telepaths, with their sneaking and spying, had stolen him away. There were hundreds of the dirty mutants out there, far more than anyone knew, but they kept themselves secret, only a few admitted what they were in order to get into the government where they could spy on everything better, and steal all the good men away from deserving ordinary women.
It took Carrie several seconds to dig down past this depressingly familiar paranoid fantasy and locate recent memories.
“Why don’t you sit down?” the receptionist asked, mentally adding, “Mutant bitch.”
Carrie realized she had been staring foolishly out the door of the office. The receptionist, despite her belief in a conspiracy of evil, lawless telepaths, didn’t yet realize that her thoughts had been illicitly spied on, but the idea might occur to her at any second.
“No, that’s all right,” Carrie said. “I’ll try again later.” She turned and headed back out into the corridor.
The Under-Secretary had been taking a long lunch, and was lingering over his final cup of tea; Carrie hurried to the cafeteria, to catch him before he left.
He looked up in surprise as she entered.
“Telepath,” he said, “what are you doing here? This room’s off-limits for you!”
“Yes, sir,” Carrie said, “but I think this is an emergency.”
He put down his cup.
“Colonel Carson has been killed, sir,” Carrie told him, coming to attention.
“By Shadow?”
“No, sir. By one of the wizards in his own party.”
Bascombe let out a long, deep sigh. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, get out of here, anyway—no telepaths are allowed in here. I’ll be out in a moment.”
“Yes, sir.” Carrie turned and trotted out to the hall.
She waited, and a moment later the Under-Secretary emerged, walking quickly. “Come along,” he ordered.
She followed, but to her surprise he did not return to his own office; instead he led her down to Level Six, to General Hart’s office.
Five minutes later the three of them, Hart and Bascombe and Carrie, were seated in Hart’s office with the door closed.
“Now,” Hart said, “tell us all about it.”
* * * *
“They’re still arguing,” Prossie told the others.
“Who is?” Lieutenant Dibbs demanded.
“General Hart and the Under-Secretary for Interdimensional Affairs,” Prossie replied.
“Just what are they arguing about?” Amy asked.
That was not easy for Prossie to answer. Carrie was relaying not just the two men’s words, but some of their thoughts, as well. While the spoken debate purported to be a discussion of the best way to ensure the survival of the rest of the expeditionary force, the actual subject, as both men knew, was the fact that General Hart had deliberately tried to screw up the Under-Secretary’s project and had been caught at it. Both Hart and Bascombe knew, however, that Bascombe could not come out and say that openly—if the mission failed he would take at least part of the blame, and trying to shift it to Hart would just make him look worse.
He could, however, take Hart down with him, in a variety of ways, since Hart’s sabotage had shown up so quickly. If the party had been wiped out by Shadow’s forces, both men would have been able to get out cleanly—under-estimating the enemy was a mistake, but an understandable and forgivable one, relatively minor, nothing at all like deliberately sending people to be killed.
So each man was now looking for a way out that would leave him blameless. Branding Raven as a dangerous lunatic or treacherous foreign outlaw was one possibility—in that case, Lieutenant Dibbs should be put in command and Raven arrested or killed. Denouncing Carson posthumously as a renegade was also a possibility, but if he had surviving family or friends that might be risky. And in either case, what should the survivors do next? Should they continue their mission and attempt to penetrate Shadow’s stronghold, or should they abandon the enterprise, take shelter, and wait for rescue?
That latter possibility assumed that rescue was possible. General Hart was not at all clear on how travel between universes worked; the Under-Secretary had a better grasp of the subject, but did not care to enlighten a man who was, when all was said and done, his political adversary. And even knowing what he did, the Under-Secretary was thinking in terms of reopening the space warp and lowering a line; the possibility of using wizards’ magic had not yet occurred to him.
“Whether to continue the mission,” Prossie said.
* * * *
Amy was seated cross-legged on dry, dead leaves, forearms resting on her knees, watching as Raven and the Imperials argued, and feeling sweat moisten the back of her T-shirt; it wasn’t really very hot, and she hadn’t been doing anything very active, but the thicker air seemed to make perspiration come more easily. She felt a vague discomfort in the general vicinity of her stomach, as well, and wasn’t sure whether or not that could be attributed to the climate and atmosphere.
Beside her stood Elani; Amy was staying close to the wizard, who was, after all, her ticket home to Earth, to peace and sanity and her own home.
As far as Amy was concerned, it made no difference at all who was in charge of the group, so long as Raven agreed to let Elani send the Earthpeople home.
Still, she could see that it mattered very much indeed to some people—with a shudder, she stole a glance at Colonel Carson’s body, lying undisturbed on its bed of fallen leaves.
More death. That was not anything she wanted to see. She had managed to live forty years on Earth without seeing more than half a dozen corpses, and those were mostly at funerals; she had never seen anyone die until she had stupidly agreed to step through Pel’s basement wall and take a quick look at Raven’s world.
But then there had been Cartwright, killed by Shadow’s monsters—though he might have still been alive, Amy told herself, when she escaped through the portal into the Empire. There had been Peabody, killed by the pirates aboard Emerald Princess. And others. She hadn’t seen them all die, but Pel’s wife Nancy was dead, and their daughter Rachel, and Raven’s friend Squire Donald, and Lieutenant Godwin, and the two little people, Grummetty and Alella. People aboard the Princess—she didn’t know all the names. People killed in the fighting when the Empire’s Task Force Umber came to the rescue.
And the two on Zeta Leo III who had held her prisoner, Walter and Beth—they had both been hanged by the Empire. She hadn’t seen that, it had happened after she was aboard Emperor Edward VII on her way to Base One, but it had happened, and the two of them were dead, and it was partly her fault.
It was partly their own damn fault, of course, for keeping slaves, and abusing her, and killing that other woman, whatsername, Sheila. Walter was a murderer, and Beth was his accomplice—but if Amy had kept her mouth shut, probably no one would have known that, and the two of them would still be alive in an Imperial
