Fear that man

stood. He felt as if he was about to throw up, but he fought the urge. “I don’t know! I just lost control of my mind, my body, everything! Someone told me to set a course for the capital.”
        “Hope?”
        “Yes. It told me to set a course for Hope and to hyperspace. Argument was impossible.”
        Hurkos rubbed a sore spot on his arm, bruised because he had not gotten it into the flexoplast in time. “Did you recognize the voice?”
        “It wasn’t exactly a voice. It was more like… well…”
        There was a sudden pounding noise.
        They whirled in the direction of the sound and saw a suited figure against the viewplate, rapping his fist against the glass. He had his suit phone turned up to maximum volume and was shouting something. They moved to the window. The man outside was huge-six feet six if an inch, two hundred and sixty pounds if an ounce. “Open up and let me in!” he was shouting. “Let me in before I tear this tub apart plate for plate!”
        He looked as if he just might be able to carry out that threat.
        “He must be from the other ship,” Hurkos said, moving to open the outer doors into the Scavenger that served as a pressure chamber.
        The figure moved away from the viewplate toward the port. They waited nervously until the chamber closed, equalized with cabin pressure, and the door in the floor was opened.
        If the stranger from the other ship had been imposing seen through the viewplate, he was overwhelming seen at first hand, inside the cabin, his head towering dangerously close to the ceiling. He pulled back his helmet, spewing a stream of curses, his eyes two fiery droplets within the flushed fury of his face. His blond hair was a wild disarray, uncombed and completely uncombable. “What the hell are you, some kinda moron? Morons have been wiped out of the culture! Haven’t you been told? You’re a one-of-a-kind, and I have to meet up with you in all this emptiness where-by all rights-we should never even be able to imagine each other’s existence!”
        “I guess you’re angry about the collision,” Sam began, “and-”
        The big man allowed his mouth to drop to his ankles and bounce back to a more respectable level just below the chin. “You guess I’m angry about the collision! You guess I” He turned to Hurkos. “He guesses I’m angry about the collision,” he repeated as if the stupidity of the remark was the most glaring understatement ever pronounced and had to be shared and discussed to be believed.
        “I-” Sam began once more.
        “Of course I’m angry about the collision! Damn furious is what I am! You hyperspaced without checking to see if there was another ship in hyperspace within the danger limit. Your field locked in mine and jolted us out into Real Space. What would have happened if our ships had struck instead of just our fields?”
        “That’s rather unlikely,” Hurkos said. “After all, the fields are five miles in diameter, but the ships are far, far smaller than that. The odds against our ships striking in so vast a galaxy-”
        “A moron spewing logic!” the big stranger shouted. “A real, honest moron shouting scientific gobbleygook at me like it really meant something to him! This is amazing.” He slapped one hammy hand against his forehead in a snow of amazement.
        “If you’ll just listen a moment…” Sam sighed, seeing the big man’s lips open for comment even before he had said three words.
        “Listen? I’m all ears. I’m just all ears for your excuse! Some excuse that could possibly explain your imbecilic reactions, and-”
        “Wait a minute!” Hurkos shouted gleefully. “I know you!”
        The stranger stopped talking abruptly.
        “Mikos. You’re Mikos, the poet. Gnossos Mikos!”
        The rage was swept away in the wash of a wide grin, and the grin became a flush of embarrassment. The huge fist dropped away from the forehead and became a hand again-a hand that was abruptly stuck out to Hurkos as a sign of friendliness. “And I haven’t had the pleasure,” the giant said politely.
        Hurkos took the hand, shook it vigorously.
        For one short moment, Sam felt as if he were going to collapse. Fear of the colossus had been the only thing holding him up, a fear whose vibrant force coursed through his quivering legs and straightened him with its current. Now, the fear gone, he wanted nothing so much as to fold up his legs, tuck