"Why?" Panglor was having trouble seeing, because of the goddamn tears, and because of LePiep climbing his chest again, pushing her trembling nose against his cheekbone. But he could see well enough to see every instrument on the console fluctuating wildly. "Ah, hell," he cried, and reached out to cut the drivers.
The Cur fell, uncontrolled.
Butchered your last mission, he thought, holding LePiep to his breast. And then the waves of terror and despair that LePiep couldn't hold in any longer washed over him and obliterated all other thought.
Chapter 7
"Pangly, what's going on here?" was the first thing he heard. He brought his eyes back into focus and saw Alo standing, hands on hips, staring at the viewscreen.
"Don't call me that," he muttered. He held his head in his hands for a moment, then got up, with some difficulty. Gravity was about one gee, perhaps a little more. It occurred to him that he ought to be dead; but he was not—LePiep's confused chirping assured him of that—and he ought to go see what Alo was looking at.
If he'd thought he was coming unhinged before, now he was sure of it. The Fighting Cur had landed safely on the surface of the planet—which was impossible. Ridiculous. He could not remember any sensation whatever when they had landed. Now, how could that be?
The view in the screen was of an apparently lifeless plain outside the ship, under a night sky filled with stars. They had been on the dayside when they had entered the atmosphere. The plain was illuminated by the starlight and by wispy auroras above the horizon. He massaged his eyebrows; he did not want to admit that he was bewildered, but LePiep was chittering in confusion, betraying him. Self-consciously, he switched the screen to a full sweep around the ship's perimeter.
"Huh?" said Alo.
The view on the other side was quite different. The ship sat at the edge of a rugged expanse of bluffs and ridges, carved and sculpted rock laid out like a maze as far as the eye could see. The terrain gleamed as though in bright moonlight, but there was no moon in the sky. The light appeared to be coming from the stars, from the auroras toward the north—as indicated by the nav—and from a faint golden airglow low in the west, over the ridges. The twisted landscape, glowing in the curved front wall of the control bay, looked like some incredibly surrealistic work of art. Nothing moved.
"Do you see anything moving?" Panglor said.
Not answering, Alo squinted and moved one way and then the other, studying the entire panorama. With her attention focused on the screen, she stumbled and lurched into Panglor. "Uff!" he grunted, startled. He caught her by the shoulders and lifted her—then, embarrassed, pushed her out to arm's length. "All right?" he said, dropping his hands to his sides. His fingers tingled strangely.
She gave him a puzzled glance. "Yah," she said, and looked back at the screen. Panglor lifted LePiep from the console. The ou-ralot was crooning in response to his embarrassment; he shushed her nervously, which seemed only to confuse her. "There!" Alo said, pointing at the viewscreen.
Something very small—a faintly silvery object of some sort, perhaps a bird—was moving in the air at a distance of perhaps fifty meters from the ship. It drifted out from between two outcroppings of rock. Another spot emerged, trailing the first. They converged, approaching the ship; then a third appeared from a cleft in a ridge, and the first two sailed into shadow and did not reappear. The ghostly illumination in the sky seemed to be failing; but glimmerings of light now shone from among the rocks themselves—a series of scintillations in the eye, like the light of jewelry.
"Huh," said Alo. LePiep purred appreciatively.
Panglor checked readings. If the instruments could be trusted, the atmosphere outside would sustain human life. In fact, conditions were not only adequate, they were like a summer evening in Eden. That made no sense; but what did? He scratched the stubble on his cheek. "We'll have to sample with the suit airborne biodetectors."
Alo lit up. "We're going out?"
"Don't be so eager," he said sourly. "You've got the rest of your life to spend here. Of course, that may not be long. Come on—let's eat, then we'll go out."
They prepared a meal in silence. When Panglor was halfway through his leafloaf and brew, Alo tossed her tray into the disposal and announced, "I'm going now."
"The hell you are!" he roared. But the girl was already out of the galley and halfway to the airlock. He smacked the counter with his fist, then sat back with a sigh. To hell with her. She wants to get killed? Let her.
He finished his meal and then went to the airlock. Alo spoke through the com. "It tests safe. I'm taking off the suit and going out."
