Thousandstar (#4 of the Cluster series) (7 page)

They tried. But progress up the steep slope was agonizingly slow. The thing rolled up behind them—no, even more horrible, it did not roll, its locomotion was part of its alien quality. It did not jet, it—it slithered. Heem had never imagined such a means of transport, but the faint, awful taste of this thing's presence evoked memories buried in his evolution. This creature—it had been the implacable foe of Heem's kind for an interminable time!

"Cease your struggle, HydrO prey," the jet of the alien came. Even its communication was oddly sinister. There was a cold metallic flavor. The alien did not use jets for communication; Heem knew this too. Therefore this command was impossible—yet it had come.

Heem ignored it, naturally. He jetted so hard he practically flatfloated up the slope. Hoom was right beside him. Terror gave them strength.

"Cease, lest I destroy you," the alien jetted.

Hoom had enough attention left to loft a hurried spray at Heem. "How can it jet? It
has
no jets!"

"With my machine, HydrO prey!" the alien jetted. "Last warning: desist or die."

But Heem knew with the certainty of thousands of generations of his kind—it was amazing how self-realization came at a moment like this!—that there was no way to trust this alien. "Divide!" he sprayed, warned by that instinct. He jetted at right angles to his former course and rolled to the side, separating from Hoom.

Even as he did so, there was an explosive spray from Hoom. "Oh, it burns!" Then nothing—and Heem knew his friend was dead.

Heem dodged again, changing his angle of escape with his strongest jet. Then the alien's machine-jet grazed him, just touching a small patch of his skin.

"Oh, it burns!" Heem sprayed and collapsed. It
did
burn, but his exclamation was more cunning than pain, a ploy of desperation. Let the alien assume he was dead; perhaps the killing shot would be withheld. It was his only chance.

He felt the slight vibration of the ground as the alien approached. It came to Heem first, its body emitting its faint but awful taste. It was difficult to fathom the nature of this dread creature, but as it came near the separate small indications of its mechanism evoked the instinctive memories in Heem's mind. The thing was long and slender, an undulating rope of flesh tapering into a rough point at either extreme. There was armor on it, mail formed from bone: the hardened tissue employed by some animals to stiffen and shield their anatomies. It moved by shoving its smooth, hard torso against irregularities in the ground, and sliding its dry scales past these irregularities. It was, Heem realized, a bit like rolling; instead of employing sensible jets of water to push its body around and forward, it employed natural objects. But it remained a horrifyingly alien mode of propulsion.

The thing slithered up to Heem, who dared not squirt even the tiniest jet. He knew, again by instinct, that he would remain alive only if this monster thought him already dead. He had to stay dead to stay alive.

The thing lurked beside him, a ghastly alien presence. Heem no longer had volition; even his hydrogen absorption was suspended. The monster unfolded three gross limbs, their nature shaped in Heem's mind by sound, ambient taste, and instinct memory. Pincers extended, three sturdy metallic claws, grasping Heem's vulnerable body, hauling one section of it into the air. Yet Heem did not react.

For a moment the monster held him there, pincers cutting cruelly into Heem's tender flesh. The taste-ambience was much stronger now, evoking a vivid picture of this creature's nature. The bone-plates were intricately overlapped and interlocked so as to be highly flexible and invulnerable to any needlejet. The appendages were sensitive to vibration in much the fashion Heem's own skin was, so the thing could—could—here another concept struggled and finally burst out: a discreet new sense. The thing could
hear
. Hearing was more than feeling, operating at a greater distance. The creature could perceive its environment by hearing rather than tasting; its scales were impervious to sapient communication—no, that was confusing.

The thing had no jets, yet it had jetted. Instead it had a machine, which Heem now realized was a construct of inanimate substance that squirted intelligible jets. Thus the monster could talk despite its lack of natural means. By putting acid in that machine, it could burn and kill. Heem's skin still hurt fiercely from that glancing jet.

The monster opened its pincers, letting Heem drop. It slithered across to locate Hoom. Vibration commenced, and a terrible taste drifted across. The awful exudate of fresh wounds in HydrO flesh.

