrutable as cats. Further, worrying at such a knot did nothing to aid him in all that mattered, to wit, the defeat of Shadow and the liberation of Stormcrack Keep.
He would, he swore, worry it no more. He flung himself upon the bed and closed his eyes, resolved to rest whilst the opportunity availed itself.
* * * *
Pel made his way back up the passageway, moving carefully—somehow, the knowledge that the ship was under way made the floor seem less steady than it had a few moments earlier.
He reached the lounge without incident. Amy and Susan were there, on one of the sofas, and Smith was leaning against a wall nearby, chatting with them—and trying to pick Amy up, Pel decided. A white-jacketed, brown-haired man Pel didn’t recognize was standing quietly in one corner, observing.
Maybe he had designs on Susan, Pel mused, and was waiting for Smith and Amy to leave. He was presumably a crewman—another steward, perhaps.
Pel wandered in his direction, and the steward, or whatever he was, spotted his approach and quirked his eyebrows upward questioningly.
“Hi,” Pel said.
“Hello,” the other replied. “Was there something you wanted, sir?”
“I was wondering about our departure.” He deliberately phrased this question with a certain ambiguity.
“It went quite smoothly, sir—all things considered. Captain Gifford piloted the ship himself.”
Pel nodded.
“Are there any, um... viewports?”
“Yes, sir, of course—isn’t there a port in your stateroom?”
Pel admitted there was. “But what I wanted,” he explained, “was to get a look back at the planet.”
The steward pursed his lips thoughtfully, then pulled a gold pocket-watch from his jacket and glanced at it.
“Come with me, sir,” he said, as he put the watch away.
Pel followed as the steward led the way aft, explaining, “You won’t be able to see much, sir; that military officer, Captain Cahn, has insisted on maximum acceleration, so we’ve already come a long way.”
Pel nodded. He wasn’t all that interested in seeing the close-up details, but he did want a look at the planet. He had never seen a planet from space.
He had never been in space before.
He was now, though. He supposed he should be impressed, or awed, or something, but he wasn’t. Somehow, the mere fact that he was on a real starship, flying through outer space, didn’t seem all that mind-boggling any more.
Maybe, he thought wryly, he was all boggled out. The shock at Grummetty’s appearance, at Raven, at the crew of the Ruthless, at stepping through into Raven’s world, at the attack of the monsters, at finding himself on some strange planet he’d never heard of—he was having real trouble being boggled any more.
The steward opened a door, and the two of them stepped into the aft salon.
Though still compact, it was a good deal more elaborate than the forward lounge; the crystal chandelier was the most obvious exemplar. The room was decorated in several shades of green, with gold and silver trim, and was inhabited by perhaps a dozen people, most of whom Pel did not recognize.
Before Pel had had a chance to look at any of the details, however, a familiar voice cried, “Ah, two more figments of my imagination!”
“Ted?” Pel turned, and saw his lawyer grinning maniacally at him.
“This one,” Ted announced to everyone present, “is a simulacrum of a client of mine, one Pellinore Brown, freelance marketing consultant. It was he who supposedly got me involved in all this.”
Pel glanced at the steward, who discreetly shrugged.
“He’s been trying to tell us,” an elegant redhead in a green evening gown explained, “that we’re all just part of a dream he’s having. I haven’t decided if he’s serious or not, and if he is serious, I haven’t decided if he’s crazy or just confused.”
“Ted,” Pel said, “what are you talking about?”
Ted leaned forward, still grinning. “I’m talking,” he said, “about this interminable, boring, complicated dream I’m having. I’ve never had one quite like this before—at least, not that I can remember. This one just seems to go on and on.”
“Have you been drinking?” Pel asked, uneasily.
“I don’t know,” Ted replied. “Have I? I really don’t remember just when I went to sleep. Maybe I was drinking. That might have something to do with it.”
“No,” Pel said, “I meant here, now.”
“In the dream? No, I haven’t been dreaming about booze, oh figment of mine. Odd thing to ask—are you a subconscious worry that I might wind up an alcoholic, maybe? I’ve heard that alcoholics dream about booze, but as far as I recall, I’ve never done that. Maybe I’ve been suppressing it, eh? Maybe you’re some little bit of my mind trying to break through a wall of denial and suppression, to warn me off the sauce before it’s too late. But hell, figment, it’s nowhere near that late, is it?”
“Ted, I’m not a figment. You’re not dreaming. This is real.” Pel hesitated, then added, “At least, I think it is.”
“Well, if you’re not a figment, what are you doing in my dream?” He smiled a humorless, challenging smile. “Are you a telepath, Brown? Sending psychic messages to me while I sleep? Is that why there are telepaths in this dream? I never thought about telepathy much before, that I can recall. So are you sending this to me?”
Pel glanced uneasily about; everyone else in the room, save the steward and the bartender at the far end, was staring at the two of them. The steward was carefully not looking anywhere; the bartender was polishing glasses.
“No, Ted,” Pel said. “This is real. You are not dreaming. I swear you aren’t. You’re making a fool of yourself.”
Ted shook his head vigorously and held up his hands as if pushing the very thought away.
