Panglor Read online

  Even if she didn't understand, at least she felt for him; she gave him that. And that was quite a lot. If he hadn't made friends with her, back on Areax V, where would he be now? Alone, that was where. Without her empathy touching him and sharing his pain and warming him when he was cold. She was the only companion he'd known in years, and the only one he wanted. They would manage somehow.

  Practically the only thing he could see from the window was the railyard down in the ravine, and even that was obscured by the mist and the dark. But he could discern the movement of cars, a string of lights moving down the side of the ravine. That had to be a train emerging from beneath the city, bound for the northwest tunnel that curved away to the left, toward . . . what? Well, it didn't matter. It was one of the passenger trains, bound from here to somewhere else. He wished they were aboard. Any place would be better than here, in sight of the spaceport.

  Wishing wouldn't help, though. He couldn't afford a ticket, and even if he could, he'd have no place to go at the other end. Don't think about it. Turning away, he saw LePiep perched at the edge of the cot. She watched him now, humping her folded wings up and down nervously. He stooped to meet her gaze. A pulse of hope touched him, like a physical charge. "Okay," he said. "Let's go out, and if nothing else we can get wired out of our minds. Right?"

  "Hoop-lll."

  "Right. But you stay straight enough to get us home." He glanced around. Something suggested to him that he not leave everything lying around, so he gathered up his few extra clothes and odds and ends, and stuffed them into his duffel. He patted his wallet and unitool in his pockets, and hefted the duffel thoughtfully. He might as well bring it along—never know what they'd decide to do later on. He whistled to LePiep. She jumped onto his left arm, and together they went out.

  The night wasn't getting any warmer, and within minutes he was shivering. Damn this climate, anyway—that, and his worn-out jacket. What he needed was a heatercoat, but the last time he'd had cash for one of those, he'd been on Hubspith II and hadn't needed one. The haze had cleared somewhat, and more people were walking about. With LePiep peering anxiously over his arm, he rounded the corner past Carmello's Den and continued to Fender Way. They'd look around for a while here and perhaps later go down to the rail station, just to check.

  Soon, though, the aroma of cooking lured him into a tiny cafe on Fender Way. They took a booth and had fried mock-cheese and moke, with LePiep eating her share out of a saucer on the bench seat. The proprietor looked unenthusiastic about their loitering around afterward, so Panglor paid and out they went. The Naiopean quarter showed more life as the night progressed: lights shining through club blinders and ghost-inhabited bodies walking the streets, entering and leaving clubs, circling by and vanishing in the gloom. When they reached Stet's, Panglor stopped. He pulled on his ear and gritted his teeth. Well, they could walk around freezing or they could go in here and get wired to the eyeballs. Either way, they'd feel rotten tomorrow; but at least one way, he'd enjoy the rest of tonight.

  LePiep poked her head up, nuzzling him. She loved going with him to get wired—the empathy waves must be terrific—but she didn't understand the problem. They couldn't afford to spend the money. Except . . . blissful forgetfulness waited in there, available for a price, and not that high a price. Oh, hell. He should be doing something positive, taking action. But . . . LePiep looked up, purring. Perhaps she sensed his dilemma; after all, whatever made him happy also made her happy. But she obviously wanted to go in. He was torn between dread and desire, and a wish to give happiness to this ou-ralot, who shared without complaint so much of his sorrow. He sighed, closed his eyes, and opened them again, shivering. "Okay, Peep—all right." He walked into Stet's.

  Inside he walked around to the drinking bar, where a half-silvered glass cut off the view from the rest of the club. He went past the glass, hitching LePiep up to his shoulder, and faced a barhost. Customers moved past him, some carrying drinks that shimmered with peculiar light refractions. "I want—" Panglor said, thinking first to order a drink but changing his mind, "just a booth."

  "For the night?" asked the barhost, not looking up.

  Panglor nodded, squinting. "Yeh," he said, when the man looked up questioningly.

  "That's thirteen two."

