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The headphones gave a short, loud burst of broken static, inducing him to reduce the volume in his headset. After a few more seconds of this intermittent interruptions of silence, a voice - not unlike a person who has a deep voice and is speaking through a pinched nose - was heard: " Shilkin conforstunil trashewn kahl enil frequishentall."

"Jolniku isht habloantish."
"Jolniku, justoush irtunkil contrequicklisk qested."
" Kolnurik. Jolniku ushet."

The man beside him spun around in a kind of circle, curled up in a ball (allowed only in zero G), and said to him in a deep, harsh voice, " Hey, Jolniku, what were they? What were the directions he gave?"

"40 northeast ward."
"We'll be goin' in pretty steep."
"Questions?"
"Nah. I feel like turning into bacon."
"Good."
"Hey, Jolniku."
"Yeah, Quillsh?"
"What's this one's name?"
"Kresh."

Quillsh keyed in the planet's name and waited for a reply from the computer.

"Hey, Jolniku! Do you really want us to get incinerated? It says here that the atmosphere is pretty thick."
"Look, if he said that is out first waypoint, then that is our first waypoint. This planet has to have spaceships, too, or they wouldn't give us guidance with the closest spaceport; I doubt that they will give us a waypoint that they couldn't handle."
"Well, I guess that this is why they made you captain: to make all these high folutin' decisions and back them up with completely nothing."
"Just shut up and fly. They also made me captain for another good reason: to keep quack heads like you from giving orders."
"Couldn't we just circle the planet and line up again so we could hit it?"
"That, Quillsh, would take entirely too long."
"Yessir."

Quillsh thought about this for a while as he looked out of the window. Jolniku was right. It would take entirely too long, and they were on just enough fuel to get them down and docked. They would run out of energy before they reached the entrance point again. He started to study the sky now, instead of staring through it. It was dappled with stars with a blue-green nebulae streaking through the sky, discoloring the stars behind it. Quillsh noticed that, amongst all this magnificent display, Kresh was coming back into view. He started to align the ship up to the point of entry and suddenly held himself back. He looked down out of reflex and habit at the starboard and port thrusters to see how much he could spare, and his heart started to sink.

"Jolniku," he said quietly, " I think that you were right about me being wrong when I spent so much fuel trying to get us turned us on our belly to see the Big Dipper. We are practically running on our ashes on the two side thrusters."
"How much is it worth?"
"Only one ignition. After that, we've got no navigation."

Jolniku was silent, and that, to Quillsh, was worse than the harshest words.

"Well, you got us here in this hole; get us out." And Jolniku seemed to dismiss it. Quillsh, however, was sweating profusely in cold terror. It was his responsibility. He tried to think, but he couldn't; he couldn't collect his thoughts well enough to. His hands started to tremble, ever so slightly. He felt his face turn red and his body had shivers course through him. He allowed himself to float, as if in a trance of sleep, and started to push absently off of the sides of the narrow, cylindrical ship. His conscience started to speak to him. He was so filled with remorse, and with the pressure put on him; and with four years in space with no pause, only for this one trip to this one planet, he started to break down. His hands were noticeably shaking now, and as he floated in the hallway by himself, he began to cry. It did not last long, however, for Jolniku looked down the hallway and saw Quillsh crying, and said, "Shut up. Crying baby. Can't you handle it? Go ahead. Handle it."

"But sir, I think that it would be better for you to."
"No, it wouldn't."
"But I know that I am too…"
"You are a - THE - designated pilot. Now. Pilot."
"Sir, plea…"
"Pilot you lazy idiot! Pilot!"

Still crying inside, Quillsh became hardened towards Jolniku and his oppressive attitude towards him, and he began to think of someway to revenge himself. He thought What can I do to avenge myself? He doesn't have any family on Venus, and neither do I. And neither does our MS1. I don't know what I care about the assistant, though. He had that stroke out of the blue, so he's practically dead. Hmmm… He thought in this hideous manner for five minutes, when Jolniku spoke into his reverie, " Well, don't we need to be entering the atmosphere soon?"

Suddenly, Quillsh thought of a tremendously inhuman scheme. He would take the ship in too steep and incinerate them all.
"Yes, yes," he said calmly. "Give me a little longer."

" A little longer for what?"
"A little longer for entering."

He took another two minutes acting like he was doing something. He happened to glance at his oxygen meter. Two and one half days left per person. That was a long time. That would be because of the assistant's stroke only yesterday. He soon dismissed the thought of revenge as a whim, only to find that he was drifting shallower instead of at the angle he should enter on. He quickly hit the port thruster, trying to compensate, but held down too long and used the fuel up. His right was lower than the readings showed. It had only enough to get them back to level.

That last maneuver had sent them careening sideways to the planet.

Quillsh became tense and banished all thought from his mind, and became intently focused. The time was as soon as he could get the right angle, if not past time, to fire the main thrusters and enter. Jolniku was trying to float under this panick so alien to him for the last four years. He fainted and floated into Quillsh who had his hand on the thruster lever. Quillsh, who was too still adapting to this sense of panick, was also tired and collapsed under Jolniku's impact with him; and his hand slipped and shoved the throttle forward.

