Koutou waited until Hal and Jejliard were busy planning the new lab facility. He slipped behind a stack of boxes, put the minicaw to sleep, then teleported into the wreck secured to the dock. He wasn't low on energy but still loved to feel the power surging through him. He was able to use other energy sources but they were a puny substitute for the ship. His sense of well-being was short lived as he realized something wasn't right. Gengor's life signature was missing.

He didn't think it was possible for Gengor to leave the ship. It shouldn't have been, but he was gone. Widhbo ran a check of the ship's recent memory and activity log. Gengor had in fact accessed some of his files prior to them being locked two days ago. Specifically, he had been in the dimensional interface and projection programs. That was no surprise really considering his antics on the wreck earlier. Widhbo knew Gengor had learned to materialize on board the ship and stay in the corridors long enough to kidnap Greyla and be a general menace.

The holographic projection of Gengor would be limited to the power grid provided by the ship. It required a tremendous amount of energy to physically materialize enough to interact with the real world off the ship. Widhbo couldn't even survive for any length of time without running out of energy and dissipating. Gengor was a daglyr which were not as evolved as the vielyrs, the species Widhbo belonged to. Vielyrs were the most highly evolved energy beings in all of his dimension. It had been quite a learning curve for him, plus a stroke of luck on finding a host before he died on arrival in this dimension. Getting off the ship would require the ability to transform and metamorphosize quickly. It was beyond a daglyr's capabilities. Gengor's intelligence would do him no good if his body failed to adapt. If Gengor had ventured off the ship, odds were he wouldn't be alive very long.

"Stupid daglyr. I warned you," Widhbo thought.

He couldn't help but think Gengor had become so depressed he'd done it intentionally to kill himself. Death through existence. Ironic, but that's the way it worked. As long as he remained a program living on a computer grid, Gengor was essentially immortal. Try to step a foot in the real world and it's over. Of course, he could be regenerated from a memory file. But the daglyr had escaped. Gengor was gone. The time stamp indicated he was last registered aboard the ship this morning. Widhbo saw something else. The ship had adapted the dimensional interface processing program to include evolutionary development. That was bothersome.

He teleported back to the minicaw body just in time to hear Hal whistling for him.

"Where is that damn bird?" Hal asked. "I'm tempted to leave him here for the night."

"He'll show up," Jejliard said. "I wouldn't want him to try something foolish. He's getting too old to fly all the way back home."

"I can never go to back to my real home," Widbho thought. He had left to escape punishment and humiliation after violating the laws while fighting on Corrudi. "Gengor is the only link I have to my old life and now he's gone. I can't believe I actually miss that fool daglyr."

He woke Koutou and flew to where Hal and Jejliard were packing things up for the trip back.

"Sorry. Fell asleep," he said.

"You almost missed us," Hal said. "Fall asleep where we can find you next time."

Koutou hopped on one of the packs Hal was carrying. He probed the area telepathically. Nothing. Gengor could be blocking him he supposed.

"Damn daglyr is too smart for his own good," he decided. "Gengor's too egocentric to just step off the ship and die. He must have figured out a way to survive."

"See anything unusual?" Koutou asked aloud.

"Yeah. I see a talking bird trying to get a free ride to the boat," Hal said. "And the really strange thing is, he thinks I'll carry him."

Jejliard laughed. "We didn't notice anything out of the ordinary, Koutou."

"Perhaps it noticed you," Koutou thought and flew to the dock.

* * *

The previous day Gengor assessed his situation. Widhbo was unhappy with him but at least he had escaped the boredom. The water was being pumped out of the ship and upper levels were already dry as the water poured out the hole in the hull when the wreck was hoisted up by the wenches. He was going to miss swimming about freely. He started climbing a flight of stairs to the damaged area so he could look out on this new world. The hole in the hull had provided him with a viewing window under the ocean. Now it would be his window for the surface, and he was curious to see what this new world looked like.

To his surprise, his upper body flickered and disintegrated as he climbed out of the flooded area. Only his lower body with its gangly feet and tail remained. He went back down the stairs and his upper body materialized.

"How strange!" he pondered. "Can the ship not manifest my program without the water?"

Maybe an ionized medium was needed to stabilize his form in this dimension.