The thing was cutting up Hoom's body with its pincers! Hoom's natural juices were squirting into the air, spreading the horrible taste of death. By vibration and taste, Heem was treated to the most terrible experience of his career. The monster, not satisfied with killing his friend, was now destroying the body.

The utter alienness of this action made Heem's jet apertures lose control, and some of his reserve water leaked out. Still he could do nothing, not even move.

Efficiently, the monster reduced Hoom's body to juicy pieces. Then the most sickening thing of all occurred. The thing extruded its own internal membrane and spread it over Hoom's pieces. Heem tasted the vile acids; their vapors burned his skin anew. A poison jet was bad enough, but this complete inundation was appalling. What possible purpose could there be in it? Nothing in his experience accounted for anything like this. His instinct-memory offered no clue; whatever it was was too horrible even to comprehend.

Heem's discomfort was growing. He had to breathe or he would perish anyway. Cautiously he took in air, circulating the molecules of it through his system. Energy was harvested, and water flowed, restoring his power. But what good did this do him? The alien could shoot him down again with that mechanical jet. Heem stayed still.

The ghastly process of demolition continued. Heem found himself becoming inured to it; it was impossible to maintain a condition of total horror indefinitely. Hoom was dead; he had accepted that, and with the flow of energy through his system he was better able to tolerate it. The experience and memory were awful and would remain so, but Heem could at least function. He had, after all, tasted the deaths of his companions many times before, from many different causes.

Suddenly he realized that the alien was temporarily restricted. How could it move rapidly, while its insides were outside? Perhaps it could still use its weapon, but it could not pursue a rolling object.

To wait here was to risk getting cut up and destroyed in the manner Hoom had been. There was really no choice. The alien had thought Heem dead, since it lacked proper taste; when Heem remained limp, he had been set aside while the other victim was verified. The alien was not omniscient; it had to check things physically. So Heem had fooled it—and now might escape it.

Heem blasted out his jets, initiating a violent roll down the slope. If the acid did not strike him in the first moment, he should escape it entirely. And—it did not strike. He had fooled the enemy and won his freedom.

Now he was rolling down the steep incline, much faster than was comfortable or safe, yet he dared not brake. Better the risk of getting smashed against a rock, than of waiting for an acid bath.

But as he became assured of escape, his concern about his high-velocity roll grew. He had to slow, but his momentum was such that his jets seemed to have no effect.

Still the slope catapulted him down. Heem bounced, his skin abrading. A welter of tastes impinged on his awareness: animals, plants, minerals, not-quite familiar. The tastes of this strange valley, only a little different from Highfalls, yet remarkable because it was the first foreign valley he had known. A region he could live in, if he could only enter it safely.

He tried again, without effect. The slope was simply too steep! Now he tasted the spume of broken water. There was a river here, rocky, with falls, like that in his own valley; he would smash into it and die, for water could not sufficiently cushion his present plunge.

Heem jetted with all his strength to one side. His plummet veered, and he rolled on a slant down the mountain. Now at last he could gain a little purchase. He veered further, beginning to catch the ground; in a moment he would be rolling back uphill, and gravity would help stay his motion. Why hadn't he thought of this before? He slowed, curved—

And dropped off another ledge, one that ran parallel to his original line of descent. He jetted wildly in all directions, accomplishing nothing, and splashed into deep water.

Dizzy, exhausted, he struggled to the surface—and could not maintain the elevation. Slowly he sank down into the depths, losing all control. There was hydrogen here, plenty of it, but he lacked the energy to process it properly at this depth. He was in danger of drowning.

Then something bumped him. Dazedly he tasted its ambiance—and discovered the stigma of another of his kind. But Hoom was the one who remained, and Hoom was dead!

The strange HydrO shoved him out of the water. Heem cooperated feebly. There was something very strange about this person. It was a stranger, certainly, probably a HydrO of this valley. But also—

As they emerged from the water, Heem realized what it was. His rescuer was female—the first Heem had ever encountered. Suddenly a new universe had opened to him.

 

 

 

Chapter 2:

Triple Disaster

 

 

"Wake, Heem," the female jetted peremptorily.

Heem snapped alert. It was not the female of his memory, but Swoon of Sweetswamp of nowtime. "You qualified?" he jetted anxiously.

"I did. You squirted truth. When I invoked your name, they removed me from forfeit and verified me instantly."

