OUT OF SPACE
A Tale of Sfstory by Dave Menendez

Part 3: Downstream

HORLUN AWOKE on the deck of a small river craft. That was where
he had fallen asleep, so he wasn't especially concerned. He
hadn't opened his eyes yet--preferring not to unseal them if
there was a chance he could fit more sleep into his schedule--but
he could feel the warmth of the local star on his side and the
uncomfortable hardness of the boat's deck on his other side, both
suggesting that getting up and moving around might be a good
idea. It was a chance he felt comfortable taking.
    Carefully making sure he wasn't too close to the edge, he
rolled onto his knees, sat up, and looked around. The forest
looked about as he remembered it, only much more colorful now
that it was lit. The dense foliage kept visibility down; beyond
the closer layers of reeds, bushes, flowers, hanging moss, and
trees, all he could see was an occasional glimpse of shadow. Some
distance behind them were the mountains they had left the night
before, barely visible over the treetops. (The trees weren't
especially tall, just closer and therefore more prone to blocking
distant objects from sight.) It was, in short, a remarkably
difficult place to locate; the research center they had escaped
from the previous night could be in almost any direction, given
the meandering route of the river and that it wasn't clear which
mountain it was on. This was problematic, as the only way off the
planet that they knew about was in the research center.
    There was a good chance that Orliss had considered this
already--he *was* training to be a hero--and almost no chance
that Roy would remain silent on the subject if the others failed
to mention it. Hopefully, they had already reached a conclusion.
    "Hungry?" asked Jen politely. This was another area of
concern, as they had stolen the boat while on the run and no one
had thought to bring any food along with them. But Jen was
leaning over from her seat near the steering wheel and passing
him a small, silvery package. He turned it over in his hands and
failed to find any identifying marks.
    "What is this?"
    "Part of the boat's rapidly-dwindling supply of emergency
rations. There's a tab on the top, there."
    Sure enough, there was. It even had the character for "pull"
on it, in case there was any uncertainty surrounding its purpose.
Horlun did as it advised and, to his surprise, the packet tore
open cleanly with a minimum of fuss. Somehow it seemed
appropriate that an organization as evil as the Sonar Men would
unlock the secret of easily-opened food packaging. It was
probably patented with really restrictive licensing requirements,
too.
    The food itself--which, in addition to being a product of
evil, was also stolen, thereby complicating the issue to the
point where Horlun felt comfortable ignoring it--was a gray slab
of indeterminate origin. Figuring that the Sonar Men probably
didn't give their own people poisoned emergency rations, Horlun
tried some and found it quite tasty. Reminiscent of the odd gray
food they had eaten at the banquet the previous evening,
actually. (Had it been so recent? It felt as though months had
passed.)
    "It's good," he told Jen, in case she hadn't noticed.
    "Yeah. We'll have to get the recipe."
    With some food in him, Horlun felt more awake, although
something in the back of his mind was nagging at him. He took a
look around the boat. Orliss was still piloting, looking very
alert for someone who hadn't slept at all. Jen was sitting next
to him on the padded bench in the back, keeping her attention on
Orliss. Just in front of her was Anme, who was looking very
intently at the water near the side of the boat. Roy was in the
bow, staring forward at where the horizon would have been if it
weren't blocked by the forest and a curve in the river.
    Apparently, Horlun had slept through another argument. This,
in his opinion, was not a great loss. Nonetheless, he moved over
to Anme so he could do his duty as a supportive boyfriend. With
luck, he wouldn't get more than a quick synopsis out of her
before she felt better.
    It was when he moved that he realized what was bothering him:
his shadow was too long. They had been out pretty late last
night, but even he wasn't likely to sleep into the next evening.
He squinted for a moment at the sky. The sun had climbed perhaps
a quarter of the path to its zenith. It was well before noon. Far
too early for him to be awake.
    "What time is it?" he asked his cousin.
    "About midnight," replied Orliss, "but I haven't reset my
chronometer since we left Foobarh, and the local day is a
different length here, so...." He spread his hands, expressing
their helplessness against a universe so incovenient for
wristwatch usage.
    "Right." Good thing he wasn't a believer in strict
scheduling. Of course, he was also stranded on an unknown planet,
which tends to keep the appointment books sparsely populated at
best.
