Tales of Pirx the Pilot

by Stanisław Lem

  The shining object was only 4 kilometers away!

  This was equivalent to driving a racing car at top speed and suddenly discovering that 5 millimeters away from you is another car—in space, a proximity of 4 kilometers is just as lethal.

  Pirx was running out of ammunition. He directed the outer thermocouple in the direction of the light, with the remote-control lever aimed the target finder straight at the milky-white dot, and read off the temperature out of the corner of his eye: 24 degrees Kelvin.

  That meant the light had the same temperature as ambient space—25 degrees above absolute zero.

  That cinched it. A luminous, self-propelled light in space? Never! But just because it was there, dead ahead of him, he gave chase.

  The light was growing visibly—and rapidly—fainter. A minute later he verified that it had gained a full 100 kilometers on him. He increased his velocity.

  Then the most uncanny thing of all happened.

  First the light deliberately let him gain ground—letting him get within 80, 70, then 30 kilometers—before jumping out in front again. Pirx accelerated to 75 kilometers per second; the light, to 76. Pirx applied more thrust, but this time he didn’t pussyfoot around. He opened the jets to half-power, unleashing a powerful forward thrust; the triple gravity shoved him back into the seat’s padded cushion. His AMU had a small rest mass, its rate of acceleration being roughly equivalent to that of a racing car. Before long he was hitting 140.

  The little light hit 140.5.

  Pirx was beginning to feel hot and clammy. He applied maximum thrust. His AMU-11 hummed; his tachometer, whose readings were based on fixed stars, climbed steadily higher: 155 … 168 … 190 … 200.

  At 200 he took a peek through the range finder, which, considering the 4g, was a feat worthy of a decathlon athlete.

  He was gaining on the light, which swelled in size as the gap between them closed to 20, then 10, and finally 3 kilometers, at which distance it looked larger than a pea when seen from an arm’s length away. The dark, blurry shapes continued to shunt across its surface, whose brightness was comparable to stars of the second magnitude—except that it resembled more a disk than a starlike dot.

  His AMU-111 was giving everything it had, swelling Pirx with pride. During that sudden burst to maximum thrust, not a thing in the cabin had shaken—not a single vibration! The reaction was in the axis of acceleration; the jets were performing to perfection; the reactor was working like a champ.

  The light kept closing in, though at a slower rate of speed. When it was no more than 2 kilometers off board, Pirx’s wheels began to turn.

  The whole thing looked fishy as hell. A light, not attached to any terrestrial ship. Hm… Space pirates, maybe? What a laugh. Even if there were such things as space pirates, what would they be doing in such a godforsaken hole? The light had an extraordinary speed range; it could accelerate as sharply as it braked. And moody, too; first retreating, then letting itself be gradually overtaken. And that, more than anything, made him antsy. It was almost as if the thing were baiting him, stringing him along like a decoy, like a worm dangling on the end of a hook.

  And immediately he conjured up the image of a hook.

  “Not so fast, fella!” Pirx said to himself, and he braked as abruptly as if he were on a collision course with an asteroid, though the radar was blank and the video screens likewise empty. Instinctively he bent his neck, tucked in his chin, and felt the automatic compressor fill his suit with an extra supply to compensate for the sudden acceleration, which didn’t stop him from having a momentary blackout.

  The gravimeter plunged to -7, hovered there for a second, then climbed back up to -4. His AMU-111 had lost nearly a third of its velocity, dropping down to 145 kilometers per second.

  Where was the light? For a moment he was afraid he’d lost track of it. No, it was there—just farther away, that’s all. The optical tracking device gave the distance as 240 kilometers. During those brief two seconds it could have increased its lead by a great deal more than that. That it hadn’t meant that it must have braked within seconds of when he did!

  Then—later he was amazed that it could have taken him so long—he realized he was on the trail of that mysterious something encountered by Thomas and Wilmer while on patrol.

  Until now he had not been conscious of any danger. Suddenly he was afraid—a momentary case of the jitters. It was highly unlikely, of course, but supposing the light did belong to an extraterrestrial ship…?