"Leave the suit on!"
"There's only one suit," squawked the com. "I'm leaving it for you."
He flushed. "Listen, you," he growled. But he was helpless to do anything to stop her, and he knew it.
"My name's Alo," she answered. "Not 'you.' "
He cursed and looked in through the airlock window. She had the suit off and was only half dressed, picking up her clothes. She was slender and pale, with small hips and breasts, but more mature in body than he had thought. He jerked his gaze away—to the com—and strained to think of a reply. He had trouble taking a breath. "I know your name," he said finally.
"Good. See you outside." Before he could think of anything else to say, the outer hatch light signaled open.
For a moment, he stood dumbfounded. He realized that he was committed. The airlock was flooded with outside air, and there was no way to decontaminate it; and he couldn't very well leave her out there alone. Like it or not, they were in this together. "Peep!" he called. With a scrambling sound, the ou-ralot popped out of the galley. She trotted down the passageway and grinned up at him. Suddenly Panglor changed his mind. "No, you stay here," he murmured. "There might be something out there that would hurt you even if it doesn't hurt us." Disappointment touched him, but slowly subsided, leaving loyalty and acceptance. "Right," he said.
Turning, he cycled the lock closed and gave it a flush with ship's air. Then he entered the lock, sealed the inner door, and checked the readings on the suit monitors. They registered clear, for what it was worth; Alo had done the test correctly. Hanging the suit in its locker, he took a breath and opened the outer hatch. He let out his breath and inhaled again. The air was perfect. So far.
He stepped outside onto the top of the cargo hull. The ship sat upright on the plain. The landscape below was spooky but beautiful in the night: rock features against a pale airglow. He looked for Alo but couldn't see her. "Where are you?" he called.
"Right here."
He saw only a dark, empty plain. "Where?"
"Here."
He scowled and peered over the edge of the cargo hull. "Right here," he heard, in an exasperated tone. "On the ground. Looking right at you." Her voice seemed to be coming from directly below. He swung himself around and climbed down, using the service rungs on the side of the cargo hull. When he dropped to the ground beside the ring-shaped main drive unit, he looked around. Then he circled a third of the way around the ship, and found her standing, hands on hips, watching him. Her expression was quite sober. "You okay?" she asked.
"What are you trying to pull?" he growled. "Why didn't you move to where I could see you?"
She looked puzzled. "I could see you perfectly," she said, pointing above him at the ship. He turned. The hatch was in full view, high in the air at the base of the cabin hull. That was impossible. He had circled a third of the way around the ship. He scowled.
"Let's look around," Alo said, nudging him.
"All right." They turned and moved away from the ship, over a rise. The ground was uneven underfoot, and the air was breezy, with a scent of clay. Many of the rocks along the way shone with a peculiar light, as though impregnated with a fine powdering of luminous material. They walked past a shoulder-high ridge, rounded its end, and stopped.
Before them lay a flat, glistening mist. It was a marvelous pool, filled not with water but with vapor, which convected slowly and
glistened white under the stars, between sparkling banks. Above the vapor, in the air, floated several . . . creatures.
Fish?
Panglor stared in amazement at half a dozen large, rather sluggish fish, silvery and blue and green—all of them floating in the air. Several of the fish turned and stared at him with dark, unblinking eyes. They swam languorously, moving freely above the vapor-pond; but they seemed bounded by its banks, as completely as if submerged in liquid water.
Panglor blinked hard.
Several glittering objects appeared at the far side of the pond, drifting toward the airfish and toward Alo and Panglor. They seemed to float directionlessly among the fish.
"What's that?" Alo murmured, cocking her head. Panglor turned questioningly; then he heard it, too. Musical tones rang faintly across the pond—chimes or small crystalline bells, ringing irregularly, like harbor buoys. He moved his head, trying to localize the sound. "They're singing," Alo said. She pointed at the new objects; and, in fact, the sounds grew louder and clearer as the objects approached. Their features became visible in the gloom. They were floating crystalline arrays, with tops that looked like flowers or fans, and with gnarled stems pointing downward toward the vapor-pool. Two of them drifted close to the bank. One had a top that resembled rose quartz, a bladed horizontal dish that vibrated up and down, producing a beautiful alto tone. The other bore a silvery blue, vertical sail, which sang in a quavering soprano. One of the fish turned, drawn perhaps by the music, and glided slowly past the two aerial crystals.