    Continuing with his original plan, he kneeled next to Anme
and joined her in staring over the side of the boat. The churn
kicked up by the hull *was* kind of hypnotic, actually, but
Horlun suspected Anme had other reasons for staring so intently.
    "How are you?" he asked casually. Caring, but safely
non-committal.
    Anme glanced at him. "Remember when we started this trip? We
were like, 'Oh, we'll just borrow Anme's father's ship and pop on
over to Barbados, Planet of Physical Delights.' Instead we
visited Planet Gloom, got involved in a terrorist action on the
*Anonymous*, and ended up stranded on some jungle planet being
chased by mad scientists. It's like the Mads sent us this trip to
punish our arrogance."
    "Nah," said Horlun, eager to turn the conversation away from
religion, "we've just had an extraordinary run of bad luck."
    "I guess. But maybe this would be easier if I weren't forced
into close proximity with a certain *elitist*."
    In the bow, Roy exhaled heavily in irritation and turned to
face them. "All I said is that that there are certain cases where
command-line interfaces are more flexible and expressive."
    "Bah!" Anme stabbed an accusing finger at the alleged
elitist. "You just want to keep the power restricted to an elite
cabal that can untangle the arcane terminology!"
    "Hey," interrupted Horlun smoothly, "there's a hill coming
up." He gestured towards the side of the river where, peeking
over the forest's edge, they could see what appeared to be a
hill, or possibly some very tall trees. "We should stop and go
take a look."
    "Yeah," agreed Jen. "We can't stay on the river; we're too
exposed. We need to find another way back."
    "Another way?" asked Orliss, sounding disappointed. "You mean
walking? But we have transportation: a *boat*."
    "That limits us to the river," explained Jen. "Where the
Sonar Men can easily find us. I'm with Horlun on this. We should
check out the hill."
    "Besides," added Roy, "if cartoons teach us anything, it's
that all river escapes inevitably lead to waterfalls. I say we
quit while we're ahead. What concerns me is the prospect of
getting lost and disoriented in the forest--assuming we figure
out where we're going."
    "That shouldn't be a problem," said Orliss. "I've got a
compass."
    "You have a compass?"
    "It's one of the features on my watch." The student hero held
up the chronometer in question. "It also tells the altitude."
    "Really? What's it say?"
    "Uh, about two meters below sea level. But I haven't adjusted
it for the local air pressure."
    "I see. The compass part doesn't need any adjustment, does
it?"
    "It shouldn't matter. Orienteering is all about relative
direction, so the exact location of magnetic north doesn't
matter."
    Horlun looked sideways at his cousin. "I thought you got a
'C' in orienteering."
    "It's a tough course!" protested Orliss as he steered them
towards the bank. "Plus, I missed some of the homework because I
had Advanced Sentence Fragments that semester, and that took a
lot of my time. But I got the basic concepts."
    After some quick discussion, they decided to drag the boat
onto the shore and conceal it in the bushes. It was a lot lighter
than they expected, and, with the five of them well-rested or
posessed of heroic stamina, the upcoming hike through unknown
wilderness didn't seem so forboding after all. Horlun listened to
the forest, trying to decide if the silence meant no bugs or lots
of stealthy bugs, while Jen and Roy made sure their landfall
wasn't obvious. Once that was complete, they were ready to brave
the forest, and Horlun was starting to feel a lot less confident
about the plan. Staying with the boat was risky, yes, but forests
had many dangers, and getting lost would be a picnic compared to
some of the less likely threats. He glanced at his cousin and
reminded himself that this was the sort of thing Orliss had
trained for.
    "Our only real problem," declared Orliss as he checked his
watch and the direction the hill had been, "is that we don't have
a map."
    And so they entered the jungle.

    Horlun was a big supporter of wildlife. Back home on Foobarh,
he was an active member of several wildlife-related
organizations, where "active member" meant someone who sent
checks regularly. He had even accompanied Anme to a protest at
the Fesia Zoo which had argued that it demeaned animals to remove
them from their habitats, cage them for public viewing, and write
corny jokes on their descriptive plaques. (The two had made
dinner plans, so they slipped out early to avoid getting
arrested.)
    Occasionally, people would invite him to join a camping or
rafting expidition, to enjoy what remained of Foobarh's natural
beauty, but he always declined, explaining that he wouldn't feel
so happy if a bunch of wild plants and animals barged through his
house, so he felt it only polite to extend them the same
courtesy. In truth, forests made him nervous.
