The Vikken ship was farther away and larger than he had thought. As they drew close, he realized that Deerfield must have carried at least a dozen crewmen and a sizable cargo. And he had brought them all to this forsaken place. He stole a glance or two at the guards, expecting to see grim faces; but actually, two were grinning, one looked frightened, and another looked ready to kill. Panglor shivered.
More crewmen met them from Deerfield. These new arrivals were angry-looking men, and probably only Alo's presence deterred them from immediate violence. She seemed to unnerve them. First one man and then another looked askance at her; none seemed to know how to respond to the presence of a female in this situation. But toward Panglor their mood was clearly ugly, and he half-expected at any moment to feel blows thundering about his head and shoulders. He lowered LePiep and held her protectively in his arms. He felt a wave of perplexed sympathy and warmth as the ou-ralot squirmed in his arms, looking around. Several of the crewmen noticed the creature and suddenly looked abashed and confused. LePiep's emanations of friendliness rippled through the crowd, causing more than one pair of eyes to blink and soften.
"Hold it!" ordered a familiar, deep voice. The crewmen mumbled uneasily and jostled about to make room. "Balef! Panglor Balef?"
Panglor's breath caught. He could not answer.
A tall, red-haired, orange-eyed man strode through the group and halted before Panglor. It was Tal Jeebering, exactly as Panglor remembered him—but with eyes afire. "Balef—it is you. I was ready to have you hung and your throat slit. What are you doing, mixed up in this business? Was that you who deflected us off course?" Clamping his mouth shut suddenly, Jeebering rocked his weight back, crossed his arms, and scrutinized Panglor grimly.
Panglor flushed with shame. He was still unable to speak. LePiep whistled once in fear and tucked her head into his arms.
"All right!" Jeebering bawled suddenly. "You men, return to your duties. Godspey and Turret, you stay here." He glared at Panglor. LePiep trembled and peeked out at him. Jeebering noticed her after a moment, and he scowled, then said, "Okay, I'm going to give you a chance to explain, although I'm damned if I know why I should." He turned and strode toward the ship, to a spot near the hatch where several crates had been arranged to make seats. Panglor and the others followed; two of the guards sat on crates along with Jeebering, and everyone else sat on the grass.
"You don't look as though you're starving," Jeebering observed. "Did you carry off enough food to hide out for two weeks, or did you grub?"
"Huh?" Panglor said, finding his voice at last. He looked at Jeebering in confusion. "We were only gone a day. I can explain about the deflection. Listen—I tried not to—"
One of the Deerfield crewmen suddenly erupted with a gargling sound and lunged forward, reaching for Panglor's neck, fingers twitching. "Genslick—none of that!" Jeebering bawled. Alo growled. One of the other men slapped Genslick's arm away, then beamed at Jeebering like a child who had just diverted a smaller child from the cookie jar. Jeebering touched his forehead with the fingertips of both hands. "Balef," he said softly, staring at the ground. "Do you have any idea what's been happening to my men? Why did you do this?"
"Didn't mean to," Panglor mumbled sorrowfully. How could he explain? He noticed that just as many crewmen surrounded them now as before, despite Jeebering's orders. Their expressions reminded him of disturbed children. These men were not holding up well, and he had an uneasy feeling that their condition would get worse before it got better. He wondered what bizarre experiences these men had been suffering.
"The Old Man—" Jeebering said, shaking his head and hooking a thumb over his shoulder. He failed to finish the sentence, though, and appeared to have forgotten what he was going to say. LePiep lifted her head, warbling encouragingly, and that appeared to draw Jeebering back to the present. "Balef," he said, "did you or did you not put us all here by pulling some harebrained maneuver back there at—" He waved a hand vaguely, evidently referring to D3.
This is bad, Panglor thought. If Jeebering is losing touch with reality, what hope do any of us have?
"Well, Balef?"
"Yah," he answered abruptly. "But I was trying to avoid doing it. Grakoff-Garikoff had me by the—"
"Garikoff—are they behind this?" Jeebering growled. Panglor nodded, and explained the situation and how he had tried to circumvent it. Jeebering shook his head grimly. "Garikoff," he muttered darkly. "Christ, no wonder. You know what we're carrying in this hull?"