  The light was moving closer … killing speed … closing the gap … 60 … 50 … 30… He decided to nudge a little closer, feathering the thrust … and watched in amazement as the thing ballooned—now only 2 kilometers off his bow!

  On the other side of the couch was a pocket containing a pair of 24-power night glasses—used mainly in emergencies, in case of a radar malfunction, for example, or when approaching a satellite from the night side. But at the moment they were just what the doctor ordered. Their magnifying power was strong enough to bring the light to within the 100-meter range, and what he saw was a small disk, the color of diluted milk, similar in size to the Moon when viewed from Earth, its otherwise smooth surface marred by a continual procession of vertical smudges. When it eclipsed the stars, they faded only gradually, as if the disk’s outer rim was somehow thinner and more transparent than at the center.

  But around the disk there was nothing, no luminosity to block out the starlight. Now, when examined through binoculars from a distance of 100 meters, a spaceship looks pretty much the size of a desk drawer. But there was nothing like that in sight, not a sign of any vehicle. And the little disk was definitely not somebody’s navigation light or exhaust flare.

  It was just what it appeared to be: a solitary, self-propelled, little white light.

  It was enough to drive a man batty!

  He felt a tremendous urge to fire a shot at the thing, but without any weapons aboard—the regulations made no provision for them—that would have been no easy task. There were only two things Pirx could fire from the cabin: himself and a balloon probe. The patrolships were designed such that a pilot could eject himself in his encapsulated seat, together with a braking chute. This was done only as a last resort, and obviously there was no going back once a pilot had bailed out. That left the balloon probe—a remarkably simple device, consisting of a thin-walled rubber balloon that when deflated rolled up tightly enough to be a spear. To enhance its visibility, it was treated with an aluminum coating. Sometimes a pilot has a hard time telling by his aerodynamometer readings whether or not he has entered a planet’s atmosphere. Most importantly, he will want to know if any rarefied gas is lying in his path. When in doubt, he will fire the balloon, which inflates automatically and travels at a speed somewhat greater than the ship’s velocity. Because of its brightness, it is visible to the naked eye from as far away as 5 to 6 kilometers. If it encounters rarefied gas, the friction will cause it to heat up and explode. That’s when the pilot knows it’s time to start braking.

  Pirx did his level best to aim the ship’s nose directly at the milky-white disk. Without the radar to guide him, he had to rely on the telescopic range finder. But trying to hit a target that size from a distance of almost 2 kilometers is no mean feat. Whenever he went to fire the balloon, the little disk would slip out of the line of fire. And no sooner would he bring his nose around, gently feathering his yaw jets, than the disk would do a nifty little sidestep and pop up again in the center of the screen. It repeated this maneuver four times in a row, each time with greater speed and facility, as if it were already starting to second-guess him. And judging by the way it flew slightly off course, at an angle, it was clear the disk had no intention of letting the AMU-111 fire point-blank at it.

  This was fantastic. To react to such minute changes in his ship’s attitude, at a distance of 200 meters, the disk would have had to be using a telescope of gigantic proportions—of which nary a trace. But not only was it capable of carrying out a tricky evasive maneuver,
it did so with only a split-second delay at the most.

  His anxiety grew. He had done everything in his power to identify this uncanny flying object—and was not the least bit wiser than at the beginning. Then, while he was sitting there, immobilized, his hands gradually turning numb on the controls, it suddenly hit him that Thomas and Wilmer must have experienced the very same thing. They, too, must have sighted the light, tried to pick up the call numbers of what they took to be a UFO, given chase when they got no answer, kept track of it through the telescopic range finder, spotted the lacy little squiggles, maybe even fired a balloon probe, and then—then done something that made it unlikely that they would ever return.

  When he realized how close he was to sharing the same fate, he felt not fear but despair. The whole thing was like a bad dream, a nightmare in which he couldn’t tell which part he was playing: himself, Thomas, or Wilmer. Because what was happening now was just a repeat performance—that much was clear. He sat paralyzed, profoundly convinced that the game was up. And worst of all, he couldn’t even say what the danger was, or from which direction it would come, with all this empty space around…

  Empty?