    His family had lived near the Old Park when he was growing
up, and he played with the neighborhood youth and picked up the
local folklore. The older children were especially fond of
telling horror stories about the Park. According to legend, it
had been founded by a consortium of weathy socialites who were
concerned about the city's poor and decided to knock down the
decaying tenaments near the center of the city and put in a large
swath of nature to enrich their lives. (Most historians preferred
the drunken wager theory.) In any case, those poor who actually
lived where the park was going to go didn't quite understand how
a bunch of trees and bushes were an adequate replacement for
their homes, and there was some unpleasantness.
    Construction proceeded, the fires started during the riots
actually speeding things along as the consortium was able to save
on demolition costs. The first trees, planted in the
hastily-buried ashes still stood decades later, huge and twisted,
black like the curses of the evicted. The older kids said that
the trees had absorbed the anger of those who had died there and
sought revenge against the upper-income families who alone could
afford to live near the Old Park.
    To prove their valor, they would explore the older, wilder
parts of the park, but Horlun had never enjoyed it. He could feel
the oppressive hatred of the trees as they thought their dark,
wooden thoughts and plotted against the moderately well off.
Eventually, he stopped going, feigning an interest in televised
sports. The others kept at it, until one day a local boy fell
into a forgotten basement and had to be rescued by his unusually
clever dog. After that, the neigborhood parents forbade
expeditions to the forest, and Horlun had not set foot in the Old
Park since.
    Rationally, he knew there was nothing to be afraid of. This
wasn't the Old Park, and even if trees had the ability to
hate--which they didn't--the forests of Tangerine had no reason
to dislike him. It wasn't like they could exchange gossip with
trees on other planets.
    Even so, Horlun found himself eyeing the occasional satellite
dish-shaped fungus with uncomfortable suspicion.

    The land away from the river sloped gently upward, becoming
firmer and dryer. This was fortunate, as Horlun's shoes were not
waterproof and seemed to have some unnatural affinity for mud.
The squelshing sound he made with every other step provided a
counterpoint to the rustle and crackle of the others' footfalls.
Only Orliss seemed able to move without making a racket.
    As the trees grew taller, the underbrush grew sparser, easing
their progress. The air was still, with a faint hint of rot.
Occasionally they saw some of the bird-like origami fly overhead,
but the only sounds they heard come from their own passage.
Eventually, Orliss, who had been checking his watch a lot lately,
called them to a halt.
    "Is something wrong?" asked Roy, predictably interpreting
things in their worst possible light. Horlun could think of any
number of non-disastrous reasons for Orliss to frown concernedly
at his watch and unexpectedly call for a halt. Like, say, wanting
to take a lunch break or something.
    "I have a pretty good sense of direction," said Orliss, which
was one of those statements that sound positive when taken at
face value, but under certain circumstances are inevitably
harbingers of doom. "According to the compass, we've made a
significant change in direction recently, but I don't remember
doing that."
    "We've had to make a lot of little turns to get through the
marshy areas," pointed out Jen. "Maybe it just added up."
    Orliss shook his head. "No, something's wrong here. I--" He
cut off, staring at his wrist. "It moved."
    "What moved?" asked Roy.
    "North."
    "North *moved*?"
    Orliss gestured helplessly, still staring at his watch. "It's
kind of waving back and forth. I'm not sure what it means."
    "North is *moving*?"
    "Yes, we've covered that," said Horlun. He turned to Orliss.
"Will it be a problem?"
    "Only if we want to know where we're going," said Roy.
    "We need to re-orient ourselves," agreed Orliss. "Perhaps I
could climb a tree."
    That seemed a reasonable enough suggestion, and the five
began looking around for suitable candidates. On most of the
trees, the lowest branches were well over their heads, but Anme
found an exception that Orliss deemed satisfactory.
    "I'll just be a moment," he told them, pulling himself up to
the first branch. Above him, a few of the bird-like origami burst
from a hidden nest and circled the trunk above him. When it
became clear that Orliss wasn't intimidated, they retreated to a
neighboring tree.
    Horlun watched his cousin for a while, then sat against the
base of the tree and rested his feet. Back home, he had been
proud to walk the city and avoid owning a personal vehicle, which
was considered uncouth in his social circle (which was to say,
Anme's social circle). He was realizing now that part of his
success lay in the fact that he didn't generally go anyplace more
than a few minutes away, except when using public transit. That
certainly wouldn't be the case here. Even though the percentage
of the planet's surface that the five of them had seen was so
small as to be statistically irrelevant, he was confident they
would find no public transportation here.
