Panglor Read online

  "Ou-ralot," he said stiffly. Is that the best you can do against a thirteen-year-old? Or sixteen—whatever?

  "I've never heard of one of those."

  He shrugged and grunted. Touch her and sohelpmejesus I'll kill you. "She's from Faber Eridani. She escaped from a pet merchant on Areax V, and I saved her." LePiep had been starved and terrified when he'd found her about a standard year ago; she'd been his only friend ever since.

  Alo studied him noncommittally for a moment, then suddenly moved closer to look at LePiep. The ou-ralot sprang away, whistling, and flapped around to land on Panglor's opposite shoulder. She hissed at Alo, then ducked her head behind Panglor's, grumbling.

  "Hey!" protested Alo angrily. "Let me see her!"

  Panglor freed her claws from his shoulder, then eased LePiep into a more secure position. He gazed back at Alo through slitted eyes. No way was he going to let her near LePiep. Something clicked in his memory, and he said, "Why did those people back there call you a witch? What did they mean by that?"

  Alo's face darkened with fury. "So you're just like them, are you? Only sneakier. I haven't done anything to you, so you just better not make any trouble." Her voice became piercing. "I am a cit-i-zen of the station!" The word station seemed laden with bitter sarcasm.

  "So what? What did they mean by witch?"

  She eyed him with one hostile eye and laughed. "Nothing. It means I'm smarter than they are. I like to experiment, and I play a few jokes, that's all. And those dull queers always get upset over nothing." She fell silent, but was shaking with emotion.

  LePiep muttered quietly in Panglor's ear, communicating suspicion. He stroked her, thinking: The twitch is getting to you now, but she's only a troublemaker. Peep thinks so, and now she admits it herself. Just a ghost like all the rest—a troublemaking ghost.

  "I think you're different, though," Alo said.

  He felt a spasm. Jesus, was this kid a sorceress? Maybe she was different from the rest, after all—worse. Why the hell did she have to be interested in him?

  Alo nodded and said, "You're kind of funny. You don't yell, you don't fight. And here you are pretending to use the computer. You're really doing something a lot weirder, aren't you?"

  Words crowded to his throat, but nothing came out.

  "Not saying you're any better," she added coldly. "Just different. I've got to go now. It's too bad you're such a coward, I think, because we really could have had a good fight."

  She went to the door and, with her back turned, fiddled with something on the wall. He couldn't see what she was doing, and he didn't care; he just wanted her to leave, to end his humiliation. The door hissed open. Alo turned and grinned at him, looking very small and girlish as she rocked on the balls of her feet. Then she whirled and ran out, and the door slid shut.

  For a moment, Panglor did not react. Instead of relief, he felt something he couldn't properly focus on, grating at the back of his mind. His heart lurched. Alarmed, he grabbed for LePiep on his shoulder. When his hand met fur, she muttered at his touch, and he relaxed. So there was nothing wrong, after all—nothing, that is, except his impotent rage.

  If that was his best against an adolescent girl, how could he hope to match Grakoff-Garikoff and Vikken Traders?

  Frustration flooded his body, then relief drained the frustration, then his fear began to poison the relief. Fear that the girl lay in wait for him elsewhere. Fear that he was in danger from Grakoff-Garikoff, that he would be killed if he failed the mission, that he would be executed if he did not.

  Quickly he moved to the door. He hesitated, glancing back into the awesome night of the stars; then he turned and listened at the door—not that he could have heard the little bitch out there anyway. He touched the plate.

  Nothing happened.

  He touched it again, pressing his fingertips to the metal to ensure contact. He felt the metal, cold against his fingertips; but nothing happened, and he pressed harder still, and nothing happened, and the fury rising in his gut grew hotter than ever. The witch had sabotaged the door.

  She was not only obnoxious; she was clever. These mechanisms were hard to jam unless you knew precisely what you were doing. He knew that, because with mechanisms, he knew precisely what he was doing.

