2026-04-14 - Who's The Red Queen? by Ray Faraday Nelson ======================================================= Red Queen by Jeff Jones "Lobotomy!" Prim little Nurse Wilson, standing in line in the bright white hospital cafeteria, pronounced the word with a certain satisfaction. "For who?" Eddie the Orderly asked, looming over her. "The Red Queen." "You're putting me on!" His reaction was so violent it startled her. Easy there, he told himself silently. "Would I lie, Eddie? I heard it from Dr. Heinroth. He's her doctor. And the rest of the staff agrees it'll make her more accessible to treatment. I know lobotomy has been out of fashion for a while, but now it's making a comeback." Eddie paid the cashier and they carried their trays to a nearby table. "What right have they...?" began Eddie. "What right have you? It's not our decision to make." "I don't believe in lobotomy." He had seated himself, but instead of digging in with his usual gusto, he frowned down into his food like an offended young gorilla. "You say you don't believe in drugs either, but still it's you that administers them to the patients in your ward when you're on duty. They seem to trust you, the poor things, almost as if you were one of them." She settled into her chair with an arch smile. Eddie was universally regarded as stupid--he had indeed never finished high school--but he understood what she meant by this little dig. He had graduated to the job of orderly from an even lower rank in the institutional pecking order. He had once been one of the patients. "Do your duty, Eddie." She was talking with her mouth full. "Our's not to reason why, you know." But he was thinking, /I won't let them/. Lobotomy was wrong in itself, but in the case of the Red Queen it was out of the question. The Red Queen was special, not like the others. He had spent a great deal of time with her, and knew every detail of her history, though there was not a great deal to know. The Red Queen had been found in the hills near Berkeley four years ago, wandering naked through the night and weeping. Neither the police nor, later, the doctors had been able to understand a word of the so-called "language" she spoke; she, in turn, seemed unable to understand English, Spanish or any other of the many languages that had been tried on her. All efforts to learn her identity had failed, and she had been diagnosed as a schizophrenic. (When in doubt, diagnose schizophrenia, as Dr. Heinroth always said.) During the reorganization of the state hospital system most of the other patients had been taken away, but the Red Queen remained, partly because she was an "interesting case", but mainly because she had absolutely no place else to go. Eddie looked across the table at Nurse Wilson, who was still talking though Eddie had ceased to pay attention. For an instant he was seized by the temptation to tell all, but stopped himself in the nick of time. He had a theory about the Red Queen, but up to now he had managed to keep it to himself. He thought she came from outer space. * * * "Ssh." Finger to lips, Eddie entered the dimly lit ward. Most of the beds were empty, but those few inmates in the room were sound asleep. Eddie had given them pills to make sure of that... except for the Red Queen. The Red Queen, clad in a shapeless white hospital shift, rolled over, sat up in bed and looked at him with those amazing dark orange eyes of hers, eyes no longer glazed and opaque with drugs as they had been for so long, but alert and curious. Eddie had not given her "the usual medication" for days. Both he and the staff on the other shifts had been giving her harmless placebos, though only Eddie knew of the substitution he'd made in her corner of the medicine cabinet, the corner that had contained the special tranquilizers her odd metabolism had seemed to require. Seeing her, Eddie hesitated. She looked in the dim light even stranger than usual. She was so tall for a woman... a good six foot three, and her short hair was of such an unusual texture more like an animal's pelt than a human's hair so dark and smooth and straight. But the strangest thing about her appearance was the color of her skin; it was red, not ruddy brown like the skin of an Indian, but really red, as if she had a permanent sunburn. /But,/ thought Eddie, /what's wrong with that? Everybody probably looks like that... where she comes from./ He advanced to her bedside, took her hand, and gestured toward the door. She frowned, puzzled, but got out of bed. He gave her a nurse's uniform, then looked away as she dressed. He knew it would be a tight fit, but he'd found none larger. Fifteen