    Their prospects for food seemed equally grim. The origami
didn't look to have much in the way of meat on them--assuming
they could catch one--and any of the plants potentially harbored
poisons. How long would the rations on the boat last? Could they
even find the boat again, given the problems with Orliss's
compass? How long would it be before capture by the Sonar Men
seemed like a positive outcome?
    "Try not to focus on the negative things," Anme told him.
    Horlun blinked. Sometimes it was spooky how well she could
read him.
    "You had that 'we're all doomed' look again," she explained,
seemingly responding to his unexpressed thoughts. Horlun did his
best to blank out his expression, and she laughed.
    Horlun scowled and adopted a mock-threatening tone. "Oh, have
I said something to amuse you? Have I inadvertently instilled
within you a sense of levity? Is that it?"
    Anme laughed harder, drawing curious glances from the others.
It was a good thing Orliss wasn't around, actually. He hated
being left out of jokes, and didn't quite get the concept of "you
had to be there".
    "Do you hear that?" asked Jen, once Anme had quieted down.
    Horlun blinked. He hadn't noticed before, but there *was* a
strange, high-pitched sound in the air. "You know what it sounds
like? It's like when you blow on the edge of a stiff piece of
paper."
    "Yeah," said Roy. "I'm guessing it's coming from those
origami up there." The origami Orliss had scattered had been
joined by others in the nearby tree. Roughly half had refolded
themselves into primitive bellows and were blowing air onto the
other half, which had unfolded completely. As they watched, a few
more flew up and joined in the noise-making.
    "That's actually pretty clever," said Jen. "I wouldn't have
thought they'd be able to make noise at all." She looked up at
the small crowd circling the tree above them. "I guess we've
invaded their--"
    Suddenly, the large Terran was standing with her back to the
tree and her handgun pointed at the brush. She had moved so fast
that Horlun had missed her intervening motions, such as drawing
her weapon and turning.
    "What?" asked Roy, looking frantically for the threat. "What
is it?"
    Jen relaxed, taking her finger off the trigger. "I thought I
heard a rustling behind us, but I don't see anything."
    "We *are* in a forest," Horlun pointed out. "Maybe you want
to ease off a bit on the hair trigger there. I mean, the only
animals we've seen are those origami, and they look pretty
harmless."
    "I don't know," said Roy. "They could probably give you a
nasty papercut." He looked at the crowd in the nearby tree, which
had grown some more while they weren't watching. "I don't like
the way they're gathering. I think someth--"
    Suddenly, the not-quite-so-large Terran was lying on his back
a short distance away, waving his hands and kicking his feet.
This was because of the large, shiny blue creature that had
pounced on him, apparently during some split-second when Horlun
hadn't been paying attention. Jen fired a few shots, but she was
hindered by her desire to not hit Roy and the creature's seeming
invulnerability to her weapon's fire. The creature turned its
angular head to them, and flaunted the teeth-like ridges on the
edges of what looked like its mouth. Every surface of the monster
was the same shiny blue, even the insides.
    Anme put aside politics for the moment and hurled a rock at
the beast, which flinched and stepped back slightly. Jen, annoyed
that her sophisticated weaponry had been outdone by a flying
object, looked around for another rock, but Anme seemed to have
found the only one in the area. The creature was watching them
carefully. The only sound it made came from the sucking mud under
its feet.
    Horlun tossed Jen a large branch, and she struck with a heavy
blow intended to get the monster away from Roy, who, hopefully,
was merely feigning death. Instead, it countered her strike,
splitting the cudgel into three unequal pieces. Before they hit
the ground, the creature lunged at Jen, but she had already
ducked and rolled, leaving the blue monster to smash head-first
into the tree.
    Disturbingly, it seemed to do just fine with a smashed head.
It crouched low to the ground, waiting for a moment to strike.
Somehow, it was still watching them and reacting to their moves
despite the damage it had taken. *It has no eyes,* Horlun
realized. *At least, not in its head.* 
    Jen was waving her hands around and drawing as much of the
creature's attention as she could. Horlun resolved not to let her
diversion go to waste and started looking around for another
rock. He reached for a possibility and suddenly had the
creature's undivided attention. It was about to leap, and Horlun
suddenly knew there was no way he could dodge or that Jen or Anme
could interfere in time. Inexplicably, he found himself wondering
whether he had remembered to stop the mail before he left home.