  There were several ways she might have done it. A charge-projector on the plate itself, if she'd been concealing one. Or if she'd gotten up under the service baffle, here—he couldn't remember if she'd reached over this far—ah, hell!—he thumbed open the baffle and stared at the power fibers. For a moment he did not even see what he was looking at; a heavy pressure was building in his chest, and his vision was blurred. He could open the door with the manual lever, but that would be accepting the insult. Or he could . . .

  The pressure erupted. "Jeezus!" he bellowed, whirling around to face the stars, the light and blood of the galaxy. LePiep whistled and flapped away, circling in the air. He whirled again and slammed his palm into the wall. Stinging pain flashed up his arm. Goddamn twelve-year-old lout! Bitch!

  And suddenly it was over. He muttered in despair and thought of hitting the wall again. But it was too late—he had vented as much as he could. LePiep landed on the ledge nearby and stared at him with deep, black eyes. "Hhooo-hheeoooop!" she cried, and hopped into the air again. He caught her in his arms and held her, trembling, without speaking. Finally he stroked her, set her down, and went to work on the door.

  Taking a unitool from his pocket, he puzzled over the fiber-matrix circuitry, then poked the tool's pin-sized light source into the matrix at several different places and watched the flickering of relays as he modulated the beam. Everything was functioning except the plate, so he simply shorted that circuit with the light. The door whisked open.

  Picking up LePiep, he started down the passageway—and heard footsteps ahead of him, running, fading in the distance. The little twitch had been waiting, then. Well, to hell with her. He wouldn't give her the satisfaction of betraying his anger. And anyway, he had to get back to the ship and get to work.

  Psykinetic directionals flicked alight, pointing the way down through the foyer and into the drop-field.

  * * *

  When he reached his quarters he went immediately to the com-console. Before he turned it on, though, he had another thought; he went to the service counter and ordered a sting brandy. He waited nervously for it to arrive, and when it did, he drank it down at once and ordered another. The burning in his throat made him feel a little better. He asked the computer for departure schedules and flight plans, and for the first time he began seriously considering the practical implications of the job he was supposed to do. The job he had to do.

  Aside from general flight parameters, he had to figure in The Fighting Cur's no-cargo mass, her overpowered drivers, and the forty-minute departure lag between Deerfield and the Cur. The real problem, of course, was not intercepting the other ship but timing the interception to avoid early detection. And then there was the delicate matter of making his final orbit, after the near-collision, lead into a proper escape insertion for the Cur.

  The consequences of being caught did not bear thinking; but at least one factor in his favor was that they would have to catch him on the run or destroy him, but in a very short time frame. They could not short out the collapsing-field to thwart him, because that could cause a power surge that could vaporize half the field-generating system. Nevertheless, there were patrol craft, and the Garikoff vessels, also, to consider.

  But, he wondered—could he bluff the attempt and still escape? There was so much at stake. Not that he minded the thought of a vengeance shot against Vikken—but this idea was a horror. What mattered was whether he could get himself out of it and through foreshortening to a neutral system. There were numerous possible escape destinations: Mastrus via Faber Eridani via Veti; or the Elacian National Worlds via Atruba via Dreznelles 17; or . . .

  The brandy was fuzzing his brain. Finally his concentration gave out altogether. He could not stop thinking about that li
ttle hoodlum's humiliating him.

  And that was trivial compared to the rage that burned in his soul for Grakoff-Garikoff Shippers and Traders Inc., Veti—the bastards. They may have put him back in space, but for what—sabotage and murder?

  It was back on Veti IV that they'd grabbed him. Such a long time ago, such a long time. But it wasn't really, was it? Though four light-years distant in space, Veti IV was less than three weeks behind him.

  Hardly enough time to forget.

  Chapter 3

  Veti IV was a dreary world right from the beginning. It had only a few million people, most of whom lived in a handful of port and mining cities. The climate was unfriendly, as were the people. Half of two of the cities were built out of the abandoned ruins of the vanished Kili race; Veti IV was just one more world the mysterious Kili had used for a while and then discarded. Panglor figured that the Kili, whoever they were, probably had good sense.

  Of all the cities on Veti IV, Nolaran was the first settled, and by reputation the gloomiest and seediest. Derelict emigrants and spacers congregated there, and even menial jobs were at a premium. Nolaran was where Pilot Panglor Balef found himself, nearly penniless, dismissed from piloting by Vikken Traders.

