Yondering. Jack Dann

The lout grinned like a cat and bounded over the row of kids in front of him, half squashing a smallish urchin as he did so. He leapt onto the stage, bumped into me, took the microphone from Ned and shouted, “There was a mad crowd from Earth, Whose brains were made out of turf.…”

      An explosion on the roof of the hall sent a rain of dust and light-fittings cascading down onto the heads of everyone below, including me. Kids screamed and started stampeding out of all available exits, including the windows. The heavily-armed militia guys rushed the stage and began herding our party out of a back door. The sound of gunfire punctuated their shouted commands. Acrid smoke drifted everywhere. I found myself stumbling along next to Ned, who was conducting a shouted exchange with a militia girl. He turned to me, “She reckons it’s a kidnap attempt. Apparently, Lewis would be worth her weight in cold-fusion pellets. We’re OK, we’re not worth anything.”

      “Good to know,” I said.

      Out in the playground our party was being bundled back into the troop carriers. I saw Her Excellency propelled unceremoniously into the lead carrier by two beefy militia types. Then someone called my name. I looked round, Flight Regulator Montesquieu was standing next to the open rear hatch of a smallish troop carrier.

      “You and Malley, into this one.”

      Ned and I climbed into the vehicle. D’Bridie and John Doe were already there. Up front, the driver was accompanied by a couple of grinning militiamen who held their firearms at the ready—they had the cheery demeanor of the recently bribed. Montesquieu didn’t climb into the carrier herself, she yelled at the driver to take us away. The carrier started forward even as the hydraulics were closing the rear hatch.

      John Doe said, “I do believe our esteemed colleague, Flight Regulator Montesquieu, has called us a cab of our very own. I suspect the driver will be taking us on a leisurely tour of New Stoke-on-Trent’s main tourist attractions. Pity we can’t see out.”

      Doe wasn’t wrong. It took forever to get back to the landing ground. And when we arrived, it was too late.

      We stood in the Skyroan dust and watched the runabout take off. It accelerated slowly; it was carrying the ancient, shaken-up Ulrike Lewis, after all. The pilot wasn’t going to subject her to too many g-forces, not if he knew what was good for him. For an eternity the craft seemed to float upside down on the cloud cover, like the keel of a boat seen by an underwater swimmer. And then it was gone, swallowed by the mist. I turned in complete misery to my companions. There was no answering misery on their faces; they had been watching the departing runabout with as much concern as a bunch of commuters who’d just missed a light rail shuttle.

      “It’s not going to come back for us,” I said.

      “I wouldn’t think so,” John Doe said. “We are marooned. We are castaways of the cosmos.”

      “We’re on the wrong bloody planet!” I was nearly crying. “This place is worse than Earth.”

      “I’m sure it has some attractions, dear lady,” John Doe said. “Let us look on the bright side.”

      “Don’t bloody dear lady me.”

      Ned said, “We’ll get you home, Em. We might even get there faster than The Delegate. We’ll be there to welcome Lewis on her triumphal return.”

      “How? There aren’t any people smugglers going between here and Newharp. And we’ve got no money. No damn money at all.”

      “The space lanes are not empty,” John Doe said. “Interplanetary trade demands the constant plying to and fro of that workhorse of commerce, the humble freighter. The freighter is not to be sneezed at.”

      “And how the fuck are we meant to pay the goddamned humble freighter captain? With the clothes off our backs? Here, captain, give us passage to Newharp. Have a second-hand shirt and a used pair of socks.”

      “We can always realize our capital,” John Doe said. “Skyroans are discerning aficionados of genuine antiques.”

      “Realize what capital? What antiques?”

      D’Bridie put her arm around my shoulders and squeezed. Silently she kicked the backpack that rested in the dust at her feet. There was a muffled clanking sound. “Spoons, Em,” she said. “Knives and forks. Ceremonial ones. John knows a guy who deals in them. John’s been here before. He’s got connections. We’re rich. We’ll go home in style.”

      “I also know a matron who keeps an excellent hostelry not far from here,” John Doe said. “Let us go and eat.”