He didn't want it piling up if he never came back, and Anme
refused to deal with the post office.
    He had forgotten Orliss, but the future hero had not
forgotten him, and with a cry he launched himself downward,
crushing the paper-like beast beneath his feet. The creature,
displaying an alarming persistance, swiped at his leg with its
undamaged claw.
    "Gaah!" shouted the surprised student. "Needlewarp, that
hurt!" While he hopped around, clutching his leg where the claw
had struck him, his opponent rustled about on the forest floor.
Horlun couldn't tell whether it was trying to retreat or
counterattack further. Orliss took it upon himself to resolve the
question and kicked the creature into a nearby patch of
underbrush. Its arc was far too ballistic for paper; this was
something new. They had already guessed that the origami were not
actually constructed of paper--a substance known for being
inanimate. Its evident weight was merely corroboration.
    They waited for a moment, but it seemed their assailant was
truly gone, either to heal or, hopefully, to die. (Horlun wasn't
one to wish violence against any living thing, but he wasn't
feeling especially charitable towards origami right now.)

    Roy was not dead, they discovered, merely bruised, muddy, and
annoyed, which even he agreed was preferable. According to
Orliss, the hill was still ahead of them, despite his compass's
reading, and was fairly close. "We should be able to see quite a
bit from the summit," Orliss informed them. "It's too steep and
rocky for trees, so there won't be too much to block our view."
    Despite that hopeful sign, the going was tough. The thinning
trees allowed for a thicker bed of grass, which effectively
concealed the rocks and holes in the ground. A sprained ankle
would be difficult to treat under the circumstances, so each step
had to be taken with care. Even the trees seemed to fight them,
insofar as inanimate objects could fight, which, admittedly,
wasn't much.
    They perservered, and well before Horlun's feet made good on
their threat to fall off they passed the last tree and found
themselves unambiguously on the hillside. The rocks were bigger
here, more easily avoided. They stopped after reaching the hight
of the treetops and took in the view. The forest lay below them
like a green sea, lapping at the roots of the distant mountains.
The mountains themselves were not particularly tall, for
mountains, but they were way bigger than the trees. Somewhere,
where the river met the mountains, was the research center and
the only known spacecraft on the planet. All they had to do was
get back, break in, and steal one without getting captured.
    In theory, the first part was the easy one.
    "I'm not seeing the research center," said Jen, sheilding her
eyes from the noontime sun.
    "Not a problem," said Orliss. "We can follow the river
back... and walk along the shore so they can't see us." The last
part came out just a wee bit bitter. Orliss liked vehicles.
    "Great," said Roy cheefully. "Where's the river?"
    "Back the way we came," said Jen. "Even if Orliss's compass
is screwed up, it can't be too hard to find something as big as a
river."
    Orliss held up his wrist and glared at the expensive-looking
device fastened there. "It's still under warranty," he said
darkly. "I shall have to speak with the manufacturer."
    They took a break. That is, the four less-heroic but possibly
saner of them did. Orliss went off to circle the peak, in case
there was anything interesting on the other side of the hill. It
wasn't clear to any of them why that couldn't wait until after
their break, but even Roy declined to press the issue.
    There was a breeze up there, above the treetops, and it felt
good. Anme spread her jacket on a relatively flat patch of
ground, and Horlun joined her on it, pleasently surprised that it
was comfortable in addition to blaster-resistant. Roy leaned back
against a nearby outcrop of rock and watched the faint clouds in
the aqua sky. Jen engaged in some stretching exercises.
    "I'm almost afraid to ask," said Roy quietly, "but did we
bring any food for lunch?"
    "I'd go with the fear," Anme told him.
    "Because we don't have any food, or because you don't want me
to ask?"
    "By asking, you reveal your ignorance," Anme explained. "Do
you really think we'd come all this way without bringing food?"
    "We left the research center without brining food," Roy
reminded her.
    Anme didn't have a comeback, so Horlun counted the exchange
as a victory for Roy, making the total scores somewhat vague, as
he hadn't been keeping track.
    "Guys!" shouted Orliss, running back from the other side of
the hill. "There's an abandoned city in the valley over there! We
have to go check it out!"
