Panglor

by Jeffrey A. Carver

  The balcony proved to be a deep, dark area that might once have been a lounge or hearth. Panglor squinted into the gloom. Finally he hollered, "God damn it Alo! Where are you?" His words reverberated in the space.

  Alo's voice returned, faintly. "Over here." He turned in annoyance, trying to decide where "here" was, and finally spotted her, standing at the far end of the lounge. LePiep perked up in his arms. Panglor led the way over.

  "What are you doing?' he asked as he approached, but the answer was obvious. She was standing before a wide viewport, looking out into space and downward at the bright ochre-brown crescent of the planet. Panglor said nothing more. He gazed at the sight—at the enormous calico crescent grinning in the darkness. He could not quite think of it as a planet, and yet could not envision it as anything but. It was their zone of discontinuity, their locus of wavefront aberrations, their frayed hole in the fabric of what they were accustomed to thinking of as reality.

  The sight instilled a peculiar awe. Something down there, some set of conditions, had responded to his thought and to his will. How many times in his life had that happened?

  But there were people down there, trapped, who were his responsibility.

  "Mus-nu choka-loka mmmffsss," muttered Tiki.

  "We're stuck," Alo said. "Might as well go back down. No point in staying here." She cleared her throat noisily, then lifted LePiep from Panglor's arms.

  Panglor grunted. The view, even without her anger, gave him pains—straight in the chest, like the stab of a knife. LePiep grumbled, sweeping him worriedly with her eyes, sharing his distress. His guilt.

  He suffered silently, not letting it reach his face. He felt dizzy, felt LePiep's silent waves of empathy soothing the pain, lessening it, and yet making him dizzier still with confusion. The view of outer space seemed to sway drunkenly, and his thoughts whirled, revolving about the edges of his vision, spinning and falling forward into the black hole of all the worlds and possibilities he had ever lost.

  And the idea struck him broadside, smashing the pain into splinters. LePiep yipped audibly, encouraging him. "My God, why not?" he muttered foggily, and the pain vanished in a rush of exhilaration. The notion bloomed full in his mind—

  "Hey!" he said.

  Tiki turned at once. Alo rolled her eyes toward him and restrained the excited ou-ralot.

  "Why didn't I think of it before?" Panglor cried. He put both hands against the glass and leaned forward and stared out into space, down at the strange world whose nightside was curiously distorted to his vision, as though cradled not quite correctly by the glowing crescent of dayside. "Yeah," he said softly, convinced now because his idea was so logical it hurt, and so outlandish he scarcely dared to speak it.

  "Yeah, what?" Alo said impatiently. LePiep was purring with excitement.

  "Why not use the planet?" he said, his face to the glass. "The zone, I mean. If that thing out there can reach ships in foreshortening and grab them and pull them out like a capture-field—well, maybe it can work the other way, too. Maybe it can put them into foreshortening."

  "Are you crazy?"

  "Well, why not?" Panglor said, turning to face her. "We got off the planet right? The zone responded to our thoughts, our frame of mind, I don't know what."

  "Yah," said Alo. "Tiki said the behavior of things changed according to stresses and moods."

  "Right. So when we wanted to lift from the planet, it worked. Before that, it brought us to a safe landing. We assume it will bring us to a safe landing again. So why not assume it could do more?"

  "Never worked for anyone else, did it?"

  "Naw, probably not—but who knows? Probably no one knew how to do it. Probably never even occurred to anyone else. The poor sons of bitches just go crazy down there."

  Tiki rotated his eyes in a circle. "Fffessss-llbrinth," he whispered.

  Panglor squinted, wishing that he could communicate with the Kili. Then he shrugged and looked back at Alo. "Sure—they're all going crazy. It would never cross their minds that they could drive their ship right through the zone into foreshortening."

  Alo opened her mouth slowly. "Drive through?" She clawed at her hair. "Why not just think—or whatever—our way into foreshortening?"

  "Well, we need velocity, of course."

  "Yeah." Alo nodded, thinking. "The trouble is—if it didn't work, we'd be splattered all over down there, wouldn't we?" Her eyes flickered and danced between her friends. "Well—wouldn't we?"