  Panglor fished out the money. He patted LePiep and followed the man past several curtained alcoves to an empty one. "Need help?" the host asked. Panglor shook his head and closed the curtain behind him.

  He settled LePiep in his lap and picked up the headset pieces. He fitted the two halves together so that they encircled his head around the temples, and then he touched the test control. A wave of pleasure shimmered through him. "Hooeep!" whistled LePiep, pressing her head to his solar plexus.

  With a smile, Panglor switched on the set for full cycle.

  Ripples of electricity quivered at the edge of his mind, tingled at his extremities, and slowly flushed inward and danced up his spine. His eyelids fell closed, but light—soft colors—flickered inside his skull. There was an itching arousal, stimulating him up and down his spine . . . and the cycles from the wire grew faster, hotter . . . sound and touch washed through him, carrying him toward the bliss of pure fantasy . . . and awareness slipped away, leaving orchestrated pleasure.

  * * *

  When the last tingles faded, he blinked, trying to focus his eyes. The wire set was cold. Somewhere in his mind, echoes of joy diminished to some infinite, internal distance, ebbing . . . ebbing . . . gone.

  He tried to remember the wire's pleasures, the sexual stimulation, the hunger satisfaction, the bizarre psychedelic spectrum; but he could no more recapture it now than he could a forgotten dream. Nothing at all of the wire remained.

  LePiep stirred, humming, then abruptly shook her head. She was confused; Panglor felt her lingering pleasure subside, displaced by reawakened awareness. She was picking up on his cold afterfeelings. There was no physical hangover, and that was too bad in a way, because he would have liked a blurred, aching head to numb his shame in coming here and squandering time and money. She looked at him, and her eyes turned to pools, as though she thought she had done him wrong. "Ah, Peep, no," he growled. Letting her down, he felt a leaden unhappiness, though, and he struck the counter-top futilely with his fist. The feeling did not go away. He snugged his jacket around him, scooped up LePiep and his duffel again, pushed back the curtain, and hurried out into the street.

  The air was damp and chilling and misty again. The street was deserted. He set off down Fender Way, the buildings looming over him, dark and enormous. A pale, predawn light showed among the structures and mountains in the east, and the full shapes were gradually beginning to emerge from the darkness. Eventually they left the Naiopean quarter and followed the road downward, looping southeast toward the lower section of Nolaran.

  The dawn threw its first rays over the mountains as he crossed a long overpass, from beneath which a transcon rail tunnel emerged. The railyards were a steamy playground, striated by train segments on gleaming inductance rails, single cars moving about like self-willed canisters, shrugging over transfers and switchbacks. Beneath the overpass, the morning passenger train emerged into the yards, one pale light after another in a string, followed by scattered lights on the freight add-on segments. Panglor watched it curve through the yards and disappear into the dim far mountainside, into the northwest tunnel. A longing flickered through his heart, and LePiep stirred with it, too—a longing to leave this city, to sever the past, to ride the rail beneath the mountains.

  He turned back the way he had come, looking for the entrance to the rail terminal drop-shaft. The motion brought him face to face with two men—drugged-looking characters, who apparently had been ambling quietly behind him. Panglor started. How had he let two ghosts creep up on him like that?

  The taller ghost sidled forward with a conspiratorial air. "Interested in a few grams of trilium sprite, friend?" he asked, not quite meeting Panglor's eyes. "Sixteen quints." He held up a clear vial. In the
vial, three tiny tablets tumbled and twinkled in the dawn light. The man grinned slyly.

  Panglor stared at the man balefully—but a rush went through his stomach at the sight of the trilium sprite. That was blissful release there, in some ways better than the wire, because when its effects evaporated it didn't leave a black hole of a memory the way the wire did. Strictly contraband, but here it was, at a price he could nearly afford—if he didn't want to eat or sleep under a roof again. God, the release that stuff would give!

  This ghost, with long, dusty hair tucked down into his coat collar, watched him with half-lidded eyes; his companion seemed completely glazed. What dope they were on, Panglor didn't try to guess. Could he trust these two, even if he wanted the sprite? He closed his eyes for half a moment, then blinked them open anxiously. The smaller man, he thought, was noticing LePiep. "Hrrrl," the ou-ralot muttered, sensing the unpleasant stare.

