Thousandstar (#4 of the Cluster series) (24 page)

"This—is the other facet of my secret," Heem jetted reluctantly. "My metamorphosis turned out to be imperfect. At first I remembered nothing; then the horrors of the Squam seeped through, and I knew I had to—to master the Squam. I began to remember how. To needle into the limb-grooves with heat, causing the limbs to retreat, preventing the creature from attacking. Rolling it off a height so it would be crushed in the fall. There was varied terrain in the Erb arena, simulating a natural environment. I used it well. Thus I did what hardly any other HydrO could do: I defeated the Squam in combat. Only when I saw it defeated, and the Erbs were drawing it half-drowned out of the water, did I realize that it was not skill and tactics so much as memory that had done it. That I was not truly adult. Were this known, I would be banished from my society until my complete metamorphosis occurred."

'Illegal memories!' Jessica exclaimed. 'Our kind thrives on memory! I remember my childhood—'

"You are not a HydrO."

'So you became a hero and qualified for the competition,' Jessica said. 'That much I can see. And you did it by cheating, according to your culture's definition, because you aren't supposed to remember. But since you still do remember, you should still be able to handle a Squam, shouldn't you?'

"No. When the truth became known about my treason, more memories came, until I remembered it all. And with full memory of my juvenile state came—"

'Yes?' she prompted eagerly.

"Awareness of mortality."

'You mean adult HydrOs really don't know they're going to die? That doesn't make sense! Swoon of Sweetswamp, just now, mentioned suiciding—'

"They know it objectively, not subjectively. It lacks personal force. We do not fear death, or consider it among our alternatives. Therefore Swoon remarked on this as a misjudgment of mine, attempting a tactic so risky as to be suicidal; she did not really contemplate death as a termination.
I
did—but I am not, am no longer, an adult; I am deficient."

'Heem, this is ridiculous! Every creature has to die sometime, and—'

"Awareness of death as an immediacy does not come until the senile metamorphosis, when the concerns of a lifetime are put aside. Then the events of the adult stage are forgotten, and the entity is equipped to contemplate termination."

'That's amazing! No concern about death, no awareness of youth or age! Subjectively. Like human beings always thinking the lightning will strike someone else, not themselves. You mentioned something about that before, but I didn't think it was literal!'

"When my adult metamorphosis became flawed, my awareness of demise returned.
I knew I could die.
My power departed, because I became a coward."

She was silent awhile. The ship decelerated, keeping its place in the column. Then she said, 'Heem, I can't accept that. The way you handled that concepts contest, and the first part of the spaceship race, and the Holestar navigation—you've got good nerve."

"These are all natural HydrO facilities. Fighting Squams is not."

'Still, you could rise to the challenge, as you have in other cases.'

"No. I tried to needle with the accuracy required, once, on a mock-up of a Squam. I could not do it. My needles lacked sufficient accuracy. My fear ruined my aim."

'That's not so!' she cried. 'You can't fear the Squam more than you fear the Hole. Fear didn't stop you when you were juvenile. I've been sharing your nerves, your mind. I know you are no coward!'

"I tested my needlejets again before I entered the competition. They remained inaccurate. My fear—"

'You knew you couldn't navigate the Hole, too!' she said. 'But when the time came, you threaded the needle perfectly!'

"Only because I borrowed your sight and your confidence. Your reflexes. No HydrO could have done it without those assets."

'And no HydrO can overcome a Squam!' she exclaimed. 'But with sight you could do that too, Heem. I didn't have confidence; I merely urged you on, while my own terror nearly wiped me out, and you had to revive me after the danger was over. You were the strong one, Heem, not me! I just told you you could do it, and you were fool enough to believe me, and then you
could
do it. Don't you see—it isn't cowardice that stops you, it's lack of perception! You were lucky in your prior encounters, but you were wounded too, and though your skin healed, your needlejets suffered loss of accuracy. You were burned twice, Heem! There must be scar tissue interfering with your aim, or with your perception, so that you aren't aiming where you think you are. Your skin just doesn't function as well as it did before you were hurt. Once you learned more, you knew you could not depend on luck, and your jets weren't fine-tuned, so you became afraid. Your fear was a natural response to your incapacity, not the other way around. With sight, you could do it, applying your knowledge of tactics, just as you did threading the needle of the Star-Hole. And you
have
sight now, Heem! For as long as I am with you. You can beat your Squam! I'm sure of that!'

