Out of This World

Chapter Three

Nancy stared stupidly as Raven bowed deeply. Rachel giggled behind her hand, and dropped a small plastic shopping bag to the floor.

“Hi, honey,” Pel said. He gestured at their unexpected guest. “This is Raven.”

“Hi,” Nancy said, looking questioningly at Pel as he came to take one of the bags of groceries from her arms.

“Your servant, madame,” Raven said, bowing again.

“My wife, Nancy, and my daughter, Rachel,” Pel explained as he carried the groceries into the kitchen.

“A pleasure to meet you, I assure you,” Raven said.

Nancy murmured something vague, then followed Pel into the kitchen with the other bag.

“Who’s he?” she demanded. “Why’s he dressed like that?”

Pel put the sack on the counter and started putting cans of soup on the pantry cupboard shelves while he tried to think how to answer that.

“He says to call him Raven,” he said. “I’m not sure if it’s really his name or not. And he’s apparently dressed like that because that’s what he wears at home.”

“Where’s home? What’s he doing here?”

A can of Campbell’s cream of mushroom slipped, and Pel caught it in his other hand.

“I don’t know, really,” he said. “I mean, I sort of do, but it’s… well, it’s not that it’s hard to explain as that nobody would believe the explanation.” He paused, considering, and added, “I’m not sure I believe it.”

Nancy stared at him. “Pel, what are you talking about?” she asked, worried.

Pel looked helplessly around the kitchen, as if hoping the cabinets would tell him what to say.

The cabinets remained blank.

He could hear voices from the family room, he realized-Raven and Rachel were talking. He crossed to the door and leaned through.

“You see?” Raven was saying. “It is indeed a real sword. And sharp-do you not touch it, lest you cut your pretty fingers.” He had pulled about a foot of the blade from its sheath, and Rachel was admiring the dull gleam of the metal.

That wasn’t cheap chrome, like some of the ceremonial swords Pel had seen, nor stainless steel, nor plain iron. Even from the kitchen door he could see the fine finish, the sort of finish one saw on very expensive carving knives.

Nancy came up behind him and looked over his shoulder.

“Pel,” she whispered in his ear, “what’s he doing here?”

Pel turned and pushed Nancy back into the kitchen.

“He’s from some sort of fantasy world,” he said. “Where magic works. He’s a warrior of some kind, I guess.”

“You mean he’s crazy? An escaped lunatic?” In an instant, Nancy’s expression went from mildly concerned to seriously worried.

“No,” Pel told her. “Or at least I don’t think so. I think he’s for real. There’s some kind of space warp that comes out in our basement.”

The worried look now verged on panic. “Maybe you’re crazy, too!” Nancy said. “Pel, what are you talking about?”

Pel groped unsuccessfully for words, and finally just said, “Come on.” He took Nancy’s hand and pulled her back into the family room, where Rachel was admiring the silver embroidery on Raven’s tunic. Raven was watching the girl’s little fingers indulgently as they explored the textures.

Raven looked up as the pair entered, and smiled. “A lovely child,” he said. “And well-spoken.”

“Thanks,” Pel said.

“In her sixth year, you said? Or was it seventh?”

“She just turned six.”

“Ah!”

For a moment the Browns just stood there, and Raven sat, and Rachel ran her fingertips down the silver piping. Then Raven carefully lifted Rachel off his knee, placed her on the couch, and stood up.

“My presence here troubles you, I see,” he said, “and I’ve no wish to trouble anyone.”

Pel chewed his lower lip, glancing back and forth between Raven and Nancy, while Raven awaited a reply. He was obviously hoping for a polite denial, but Nancy was obstinately silent as she stared at the stranger.

Raven sighed and picked up his sword. “I’ll be going, then,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” Pel said, “but I can’t think of any way to explain you that doesn’t sound crazy.”

“Ah,” Raven said, comprehension dawning, “I see. I’d feared it was something else, that perhaps I’d given offense somehow. I know so little of your world, after all!” He looked hopefully at Nancy.

She remained silent; it was Pel who assured him, “No, you’ve been charming. But your clothes, and your name… well, it’s strange.”

Raven nodded.

“Madame,” he said, “I beg your pardon for intruding, and for my garb, which I take it you find outlandish. In truth, I am outlandish-I’ve come here from another realm entirely.”

Pel listened to this with interest; it was remarkable how much more believable that sounded coming from Raven than it did coming from him.

It still wasn’t very believable, though, and in fact Nancy obviously still didn’t believe it.

Rachel was also skeptical, judging by her expression. Nifty embroidery and shiny swords were all very well, but modern kindergarteners knew better than to believe stories about other worlds. Rachel had independently figured out just weeks before that Santa Claus wasn’t real; she was still working on the Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy, but she wasn’t about to accept Raven at face value.