minutes later Eddie and the Red Queen were in his battered old Ford, cruising down the moonlit freeway toward Berkeley. * * * The Red Queen was well-named. As she sat on Eddie's bed, brushing her short purplish-black hair in the sunlight from the window, she looked every inch a queen, and she certainly was red. Was it her royal bearing that had kept him sleeping on the couch during the two weeks they'd been living here in this cramped apartment? (There were two rooms: the bedroom-livingroom and a kitchen... the toilet was down the hall.) Or was it her strangeness? She was beautiful, but not in a human way, hence not in a sexual way, even, as now, in the nude. It was as if--Eddie groped for the right simile--she were a wonderful thoroughbred racehorse. She put down the hairbrush, got up, went to the closet, and wiggled into one of the gaudy second-hand dresses Eddie had bought for her from the St. Vincent DePaul. "Teal?" he said to her. She turned to free him with a questioning expression. Yes, Teal was her name. He had learned her name, succeeding where all the doctors had failed. He grinned, pleased with himself "Teal, what you doing?" She answered him in her own language. The only word he could understand was his own name, which she pronounced "Eeeda." She went into the kitchen, heading for the back door. He followed her. "Teal, you can't go out." She had started to push open the screen door, smiling. He laid a restraining hand on her shoulder. The smile faded. She gazed for a moment longingly out at the sunlit backyard beyond the porch, then reluctantly allowed him to lead her back. They sat down at the kitchen table. He took her hands in his. "Teal, you got to understand. You can't go noplace. The cops--the police--they're looking for us. It's bad enough I got to go out for food, but you... they'd spot you in a minute, the way you look, the way you act, the way you can't talk. You're no ordinary Berkeley hippie. I mean, even here, where people are all kind of strange anyway, you'd stick out." He could tell from her blank expression he wasn't getting through. He sighed, then brightened. "Now Teal, I want to show you something I bought last time I was out." He opened a large brown paper bag that stood on the table near his elbow. "Look here. Teal." It was a kind of scroll. He unrolled it, revealing a map of the Solar System. "Earth," he said, pointing on the map. He pointed to himself. "Me, Eddie. Eddie from Earth. Where you from?" He pointed to her. Without hesitation she indicated the planet Earth on the chart. "No, no. Teal. Me from Earth! You from... who knows?" He shrugged. "Mars?" He pointed to Mars. She watched, not moving. "Venus? Saturn? The Moon?" She remained silent, her dark orange eyes following his moving forefinger. He couldn't conceal his disappointment. "Where, then?" Again she pointed to Earth. He thought a moment. Maybe she came from some other Solar System, from a planet a lot like Earth, maybe the same distance from some other sun. Excitedly he gestured skyward. "Some other sun! That's it, isn't it. Teal?" She was excited too, and, gesturing skyward, began speaking delightedly in her own language. He turned over the map. On the back were two star charts, one for the northern hemisphere and one for the southern. "Where, Teal? Here?" He pointed to the Big Dipper. "Here? Here?" The Great Bear. The Little Dipper. He looked up, saw her eyes were filled with hopelessness. "There, there. Teal baby." He patted her hands with his big meaty paw. "You'll get it right sooner or later." But in his mind was the thought, /Maybe she really is crazy/. * * * Eddie's money had run out. He didn't like to beg, but he begged. A lot of people begged in Berkeley, along Telegraph Avenue. He didn't like to steal, but he stole. A lot of people stole in Berkeley. They seemed to regard theft as a kind of political protest. Bad as he felt every time he slipped a can or two into the pockets of his overcoat in some supermarket, he felt worse when he happened to see a policeman or even a passing police car. He'd break into a sweat every time, thinking, /If they pick me up, what'll happen to her?