"Don't talk nonsense. And be quiet." The man, or whatever it was, was very close now. They could see the ill-fitting pink mask, the lumps and nodules in odd places under his sweater and pants. He passed them by, leaving a pungent odor of hydrogen sulfide.
Quester found himself laughing. To his surprise, Solace laughed along with him. The situation was so grotesque that he had to either laugh or scream.
"Listen," he said, "I don't believe in sinister humanoid invaders."
"No? But you believe in superhuman heavy-planet Invaders like the ones that have occupied the Earth, don't you? And you haven't even seen them."
"Are you telling me you do believe that thing was an... an alien?"
"I'm not saying anything. But I'm wondering what those people were doing, earlier, armed with clubs. Do you believe in mutiny?"
"Solace, I'd welcome a mutiny, I'd throw a party, give away all my worldly wealth to charity if only such a normal, everyday thing would happen. But I don't think it will. I think we've fallen through the looking glass."
"You think you're crazy?" She looked at him skeptically.
"Yep. I'm going to turn myself in right now. You're obviously not even here. Maybe this ship isn't even here."
She twisted slightly in the air, bringing her legs up close to his chest.
"I'll prove to you I'm here," she said, working with all four hands and peds at unbuttoning him.
"Hold it. What are you... how can you think of that at a time like..." It sounded familiar. She laughed, holding his wrists with her hands as her peds quickly stripped him.
"You've never been in danger before," she said. "I have. It's a common reaction to get aroused in a tight spot, especially when the danger's not immediate. And you are, and so am I."
It was true. He was, but didn't like doing it in the hallway.
"There's not room here," he protested. "Another of those critters could come along."
"Yes, isn't it exciting?" Her eyes were alight by now, and her breath was fast and shallow. "And if you think there isn't room, you haven't done it in free-fall yet. Ever tried the Hermesian Hyperbola?"
Quester sighed, and submitted. Soon he was doing more than submitting. He decided she was as crazy as everyone else, or, alternatively, he was crazy and she was as sane as everybody else. But she was right about the free-fall. There was plenty of room.
They were interrupted by a crackle of static from the public address. They paused to listen to it.
"Attention, your attention please. This is the provisional captain speaking. The traitor running-dog lackey ex-captain is now in chains. Long Live the Revolutionary Committee, who will now lead us on the true path of Procreative Anti-Abortionism."
"Free-Birthers!" Quester yelped. "We've been hijacked by Free-Birthers!"
The new captain, who sounded like a woman, started to go on, but her voice was cut short in a hideous gurgle.
"Long Live the Loyalist Faction of the Glorious Siblings of the—" a new voice began, but it, too, was cut short. Voices shouted in rapid succession.
"The counterrevolution has been suppressed," shouted yet another captain. "Liberate our wombs! Our gonads—our Freedom! Attention, attention! All female persons aboard this ship are ordered to report at once to the infirmary for artificial insemination. Shirkers will be obliterated. That is all."
Neither of them said anything for a long time. At last Solace eased herself away a bit and let him slip out of her. She let out a deep breath.
"I wonder if I could plead double jeopardy?"
"Insanity four, reality nothing," Quester giggled. He was in high spirits as they skulked their way down the dim corridors.
"Are you still on that?" Solace shot back. She sounded a bit tired of him. She kept having to hang back as he struggled to keep up with her supple quadridexterous pace. "Listen, if you want to get fitted for a straitjacket, the tailor's in the other direction. Me, I don't care how ridiculous the situation gets. I'll keep coping."
"I can't help it," he admitted. "I keep feeling that I wrote this story several years ago. Maybe in another life. I dunno."
She peered around another corner. They were on their way to the temporary bridge. They had stopped three times already to watch black-suited figures drift by. Everyone else they had seen— those dressed in holiday clothes—had ducked into doorways as quickly as they themselves. At least it seemed that the passengers were no longer in the holiday mood, were aware that there was something wrong.
"You a writer?" she asked.
"Yes. I write scientifiction. Maybe you've heard of it. There's a cult following, but we don't reach the general public."
"What's it about?"
"Scientifiction deals with life on Earth. It's set in the future— each of us creates our own hypothetical future with our own ground rules and set of assumptions. The basic assumption is that we figure out a way to fight the Invaders and reclaim the Earth, or at least a beachhead. In my stories we've managed to rout the Invaders, but the dolphins and whales are still around, and they want their allies back, so humans fight them. It's adventure stuff, purely for thrills. I have a hero called the Panama Kid."
She glanced back at him, and he couldn't read the expression. He was used to taking the defensive about his vocation.
"Is there a living in that?"
"I managed to get aboard the Snowball for the final trip, didn't I? That wasn't cheap, but then you know that. Say, what do you do for a living?"
"Nothing. My mother was a holehunter. She made a strike in '45 and got rich. She went out again and left the money to me. She's due back in about fifty years, unless she gets swallowed by a hole."
"So you were born on Pluto?"
"No. I was born in free-fall, about one hundred AU from the sun. I think that's a record so far." She grinned back at him, looking pleased with herself. "You made up your mind yet?"
"Huh?"
"Have you decided if you're the author or a character? If you really think you're crazy, you can shove off. What can you do but accept the reality of your senses?"
He paused and really thought about it for the first time since he met her.
"I do," he said firmly. "It's all happening. Holy Cetacean, it really is happening."
"Glad to have you with us. I told you you couldn't experience the Hermesian Hyperbola and still doubt your senses.
It hadn't been the love-making, Quester knew. That could be as illusory as anything else; he had the stained sheets to prove it. But he believed in her, even if there was something decidedly illogical about the goings-on around her.
"Attention, attention."
"Oh, shit. What now?" They slowed near a speaker so they could listen without distortion.
"Glad tidings! This is the provisional captain, speaking for the ad hoc steering committee. We have decided to steer this comet into a new, closer approach to the sun, thus gaining speed for a faster departure from solar space. It has been decided to convert this vessel hereafter to be referred to as the Spermatozoa, into an interstellar colony ship to spread the seed of humanity to the stars. All passengers are hereby inducted into the Proletarian Echelon of the Church of Unlimited Population. Conversion of all resources into a closed-ecology system will begin at once. Save your feces! Breathe shallowly until this crisis is past. Correction, correction, there is no crisis. Do not panic. Anyone found panicking will be shot. The steering committee has determined that there is no crisis. All surviving officers with knowledge of how to work these little gadgets on the bridge are ordered to report immediately."
Quester looked narrowly at Solace.