Alo reached out to the rose-quartz crystal, which was now little more than an arm's length away. The crystal's singing grew louder and strained as her fingers closed toward it; it trembled with off-key harmonics. "Listen," she said, awed.
"Careful," Panglor warned. Alo gave no sign of hearing; she stretched farther, leaning out over the mist. The crystal wailed. "Wait!" Panglor cried. Alo's fingertips touched the crystal, and the dish shrieked. Bang! It exploded. Fragments of pink glass rained onto the bank and into the vapor-pool. The unadorned, gnarled stem of the crystal slowly tipped and wobbled, touched the mist, and sank from sight.
Panglor growled in disapproval, until a stinging sensation in his right hand distracted him. He was bleeding, cut by a shard of crystal. He sucked on the cut. The other crystals continued to sing, in a disquieting minor key. "Why did you do that?" he complained. Alo ignored him and surveyed the wreckage, hands on her hips. She looked dazed. Two airfish hovered nearby, one of them fat and lumpy, and the other narrow as a barracuda, with forward-hooking fins on its sides. Their eyes moved somberly, as though they were assessing these destructive intruders.
Alo made an unhappy sound and said, "Why did it do that? Why did it die when I looked at it?" She stared vacantly. "I just looked at it."
"You tried to grab it," Panglor corrected her.
"I just looked at it. Look—each one is different. That one's gone now. There will probably never be another like it."
Indeed, each crystal appeared distinctive. The one with the blue sail had drifted away, and the others were clustering at the far side of the pond. There was a channel of some sort leading away, a channel carpeted by mist. Several of the fish swam that way until they were out of sight.
The landscape was growing darker. The airglow in the sky was waning and so, too, was the light from the rocks. "Let's go back to the ship," Panglor said. He had seen too much to think about already.
Alo nodded, and together they returned the way they had come. Panglor thought the path looked different on the return, with that ridge on the left now a little higher, and a huge boulder where he thought there had been a low spot. He cocked his head, then shrugged.
The ship, at least, was unchanged. Panglor was greeted by waves of joy from inside. The ou-ralot met him, bounding, as he opened the inner door. "Hey, Peep!" he cried, with enormous relief.
"Hoolyoop! Hweeloruu!" echoed LePiep, leaping into his arms.
"Right!" he cried, hugging her. "I'm hungry." He turned to Alo. "Let's see what there is to eat around here."
They were both famished, though it seemed they could hardly have been outside for more than an hour. Panglor roasted a pan of fish-fingers and seed muffins, and they attacked the meal ferociously, sitting cross-legged on the galley deck. Afterward, Panglor brewed a pot of moke.
"That was good," Alo remarked. Then she became somber. "You know, I really wish that crystal hadn't broken."
"So why'd you grab it, then?"
"I told you. I didn't do anything!"
"I watched you. This isn't doing anything?" He mimicked reaching out. He noticed with a start that the cut was gone from the back of his hand.
"That's ridiculous," Alo retorted. "I did nothing of the kind. I might have lifted my hand up, but I didn't reach." She raised her hand, but kept it close to her breast.
Panglor snorted. "I quite clearly saw your hand go out."
Alo shrugged, shook her head.
"Well," he said. "Well . . . " He brought two mugs of brew and sat down on the deck again.
Alo yawned, then smacked her lips and blew on her moke. "This is a strange place, huh?"
He looked away for a moment, toying with his earlobe. For some reason, he had just remembered how she had looked in the airlock, with most of her clothes off. LePiep raised her head, purring.
"Where do you think that other ship is, Pangly?" she asked, edging forward, with her arms clasped around her knees.
He blinked uncomfortably and backed up an inch or two. His gaze went to his ankles, crossed in front of him. The deck suddenly felt extremely hard. "Don't know," he said.