  Nighttime in Nolaran was forbidding. Thin clouds swept overhead so fast that the stars were continually changing pricks of light, glimpsed for no more than a moment at a time. On either side, tall mountains loomed somberly over the high-altitude spaceport. The scene matched Panglor's mood well enough. He paused in his work and looked out of the grevik pit, past the freighter's underside drive cluster, and watched a ship across the field lift toward the sky on a pillow of ionized air. The sight only fueled his anger; he jerked his attention back to the job.

  Fire him, would they? Give him a bad reference, would they? Write him up for psychiatric incompetence, would they? Just because he'd had an accident last time—because he'd had trouble with the transit? He hadn't lost the ship, had he? No, they'd salvaged both cargo and ship.

  With a gauntleted hand he jabbed a switch. The plasma beam glowed, streaming up into the drive-field chamber of one of the freighter's engines. He manipulated the controls, modifying the beam to scour and re-film the field-surfaces inside the drive chamber. The mass of the freighter, looming overhead, was oppressive. How could anyone stand this job? It was hot and dangerous, he had to wear grevik coveralls with a stifling helmet and visor, and the pay was terrible. The plasma haze cooled to pink and then red, and streams of white sparklers began pulsing through it, etching the final random-element patterns on the field-surfaces. Ten seconds later the beam cut off. He blinked, fingering his visor. His eyes hurt, and purple and yellow sparks danced before his face.

  With a grunt, he retracted the plasma gun into its stand. He did not move it yet to the next drive chamber; instead, he went to the edge of the pit, away from where the other grevik was laboring on the number-three chamber. He stared across the floodlighted spaceport and scowled. He wanted to rip off his hood and stalk away over the field. He was hot and stinking and tired, and the damn job was fit only for brutes and fools, not qualified men. But it was the only job he could get. He glanced over at the other grevik, his boss, shadowy against the glimmer of the plasma beam. Panglor snorted. Brutes and fools—ghosts, not real to him. Now there—out on the field, on the deck of a spaceship—that was where he belonged.

  He was not aware that he had made a decision when he walked back to the grevik console, intending to roll the plasma gun over to number four. What he did instead was retract the entire unit, gun and console both, into its coffin at the side of the pit. His boss cut off the other beam and looked at him, face hidden by his visor. "What do you think you're doing?" he shouted, his voice tinny through the visor speaker. "Get that thing back out! You've got number four to do!"

  "You do it," Panglor muttered.

  "What'd you say?"

  "You do it!" Panglor turned away, though he saw the man striding across the pit. A brute and a fool.

  "Say that again, mister," growled the grevik, face to face with him. "This ship lifts in two hours. Now get busy."

  "You do it!" Panglor yelled. His fists were knotted at his sides. "I'm leaving." Halfway out of the pit, he looked back; the man was following him slowly. Panglor flipped up his visor and glared, his nostrils twitching in the lingering ozone. The man stopped, startled, then shrugged and went back to work, shaking his head. Panglor left the pit and took the two-man grevik sled back across the field—aware, as he drove, of the ships hunched like giants over the spacefield. The sight pained him terribly, because walking off the grevik job after only eight days was going to end his chances of even working at the spaceport again, much less flying. This was it. Take a last look. No point in ever coming back.

  After shucking his pit suit in the locker, he mist-showered—and there he had a bad moment, because he started to choke up from anger and pain, but he controlled himself before any of the emotion was betrayed, and he made no sound—and he dressed in his old spacer jumpsuit, and went to the office, head buzzing and throbbing, and cashed his last wagecard. He left the spaceport by the main gate, without once looking back, and he tried to ignore the jagged sorrow in his heart as he walked toward the town.

  A fine, foggy snow had begun to fill the air, and he ducked his neck down into his jacket, trying to keep warm. The bright lights of the spaceport diminished as he followed the mountain road down into the city. He walked—to save money, and also to give himself time to think. His mind was not functioning well; he didn't know what he was going to do except go back to his room, and that wasn't much of a plan.