  Yes, the sector was empty, but then he had been chasing the little light for well over an hour, up to speeds of 230 kilometers per second. By now it was possible, if not altogether certain, that he was approaching the sector’s outer perimeter, or had already crossed it. And beyond that? Sector 1009, another 1.5 trillion kilometers of space. So there he was, surrounded by a void, by millions and millions of kilometers of nothing—and what should he have 2 kilometers off his bow but a pirouetting light!

  He exerted all his powers of concentration. What would they have done—Thomas and Wilmer—right now, at this very second? Because whatever they had done, he would have to do something altogether different. Otherwise he wouldn’t come back alive.

  Again he braked, again the needle shook, again his speed dropped—from 30, down to 22, to 13, to 5 kilometers per second—until the needle fluttered gently above zero. Technically speaking, he was already stopped; in space, speed is constant, always relative to something else; there’s no such thing as absolute zero, as on Earth.

  The light began to shrink, retreating farther and farther … becoming dimmer and dimmer; then it reversed the process, gradually gaining in size and color, until it came to a stop again, 2 kilometers off his bow.

  What would Thomas and Wilmer not have done? he wondered. What was the one thing they definitely would have avoided doing? Would they have made a run for it? Never! Not from a measly little speck, from such a dippy little dot!

  He had no desire to turn the ship around—too easy to lose track of the thing—nothing harder than to patrol when something is astern—no fun twisting your head around like a corkscrew to monitor the video screen… No, turning around was definitely out—better to keep it in full view at all times. So he started moving in reverse, using his braking rockets to accelerate—one of the many basic navigational skills a pilot was expected to have mastered. His gravimeter showed 1g … then -1.6 … -2… The ship was harder to handle in reverse; the nose kept listing to one side… Retro-rockets were meant for braking, not accelerating.

  The little light seemed to hesitate. It hung back for a while, gradually diminishing, momentarily eclipsed Alpha Eridani, then slid away, gamboled among a few nameless stars, and—took off after him!

  It wasn’t about to be given the brush-off.

  Relax, he thought. Why should I sweat such a shining little pissant? Screw it. My job is to patrol the sector, and to hell with it.

  He might have thought this way, but not for a moment did he take his eyes off the light. Nearly two hours had gone by since he first sighted it. His eyes were beginning to sting and get a little watery. Wide-eyed and goggle-eyed, he kept the machine in reverse. Flying in reverse is slow going; the braking rockets were not designed for continuous thrust. He reached a top speed of 8 kilometers per second, and sweated it all the way.

  As time went on, he began feeling a funny sensation in his neck, as if someone were tweaking the skin under his chin, stretching it down toward his chest, and his mouth was starting to turn dry. But he refused to let it bother him, having more important things on his mind than a dry mouth and a tweaking sensation in the neck. A couple of times he had the eerie sensation of losing all sense of touch in his hands—but not his legs; he could feel the right one exerting pressure on the braking pedal.

  He tried moving his hands, but without taking his eyes off the light. It seemed to be gaining on him; it was now only 1.9 or 1.8 kilometers off his bow. Was it trying to catch up with him, or what?!

  He tried lifting his hand, but couldn’t. The other one was too numb to even attempt it! No sensation whatever; both hands as good as useless. He tried to catch a glimpse of them—his neck was stiff as a board.

  He was panic-stricken. Why had he neglected to do the one thing he was duty-bound to do? Why hadn’t he radioed the Base and reported the light at once?

  He was afraid of the embarrassment, just as surely as Thomas and Wilmer must have been. What a laugh they’d have had back in the radio shack! A light! A little white light that likes to chase and be chased! Come off it, Pirx! Knock off the dreaming and snap out of it!

  With a feeling of resigned indifference, he took another look at the video screen and said:

  “Patrolship AMU-111 reporting to Base…”

  Or at least that’s what he would have said if his voice hadn’t got stuck in his throat. But all that came out was a lot of incoherent mumbling. He strained every muscle and let out a howl. Then, for the very first time, his eyes shifted from the stellar screen to the mirror, where he saw, sitting in the pilot’s seat, in a round yellow helmet, the face of a freak.