Panglor shook his head.
"Well, besides a load of tech products, we've got a hold full of superheavy-doped semicrystals. Very valuable neutronics stuff. Don't know how those Garikoff bastards found out about it, but this load is worth a mint. The Old Man damn near had a stroke after what you did. He's in his cabin flat on his back now." Jeebering ran his fingers through his moppish red hair. His eyes flamed. He glanced around at the circle of crewmen and shook his head. "Balef, where have you been hiding out for the last two weeks? Things here aren't right. My men aren't well. Two of them claimed that they were attacked by dragons the other day. Another man said they were vultures, not dragons. And three men have said that they almost fell off the edge of the world!" Pain crossed his face. He appeared more confused than angry.
Panglor hesitated, surprised. Weren't they going to try him, convict him, and execute him? No one here looked capable of that much concentration.
"Two weeks, Balef. Where have you been?"
"Jeeb, I told you."
Alo interrupted impatiently. "It's the time discontinuity. Haven't you even figured out what's going on here yet?"
Jeebering suddenly noticed her. "Who are you?" His eyebrows danced in astonishment. Evidently he had not seen her before.
"Alontelida Castley. Who are you?" She stirred, as though to rise in her own defense.
Anger surfaced in Jeebering's eyes. "Young lady," he said crossly —
—and the world abruptly went dark, then light. Panglor swallowed, held LePiep tightly, and felt his stomach lurch. The ground dropped away beneath him and his weight left him—but he did not fall. The landscape began turning, as though he and the others were revolving on a carousel; their faces blurred, making him dizzy, and then jumped back into sharp focus against the moving background—Alo, Jeebering, the others, all with fear in their eyes. Panglor smelled the fear, felt it prickle on his skin, felt it ripple like an electric current around the ring of people.
Only LePiep was unaffected. She perked her ears. "Hyolp!" she cried, radiating joy. Instantly Panglor felt his own fear lessen; the carousel gradually slowed, the ground became solid again, and his weight returned. The sky shivered with yellow and green and black bursts, as though lightning had flashed up from beyond the horizon. Thunder rolled distantly. And suddenly all was still, normal—and the sky turned pale and the world was as before. Except that Tiki stood in their midst.
Mutters of bewilderment rose from the circle. LePiep beamed happily. "What's going on here?" Jeebering demanded harshly, jumping to his feet. He glared at Tiki with hands on his hips.
Tiki swayed solemnly before Panglor and Alo, then turned and repeated the motion before Jeebering and the others. "Greetings," he said brightly. Though the words were in his own tongue, everyone seemed to understand him. He said to Jeebering, "You must be the chief choker of this group, aren't you?"
Jeebering started. "Chief choker?" he said. "I haven't heard that expression in years! Who are you? Where did you come from?"
"Ah—Jeeb," Panglor said uncomfortably, "this is Tiki. We were over at his shipwreck when your men found us. He's a Kili, Jeeb. He was marooned here with a Kili ship—been shipwrecked here a long time, I guess."
"True, true," said Tiki.
Jeebering frowned at both of them. But Panglor continued, "Tiki, this is Tal Jeebering. He's—he's—" Words failed him; the pounding of blood in his head obliterated whatever he had meant to say.
"Mate," grunted Jeebering. "Balef, you served with me—when? Eight ye
ars ago? On the Randolph P.P. Lupollof?" He shook his head unhappily, as though trying in vain to link the past with the present.
Panglor nodded dizzily. Lord—how was he going to straighten this out? He forced himself to speak. "Tiki, Jeeb is First Mate on Deerfield." Calm, Balef—calm, he thought. LePiep muttered, bolstering his spirits; she looked up at Tiki and hooted her welcome. Jeebering observed this without comment, but LePiep's waves of enthusiasm appeared to ease the tension in his eyes.
"Pleased," Tiki said, beaming. He spoke to Jeebering. "Were my good friends Panglor and Alo and LePiep explaining to you about the discontinuity locus that's responsible for your ship being here and your crew losing their minds?" He swayed politely left and right.
Jeebering blinked in bewilderment, ignoring Tiki's question. "You're a Kili?" he asked skeptically. He scratched his ear. "Huh. I guess maybe you are." He looked around at the perplexed faces of his crew. "What do you think of that, men?"