    "We do?" asked Roy. "Is there something interesting there?"
    "Yeah," said Orliss, "the *ancient, abandoned city*." He
shook his head, unable to understand how anyone could be
unexcited by the news. "If we're lucky, it'll be full of mystery
or ancient curses... maybe a supertechnology or two. Come on,
when are we gonna get another chance like this?"
    "Couldn't this wait until after lunch?"

    Lunch turned out to be a lot like breakfast, which was fine
by Horlun, who often combined the meals anyway. He had a pretty
good idea what dinner was going to be, too, but he supposed that
monotonous food was better than no food. Even the prospect of
another hike didn't dim his mood.
    They couldn't see much of the city from the hillside, but the
occasional building or square visible through the canopy were
scattered widely enough to suggest it was very large. They were
fairly close to an especially large structure with a series of
wide, flat terraces and steep slanted walls. Anme in particular
felt anything that ostentatious must have been the seat of power,
so they agreed to check it out first.
    As expected, there were many smaller buildings hidden within
the forest, and the size of the trees growing through the gaps
where their roofs had been indicated that the city had been
abandoned for a very long time.
    "Strange," Roy commented while they rested near a ruin, "for
ancient stone buildings, these are very sophisticated."
    "Why shouldn't they be?" asked Anme. "You can't assume they
were stupid just because they didn't make the same advances your
people did."
    The Terran rolled his eyes. "I just said they were
sophisticated, didn't I? My point is, if they had the ability to
make buildings like these, then they also had the ability to make
buildings in other, much easier ways. Why go to the trouble to
make advanced buildings out of stone?"
    "Perhaps they were demonstrating their power," said Anme
thoughtfully. "They deliberately chose an inefficient building
style to demonstrate their wealth and power."
    "Must you make *everything* political?"
    Silly arguments aside, Roy had a point. If nothing else, the
fact that a few building facades appeared to be constructed from
single slabs of unbroken rock bespoke a construction effort that
might be termed "excessive". The holes for the windows and doors
were weathered and worn now, but once they had been perfectly
squared. A few rough patches were probably remnants of decorative
bas-reliefs.
    They passed a few buildings strongly reminiscent of the more
ancient parts of Foobarh, which were startling until Horlun
remembered the concept of parallel evolution. Similar solutions
to similar problems. (Not that his ancestors on Foobarh had dealt
with vicious folded monsters. So far as he knew.)
    Orliss seemed a little disappointed that they were skipping
the smaller buildings on their way to the ziggurat, but Jen was
able to convince him that they simply didn't have time to examine
everything unless they killed a few people to reduce their food
intake. Then she had to convince Orliss that she had only been
joking.
    "Give me some credit," she grumbled. "I wouldn't seriously
suggest we start killing each other."
    "*I* would," said Roy, "but I think I've been out in the heat
too long."
    "Me too," agreed Horlun. "I think I'm getting sunburnt."
    "We've been in the shade all day," Anme reminded him. "If
you're *that* pale, you need to forget being unfashionable and
spend more time outside."
    With that, they stepped out into the sun-drenched plaza
around the ziggurat. It was surprisingly free of plants and
debris.
    "We're here," said Orliss. He took a few steps into the plaza
and turned to face the way they had come. "And there's the hill
we were on. Looks more like a small mountain, from this side."
    Roy shrugged. "Hill, small mountain... they're all big, rocky
things. At least it's a decent landmark."
    "That's true," said Orliss. "Without the compass, navigation
will be tedious." He glanced at his watch. "I think it's actually
gotten worse. The man at the hero supply shop assured me it was
top quality within my price range. I'm very disappointed."
    A few leaves danced in a stray breeze. Horlun looked up at
the dark, empty windows in the upper levels of the ziggurat and
imagined hidden eyes watching them. The city was abandoned, but
that didn't mean it was empty.
    "Does anyone feel like we're being watched?" asked Horlun.
    Roy glanced at him, suddenly worried. "I didn't until you
said that. Do you think someone's here?"
    Horlun looked up at the ziggurat again. He couldn't see or
hear anything suspicous, and yet...
    "What's that smell?" asked Jen.
    "It smells like pie," said Orliss. He sniffed the air.
"*Delicious* pie!" He ran to the left, following the edge of the
plaza. "It's this way, come on!"