Raven could see the disbelief as well as Pel could. He sighed. “You doubt me,” he said, deliberately understating the case, “and I can scarce blame you, for who in her right mind would believe such an assertion without proof? But perhaps I can convince you. And if not, I’ll go, and at least you’ll be rid of me.” He rose and reached for his sword and belt. “Pel Brown,” he said as he fastened the buckle, “if you would be so kind as to lead us to the cellars?”

That was clearly the thing to do, though the idea had not occurred to Pel. “Come on,” he said. “Everybody down in the basement, and you can see why I believed Raven about where he came from.”

They trooped down the stairs, Raven in the lead, then Pel, then Rachel, and last Nancy. Raven did not hesitate; he walked directly across the basement and into the concrete wall.

Unlike Grummetty, who had whacked his head the first time he tried to return to his own reality, Raven vanished immediately.

Rachel’s eyes widened, and her mouth opened.

Nancy turned to her husband and demanded, “Pel, what’s going on here?”

“You saw,” Pel said. “He vanished into the wall. See, night before last, when I was down here, this little tiny guy, like an elf or something, appeared out of nowhere, and talked to me for a minute, and then disappeared into the wall just the way Raven did.” He didn’t mention the bump. “Then this afternoon, when you were out, I heard knocking, and there Raven was, in our basement. And he gave me this whole story about another world, and I know it sounds stupid, but I bought it-it sounded real, and he looked real, and I couldn’t figure out any other way it could happen.”

“Well, he’s gone now,” Nancy said, and just then Rachel, who had wandered halfway across the basement staring at the spot where Raven had vanished, let out a shriek.

Raven was stepping back out of the blank concrete wall.

Rachel came running back across the basement floor to her parents and flung herself against her father, who bent down and picked her up, hugging her to him.

“It’s okay, Rae,” he told her, as Nancy laid a comforting hand on the back of the little girl’s head. “It’s just Raven. It’s okay.”

The dismay he saw on Raven’s face over Rachel’s shoulder could not be feigned, Pel was sure.

“My humble apologies, Mistress Rachel,” Raven said, going down on one knee and lowering his head. “I’d not meant to startle you. Please, forgive me?”

Rachel lifted her head from her father’s chest and peeked behind her. When she saw Raven’s posture she pressed against Pel’s shoulders, and he lowered her to the ground.

She turned to face Raven, but didn’t say anything.

The man in black raised his head and looked at her. “Grant me your pardon, Mistress Rachel, please. Say you forgive me,” he begged.

“It’s okay,” Rachel said. “I think. Isn’t it, Daddy?”

“I think so,” Pel agreed.

“Thank you,” Raven said, rising to his feet and brushing the dust from the knee of his hose. He stood, waiting.

Nancy still didn’t say anything.

“Shall we go back upstairs?” Pel suggested.

Nancy didn’t say anything, but she turned and marched back up.

A moment later all four of them were back in the family room, and Nancy finally spoke.

“Pel,” she said, “come in the kitchen for a moment.”

Pel came.

When they were out of sight of Raven and Rachel, Nancy whispered loudly, “Do you really believe him?”

Pel shrugged. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I don’t have any better explanation.”

“It could be some kind of trick,” Nancy suggested. “Some kind of illusion.”

“Sure, I guess it could be,” Pel agreed. “But why?”

“I don’t know,” Nancy said, fretting, “but I don’t like it.”

Pel sighed again. “Nancy,” he said, “the guy is not selling me anything. I’m just talking to him. He turned up in the basement, with this whole story about some kind of cosmic war, and I’m just listening to it. That’s all. And frankly, I want to hear some more. If you want to go upstairs or something, go ahead.”

“All right,” she said. “You can talk.” She turned and led the way back into the family room, then stopped suddenly.

“Can I get you a drink?” she asked Raven.

He glanced at Pel, then back at Nancy. “Thank you, aye,” he said, “I judge I could put a drink to use.”

“Um… beer?”

“Yes, that would suit me well, thank you.”

Nancy spun on her heel and marched back toward the refrigerator while Pel resumed his seat on the recliner. Rachel was sitting on the couch, not touching Raven, Pel noticed, but staring at him intently. His performance in the basement had obviously impressed her.

“Now,” Pel said, “you were telling me that you came here to talk to us about maybe joining forces with your people against something you call a Shadow?”

“Yes,” Raven said, with a nod. “That’s exactly right.”

“Shadow is magical, right?”

“Aye,” Raven said. “’Tis magical in nature. We know little enough of its true origins, but we know that much. It has gathered to itself all the magic that its evil allowed it, the greater part of all the world’s magical might, leaving only crumbs for our wizards to pick at. Because the good magicians were not united against it, it has triumphed.”

“But magic doesn’t work here. No one in our world has any magic.”