  That was hard to argue with; but for Panglor's idea to work, they would need a high velocity for the plunge into foreshortening. A collapsing-field worked by compressing the interstellar space fabric in a shockwave surrounding the ship—effectively shortening the distance the ship traversed between stars. But even compressed, the distances were so vast that high entering velocities were required, on the order of .01c. So they had little choice; if they were going to try, they would have to make a very fast dive directly into the zone. He gestured helplessly. "What have we got to lose?"

  Alo's eyes softened, and she shrugged. "Okay. I'm in. How about Tiki?"

  The Kili was smiling blissfully. Whether that was some Kili expression, or Tiki's own translation to the human, Panglor couldn't guess. "I think we'd better wait until he understands us again, when we go back down."

  "Hyolp!" said LePiep. She jumped from Alo's grasp into the arms of a startled Tiki. She beamed happily, nuzzling the Kili, who bobbed sideways in evident contentment.

  "We're still going back for them, then?" said Alo.

  "Said we would. Besides what do you think they'd say to us back at D3 if we came back alone?"

  Alo made a noise with her tongue. "Okay. What are we waiting for?"

  They walked back through the empty halls. Eventually they made their way back to the hangar and The Fighting Cur. They boarded, sealed the airlock, and made ready to depart. Panglor took the controls and applied thrust. The ship vibrated, but failed to move.

  "Pangly, we're stuck to the hatch," Alo said.

  Panglor cursed. He shut off the drivers and stared at the outside of the hatch structure in the viewscreen. "Any ideas, kiddo?" he said, finally.

  "Naw," said Alo, squinting at the screen. She went to the laser control and beamed various frequencies at likely looking targets. That effort was futile.

  Muttering, Panglor returned to the airlock to suit up again. He was getting tired of this, because when he changed clothes he remembered how much he was beginning to stink. Helmeted, silversuit-field on, he went back into the docking tunnel and looked for a manual release switch. He found a panel but no controls. He ripped off the cover and scrutinized the circuitry. With more intuition than certainty, he tripped several relays with the lightbeam of his unitool. At the end of the passage, a dark ring appeared as the ship separated slowly from the docking port. Hhmphing, he pocketed the unitool and leaped easily into the Cur's airlock.

  When he was dressed again, he hurried back up to the bridge. Alo was already moving the ship out of the station.

  * * *

  The return trip took half a day, ship's time. They took turns using the mistshower, and rested. Their destination grew steadily as they dropped toward it, a great ochre-red ball. Panglor gazed at the "planet" and tried to envision it as nothing more than an elaborate collapsing-field placed here by the fates—a curious hole in space, a threadbare spot in the fabric of the continuum that they could fall through if they chose.

  "What're you thinking, Pangly?"

  He clicked his teeth. "About how crazy this is, that thing out there. It's demented. The whole idea is demented, the thought that anyone could fly through that and come out the other side in foreshortening. Everything that happens near this thing is demented, and I think we're demented, too."

  Alo hoisted herself up onto one of the front consoles. She looked a lot better now—scrubbed and clean, with her hair combed. She was wearing one of Panglor's shirts, with the sleeves rolled up, and it hung on her like an enormous bag. Panglor nodded.
"Yeh. Demented. That's why I'm naming the place right now. Planet or not, it needs a name. It deserves one."

  "Yeah?"

  " 'Dementia.' That's what I'm calling it." Rising, extending both hands toward the image in the viewscreen, he bowed. "I dub thee 'Dementia'—you earned it." He raised his eyes. "What do you think?"

  "Pangly," she said, shaking her head, "I'm worried about you. Really, I am."

  There was a scrabbling noise. LePiep poked her head out of her corner stash of junk and regarded them each in turn, her eyes pulsating, reflecting their sense of anticipation.

  * * *

  The landing went much as it had the first time. Alo seemed relaxed and Panglor tried to pretend that he was. The Cur slipped toward Dementia's atmosphere with both position and velocity wholly ambiguous. Panglor kept his hands off the controls and tried to think negligently in terms of safe landing, and he glanced at Tiki, who appeared nervous. "Don't worry," he said.