  The road hooked downward from the plateau through a notch in the mountains. Much of the road, as well as the city, especially the Kili sector, was cut directly into the side of the smaller of two mountains. This created a curious splitting of levels in the city, beginning at the outskirts—foundations above road level, buildings delved back into the mountain face and jutting up out of it, and other structures carved downward into the cliffs, beneath the road. Once in the city, he passed alternately along curving precipices and through small canyons cut between towering slabs of stone. In the nighttime gloom and flying haze, he might have been passing by ruins sunk in the depths of a turbid, wintry sea. Nolaran seemed a city mastered by dark thoughts—a disturbing combination of human and alien architectures. Slabs loomed out of the mists of the canyonlike streets, and then disappeared back into the gloom as he moved on.

  He was suddenly gripped by a feeling that he had taken leave of reality. The world greeting his eyes could not be the world supporting his feet; it was too strange and cold. There were no real humans there—so why him, why should his life run through this world? There were ghosts, of course—always ghosts—but no real humans anywhere for him to reach, or to touch.

  Panglor turned to the right, blinking. The lights in the ravine were the lower city and the railyards, the marshaling area for the transcon tunnels. Slanting up the opposite side of the ravine were the spaceport spurs; freight elements moved up and down them cautiously, to and from the yards. That was life of a sort, human activity, he supposed. But it hardly related to his life. He continued along the border of the main business district, and on into the Naiopean quarter, where most of the bars were located, where he had done most of his wiring and drinking these last weeks.

  Five doors past Carmello's Den, he turned into a roofless passageway, at the end of which was Gill's Place, the rooming house. There was no one in the tiny lobby except Franken, the strange man who was always to be found coiled at the entrance to the lift-tube. Franken nodded somberly as Panglor approached. "Time for settling accounts, no?" said Franken, as though to no one in particular. Panglor stopped, startled. He felt a rush of anger at the intrusion. But Franken was always this way, offering obscure words and observations, and Panglor had always thought him a little different from the rest of the ghosts and the fools. Franken, perhaps, was neither.

  Panglor had never spoken to him, but he f
elt tempted to do so now. Their eyes locked, and Panglor suddenly felt that his thoughts and feelings had been read in an instant. Instead of whatever he'd been thinking to say, he just nodded. Then he took the tube immediately to his floor.

  Before he had even reached his door, he felt LePiep crying out to him from inside. She had probably sensed him when he entered the lobby. He hurried to unlock the door. The ou-ralot bounded into his arms. Flustered and pleased, he cradled her, smoothing her wings, soothing her; rivulets of joy ran into his thoughts. For a moment he stood holding her, his cares and weariness eased by the ou-ralot's waves of empathy. "Peep," he muttered. "How were you. Peep—okay?" She crooned in response, and he smiled for the first time that day.

  When he stepped into the shabby room, though, his problems came back to him in spite of the ou-ralot's comforting presence. He was out of a job, and nearly out of money; he was living in a dive, and couldn't even stay here for long. His employment profile was poison; he'd never get a job in space, not after that accident on his last flight in—when he had gotten just a little upset, being alone too long in foreshortening, and he had unintentionally disconnected the cargo pod before emergence. "Yeah, Peep," he said, putting her down on the cot. "Won't be going back there any more." But where would he go?

  One of the two light panels in the wall had failed, so the room looked even gloomier than usual. Lights in the railyard flashed and glimmered through the dirty window. "Hyo-loop?" queried LePiep plaintively. She blinked at him. "Hyoolp?"

  He cursed and rubbed his eyes. "I don't know, Peep. We got to eat, don't we?" He scratched the ou-ralot's head and thought. It was a bitch, all right. They could get along for a couple of weeks, maybe, but no more. Vikken had had to pay him a severance bonus, and there was a little of that left, and a little of what he had made in eight days in the spaceport grevik pits. But a month hanging around the Naiopean quarter had drained most of his money. "I tried to stand it, Peep, really I did. I just couldn't take it any more." He sighed and looked at her pityingly. What was it going to be like for her now? She depended on him for everything. Well, she'd eat as long as he did, maybe longer.