  Panglor drew her close to his breast. "Beat it!" he snapped at the two. They blinked in surprise. Wheeling away, Panglor walked along the bridge railing, fast, trying not to think about the sprite he might have had, trying very hard not to think about it. Where the hell was he walking, anyway?

  He crossed the bridge and found a footpath that descended into the ravine in a long zigzag. Following it to the bottom, he found himself on a public way that skirted the railyards. He looked back up, but saw no sign of the dealers. The sun was up, judging by the light in the sky, but down here in the ravine the ground fog made it hard to be sure. So what to do now?

  Shrugging, he walked along the wall edging the railyard until the wall ended and a fence began. Here he could see into the yards, as far as the fog permitted.

  A section of the fence was open, ripped by vandals. He swung his duffel into the opening, then ducked through himself and looked around uneasily. A line of freight cars sat on the nearest track, with steam swirling about their underbodies and lift-carriages. Panglor felt a crazy urge to walk through the railyard—or perhaps it was not such a crazy urge. If he could find an unsealed ventilated freight car being dispatched somewhere worth going, he might manage to snag a ride. But the train on the first track was no good; it was all ore and chemical cars.

  He walked along the length of the train, looking for an end. He found a break and stepped cautiously across the track between two cars, taking care not to touch the possibly electrified rails. Once safely on the other side, he looked left and saw several inspectors working some distance down the line, their inspection units glowing eerily in the mist, like lanterns. He walked the other way, conscious of his boots crunching in the gravel, and as soon as he found a break in the next train over, he crossed again.

  There was no point in wandering aimlessly. What he needed was to determine where these various trains were bound and when they were departing. Perhaps the cars were marked somehow. He scanned the train on the left. Soon he found an identification plate on one of the cars and stepped closer to read: Vikken Rail Conglomerate, Division of Vikken Traders, Ltd. "Damn!" he whispered; he hadn't known Vikken was in the rail business. He inspected several more cars and found the same identification. Could they own the whole yard? "Jeezus." He smacked his thigh with his fist. The last outfit in the world he wanted to get entangled with now was Vikken.

  Well, no help for it. But maybe he could get a free ride from the bastards.

  He could find no routing information on the tags; it was all electronic. Well, he knew from watching every day that westbounders generally left in the early morning, after being made up somewhere on this side of the yard. If he could find the right one . . .

  But how?

  Discouraged, he set his duffel down for a moment and shifted LePiep to the other arm. When he stooped to pick up the duffel again, he felt a sudden wave of dizziness. Things were moving around him. But it wasn't his equilibrium; it was the train, moving by electric induction, silent as a breath. He hadn't even noticed it lift off the rails—the undercarriages now floated a couple of centimeters above the guides—but already it was accelerating, the cars and couplings creaking in a soft choir as they moved by. He watched in startled awe.

  When the last car disappeared into what was left of the morning fog, he turned to go. And saw two men standing on the opposite side of the track, watching him. "Urrrrl," muttered LePiep. He squeezed her gently, but his own fear began to rise, choking him.

  "What are you doin', mate?" asked one of the men. They started to cross the track, and they didn't look friendly.

  Panglor squinted. He couldn't tell if they were the inspectors he had seen earlier, or guards. Either way, he was in trouble; the question was whether or not they carried weapons. He didn't see any. Clearing his throat, he shrugged and said, "Just moving on my way." He turned and started walking, feeling their eyes on his back. They would follow, of course. But what would they do?

  "Mate!" the man barked. "I said, what are you doing?"

  Panglor glanced back but kept walking. They were following. He was afraid that anything he could say would hurt him—so he ignored them.

  "Stop right there, brother," the second man warned. That one had something in his hand, Panglor suddenly realized. The next thing he felt was a tingling numbness expanding from the small of his back down into his legs and straight up his spine. The last thing he was aware of was cradling LePiep and twisting his body to cushion her as he hit the ground.