    Not sure what else to do, and curious about the source of the
home-baked aroma, the others ran after him. Beyond the edge of
the plaza was a road made from dirt, similar to all the roads in
the city with one exception. In the center of the road, about
half a block from the plaza, was a steaming hot pie. Horlun
couldn't recognize the fruit, exactly, but it was similar enough
to the ones he knew from Foobarh that he had no doubt about its
identity.
    Orliss and Anme were ahead, but Roy grabbed his and Jen's
arms and stopped them while they were still a few meters away.
"Stay back!" he warned. "We don't know who made that!"
    "Relax," called Orliss as he reached for the tin. "We'll
check it for poisons first."
    The ground around the student hero and Anme seemed to explode
as a great net rose from its hiding place in the soil and
ensnared the travellers a few meters off the ground. Horlun
stared in shock while Jen and Roy scanned the area, in case
whoever had set the trap was still around and ready to see what
had been caught.
    Nothing happened.
    "You see?" said Roy once the chance for a surprise attack had
passed. "Watching cartoons teaches us how to avoid this sort of
problem."
    "That's great," replied Anme. "Remind me to gloat the the
next time *you *have a problem."
    "On the plus side," said Orliss, "the pie is pretty good."
    "You're eating it?"
    "It kinda hit me in the face when the trap went off."
    Horlun and Jen, meanwhile, were investigating the trap
mechanism nearby. The trap itself wasn't too sophisticated--when
Orliss lifted the pie, it released a cable which had suspended a
heavy weight in midair; when the weight fell, it pulled another
cable which drew up the net--but it was constructed from very
sophisticated parts. The cable was thin and lightweight, but
seemed unbreakable. The pulleys, at least those close enough to
the ground where Horlun could examine them, were matte black and
smoothly functioning. It was an odd inversion of the city: a
primitive device made from advanced equipment.
    "'Class V Frictionless Pulley'," Horlun read from the
pulley's label. He looked closer. "Made by Ace Scientific Supply.
This thing is made from lab equipment?"
    "That would explain why this cable is so tough," said Jen. "I
don't think we have anything that could break them."
    "Could we detach it?" asked Roy, who had apparently grown
tired of baiting Anme. "If we release the tension, there won't be
anything holding the net up."
    "Gosh, Roy," said Jen, "that sounds so easy, I wonder why we
haven't tried it yet."
    "It's all a question of having the proper tools." He picked
up a rock and slammed it into the catch holding the cable to the
counterweight. It didn't even move. "Clearly, I don't have them."
    "Stand back," said Jen. Once the two of them had moved a
meter or so away, she reached into her jacket, pulled out her
handgun, and was immediately shot in the side. She remained
conscious long enough to glance at her attackers in surprise and
then collapsed.
    Roy instinctively reached for his own weapon, discovered that
he wasn't carrying one, and dove through the window of the nearby
building, leaving Horlun alone to face their attackers. Horlun
raised his hands in resignation and turned to see who had found
them.
    It was two men and a woman, all grim-looking and armed. Their
faces were painted in a style that seemed half for camoflage and
half to make them look like badass warriors. Both effects were
undermined by their long, silvery labcoats and safety goggles.
One of the men had a gun, the other two were holding sharpened
sticks.
    "Okay," said the man carrying the spear. He pulled a
weathered datapad from his labcoat's pocket and quickly checked
something. "Uh, 'Put your hands up.'"
    Horlun glanced at his hands, which were already up, and
decided not to press the issue.
    "'You are now our prisoner. Do not'--uh--'attempt to
escape.'"
    The woman patted him on the back and whispered, "Very good."
    "Who are you people?" asked Horlun.
    The man looked at him blankly, then fiddled with his pad.
"'Silence. We shall ask the questions.'" He looked at his
companions for support, and then added, "We'll be taking you back
to our, er, *base* first. Then we'll do the question-asking. Is
that okay with you?"
    It took a few seconds for Horlun to realize they were waiting
for an answer. Were they playing some sort of mind-games, or were
they simply being polite? As they were armed and he was not, he
wanted to make sure he gave the correct answer. The man holding
the gun was getting more and more agitated as the silence
stretched on. Hoping to avoid more violence, Horlun blurted out,
"Yes?"
    He wasn't immediately shot, so that was a plus.

WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?
WHAT'S GOING ON?
WHERE ARE MY PILLS?

SFSTORY. Very, very old.