"And you expect me to be fool enough to believe you, again?"

'Yes! Because this is not something new, like skirting a black hole. You've handled Squams before.'

Amazed, Heem reflected. "This is possible. I
am
aware of mortality, but I
did
navigate the Hole—with your help. Why should I not navigate a Squam—with your help? It just may be—" He paused. "How is it that your kind remembers its juvenile state?
All
your metamorphoses can't be flawed!"

'We have no metamorphosis,' she said, surprised. 'Didn't I make that clear before?'

"But how do you know when you're adult?"

"By your age! When we achieve the required number of years of life, we are by definition adult. There is no break of continuity, no loss of memory."

"By your age! This is incredible."

'Sometimes it seems so,' she agreed wryly. 'Actually, there are also some physiological changes that signal maturity, but age is the legal criterion.'

"But then you all remember the horrors of your juvenile state! All your siblings dying—"

'There are no horrors, Heem. Our parents take care of us, or some other responsible party. No human child is left to fend for himself, and few of us die in childhood. In our case, our parents died before we were grown, and the family retainer, Flowers, took over and saw to our security. It is like this in every Solarian family.'

"That cannot be so! In a few generations you would overrun your habitat. There has to be a natural control of numbers, so that a given species neither overpopulates nor dies out. Every suitable location must be seeded, but there must be no reseeding of populated regions."

'I can see the logic of your system, Heem,' she said. 'But it is a cruel one. We produce only one or two offspring at a time, and make sure they survive. The end result is the same—and we suffer no traumas requiring the oblivion of metamorphosis. For you, remembering—Heem, it's terrible! You really
do
have horrors to forget! No wonder you have traumas. I would, too, if I'd been alone with two hundred sisters, with no parents, in a valley filled with deadly menaces, and watched my sisters die, all but me, knowing that only luck accounted for my survival.'

"Your rationale and mode of life have their appeal," Heem jetted. "I believe I would prefer to propagate your way, rather than the HydrO way."

'Now don't start jetting treason,' she said, touched. Then she shifted the topic. 'One thing still bothers me. If you were the only survivor of your valley, and in any event metamorphosis wiped out the memory—how did anyone know you had refused to reseed the valley of Morningmist?'

"That bothered me also," Heem admitted. "It fostered my illegal exploration of my own buried memories. The valley of Morningmist was empty, but that was no necessary indication of the crime, for all HydrOs could have been killed before a male came across to assist the re-seeding. It had to be someone who had been there, and knew me personally, who knew that male and female had occupied the valley together, and left it empty."

'Meen of Morningmist!' Jessica exclaimed. 'She was not killed. She crossed to Highfalls, didn't she? She knew, and she could have—'

"She would have had to incriminate herself, for she too left Morningmist without reseeding. Even though she wanted to, her failure would have made her suspect."

'Yes, I have encountered that aspect of HydrO logic before.'

"I do not believe she would have exposed me, even had she not lost her memory through metamorphosis. I am in fact sure she did not, for when they quested for the truth of this matter, they located her, and she did not remember."

'But there was no other person!'

"There was one."

She was amazed. 'You don't mean—?'

"Slitherfear."

'The Squam! But—'

"When I became known for my success against a Squam, Slitherfear became aware of my identity. He knew the geography of that region; after all, he had surveyed it. The name Highfalls sufficed. He thought he had killed me in the valley, when I dropped off the machine-floater. Now he knew I had survived. He suffered internal illness because of the needling I had done to his stomach; though his kind used their other machines to restore him somewhat, he suffered both physical pain and the humiliation of being driven from his post by a HydrO. He was as angry with me as I was with him. He communicated with my people, betraying me. They had to verify or refute the charge—and it was true."