  Chapter 4

  Somebody kept moving in front of the lights, making them erratic. Dizzying. He was dizzy enough already, and that variation in the light made him dizzier still . . . and nauseous. He rolled suddenly to the edge of the slab he was lying on and was violently, convulsively ill. It was over in a moment—except for the dry heaving, and that lasted an eternity. "For chrissake," someone complained. "Get a bucket. Cheezus, what a smell!" Finally he managed to control his heaving, and he just panted, hanging his head over the floor. The smell brought him to the brink of retching again, and he flopped back, groaning.

  "Goddamn," someone else said, poking at the floor with something. There was a humming and sucking noise.

  All Panglor could see was a crimson blur, and there was a buzzing of blood between his eyeballs. Gradually, though, he focused on the fact that at least two, and maybe more, persons stood in a room with him. He sensed that they were not friendly; but he felt a wave of caring, empathy. LePiep. He squinted, trying to look around, and suddenly he saw her. She whimpered with joy and fear; she was on a table an arm's length away, caged, her eyes flashing wildly. "Hey, there," Panglor croaked in a whisper. He tried to get up on one elbow, to reach her, but couldn't find the strength.

  A hand cut off his reach. "None of that," a man growled. Panglor, with an effort, focused his eyes upward and saw a rough-faced man glaring down at him. What was going on here? Suddenly he remembered: the railyards—he had been stunned with a nervie. "You awake enough to listen?" Panglor stared up at him dumbly. "Cripes," the man muttered, turning away. "You better wake up fast, pal. You're in some big trouble." He returned a moment later with a glass of water.

  The glass felt greasy in Panglor's hand, and the water smelled rusty, but Panglor sipped at it greedily. His mouth felt loathsome. He looked back at LePiep and saw her staring at him imploringly. "Why do you have her in that cage?" he croaked harshly. "She didn't do anything."

  "Friend, we'll do the talking," the man said, taking away the glass before Panglor had finished. He bent and squinted at Panglor, then turned to another man in the corner of the room. "Okay, Mister Garikoff. I think he's awake."

  The man called Garikoff came forward. He was an older man; he was dressed expensively, but his face bore the scars and stains of the cheap cosmetics popular among laborers on Veti IV. Glinting pins held back his hair, and his eyes shone wide and intent. When he spoke, his voice filtered through a layer of gravel. "Pilot Balef, why don't you sit up, so we can talk man to man?"

  Panglor slid his legs down off the slab and forced his body upright. He still felt lightheaded; he breathed s
hallowly, trying not to upset his stomach again.

  "That's better," said Garikoff. He stood with his short legs wide apart in a fighter's stance. "Now, Balef, you were apprehended trespassing on the yards of the Vikken Rail Conglomerate."

  Panglor grunted.

  Garikoff watched him quizzically. "I presume you know that trespassing with intent to steal is a felony here—with criminal and civil penalties."

  Panglor remained silent. There was a chill spreading through his gut, but he had nothing to say to the likes of these people. Whatever they were, they were clearly not the law.

  "Severe penalties," Garikoff said. "Very severe penalties. And the fact that force was required to stop you—that's resistance."

  "Who are you?" Panglor growled.

  "I know a lot about you, Balef," said Garikoff. "I suppose it's only fair I should tell you who we are. We're not the law. That's good for you, because the law could be a lot tougher on you than we're going to be." He held Panglor's gaze intently. "I'm Lousa Garikoff. This here's Lid, and that's all you need to know about him, I guess." He was pointing at the man who had spoken first. Now he hooked a thumb at a third man, sitting in the corner. "That's Billijo. Maybe later my partner Grakoff will be in, and then we can have a real party." He laughed contemptuously.

  "Okay, Balef. We've got you. Lid here works for the Crompton Security Systems, and they work for the Vikken Railyards, and he can put you under arrest right now. But—he also works for me." Garikoff smiled. "Now me, I don't work for any of them. I work for myself. But I might be able to help you out of this jam you're in. How would you like to fly a ship for me?"