/ Jail was bad, but not as bad as lobotomy. The rent was overdue and he hadn't the foggiest notion how he was going to pay it. Sooner or later he'd be evicted. He knew that, but could do nothing about it. He couldn't look for a job, couldn't put in for welfare. Anything like that was sure to bring his whereabouts to the attention of the police. He couldn't seek help from old friends, couldn't make new ones. What if someone saw Teal and started asking questions? Which story would he tell them? That he'd helped a madwoman to escape from an insane asylum? Or that she was a creature from outer space? No, he had to go it alone somehow. There was a danger in even going out of the apartment to steal or beg. What if she wasn't there when he got back? He'd gotten into the habit of locking her in, but she was clever. Someday, when she was ready, she'd find a way to break out. And the police would catch her. And the doctors would go to work on her. The breakthrough came one morning at dawn, after a whole night of patient working with her, he on one side of the kitchen table and she on the other. He had his face buried in his hands, feeling it was hopeless, that he'd never get through to her, when quite suddenly she'd broken the silence with the words, "Eddie. You want eat?" "What? What did you say?" "You want eat?" She pointed to his mouth. "Yes! Yes! Eat! You and me! We eat!" She fixed breakfast and he ate it, eggs with cheese spiced in that odd way she spiced everything, as if salty, not sour, was the opposite of sweet. From then on he hated to leave her even for an hour. There were so many words in the English language, but now she could learn at least all of them he knew. One evening, when he was finally certain she could understand his question, he asked her, "Where you from. Teal?" She looked at him a long time. Didn't she understand? He leaned across the kitchen table and grasped her wrist in his powerful fingers. "Teal, you're not from here, are you? You're not from this planet?" She didn't answer. There was a worried frown on her face. "Tell me, dammit. Teal! You're from the stars! Isn't that true?" "Yes." Her voice was very low. He let go her wrist and sat back, grinning. "I knew it! I knew it the minute I saw that beautiful red skin of yours." He began to laugh raggedly. She sat rubbing her wrist, regarding him seriously. * * * He sold the Ford, even though he was deathly afraid it would lead the police to him, and paid the back rent, with a little left over. He seemed to be able to think now, to find a way out. The winter rains came. Eddie bundled Teal up in raincoat, gloves, boots, rain hat and pants, so that hardly more than a few inches of red skin showed, then concealed her orange eyes behind dark glasses. Lots of people in Berkeley wore dark glasses when it was overcast, or even at night, for that matter. They went for a walk, arm in arm. Telegraph Avenue was one of those rare places where people are allowed to sit cross legged on the sidewalk and sell things, things made of wood, leather, cloth, beads and metal. The rain had stopped, though the cold wind hadn't, and the street merchants were out in force. As they strolled along. Teal said, "These people make things?" "That's right, babe." "They get money for them?" "Right again." "Money. Money gets food?" He chuckled. "You catch on fast to how we do things down here." "So we need money?" "We need money." "I can make things. You can sit here. You can get money for them." She had grown quite excited. He didn't like the idea at first. He wouldn't be with her so much, and there would be more risk from the police. He'd probably have to go to the police station to get a vendor's license. But what else could he do? He gave in. He bought her the raw materials and as soon as they got home, she started making jewelry. * * * The jewelry sold well; she was quick-fingered and skillful, and her designs were unique. When the weather was good, Eddie sat out on the sidewalk and sold things to tourists; when the weather was bad he sat at home and watched Teal work at the kitchen table. One day, about a month later, he had been sitting listening to the rain all afternoon, and as evening came on, said, "Teal, tell me about the stars." "I do not speak right." "Sure you do. You talk good now. I can understand every word. So start with the close stars and work out." Frowning, she began. "The closet star. That is not one star. It is three." She held up three fingers. "Three stars? He was delighted. "And around those three stars, how many planets?" "No planets." "No planets? Come on now!" "One star can have planets. Three stars together. No planets." She went on bending wire into tiny graceful shapes. "But there must be planets out there somewhere." "Yes. Many. When there is one star by itself and the star is not too big and not too small and not too hot and not too cold, then there is planets." Eddie leaned forward. "And on these planets... what kind of people are there?" "No people." "Well, what kind of animals?" "No animals." "There's got to be some kind of life!" He was indignant. "No