"I think they're up there in orbit. They probably have us spotted by now."
He tensed; LePiep sent a silent wave of concern. Easy now. Don't pay attention to her. Relax. He tried to relax, concentrating on each muscle, staring in his toes and working up. But each time he relaxed one muscle and moved on to the next, the previous one tensed again. "I think," he said, "It's time we got some sleep."
"Of course, they might not be able to see us."
"We both need sleep," he said.
"They might see an iceberg here."
"What are you talking about?"
"Or a dinosaur."
He stared at her in irritation. "I think," he said, "we had better get some sleep."
Alo stared right back at him. "Okay." She nudged his toe before rising. "You can pretend to be mad all you want. But you don't fool me." Then she hopped to her feet and went off into the cabin, across the passageway. A moment later she called back, "Are you coming in here with me?"
He stiffened, and saw LePiep arch her back. Getting slowly to his feet, he said, raising his voice, "I'll be in the control bay." The only trouble, he realized a moment later, was that the cabin was where the only head on the ship was located. He weaved with indecision for a minute, then went to the cabin door. "Hey," he said, knocking.
"Hey, who?" came Alo's voice.
"Who do you think? I have to come in a minute." He made a fist and opened it.
"So come in."
Cautiously, he opened the door and stepped inside. He flushed hot, but controlled his emotions carefully. Alo was undressed again, except for skimpy panties. She was half turned away from him, but she was bent over the sleep bay, with her rear sticking out and those breasts, not looking quite so small, hanging down from her chest. He cleared his throat, not quite knowing what to say. She didn't respond; she was preparing the sleep bay. "Listen," he said finally.
She stood up and faced him unselfconsciously. "What?" she said.
God—this girl was how old? This nonsense couldn't go on. "Listen—put something on, will you?" he kept his gaze averted.
"What's the matter?" she taunted. "Afraid of a little girl—a 'juvenile delinquent,' didn't you call me?" Her eyes sparkled.
He jerked his gaze to stare her full in the face. She grinned; he trembled. He refused to lower his eyes. "Put . . . something . . . on," he growled, and then he ang
led past her and went into the head, and shut the sliding panel behind him. Jesus Christ, he muttered silently, quaking, refusing to look into the mirror until he had controlled himself . . . and refusing to ask himself, Do I really like that kid?
When he was finished in the can and couldn't put it off any longer, he drew a breath and came out. Alo was sitting in the sleep bay, wearing a shirt, watching him reproachfully. "All right?" she said coldly, as he edged by to pull clean clothes out of a compartment on the other side of the cabin.
He faced her from the door. "How old—?" he started; then he cut himself off and said abruptly, "Good night." He shut the cabin door, went into the galley and got a beer, and took it to the control room. There he calmed himself, muttering, sipping his beer, and stroking LePiep. "Not twelve, that's for sure," he mumbled. "Or fourteen, either."
"Hrruuu," LePiep said, radiating appreciative and soothing feelings, coming down slowly from a state of excitement. Panglor nodded and stroked her, glad for the reassuring company. But his heart still beat quickly, and for the next hour he brooded in silence.
* * *
What woke him was Alo banging things about in the galley. He turned halfway over in the pilot-couch, aching in every joint, and rubbed his eyes, wondering where LePiep was. Not in the control bay. So where? He grumbled and blinked, orienting himself. Turning on the viewscreen, he inspected a rocky vista, with one gas-pond visible and a few moving spots that were probably airfish. It was nighttime still, or again. Rats only knew how long a night was on this planet.
He heard a purring from the passageway. A moment later, LePiep sailed into the control bay, airborne, flapping her wings furiously. She landed with a thump on the control panel in front of him, and gazed at him with pulsing eyes. "Peep. Where have you been, girl?" She hunched her wings and folded them into place. He was touched by subdued confusion, and by echoes of warmth.
Alo shuffled in and halted just inside the compartment. She was dressed in a long pink shirt and gray bunch-cuffed pants. Her manner was shy—almost contrite. "LePiep was watching me fix breakfast," she said, her voice trembling slightly. "We talked. We got to be better friends."
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