Multiverse: Exploring the Worlds of Poul Anderson by Greg Bear, Gardner Dozois Page A

neutral-brown curved shape was splashed with lead from the bullet that had smashed it out of his hand, but still fully functional; you could drive a tank over it, and it would still look like a minimalist sketch of a pistol with a pointed projection cone where the muzzle should be.
    “Whatever this is, it knocks men or horses or dogs unconscious for a quarter hour at up to a hundred meters, and renders them helpless at twice that distance. It is uncannily accurate, soundless, has no recoil, weighs less than a pound and is made from something that cannot be scratched by diamonds or penetrated by X-rays. According to Privatdozent Herzfeld at the university here—”
    “Damned Jew,” the German muttered.
    “Yes, but a very, very clever Jew, Horst. They are often extremely useful that way. And he says this—” he prodded the stunner with a finger “—is an absurdity, but that if it did exist it would function by some impossible focusing of high-frequency sounds, probably. He was quite angry with us until he realized it wasn’t a joke, and even angrier when we took it away again before he could study it further. So, Herr Everard. You tell us . . . what are you, exactly? Where are you from? The world of the future, perhaps, in the manner of the Englishman Wells?”
    A jolt of alarm; the Austrian wasn’t joking, and he thought the Turk at least was taking the possibility seriously as well. He wouldn’t have bet against the German either, but the man seemed to have only one expression, a snarl.
    “Or Mars? No, not Mars, I have checked and current thought is that Mars is uninhabitable.”
    The German grinned unpleasantly. “Wherever he’s from, he arrived in a manner he didn’t anticipate. Or he wouldn’t be here now. Something went wrong for him.”
    Manse looked him in the eye. “I am someone who can turn a minor nation into a Great Power,” he said . . . in Turkish.
    Existence focused down to a needlepoint. The pale blue eyes of the taciturn Ottoman flared, the pupils opening until they almost swallowed the iris; the other two gave sudden sharp glances at him and at Manse.
    Scar-face there didn’t get any of that. I don’t think von Starnberg understood it either, or not all of it. And Mustafa got it perfectly and is thinking hard. This can’t be a happy alliance.
    “German, Herr Everard,” the Austrian said. “Or English, or French. What was that . . . something about power?”
    “The American said that his country was also a Great Power,” Mustafa said in a neutral tone.
    “If he is an American,” the German growled. “When I was in German South-West Africa and Tanganyika and Tsingtao, I learned how to make lying pigdogs eager to speak the truth.”
    “Horst, Horst, perhaps you should go to America, to Hollywood.”
    “What?” the German said, puzzled.
    “To act in their movies, playing the stereotypical Prussian Brute,” the Austrian said, and waved a placating hand when the man sputtered. “Please. To business. Herr Everard?”
    “I’m an engineer,” Manse said calmly.
    It was even true; at least, he’d been in the Army Engineers in the Second World War, and an engineering consultant after it . . . until he answered a very odd help wanted ad.
    “The pistol and dimensional motorcycle are inventions of mine,” he said calmly. “As Captain von Stumm noted, the motorcycle malfunctioned.”
    He didn’t really expect to be believed. Just having a story gave him somewhere to start, though. The questions hammered at him after that; he was drenched in sweat by the time they finished, not from inventing plausible lies but simply from making the ones he used consistent. Several times he thought the German was going to come around the table and use the riding crop on him, or his fists.
    And the good Baron von Starnberg is just as ruthless, under that veneer of Viennese good-humor, Manse thought, as the guards shoved him out at the point of their machine-pistols and marched him back to his cell.