life. No life anywhere." She sounded sad but somewhat impersonal. He jumped to his feet and bellowed, "Don't lie to me. Teal! There must be life out there! There must at least be life where you came from!" She looked at him, round-eyed with surprise at his sudden violence. "Yes. Where I come from. Yes, there is life." He sat down, calmer now. "Tell me about it." "My planet green and perfect. My planet a good place." "Go on!" "On my planet there is enough for all." "Yes?" "There is no money." "Never did like the damn stuff." "People not wear clothes." "That explains why you were naked when you first got here." "There is one king for the whole planet. You understand? There is peace." * * * Eddie leaned back with a sigh. "I kind of thought it would be like that. Maybe..." He hesitated. "Maybe when you go back, you can take me with you." She looked at him blankly. "I know you got to go home someday," he said gently. She burst into tears and ran into the bedroom. He stared after her, astonished. * * * The winter rains were over. The sunny days began. Teal sat with Eddie on the sidewalk, selling things to passersby. She wore a long-sleeved blouse, pants, boots, sunglasses and a big floppy hat. Nobody seemed to think there was anything strange about her, but Eddie didn't like it when anyone looked at her too long. Eddie had grown a long brown beard and long brown hair. In his T-shirt, jeans and sandals he looked exactly like a hundred other shaggy street people, fitting in so perfectly in the world of Telegraph Avenue that he was almost invisible. "How long does it take to get to your home?" he asked her. He was always asking her things like that. "No time at all," she answered patiently. "Come on. The truth now." "To come from another star, that takes a long long time, but on the ship it seems like a very short time. From here to nearest star, that takes a few days, maybe a week." She shrugged. "Or anyway /seems/ like a few days. But in those few days, many years pass." "When you go home... He stopped, seeing in her face the sudden grimace of anguish that appeared there whenever he mentioned her going home. What did that mean? He was baffled for an instant, as he always was, but this time an idea came to him. "You can't go home, can you, Teal?" His voice was soft. "No." She did not meet his gaze. "How come? Your spaceship wrecked?" "No. My ship is here, under a lake." He glanced at her with surprise, "But if your ship is okay..." "It is my world that is wrecked," she whispered. He felt embarrassed, tactless, but he had to ask her, "Then your mother, your father...?" "They are dead. Of all my people, there is now only me alive." "I'm sorry." She touched his arm. "I knew it would happen. I accepted it. I am what you call a... a soldier. I was sent out to learn a thing and come back and report. And I have done it. I have done what I was told to do." She smiled wistfully. "I learned there was no life in the stars, and now I report." "To who?" Like most of what she said this sounded to Eddie like some kind of riddle. "To you, Eddie." She laughed, but it was a bitter laugh, with an undertone of pain. * * * Teal was learning how to read and write. One afternoon, as they were walking home from the public library down one of Berkeley's quiet tree-lined streets, a police car pulled up alongside them, and Eddie and Teal were arrested. The charge, to their surprise, was possession of marijuana, though they were probably the only two people on Telegraph Avenue who had never possessed marijuana. At the police station, when no marijuana could be found on their persons, they were almost released, but before they could leave someone thought to check their fingerprints, and they were identified as the mad-woman and hospital orderly who had disappeared the previous year. Not exactly under arrest, yet not exactly free either, they were transported in a squad car to a nearby hospital and escorted into the office of one of the resident psychiatric social workers. /They're going to take her back,/ Eddie thought. /They're going to give her a lobotomy after all./ The social worker, obviously in a hurry, glanced at his wristwatch before shaking hands with Eddie. "You can call me Mike," said the balding, nervous little man. "Now if you'll be seated, young lady." Teal sat down in a chrome and plastic chair across the desk from him. "And you too, young man." Eddie sat in another chair beside her. The chairs, like everything else in the room, were modem and strictly functional. "You were diagnosed as a schizophrenic, miss?" "I suppose so," she answered. "I talked to your doctor Dr. Heinroth