  Huge, swollen, bulging eyes, full of ungodly terror; a gaping, froglike mouth with a blotchy, drooping tongue. Where his neck was he saw a bunch of stiffened cords, vibrating so hard they all but obliterated his lower jaw—and this monstrosity with the bloated, ashen face was yelling, yelling, yelling…

  He made to close his eyes … couldn’t. He tried to focus on the screen again … couldn’t. The freak shackled to the seat was twitching more and more violently, as if bent on snapping his straps. Powerless to do anything else, Pirx stared straight ahead at the monster. He himself was oblivious of the convulsions, of everything except a choking sensation in the chest: he couldn’t take in air.

  Somewhere in the vicinity he heard a hideous grinding of teeth. He was no longer himself, had no more identity, period; he knew nothing, had lost the use of his limbs and body, of everything except the leg on the braking pedal. His eyesight was dimming, getting blurrier by the second; soon it was teeming with lights—tiny, dazzling, multitudinous. He wiggled his leg; it started twitching. He raised it up; he let it back down. The mutant in the mirror was pale as ash, its mouth flecked with foam, its eyes bulging clear out of their sockets, its body convulsed.

  Then he did the only thing that still lay within his power. He cocked his leg, brought it up fast, and kneed himself in the face, full force. The blood ran down his chin; the pain in his mutilated lips blinded him; everything went black.

  “Ahhhh,” he gurgled. “Ahhhh…”

  The gurgling was his own voice.

  The pain abated, and the old numbness returned. Hey! What gives, anyway? Where the hell was he? He was nowhere; there was nothing anywhere…

  He went on battering, pulverizing his face with one knee, his body contorted in a madman’s convulsions. Then it stopped. The howling, that is. What he heard next was the sound of his own garbled, blood-choked, sickening cry.

  He had arms again, arms and hands. They were like wood, and ached with the slightest exertion, like torn ligaments, but he could move them. Blindly, with half-numb fingers, he groped for the straps and started undoing them, clutched the armrest with both hands, and stood up. His legs shook; his whole body felt beaten to a pulp. Grabbing hold of the line that stretched across the contr
ol room, he advanced toward the mirror and braced himself against its frame.

  The man in the mirror was Pirx.

  His face was no longer ashen, but bloodied; his nose was a swollen bruise. Blood was oozing from his mangled lips; his cheeks were livid, puffy; there were dark circles under his eyes and faint spasms under his chin—and all this was happening to him, Pirx. He wiped the blood from his chin, spit, coughed, took a few deep breaths—a hopeless physical wreck.

  He stepped back to check the screen. The machine was still cruising in reverse, unpowered. Through its own momentum. The white disk was still tailing him, 2 kilometers off his bow.

  Steadying himself on the cable, he made his way back to the contour couch—unthinking. His hands began to shake—the normal delayed reaction following a shock, no cause for alarm. Something not quite right in front of the seat…

  The top of the automatic transmitter cassette. Badly dented. He nudged the lid; it collapsed. Components badly damaged. How had that happened? He must have done it himself with his foot. When was that?

  He sank into the contour couch, fired his roll jets, went into a turn.

  The little disk hesitated, then began gliding toward the edge of the screen; but instead of disappearing, it bounced back out into the middle, like a tennis ball. For crying out loud!

  “You bastard!” His voice was full of vile loathing.

  Thanks to this latest gambit, he had almost gone into stationary orbit! Yet the fact remained: the light had not left the screen when he turned. That could mean only one thing: the light was artificial, generated by the screen itself. A screen, after all, is not a window. A manned spacecraft is equipped not with windows but with video scanners, with cameras mounted externally on the ship’s armored hull, together with a transformer for converting the electrical impulses into images on a cathode-ray tube. Was this just some screwy malfunction in the scanner? Had the same thing happened to Thomas’s and Wilmer’s? And what became of them, anyway?