Nancy appeared from the kitchen, carrying two cans of Miller.

“You have nothing you call magic, perhaps, and nothing like our magicks, it would seem,” Raven agreed, “but you have magicks of your own, I am sure, though perhaps you call them by another name. The Galactic Empire calls its magic ‘science’; do you use that, perhaps?”

“Science isn’t magic,” Rachel said scornfully.

Raven turned to her, startled.

“She’s right,” Pel said. “Science isn’t magic. It does some pretty amazing things, though.”

Nancy put the two cans of beer on the table, then seated herself on the arm of the couch behind Rachel, at the far end from Raven. Pel leaned forward, picked one can up, and popped the top.

Raven blinked, then picked up the other.

“Cold!” he exclaimed, startled, as he quickly put it back down. He stared at it.

Rachel giggled. Pel and Nancy exchanged a glance.

“Maybe he’s British,” Nancy said, sotto voce.

“’Course it’s cold!” Rachel said. “It just came out of the fridge!”

Raven glanced at her, then reached down and cautiously picked up the beer can. He held it up with one hand while the other explored it carefully, stroking beads of condensation from the side, feeling the smooth, thin metal. He studied it intently.

“I’d wondered,” he said, “why you had no bottles or barrels in your cellar. It seems you have other ways of keeping things cool.”

“The refrigerator,” Pel agreed. “I guess that’s some of the scientific magic you were asking about.” He remembered his own beer and took a pull on the can.

Raven watched him, then looked at the top of the can he held. “How… there are letters here, stamped in the metal, or etched, perhaps. I cannot read them.”

“Oh,” Pel said. He put down his own beer and leaned over. “Let me show you,” he said.

He took the can and popped the top, while Raven watched, fascinated. Beer foamed up, and Pel handed it back.

Raven tasted it.

“Good,” he said, though his expression contradicted his words.

“It’s American beer,” Pel remarked. “I like the European stuff better.”

“This is a trifle thin, perhaps,” Raven agreed.

“So I guess we have technology you don’t, like refrigerators,” Pel said, leaning back with his beer in hand. “Is that what you came looking for?”

“I’d nothing specific in mind,” Raven said, “but if you have this science, or… technology, did you call it? If you have this, and use it for weapons, perhaps we could use it against Shadow.”

“I suppose you could,” Pel agreed. “If it works in your world.”

“Why shouldn’t it?” Nancy demanded, addressing her husband rather than their guest.

“Magic doesn’t work here,” Pel pointed out.

Raven sipped beer. “There is that,” he agreed. “So you do have technology weapons? Rayguns, perhaps, like the Galactic Empire’s? Or mayhap you call them blasters? The Imperials use both terms.”

“Not exactly,” Pel said, amused. “The closest we have to rayguns would be lasers, I guess, and they only work as weapons in the movies.”

“In the…?” Raven began.

“Never mind,” Pel said, cutting him off. “In stories, I should have said.”

“What works in reality, then?”

“Bombs,” Pel said. “Guns. Tanks, airplanes, nuclear warheads. Poison gas.”

“I know bombs,” Raven said, a little hesitantly. “And I think I know what you mean by guns, but these others-what sort of tank is a weapon? What is a nuclear war head?”

“A nuclear warhead,” Pel explained, “is a bomb that can destroy an entire city.”

Raven sat silently for a moment, staring at Pel. Rachel got up her nerve to stroke the fine black velvet of his cloak, and Nancy got up to go to the kitchen again.

“How big be these warheads?” Raven asked at last. “Be they real, not just another fancy found in stories?”

“Oh, yes,” Pel said. “They’re real. But they’re very big and heavy, and besides, only a few governments have access to them.”

“You don’t want them,” Nancy said, startling both Pel and Raven. “Besides destroying cities they poison the air and soil, and kill or deform unborn children.”

“In truth?” Raven asked, looking at Pel.

“Truly,” Pel said, nodding. “They use atomic energy-the same thing that keeps the sun burning-and that produces radiation.”

“Our sun burns with magic-I know nothing of yours. But your people fight with these bombs?”

“No,” Pel said. “We keep from fighting because we’re scared of them.”

“Don’t forget Hiroshima,” Nancy interjected.

Raven looked a question.

“We used them once,” Pel admitted.

“Twice,” Nancy said.

“Right, twice. On Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Two cities in Japan. That was when the bombs were first invented, at the end of a long war, when we didn’t know any better. Almost fifty years ago.”

“Ah. So you know they work, then.”

“Oh, yes, they work,” Pel said bitterly.

“And are they strong enough to break through fortress walls?”

Pel stared at Raven for a moment, then said, “I don’t think you understand. A nuclear bomb can totally obliterate an entire city-flatten it, leave nothing but a crater. When they tested them in the desert they fused the sand into glass. The Hiroshima bomb killed a hundred thousand people-and that was a small one, much less powerful than the ones we have now. If you dropped a nuclear bomb on a fortress, any fortress, the fortress would be gone. There wouldn’t be any walls left.”