  "I don't worry about the landing," said Tiki. "It's what comes after that I worry about."

  "Why? We're going to take off again and try to get back home. We're going to dive right into the zone."

  "That's what I thought," said Tiki, crossing his eyes. "I know one other—a Daco—who tried that. I never saw him again."

  "He probably made it home, then."

  "Or he crashed and obliterated himself."

  There was a queer, wrenching discontinuity . . . and when it ended, the Cur was standing upright in a meadow, in easy view of Deerfield.

  "I wish you hadn't said that," Panglor said to Tiki. He made a complete sweep with the viewer. Things had changed. The landscape was greener and the sky was orange, with a chocolate sun. Stands of exotic trees cropped the ridges. He hooked a thumb toward the exit. "Let's have a look." He caught LePiep and led the way, hoping there would be a convenient promontory for them outside the airlock.

  There was. They started down, surveying as they descended. Things had changed, all right, but not necessarily more than they might have in a single "night" here. Panglor wondered how much time had passed for the Deerfield crewmen.

  "Hallo there!" he heard—from behind. He turned. One of the Deerfield men stood in the airlock, where they had just emerged.

  "How did you—"

  The crewman shimmered like a ghost and faded. Panglor swallowed, remembering: Dementia. Right. The crewman appeared at the bottom of the slope. "My God," Panglor said, "I hope they haven't all turned to wraiths since we left. We'll never be able to get them to stay in the ships." LePiep muttered uneasily in his arms.

  Crossing the meadow to Deerfield they passed a finger of a long, shallow lake of crystalline water. They could see, moving about in the water, the shadowy forms of large fish. LePiep craned her neck and watched them intently. "Uh-oh," Panglor muttered. Had the airfish taken to the water? That could mean . . . what?

  "Maybe they just wanted water for a change," Alo suggested, reading his thoughts.

  "Mmgh!" he grunted. Well, it didn't matter. It was the idea of the airfish he had to keep in mind; what they did with their own lives didn't concern him.

  Several Deerfield crewmen emerged, wild-eyed, but not hostile. One of the men appeared not to recognize them, but he was nevertheless very hospitable, inviting them into the ship. "Is Jeebering around?" Panglor asked, gazing about.

  "Inside, inside—sure," chorused the other two crewmen.

  They went in. The ship's interior was gloomy, the passageways musty. They found Jeebering in the commons, just aft of the bridge. He looked pale and unwell, and he was staring into a mug of stale moke. He looked up, his eyes dull. "Hullo," he said. "Where've you been? Has it been a long time?"

  Panglor winced at the broken voice. The mental deterioration of these men was even worse than he had feared. "Don't know how long we've been gone, your time, Jeeb," he said. "We got to the space station all right. But we couldn't get the collapsing-field working." He looked closely at Jeebering, to see if his words had penetrated.

  LePiep stepped from his arms onto the table and nosed close to the officer. "Hyoll?" she muttered.

  Jeebering shook his head, but his eyes glimmered with understanding. Panglor sighed in relief; the man wasn't completely gone. "You tried, hey, Balef?" Jeebering said. "Well, I give you credit for that. You tried. And you came back. The captain would appreciate that, if he were conscious. How long have they been gone, Tregs?"

  A crewman emerged from the shadows and saluted solemnly. "Well, sir, that's hard to say. Some say just a day or two, others say over two weeks."

  "And what do you say?" Jeebering asked, not unkindly. His voice was tired, but he glanced at the ou-ralot and a smile flickered at his lips.

  "I make it about three days," said Tregs. "Sir."

  "Jeeb," Panglor said urgently. "I didn't finish. I think we have another way to get out of here. Without the collapsing-field."

  "There is no other way," said Tregs.

  "We think we have a way." Panglor glanced at Alo, who gave him a thumbs-up sign. LePiep rumbled encouragingly.

  "Sure. You have a way," Jeebering said, nodding. "Trouble is, I hardly have any crew left. They're disappearing all over the place."

  "I know—we saw some of them."

  "Did you see Captain Drak?" Jeebering asked, raising his eyes. "He's one of the ones who's gone."