"Nobody's ever seen a real Kili," said one of the men, gazing intently at Tiki. "Chee."
"Jeeb," said Panglor insistently. "About this discontinuity zone—"
"A Kili. Think of that!" crowed another crewman.
Jeebering drew himself up formally before the Kili. "I am First Mate, and these are crewmen of Deerfield, freighter of the Vikken Traders, Limited, shipping line," he said. "Our Captain is Thaddeus Drak. He is in the ship, and is not well."
Tiki bobbed. "You are of the Vikken line?" he said. "Indeed! I have seen several of your ships, in times gone by—and many men of the Vikken line, of course. How nice to see more of you!"
Jeebering's eyes bulged. His lips twitched and went up at the corners, crookedly. "You've seen other Vikken ships? Vikken men?" His eyes narrowed and turned grim.
"Yes, indeed," said Tiki. "Ovid ships, too, and Sloane Lines. I never could understand why those men were so vain about loyalty to their shipping lines. But I've seen quite a number of them here, from time to time."
Nostrils flaring, Jeebering turned a burning gaze onto Panglor.
"Hey, wait!" Panglor protested. "I had nothing to do with any other—"
"What's going on here, Balef?" Jeebering said. He grabbed Panglor's upper arm, hard. "What's happening? What's all this talk about ships, about men?"
"Oh God," Alo said. "Don't you get it yet?"
Jeebering was actually trembling now. The men stirred in confusion and muttered in an ugly tone. Panglor was very nervous about the mental state of those men. "Hey Jeeb—" he said urgently, stroking LePiep as he talked, hoping that she would radiate soothing feelings. "It's not that terrible a thing. Now, we'll explain it to you—why don't we all just spread out here on the grass, and maybe someone can go get refreshments, because I don't know about all of you, but we're kind of thirsty and . . . "
As he talked, the others quieted somewhat, and Jeebering released Panglor's arm and focused his eyes more clearly; and eventually everyone did exactly as Panglor had suggested. Then Panglor explained the discontinuity locus that apparently surrounded, or defined, this world. He described the sequence of events that had brought the Cur down to the planet—which, he learned, was roughly the way that Deerfield had arrived, too.
Alo broke in. "Look. We think there are lots of very small discontinuities throughout space. But normally they're too small for us to notice, or measure—they're like the spaces in the weave of a tight cloth. But here the threads are splitting apart, and probably in the heart of the zone there's nothing but a big, gaping hole in the fabric of space."
Panglor nodded. "That's one way to look at it," he said. "Another way is that in the ocean of reality, there are billions of imperceptible wavefronts of distortion, of aberration. And here they all intersect, reinforcing each other, and it's like a gigantic standing wavefront of distorted reality. In a way, it's like a black-hole singularity, minus the gravitational effects."
Tiki chortled enthusiastically. But most of the men seemed to have trouble following.
Panglor explained again.
After considerable confusion, most of the crewmen began to understand the significance of the discovery—if Panglor's interpretation was correct. "This discontinuity in space and time can swallow ships. It can pull them in like mosquitoes to a trap." Panglor said. "There are probably other zones like this, all through space, that we haven't detected yet. Who knows how many of the ships that have been lost in foreshortening have been swallowed up by discontinuities? Right, Tiki? Alo? Jeeb?" He looked from one to another, fired by the implications. The zones could be the cause of the uncertainty faced by every spacer and every passenger in foreshortening. This was the unknown danger, the mysterious killer. If it could be understood, perhaps it could be avoided.
And here was a real, live Kili, helping them understand it all. Panglor glanced at Tiki and suddenly felt a rush of affection for this alien, whom he barely even knew. LePiep grumbled happily, reflecting and sharing his emotion.
"There's one problem," Jeebering observed, looking depressed. "We can't get off this planet, and even if we could, there's no way to make an insertion out of this system. The collapsing-field's shut down." He cast a neutral glance at Panglor, then studied the backs of his hands.
Alo spoke, digging at the grass roots with her fingers. "Bet we could start it up again." She pulled up a tangled bit of weed and squinted at it.
Turret, the crewman, snorted.