wasn't it? by phone. He said that before your escape you didn't communicate with people, that you couldn't even talk. Yet it. seems to me you're communicating well enough now." "I'm perfectly all right," she said calmly. "There's nothing wrong with me." "Yes. So I see. A spontaneous recovery. Schizophrenics do that sometimes. There are those within the profession who would say--off the record of course--that that's the only way a schizophrenic ever does recover. I'll be happy to inform your doctor of that. Now you, miss, can wait outside. I'd like to have a word with your friend here." As Teal got up and left, Eddie said numbly, "Just like that? Not even any tests?" Mike chuckled. "She can walk and talk. She has managed to keep out of trouble for a year. The way things are these days, with budget cuts and all, that's more than enough to keep you out of an institution." Teal had closed the door behind her. Mike's expression hardened. "But you, young man, could be subject to legal penalties if someone chose to bring charges." "Is anyone bringing charges?" Eddie demanded sharply. "No. No, I don't think so. Still, to clear matters up I'd like to ask you a few questions. It's to your best interests to answer them, young man, and answer them truthfully." Again his manner changed abruptly and smiling, he added, "You don't mind, do you?" "No," Eddie said uncertainly. "I guess not." Mike sat back in his swivel chair, making a little temple with his fingers. "Sometimes a schizophrenic makes a sudden recovery, it's true, but at other times the schizoid personality simply switches from one mode to another. A hebephrenic--someone completely withdrawn from the world--can turn into a paranoid, and a paranoid, though outwardly more normal, is also more dangerous. Delusions of grandeur and delusions of persecution is the usual pattern, and such a person can become dangerously violent either to assert the supposed superiority or to combat the supposed persecution." He leaned forward. "You've been living with the young lady, I gather, since her escape." "That's right." "Has she ever told you anything shall we say cosmic?" "Cosmic?" Eddie wondered if the social worker could somehow tell what someone was thinking by body language or some other super scientific magic. "Yes," Mike went on. "Has she claimed to be a goddess, for example." "No, not a goddess." "An angel? A demon? A creature from another planet?" Eddie hesitated before answering, "No, nothing like that." The social worker relaxed. "Excellent. Then all's well. If she does start in on such things however..." "I'll let you know." "I'd rather you'd look up someone else. We're kind of understaffed here..." Eddie left the office in a daze. "What did he say?" asked Teal, jumping up from the couch in the waiting room. "Nothing important," muttered Eddie. * * * Eddie, in his pajamas, sat on his couch and watched Teal undress. "Teal, can I ask a question?" "Of course." "On your planet, do men and women make love?" "Why yes, of course." Her orange eyes turned toward him, studying him. "I mean, do you do it the same way we do it?" "How do you do it?" she asked innocently. Unsteadily Eddie stood up and walked over to her, painfully aware of her nakedness, which up until now he had almost ceased to notice. "Like this." He took her in his arms and kissed her. A moment later he pulled back and looked at her almost angrily. "What's wrong, Eddie?" "I don't know. That kiss was so... so ordinary somehow." She laughed. "What did you expect?" He did not answer out loud, but thought, /Something out of this world/. A little after midnight. Teal and Eddie made love for the first time. It all went off perfectly naturally, too naturally. At two A.M., sitting up in bed beside her sleeping satisfied womanly body, he finally decided she wasn't from outer space after all. He felt like shaking her awake and shouting, "So you really are crazy!", but the habit of awe was not yet completely broken. It was the following morning when he at last nerved himself to confront her, across the breakfast table. "You're not really from outer space, are you?" He sat, arms folded on his broad chest, head cocked to one side, a faint superior smile on his lips. She turned away from the stove, and when she saw his face she gathered her bathrobe around her, though it was rather warm in the room, then said, softly but firmly, "No, I'm not." "Then why did you say you were?" "It seemed so important to you to believe it." "To me?" Eddie was dumbfounded. "I was afraid you'd..." Unconsciously she rubbed her wrist. "...you'd hurt me, if I didn't go along with the outer space thing." He thought, /How clearly she talks now!