“No, no, Pel,” he said, “or figment, or alter ego, or whatever the hell you really are. This is a dream. It has to be.”
Desperately, Pel said, “No, Ted! I know it’s all strange, but it’s real!”
“Nope,” Ted replied. “Can’t be. You think I don’t know a dream when I see it? A bunch of bad swipes from Tolkien and Buck Rogers, all twisted around? Gotta be a dream.”
“It isn’t, Ted...”
“Pel, look,” Ted interrupted, “I’m open-minded and all that, and if a spaceship landed on the White House lawn tomorrow I’d accept that—though I’d be amazed as hell, believe me. But this stuff is all too much. I mean, you hire me to bail a bunch of spacemen out on behalf of some guy out of Shakespeare by way of Brooklyn, and then we all eat pizza together and walk through your basement wall into somebody’s back yard in Appalachia, except there’s a castle on the next ridge, and then a bunch of El Greco monsters jump out at us and chase us through the wall into a bleached-out desert where the horizon’s too close so it looks like a cheap Hollywood set, and we sit around for a few minutes except that dream time can stretch all out of shape so it seems like hours, and we get picked up by a flying Oldsmobile...”
“Buick,” Pel corrected him. “I thought it looked more like a Buick.”
“No,” Ted said, shaking his head. “You went in the Buick. I was in the other one, the little one. But you’re right, it wasn’t much like an Oldsmobile. Reminded me a little of this primer-black Camaro my nephew has, actually.”
“Ted...”
“Anyway. So I fly off in this car with the Shakespearean guy and the spaceship captain and a driver who thinks he’s CIA, and halfway there the captain starts getting psychic flashes or something and talking to the air and telling us stuff, and none of it makes any sense, so then we land at what looks like the Pittsburgh Greyhound station and eat a dinner that all tastes like tofu, and then we get aboard a spaceship that looks like the Emerald City turned sideways on the outside, and like a French whorehouse inside, and here we are.”
“That’s right, here we...” Pel began, soothingly.
Ted paid no attention to Pel’s interruption; he demanded, “And you’re trying to tell me all this crap is real?”
“Yes, dammit!” Pel glared at Ted. “Yes, it’s real, and I’m telling you that!”
Ted stared back, his expression merely mild surprise—no anger, no doubt at all.
“But, figment,” he said, “it’s silly.”
“Life is silly, Ted,” Pel told him. “I mean, think about it—isn’t it all a bit ridiculous? But it’s real. And all this is real, too.”
Ted simply grinned foolishly at him.
“Sir,” the steward suggested quietly, “if you want to see Psi Cassiopeia Two...”
“Right,” Pel said, turning away from the silent Ted. “Lead the way.”
The steward led the way to the curved rear wall, where a window, perhaps two feet high and six feet wide, was centered.
This gave a view looking back over the tail assembly; Pel stretched up, peering out the topmost part of the glass, trying to see the planet. The tail of the ship was apparently hiding it.
All he could see was stars.
And the stars were mostly various shades of orange; they covered a range from pale yellow to deep red. Pel supposed the glass was tinted, though the green paint on the ship’s tail looked its natural color.
“Where is it?” he asked.
The steward pointed. “Right there,” he said. “That big faint one.”
“Big one?” Pel followed the pointing finger, and found a pale orange dot of light, virtually indistinguishable from all the others, save that it seemed marginally larger and not very bright.
It did have one odd feature, he realized after staring for a few seconds. It was shrinking, while all the other stars remaine
d constant.
“I didn’t realize we’d come so far,” he said at last.
“Oh, yes, sir,” the steward said, beaming modestly. “Emerald Princess is a very fast ship.”
“How fast?” Pel asked, looking away from the window. “Nine days to Base One—how fast is that?”
“Oh, our top speed is around point three.”
“Of C?”
“No, sir—I don’t know that term. I mean, point three light-years per hour.”
Pel turned to stare at him. “Light-years per hour? It’s faster than light?”
The steward smiled at him, almost smirking. “Well, of course it is, sir,” he said. “How else is interstellar travel possible?”
“You don’t use space warps or something like that?” Pel asked.
The steward looked puzzled. “No, sir,” he said.
Pel turned back to the glass. “Is that... the color out there...”
The steward glanced at the window. “Yes, sir, the red shift is quite visible now, isn’t it? You’ll see a bit more of that, but then in a little while, when we pass the speed of light, you won’t be able to see anything at all looking out in this direction.”
“So what happens then, do we pop into hyperspace or something?”
“Hyperspace?”
Pel turned, exasperated. “Look, I don’t know your terminology! I mean, you can’t go faster than light in normal space, right?”
“You can’t?” The steward looked baffled. “Why not? What other kind of space is there?”
“I don’t know,” Pel snarled. His grasp of the theory of relativity was sufficiently weak that he had no intention of trying to explain it to someone—and most particularly, someone who worked on a spaceship and ought to know all that stuff. He glanced out the window again, and an unpleasant thought struck him.
Maybe this wasn’t normal space, as he understood the term. It certainly wasn’t his space.
Maybe this universe had entirely different rules.
Out of This World Page 21