"You took long enough to return," Heem jetted irritably.

"How would you know? You were unconscious."

"Pain is incorrect," the public spray sprayed. "Zuum of Zestcloud is out. Plan is incorrect. Baas of Basewater is through."

"Give me that data," he sprayed.

"Three is incorrect," the public spray announced.

"Very well," Swoon agreed. "Here is the list of correct entries. Hard, Soft, Joy, Dense, Tedium, Ascent, Brittle, Humor, Direction, Sour."

"Diffuse is correct," the public spray announced. "Diis of Delightfog possesses Ship Eleven." There was a spray of sheer jubilation nearby as Diis vented his joy.

Heem considered the elements of the puzzle, at last prepared with complete information—but was distracted by another announced wrong guess. It was hard to concentrate on the growing list while keeping up with all the wrong guesses, yet he knew he could not afford to ignore those errors. "Swoon, we have reconciled our difference of the moment," he jetted. "But we both have lost time. Suppose we cooperate further?"

"This is sensible," she agreed. "For this stage of the competition only."

"Agreed. We work together to fathom the key, then derive two answers. Once we have our ships, our deal is over."

"Agreed," she jetted. "Are you apt at puzzles?"

"I am. But I need a ready recall mechanism for the rejects."

"I have an excellent memory. That makes me an apt space pilot, but a poor riddler. You cogitate; I will recall."

Heem rolled into it. Obviously there was a pattern of concepts, no two of which repeated. Hard, followed by Soft—two extremes of physical properties. Then a shift to a new variety of concept, Joy, followed by—Dense? Why not Sadness, or Grief, or Misery? If one pair of extremes was correct, why not another?

Maybe no one had thought to guess the opposite of Joy, so a new concept had been introduced instead. He could check that now. "Swoon, what were the error-guesses for Ship Four?" He hoped she was correct about her excellent memory.

"Sorrow, Grief, Pleasure," she jetted immediately.

She did indeed have a good memory. It probably did help her in piloting, for there were many details of fuel economy, energy absorption, and trajectory that were greatly facilitated by ready recall. Heem's own piloting was excellent, but he depended on experience and intelligent exploitation of momentary realities, rather than on his merely ordinary memory. He could do with less memory yet, since the illegal juvenile recollections were a constant liability for him.

But he could not afford the liability of that distraction now. His theory had just been disproven. Either Sorrow or Grief should have sufficed, but both had been rejected.

Could it be a number sequence, with concept irrelevant? Every fourth guess was accepted as correct, after three rejections? That would neatly eliminate three quarters of the contestants, guaranteeing that a sufficient number would remain to fill the available ships. A very simple formula—but there was no requirement of complexity here. Any entity who caught on could win his ship, regardless.

"What were the errors for Ship Three?" he jetted.

"Fear is correct for Ship Twelve," the public spray announced. Annoyed, Heem blotted out the rest; he needed to fathom the pattern of the early answers, then verify it with the subsequent ones that Swoon would retain for him.

"Fuzzy, Brittle, Bold," Swoon replied. Three errors. Good. He already knew there had been three for Ship Four. "What errors for Ship Five?"

"Diffuse, Hard, Soft."

Three more! Hard and Soft had been specific repeats, automatically void. But they counted as errors, setting up the next.

"Errors for Ship Six?"

"Joy, Hard, Soft, Thick."

Four errors. There went that theory. Unless it were progressive, the number growing as the game continued. "How many for Ship Two?"

"None," she jetted. "The first two guesses were correct."

So there had been zero errors, zero errors, three, three, three, four—not hopeful. "Errors for Ship Seven?"

"Think, Bold, Descent, Hard, Soft, Joy, Grief."

She had certainly been paying attention! Six errors, including three repeats of prior winners. The stupid guessers kept trying those repeats, not catching on. But soon the stupid ones would be eliminated, and the repeats would stop. Except that
any
guess before the assigned number would be wrong, so it made no difference. But how did
six
errors fit the pattern? This was not an even progression. Was it that the wrong guesses had to match or outnumber the prior totals? Then why had six guesses occurred, when four or five should have sufficed? Also, at that rate, all the contestants would be eliminated before all the ships were taken. And—