/ "I'd never hurt you, Teal. You must of had delusions of persecution." Her words came in a rush. "Don't turn me in, Eddie. I'm perfectly normal now. Promise you won't turn me in." "Of course I won't. Don't be silly. I can see you're okay, just like everybody else." And he thought, but did not say, /Ordinary/. Before he left the apartment, she tried to kiss him, but he wouldn't let her. He had a good day on Telegraph Avenue. "I cured a girl of schizophrenia," he told himself smugly. "And I did it when all medical science had given up on her." Around noon he met a very young, quite pretty girl. He'd heard a husky voice saying, "Any spare change, mister?" and when he'd looked up from the jewelry he had spread out on a blanket on the sidewalk, there she'd been. He didn't give her any spare change, but they fell into conversation and soon she was telling him that she'd run away from home, that her name was Isis Flower, and that she was hooked on speed. "I can cure you," Eddie said. "Nobody can cure me, man. I've tried to kick, but it's no use." "Leave it to Doctor Eddie!" After a while he and Isis Flower went to a little room where she was, as she put it, "crashing". "I don't actually live here," she explained, undressing. * * * Eddie awoke to find darkness and fog outside the window and Isis Flower gone, along with all the money he'd had in his wallet, though she had not, so far as he could tell, taken any of his jewelry from the battered old suitcase where he carried it. After getting dressed he looked listlessly around the room. There were things there, but they were all men's things. Eddie left quickly. Out in the street, under a fog-haloed streetlight, he paused and set down his suitcase. "Women!" he muttered. "Sooner or later they always rip you off." But then an odd thought struck him. Teal could have done the same thing to him that Isis Flower did. She could have, but she hadn't. He said to himself, "Hey, Teal don't have to stay with me now. She can talk. She can support herself with her jewelry. She's even learning to read and write. So why does she stay? Why don't she rob me and run? Every other female I've ever known, one way or another, sooner or later, has robbed me and run!" Maybe, after all, there was something special about the Red Queen. * * * Eddie burst into the apartment shouting delightedly, "Teal! Teal! I'm home!" There was no answer. Her note was on the kitchen table; Eddie, It was good that we tawked. I understann now that what I am is not what you want. My work on Earth is done. Goodby, Teal. The first thing he realized was that there were only a few words spelled wrong, and he felt a momentary flush of pride in himself as a teacher, and Teal as a student. Then another thought came to him. This was a suicide note. "Crazy bitch," he whispered, throwing himself down in his usual chair at the kitchen table. A phrase floated through his mind. It was something Teal had said. "My ship is here, under a lake." A picture came along with the phrase. In the picture Teal was standing on the edge of a lake, taking off her clothes. She was going to dive into the water; she was going to drown herself. That was where Teal had gone. Eddie was sure of it, the same as he'd been sure she was from outer space, but this time it was no nutty fantasy built for two. That crazy lady could really do it! He ran into the bedroom, jerked out a map of the San Francisco Bay Area he kept in his bureau drawer. A lake! A lake! There were a lot of lakes on the map. But it had to be a lake you could get to from the Berkeley hills with no clothes on. That's where she'd been found. And it had to be a lake deep enough to hide a spaceship. There was no spaceship there, of course, but Teal would believe there was! Only one lake filled the bill. The San Pablo Reservoir! He left the apartment without bothering to close the door behind him and ran out into the fog. Dashing along the street, he glanced into each parked car he passed. Ah, at last! Some fool had left the keys in the ignition. Eddie jumped in, started the car, and pulled away from the curb with a squeal of tires. * * * He'd gone through the tunnel, gas pedal to the floor, and was now in open country on the long downgrade on the other side of the coastal range. The fog was gone; the stars shone hard and clear this side of the hills and there were very few other cars on the freeway. Then he heard the wail of a police siren behind him and saw, in his rear view mirror, a flashing red fight. It was only then he began to have doubts. Maybe Teal wasn't going to make a