  Panglor's breath caught in his throat. Jeebering's gaze was haunted. "Aw—Jeeb—" Panglor said, struggling for words. What could you say to a man who'd lost his captain, especially when the man probably considered it your fault?

  Jeebering's eyes sparked and hardened as he refocused his attention on Panglor. "What was your idea, Balef?"

  "Right." Panglor coughed. It was one thing to propose something like this to Alo or Tiki but quite another to say it to Jeebering without sounding like a madman. "Well—"

  Jeebering blinked.

  "Well—Tal, we were going to take off again, in both ships this time, and—and—"

  Alo nudged him, with another thumbs-up.

  "Right. We're going to dive the ships straight into the planet—the zone—Dementia, that's what I call it—it's not really a planet. We're going to dive at insertion velocity, and aim just as though we were making a foreshortening insertion, and—"

  "Boom!" said Jeebering, throwing up both hands. "Get it over with right away, huh?" He grinned both ways at his crewmen, most of whom chuckled blackly.

  "No, Jeeb—we mean it. We think we can make it work. Use the zone the way we took off in the Cur." Panglor glanced from one man's eyes to another's, trying to keep his voice even. LePiep barked mournfully.

  Silence enveloped the commons as the Vikken men perceived that Panglor was serious. He spoke quickly, explaining his idea. In the end, no one would say that it was impossible, and after the proposal had rolled off enough tongues, it began to sound like an intriguing notion—a tall-tale escape from a ludicrous situation.

  An all-hands call went out, to return to the ship.

  Wandering outside, Panglor felt sure that none of these men had the slightest inkling of what he proposed to do. He also suspected that if he succeeded, he would bring home a shipload of madmen. But that was better than nothing, he supposed. He tried not to think about what he would say to the authorities at D3, if he ever saw that place again.

  Alo, however, had other worries. She pulled him away from the confusion around the ship. They walked across the grass toward a blossoming broad-leaf tree. "I don't know what kind of shape this Deerfield is in," she said, glancing back at the freighter, "but one thing I do know is that none of those guys is in any condition to pilot. They'll never even get into orbit, much less pull off the rest of it."

  That question had been bothering Panglor, also. "Well," he said, watching LePiep scamper up into the tree. "I dunno." Suddenly taking Alo by the hand, he led her under the tree and sat down on the grass. The return pressure of her hand made him self-conscious; but he shrugged to himself, thinking, Balef, she's only a girl. A part of h
is mind was quaking at such proximity to a female who liked him, even one as familiar as Alo. LePiep, sensing his confusion, peered down at him from the lowest branch and chirped.

  "Pangly, are you—?"

  "What we've got to do," he said, cutting her off because he thought she might say something about—

  "Pangly," she said, looking him in the eye. "You're awfully cute." She locked her hands behind his neck and leaned forward to kiss him.

  "Come on, now!" he cried, lurching evasively. "We have to decide how we're going to—"

  "Coward!" she growled, and quickly planted the kiss on his lips. LePiep hooted.

  Panglor blushed and tried not to focus on the sensation he'd just felt, of her lips at his, and the pressure of her breasts against his arm, and the light pleasant smell of her close to him. Instead, he thought about what she'd seemed like earlier—insolent, arrogant, looking no older than sixteen (except when . . . she'd been undressed . . . back there in his cabin). "Listen," he said, shifting his position to hunch forward, cross-legged, over his knees. She beamed at him. "How are we going to get that ship off? We can't take them back in the Cur—there's no room unless we put them in the cargo hold, which might not be such a bad idea."

  "So we'd better all go back in Deerfield," Alo said.

  "What? No. How can we do that? What about the Cur? We can't leave her here!"

  "Pangly, Pangly!" Alo chuckled. She rubbed his thigh and slapped his knee. "The Cur is not the only ship in the universe. Why do you care if it stays here—it's falling apart, anyway. Look." She ticked off on two fingers: "You and I are the only ones here capable of flying a ship off this place and doing that bit into foreshortening."

  "You?"

  "If you can do it, I can," she said with a shrug.

  Panglor scrutinized her. "How old are you?" He noticed that her hand was still on his knee.

  "Nineteen, maybe. Twenty. Twenty-five. Who knows? Why?"