before, that all that was taking place in another universe? There was one way to find out.
“Ow! What was that for?” Katie yelped.
Rachel shook her aching hand. “Hit me back. Please! Like you did to Anya?”
“Rachel, what the hell is the matter with you?”
“Do you have to talk like that? That stupid Texas accent? I’ve studied English since I was six and I can’t understand half of what you’re saying! You sound like Huckleberry Fi—” Lying on her back in the street watching stars sparkle among the dancing lightning flashes in the sky-dome, Rachel croaked, “Thank you, Katie. Now I know I’m alive.”
“You won’t be if you make fun of me again!” Katie growled as Anya and Jack helped Rachel to her feet.
Jack shot her a warning look. “Miss Katie, don’t take this wrong, I’ve known a lot of hot-tempered space jockeys, and I’ve been known to throw a punch or two myself, but you’d better get a hold of yourself or you won’t last till we get out of Afro-Port, much less on Mars.”
“Thanks for the advice, Mr. Zap-Gun,” Katie snapped.
“Look, let’s all cool out here,” Jack said. “We’re all tired out from the danger and the long walk. I’ll just drop our gear off at my place and we’ll go around the corner for some grub and a cold drink at Adrian’s.”
Anya’s lips tightened at the suggestion, but she didn’t say anything. Jack ran into a darkened entrance, emerging barehanded less than a minute later. “All done, ladies. Let’s go refresh ourselves!”
Adrian’s was located in a dark, dank room that stank of beer over a slight savor of vomit and disinfectant. Loud music blared from unseen speakers. The bar supported a solitary semiconscious drinker, a middle-aged man. The bartender was nowhere to be seen.
“Charming,” Katie said. “Are all the bars in Afro-Port like this?”
“Afraid not. This is one of the better ones,” Jack said cheerfully. “Yo! Adrian! Get your lazy butt out here, you have customers!”
There was an unfriendly rumble from the shadows, and a hulking figure appeared out of the darkness fast enough to make Rachel jump. “Why, if it ain’t Deadbeat Jack,” it said, with a voice like Karolla would have had in a sensible world.
“Deadbeat? Me? Come off it, Adrian. You know I’m good for it. I know things have been rocky for me lately, but I’ve got money coming in next week from the city for that surveying work I did out in the canyons.”
The man-mountain snorted like a baby tornado. “The city, huh? I got news for you, Jack: They’re broker than you are. Any graft that comes in, da Mayor keeps for himself. If you’re waitin’ on them for your pay, you’ll soon find your sorry butt in the Corrector, courtesy of a debt collector.” The walls trembled as he laughed.
Jack snickered dutifully. “So what do you say then, old friend? For the sake of old times?”
“You were broke then too.”
“For the sake of friendship between worlds?” He gestured at his guests, who cringed. “Here I have two lovely ladies from Earth as well as my best Martian girl!”
“So now I’m financin’ you getting’ laid?”
Katie raised her fists. “Shut your trap, you big mmmmf!” Rachel clapped her hand over Katie’s mouth.
“Not only pretty, but spunky, too! I like spunk. All right, Jack, I’ll feed you and your girlfriends this once, even if they do have highly questionable taste in men. But this is the last time, clear?” Adrian shook a finger as thick as a klemeth vine under Jack’s nose.
“Perfectly, my good man. But I really think this is an awful lot of fuss to make over a 200 zloty debt.”
“Two hundred eighty six zlotys and 35 groszys, and that’s before I feed you and your hungry pieces, Jack.”
Katie asked, “What’s he talking about?”
“Polish money,” Rachel mumbled.
Anya responded, “Solar System currency.”
Katie rolled her eyes. “Oh, brother, Rachel. What’s the Solar capital called? New Warsaw?”
“No, that’s the Lunar capital. I’m surprised an Earth native wouldn’t know that,” Anya said.
“Not half as surprised as I am,” Katie said. “And here I thought you had so much imagination, Rachel!”
By this time they were all seated around a grimy table on which Adrian sullenly deposited a steaming tray of some type of meat, a plate of buns, and a pitcher of beer.
“I don’t really want to know what animal that meat came from, do I?” Rachel said in Polish to Anya.
“Probably not. It’s best to close your eyes and hold your nose while eating here. Though it does make you look kind of funny,” Anya demonstrated. Rachel put her hand over her mouth and giggled.
“All right, all right, quit jabbering away in Marpolski and leaving us monolingual types out of the conversation,” Jack said.
“Jabbering away in what?” Rachel asked.
“Marpolski. It’s what we call our language,” Anya eyed Rachel.
The food was surprisingly good, however. The meat reminded Rachel of her mother’s brisket, and she made sandwiches of it with the buns. The beer was strong, and she sampled it cautiously; her parents didn’t let her drink, not that there was any alcohol to be had in the ghetto, unless you were some black-market bigwig.
“We need to start planning how we will get to Mars to end the dreadful tyranny of Ares and rescue my long-lost brother.” Jack sounded as if he were going to the store to buy a quart of milk.
“Do y’all actually talk like that?” Katie asked.
“Talk like what?”
“Like that. Like something out of a book.”
Rachel sighed. He is something out of a book, and not a very good one.
Jack merely blinked at them. “How should I talk then, ladies? Is it not true that Ares is a dreadful tyrant?”
“Well—yes, from everything you and the princess say,” Katie said.
“And is it not true that Jim is lost, lo these many years?”
“You’re doing it again!”
“Doing what again?”
“Talking like a character in an old book! Who says ‘lo these many years’ in real life?”
“I do,” Jack said, puzzled.
Rachel sighed again. But this isn’t real life. Though it sure felt like it. She wasn’t about to repeat her experiment with Katie. People in her grandfather’s village might have a lot of silly superstitions about dreams, but in Rachel’s experience if somebody hit you in a dream it didn’t physically hurt and you didn’t wake up with a lump like the one that was forming on her forehead.
“Katie, could I talk to you for a second?” Rachel stood abruptly.
“Huh? Sure, I guess so.” She followed Rachel to the far corner.
Jack and Anya stared after them for a moment but then started making out. Rachel frowned. Is that proper royal protocol? She turned to Katie.
“Look, I can’t explain what’s going on any more than you can, but I think we’d better just play along for now,” Rachel said. Katie stared at her. “What? Don’t tell me the expression ‘play along with’ is obsolete in the twenty-second century.”
“It’s not that,” Katie said. “But what’s the point of getting caught up in this world if it all melts around