'So Slitherfear is twice your nemesis! He slew your love, then turned you from hero to criminal. You really have a score to settle with him!'

"And he with me. I understand he still manifests the faint odor of punctured membrane, which causes him to be held in ill repute among his kind and prevents him from mating."

'Good for you!' she exclaimed, clapping mental hands. Heem realized that her digits were not really Squamlike; they were soft-shelled rather than hard, and possessed five extremities rather than three.

"Slitherfear has motive to thrust for fame," Heem continued. "His work was undone by my victory in the arena, so he too is a failure. I believe he has entered this competition. He is an adventurer, with a liking for infiltrating distant regions and a dissatisfaction for remaining with his own kind. This accounted for his original mission to Morningmist."

'Where he blithely ate the young HydrOs!'

"It is the Squam nature. So I suspect he will be among the hosts on Eccentric, vindicating himself and preying on the helpless. I hope he is; in this fashion we may meet again."

'But if you were afraid to battle a Squam—'

"I am afraid. But it is necessary to make the attempt, to finish the business I started in Morningmist. Slitherfear must be killed, and I wish to be the one to kill him. Somehow."

'And you call yourself a coward!' she breathed in wonder.

Her attitude was rolling better with him. Heem realized that it was merely the result of her alien culture, but still it had its merits. Perhaps he should have been conceived an alien.

Heem decelerated jerkily, managing to lose another place in the column. There were Squam ships near him; he was sure they had satisfaction in perceiving his difficult descent. When he oriented for the planetary set-down, he fouled it up some more. When the ship finally settled to the landing site, it was twenty-third.

'That's playing it comfortably close,' Jessica said. 'Let's go get our tractor, and hope we don't lose the race by two places.'

He was about to oblige, as the acceleration bath drained—for, of course, he had had to use it for the final push—when one more communication came from the space net. "Do not hurry, Heem of Highfalls," the cynical taste translation sprayed. "I thought you might enter this competition, but doubted you would make it this far. I think you will not get far beyond this point, weak as you are. Do not die yet; allow me the opportunity to complete unfinished business."

'Slitherfear!' Jessica exclaimed. 'You were right!'

Heem, abruptly faced with the conflict he had half sought, was unable to respond to his nemesis.

"Do you dissolve in your ship, stupid HydrO?" the Squam demanded with sardonic flavor. "Do not fade out completely until I land; I mean to destroy you with my own pincers."

Jessica, finding Heem unable to answer, took over his communication system and responded for him. "Thank you for the good news, slayer of juveniles," she sprayed. "It will be my pleasure to destroy more than your stomach, this time, monster."

'What are you rolling?' Heem protested inside. 'I can't—'

"I'm psyching him out," she replied. "Making him uncertain, so he'll be nervous, make mistakes. It's good policy."

"Wait for me at the landing site, and we shall discover what shall be destroyed," Slitherfear replied.

"Oops," Jessica said privately to Heem. "I don't think it worked. He's either not scared, or he's a good bluffer." Then, into the net, she sprayed, "Why should I delay my mission for the likes of you, Squam? Catch me if you can."

"I shall, coward."

Heem suffered a surge of foul-tasting shame. Here, before all the contestants remaining in local space, he had been challenged and branded a coward. 'We must wait for his ship!' he needled.

"Don't be ridiculous," Jessica said. "Obviously the Squam has some reason for his certainty for wanting the showdown here. Otherwise he wouldn't have tipped his hand by broadcasting on the net. Maybe he has an acid-gun in his ship, or maybe he wants it where there will be several more Squams to help him out. We have to avoid him, or meet him in neutral territory, where we have an even chance. Let's get out of here, Heem."

She was rolling along most logically. Of course the Squam would not fight fairly, if he had any means to cheat.

Benumbed by the rapid roll of events, Heem moved out.

 

 

 

Chapter 6:

Planet Eccentric

 

 

The surface of the planet was bright, with white washes of vapor against a blue welkin, a line of dark green at the horizon.