suicide attempt. Maybe Teal would be back tomorrow morning, pleading to be forgiven. Maybe Teal wasn't crazy, or at least not as crazy as she had been. Maybe Teal, if she was going to kill herself, would do it somewhere else, in some other way. But he didn't slow down, just zoomed down the off-ramp and, tires screaming, slowed through a sharp left turn and careened onward along the narrow winding San Pablo Dam Road toward the reservoir. The police car lost ground, not daring to drive as fast as Eddie along such dangerous curves, but even when he couldn't see them, Eddie could hear them back there somewhere, with their infernal wailing siren. At the crest of a hill Eddie saw, fer ahead of him, another red flashing fight coming from the other direction. He was caught! He knew there were no turnoffs in this section. He slammed on the brakes and, as the car screeched to a stop in a cloud of dust, he sprang out and sprinted for the woods. As he passed the first dark looming mass of pines, he heard the police cars wail to a halt on the highway. When they shouted something at him with their bullhorn, he paid no attention, just kept running. When he paused for breath and looked back, he could see flashlights moving in the gloom, coming closer, could hear gruff voices issuing commands, complaining, swearing. He went on, panting, dizzy. And suddenly burst out of the pine grove to see, at the foot of the hill ahead, the flat dark expanse of the reservoir. He fell, staggered to his feet, kept on running down the steep slope. Then he saw her. She had dropped her clothes and was walking slowly, like the queen she had always seemed to be, toward the water's edge. "Teal!" Eddie shouted. She glanced back, saw him. Then dove gracefully into the black water. Eddie was tearing off his clothes as he ran. He had only to pause a moment to rip off his pants and shoes, then he dove in after her. The water was cold and good; it refreshed him. Would he have the strength to drag Teal out when he caught up with her? She was a tall woman but... yes, he could handle her. But he had not realized it would be so dark in the reservoir. He could hardly tell which way was up, let alone see where Teal had gone. He thought, /Hey, I could drown, too!/ But then he heard a deep humming sound, like the bass pipe of a church organ that echoed and re-echoed in some impossible immense cathedral. And there, below him, was a dull yellowish glow. He swam deeper. There was something there, something huge but long and thin and streamlined, something with windows brightly lit. In its top there was an opening. But his lungs were bursting. He clawed his way to the surface, sucked in air in great desperate gulps, caught a glimpse of the flashlights of the police moving along the shore, then dove again. The opening was smaller now. Like the iris in a camera, it was closing. With a last violent effort, he passed through and found himself in the airlock of the starship. * * * The Earth was rapidly shrinking. Eddie watched through a window that stretched from floor to ceiling and from wall to wall. "Where are we going?" he asked, "To your home planet?" Teal turned from the maze of glowing colored lights on the control panel and looked at him through the semi-darkness of the large oblong room. "Earth is my home planet, Eddie. We are going on a little trip, you and I. I want you to see some of the things I've seen. Since you insist on sharing my mission, you must also share my knowledge." The sound in the room grew softer, a gentle hum now instead of a drone. "But..." He faltered. "When will we come back?" She pushed off and came drifting toward him, almost as if she were still under water, her naked red body glowing in the light from the control panels and the stars outside. "It will be only a few months from now, as time flows within the starship," she said. "But when we return to Earth, your nation, the United States of America, will be as lost and forgotten a legend as my homeland, the place you call Atlantis." As the starship accelerated steadily toward the speed of light, behind them the Sun, the planets, and all the stars gradually turned a sullen and glowering red, then faded out into blackness. author: Nelson, Ray Faraday detail: source: I found the illustrator interesting too: Jeffrey Catherine Jones In Alice in the Wonderland, the Red Queen was the one who said "Off with her head!" In this short story, the nickname is given to the one who is scheduled for a lobotomy. Interesting that her real name is Teal, which is blue-green or the color of planet Earth. tags: sci-fi,short story Tags ==== sci-fi short story