“Even a magical fortress?”

“There’s no such thing.”

“There is in my world.”

Pel had no immediate answer to that, but Nancy said, “It doesn’t matter, anyway-you can’t get a nuclear warhead, not even a Russian one. They’re kept sealed away, heavily guarded. And you wouldn’t know how to use one if you had it.”

“I see. But guns and bombs and… and tanks?”

“You can get guns easily enough. And make bombs. I don’t think you could get tanks, though.”

Raven nodded. “I see. Thank you.” He put down his can of beer and spoke slowly, as if making an effort to phrase clearly what he wanted to say. “I think perhaps I have imposed enough upon your hospitality,” he told the Browns. “I’m very grateful for your kindness, but perhaps I had best return home now, to discuss what you have told me with my people.”

“You haven’t finished your beer,” Nancy pointed out.

Raven looked at the can. “I fear my thirst is gone,” he said, rising.

“All right,” Pel said. “I’m sorry we couldn’t be more help.”

“I may return, sometime, if you have no objection,” Raven said diffidently.

“We’d be glad to see you,” Pel replied, getting to his own feet and not adding that he would be glad mostly because it would be further evidence that this wasn’t all simply a dream or hallucination.

“I like your cape,” Rachel said.

Raven smiled down at her. “I like it, too, child,” he said kindly.

Pel led the way to the basement, and together, the Browns watched Raven vanish into the wall again.

As Pel had feared, there were cat hairs on the black velvet cloak.

* * * *

“Are you people finished?” Amy asked.

“I don’t know,” the FAA man answered, not looking at her, “I really don’t.”

Amy stared at him without trying to hide her annoyance. “Why don’t you know?” she demanded.

“Because I don’t know what the hell is going on here,” he told her.

She stared at him, and he explained, “That thing out there-it’s not an aircraft. There’s no way it could ever have flown under its own power. There’s no engine, just this weird contraption of crystals and metal plates that doesn’t do anything, attached to what looks like a pressure chamber. Some of the equipment aboard is ordinary electrical stuff, and works fine; other equipment is more of this crystal-and-metal nonsense that doesn’t do anything. Those weapons those people were carrying-they have little batteries, but they don’t do anything. All of them, the big one and the ones that look like pistols, they’re harmless. They don’t even light up or make noise like my kid’s toy rayguns.” He shook his head.

“It’s some kind of hoax, I guess,” he continued, “but why would anyone go to all this trouble? And all the expense? Some of the stuff in there looks like it’s made out of gold and platinum, and if it’s all a gag, wouldn’t copper or tin do just as well? And how did the thing get here, anyway? Nobody tracked anything flying around here that shouldn’t have been, and this thing would show up on radar like a Christmas tree, not to mention whatever must have carried it in and dropped it.” He sighed. “Lady, you’ve got a really major mystery sitting in your back yard, and I’m glad I’m not the one who has to figure it out.”

“You’re not?”

“Nope.” He smiled uneasily. “I passed the buck. This close to Washington it’s all restricted airspace, you know-or just about. So I called the Air Force. They’re sending someone out to take a look, and if he’s as impressed as I am-which he will be-they’ll be doing some serious investigating in the morning. And I think they called the FBI, too. I’m waiting around until their man gets here, and after that it’s up to them. I’m hoping he’ll just tell me to go home and forget any of this ever happened.”

“But…” Amy turned and stared around the corner of her house at the huge purple object. “I can’t go home and forget about it! It’s on my land!”

The FAA man shrugged. “I know,” he said, “and I’m sorry. You might want to start thinking about how much to ask if the national security folks decide to buy your property.”

“What?” Amy whirled back.

“Well, they probably won’t,” he said, trying unsuccessfully to sound reassuring. “They may just haul the thing away.” He paused, then added thoughtfully, “Though I’m not sure how they’d do that.”

Amy stared around wildly, looking for a solution and seeing none.

“Listen,” she said, “where’d they take the people who were aboard it?”

The FAA man shrugged. “County jail down in Rockville, I guess,” he said.

“Thanks,” Amy said.

She turned, leaving the FAA man leaning against the maple tree by the driveway, and went into the house. She wasn’t sure just who to call to find out how she could get to talk to those people, the people who had been inside the thing, but she thought she could figure it out eventually.

And if she couldn’t, her lawyer could.

She chewed her lower lip. It was probably time to call her lawyer in any case.

But then she remembered-it was Sunday. No one would be in the law offices on Sunday.

“Damn,” she said, staring out the kitchen window at the ship. Then she shrugged. “So I’ll have to wait ‘til morning. It isn’t going anywhere.”