He looked out the window as soon as he was up again, which took a few minutes, and saw the planet getting closer; very inescapably close. He called to Jolniku, who was awakened by the sudden shout, " Get to something you can hold onto! It'll be rough!"

He waited for impact to come. He waited for ten minutes before he let go of his hold. He floated over to the window as quickly as he could and peered out.

His heart was a lead weight in his chest; his lungs burned; his skin seemed to slither on it's own. He turned pale and collapsed in the floor. He told Jolniku, and Jolniku , distraught, at the moment he heard. Quillsh was alone to blame. He and Jolniku would die this way.

They were drifting out into space.

Quillsh's heart splashed in his stomach; his head began to swim; his eyes swelled from the horror. They had bounced off the planet's unusually thick atmosphere.

They had been floating off towards the system's sun for three minutes when the headset was filled again with the maladroit burst of static tearing through to his heart. He had failed.

"Krilkontoush! Krilkontoush! Jolniku, houknal habloantish!"
"Secriltoush Jolniku," Jolniku said with an effort. " Koul tontk jyk astoulk?"
"Noquis tontils," said the voice at the other end. " Kiltonk noquis tontils forash vuilx."
"Kolnurik. Jolniku ushet."

Quillsh pondered that last phrase the Kreshian had spoken. Not enough ships to save them. Deep down inside, however, he was not surprised.

"Thanks a lot, Quillsh," Jolniku said grogily. "Nice going."
"It would have probably happened anyway. I bet that they would have shot us as soon as we landed to make sure our kind was safe to have on their world; you know. As to not alter their economic balance. And they probably would have performed a anatomization to see what we did with this part of our body and what our diet was," Quillsh spoke jokingly to lighten the mood towards him and to make himself feel better, but it didn't help, either.
"I really would have rathered to take that chance of survival as opposed to this sure death."
"Well, so would I, but I didn't do it right. So shoot me."

At this, Jolniku lunged towards Quillsh and grabbed his neck, strangling him. "If I had a gun, I would. But since I don't, give me one good reason that I shouldn't strangle you now, since you are going to die anyway. Maybe you don't have any strong objections to this suicide, but I do, and I am most displeased. While I am still living, I don't want to hear a word or movement from you. If you do speak once, it will be your last. I would at least like to spend the rest of my days without somebody downplaying his responsibility for our death. Do you understand?"

Quillsh pried at Jolniku's iron grip around his throat and gasped for air every opportunity he got while staring into those icy red eyes, intently serious on killing him. Quillsh really couldn't think of any reasons why Jolniku couldn't kill him. He had failed, he should die. Not Jolniku. But they were both locked in this ship, so neither could escape their fate. Jolniku finally let go of Quillsh, leaving a bruise on his neck.

"Good," Jolniku calmly said. But as he turned to go, he decided that one more blow would do Quillsh good; so he spun around and landed a fist into Quillsh's stomach, knocking Quillsh backwards into the opposite wall and into the control board, pushing two switches on so suddenly it caused the two switches to snap at the base and drop to the floor. Quillsh started to get up gingerly, and saw the two switches and tried to identify them. It was for the landing module. Well, he didn't need those anymore.

Two days of silence went by when finally with communications every five minutes until they were out of range of Kresh and still out of range of Venus. Jolniku's voice was heard. He said, " Hey Quillsh, what are our oxygen readings?"

"Why are you asking now?" Quillsh asked with more than a hint of maliciousness.
"I don't know. Just answer," Jolniku said, matching Quillsh's tone.
Quillsh looked over at the meter. " About two hours worth." Just then an overhead light came to life. Quillsh would have stared at it in horror before this crisis, but he knew that it had to come about sometime or another, since he had bounced off the atmosphere. "Actually, we just ran out of our supply."

For an unknown reason, it lasted for a complete two hours, however; but it would surely be no longer than five minutes left. He was sweating, and was frightened beyond comprehension. A large red light flashed on and off. Quillsh stared at it absent mindedly for a full minute. He took a deep breath, still holding onto the thought of survival in the back of his mind. He held it for three minutes. Then he saw Jolniku flailing and choking, but he couldn't hear him. His body was inflated to twice it's normal size and was growing. Quillsh was caught watching this horrible scene as Jolniku's body expanded and his hears started to bleed globules of blood into the ship. His side started to bulge to an enormous size. Suddenly Quillsh remembered what was to happen next and tried to turn away, but found himself unable to. He couldn't watch, so he threw his hands up in front of his face, and became acutely aware that he was suffering the same fate. He saw his hands bulge and turn a reddish-purple. He looked at Jolniku out of pity just as he silently exploded, flinging blood and entrails onto Quillsh. Quillsh became more frightened as his hands grew, and his head was unbearably painful. He opened his mouth to scream, but with no air anywhere present, no sound was carried. He was mute. His head was profusely pounding now, and he became blind. That was probably just as well. He tried to breathe in air, but he had exhaled all there was. There was no more. He was choking, and his blood was boiling. He decided he would just sit back and see which overtook him first.

This is another of Avery's creation. If you would like to e-mail him concerning this, or his poem, his e-mail address is: darklord_for_god@hotmail.com