"Sure," said Alo. "They wouldn't have kept the capture-field going if they hadn't thought maybe they'd want to come back some time, and they wouldn't do that unless they knew they could get the collapsing-field going to get home again." She dropped the weed and glanced around. "Right?" she said. Panglor caught her eye and gestured affirmatively. He should have thought of that himself.
No one replied. But suddenly one of the crewmen started choking, with a sound somewhere between a sob and a ghoulish cackle. The others stirred uneasily, but it was a moment before anyone moved to help the man. He was gagging hoarsely, grinning. Finally Turret and another man grasped him by the arms and calmed him. Jeebering gestured for them to take the man back into the ship. Then he faced Alo. "Turning on a collapsing-field is not so easy, you know. Even if the station was left in working order, we don't have the equipment or the trained people to do it."
"So what's so difficult?" Alo said insistently.
Jeebering threw his hands up. "What's so difficult? First you have to control the solar collectors and relays, and there's no telling what condition they're in, and if they're defective you have to go to each one, in close solar orbit, and repair them—which we're not equipped to do. And then you have to control the transformation and transmission to the field generators and radiators, neither of which is located at the station, which is where the primary controls are. And no one here knows how to operate those systems anyway!" He glanced thoughtfully at Tiki. "Unless our Kili friend, here, does."
Tiki rocked back in surprise. "Oh no, no, no. I know nothing of it."
Jeebering sat back grimly.
Alo shrugged, undeterred. "So, we don't know that the systems are out of order, and we don't know that we can't get them working even if they are, and you don't know that there's no one here who knows about these things." She hoisted herself up where she sat, to make herself taller.
"Oh?" said Jeebering dryly. He looked around, surveying his ship and crew. The men who had escorted the ailing crewmember were returning.
"Yes," Alo said coldly. "Oh. It so happens I've spent several years living in a waystation, where knowledge of this machinery is commonplace, and it also happens"—she stopped and glared at two men who were chuckling derisively—"it also happens that I know a thing or two about tech maintenance and repair—and about the operation of the D3 foreshortening system, which succeeded the one here at D1."
"Why, is that truly the case?" said Tiki, rocking in delight.
Alo nodded severely.
Jeebering got to his feet and walked away, scowling. Panglor watched him, feeling strangely r
elaxed under the orange-and-red sky, lighted by a fiery green circlet of a sun. LePiep crooned. Jeebering suddenly shouted, and Panglor focused, following his gaze. One of the crewmen was flickering in and out of existence, like a film image. A moment later, he vanished completely. Panglor had a sinking feeling. "What's this?" roared Jeebering, wheeling around. Most of the other men growled and jumped to their feet—except for one pair, who were lying on their backs staring at the sky.
"What's what?" asked Tiki.
Jeebering waved his hands. "Where has my crewman gone?"
"He's just walking over here," Tiki said mildly.
"Yeah," said one of the men, lazing near Tiki. He sat up, and his gaze moved slowly past the others.
The vanished man reappeared. He sat down near Tiki, smiling crookedly. Then he disappeared again.
Jeebering sat back down. He looked at Tiki, at Panglor, at Alo. He pressed his lips together tightly and frowned. He cleared his throat and looked at Panglor again. Then Alo. Staring at the ground, finally, he said, "It doesn't matter whether we have any chance of getting the field in operation or not, because we can't lift off the planet. Neither ship can, not from where they sit now. We're stuck here."
They stared at one another in silence.
"True enough, I expect," remarked Tiki. Alo looked back and forth between Tiki and Jeebering. She shook her head, obviously undeterred. She reached over and ruffled LePiep's fur, and said, "We'll see about that." The ou-ralot hopped into her lap, radiating blissful confidence.
Chapter 11
"Let's go for a walk," Panglor said, rousing Alo and Tiki. Though they were presumably under arrest, no one made a move to stop them. Jeebering sat quietly with an expression of despair; he watched them get up and stroll away.
"Where are we going, Pangly?"
LePiep squirmed and quivered in Panglor's arms. "Nowhere. Just around." He poked the ou-ralot. "Want to run, old girl?"
"Hyoop." She leaped, gliding with spread wings to the grass, then trotted off ahead of them.
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