He melded back into the hull to examine the files for a clue, but Widhbo had encrypted them.

"Damn you Widhbo!"

He searched his memory. His favorite memories were of Greyla. What a treat she'd been. After melding her into the hull it allowed him to inspect all of her data files. Not only could he access her personal memories and emotions, but all of her education and learning were at his disposal. Perhaps there was something he could find there to help him in this new world. It was Greyla's world after all.

"Evolution looks promising. Here's something on life starting out in the water and progressing to land through various stages. Perhaps I can evolve too, I'll have to hurry before all the water's pumped out."

Widhbo had told him he couldn't exist as an entity in this world because he wasn't highly evolved enough to maintain a form. Maybe he should try to exist in the water as collection of molecules instead. He began experimenting. Over the next few hours, he'd advanced to a worm like stage and could swim about. Encouraged, Gengor ramped up his efforts and then had a breakthrough. He could install his program in a novel way. His data string could act as a DNA string. That did the trick and he accelerated; rapidly changing life forms up through the phyla in Greyla's memory tree. The last few transformations were astounding, and he found the ship's program was assisting him automatically once it figured out what he was trying to do. He was able to leave the water now and scamper about the upper levels.

By the next morning Gengor had arrived in his adapted daglyr form, though his body had tripled in size. He had no idea why that had happened, but no matter. Bigger was better. It was still dark with only the hint of dawn on the horizon. He stood at the edge of the opening in the hull. The dock was right below his feet, his marvelous daglyr feet. They were covered with tough scales and had long toes which ended in short, hooked claws. He had a strong thorax, and a muscular lower body supported a long tail. His arms were so long as to be slightly out of proportion. It gave him a good reach and his hands were dexterous with an opposable thumb. His head had close set ears, bulging eyes and a short snout with strong teeth. The incisors were razor sharp. Those plus two rows of molars for mastication allowed him to eat just about anything.

He heard the distant rumble of a heavy engine and looking out to sea he saw a cargo barge on the horizon heading his way.

"It's now or never," he told himself. He put one foot forward over the edge past the ship's power grid. It felt funny, suddenly heavy. But it was stable. He held it there getting used to the sensation.

"Gravity. That's what I'm feeling."

He eased the rest of his leg out and stepped on the dock. It moved under his weight and shifted a little.

"I'm really heavy," he thought.

He put the other foot forward. The dock swayed more and went a lot lower in the water, but it held. Gengor walked with slow deliberate steps to the shore. His footing was much more secure on the sandy beach, but his weight made deep depressions that filled with water from the surf. He waded a little way into the water's edge to cover his tracks, then turned and used his tail to brush away the ones he'd left. He continued walking to the cover of the jungle beyond.

"Now to go exploring!"

His excitement was intoxicating. The island was the most beautiful thing imaginable. He'd seen Greyla's memory files, but they didn't compare to the real thing. Walking through the lush foliage and trees he headed deeper into the thicker vegetation. He didn't want to chance being seen by the humans who were likely to begin working on the wreck.

He rounded the island to an area far from the dock and experimented with his diet. He didn't know what a daglyr was supposed to eat in this world. They could eat just about anything in his old dimension. He found the leaves of several trees to be tasty and ate a few crustaceans. Everything seemed to digest well, so he ate a few bugs and salamanders. They seemed to stay down as well. He sampled some berries and native fruits.

"It's wonderful here. I'm in paradise!"

Gengor tried to catch a couple of small animals, rabbits according to Greyla's memory file. They looked tasty, but he couldn't sneak up on them due to his size. The ground shook under his feet and it was impossible to move without giving his position away. He would have to learn to bait some traps.

He had moved to the far side of the island and after filling his belly was lulled to sleep by the lapping of the waves. He must have napped for several hours as it was quite dark when he was awakened by talk and laughter coming from the beach below. To his surprise he could understand their language. It was the same language Greyla had spoken, and Gengor had learned it from her memory files.

He got up and walked as softly as he could toward the beach staying within the thick vegetation. He saw two young humans lying together on the beach in a romantic embrace, kissing and caressing one another. He took a few cautious steps closer to peer through the cover of leaves and watch. He was no sooner in position, than they sensed his presence and ran away.

"Just like rabbits." he thought.