Thousandstar (#4 of the Cluster series) (8 page)

"They are making more correct guesses now," Swoon advised him worriedly. "Fifteen ships have been taken. Sixteen."

"I'm rolling on it!" Heem needled back, then picked up his thought. He had just found two overwhelming flaws in the error-count theory. He had himself tasted a run of several correct guesses in succession, so he should have known from the outset that wasn't it. And even had that not been the case, that system would not work. As soon as enough contestants caught on to it, no one would volunteer the wrong guesses. The competition would roll to a halt, as all waited for others to eliminate themselves. There
had
to be some way to have many successive correct guesses.

"Five more correct ones," Swoon jetted. "Too many are catching on; haven't you solved it yet? They'll roll out of ships!"

Heem suppressed an irate blast. "Two thirds of the ships remain." But he was worried. Too many other contestants, able to work on the problem with full information from the outset, were fathoming the pattern and gaining their ships. Twenty more ships might be taken suddenly.

Back to concepts: the identical ones did not repeat, but what about variants? Hard and Soft were physical properties; so was Dense. But the sequence was Hard-Soft-Joy-Dense. If Dense was right, why had another physical property, Brittle, been ruled wrong, while Joy had been accepted in its place? Followed by Tedium-Ascent-Brittle. And Brittle had been rejected before. How was it that an invalid concept had become valid?

The key could not be in the number of rejections or in the particular concepts. It had to be in the order of the concepts, so that any concept became wrong when out of place. Now what was that order?

"Seven more ships!" Swoon jetted despairingly.

Heem washed her out of his perception, along with the public spray's pronouncements. He was beginning to get it; all he needed was uninterrupted thought. First, he had to analyze and classify the concepts. Then he had to formulate a theory of progression. Then he should verify it by predicting to himself the nature of several forthcoming correct guesses. Finally he had to make his own guess—before the supply of ships was exhausted.

He worked it out, calling on the increasingly nervous Swoon for data on occasion. There were seven or eight categories of concept: physical Properties, such as Hard, Soft, Dense, Brittle, and Diffuse; Sentient Feelings, such as Joy, Tedium, Humor, Fear, and Courage; Special Motion such as Direction, Aslant, Plunge, Rotation, and Arrival; Taste Sensation, such as Sour, Sweet, Pungent, Savory, and Insipid; Fluid Matter, such as Rain, Sea, Moist, Dry (i.e., absence of fluid), and Liquid; Number, such as One, Two, Three, Four, and Five; Sapient Qualities, such as Wisdom, Stupidity, Sanity, and Craziness; and several stray concepts that could not yet be classified with assurance because there were too many examples of each. Concept categories tended to merge at the edges, as did tastes when the fluids bearing them mixed.

Now the order: the first two were Physical Properties, the third a Sentient Feeling, the fourth another Physical Property, the fifth another Feeling, the sixth a Direction, the Seventh another Physical Property. Did he have a pattern here? It was hard to tell.

Analyze it mathematically
, he thought.
Let the first class of concepts be A, the second B, the third C. Use exponents to indicate repeat concepts.

Heem paused. Had he really thought that? That was not the way his mind ordinarily worked! He knew of the symbol-conventions of Galactic notation—A, B, C—but did not
think
in them. This pressure was having a strange effect on him. Nevertheless, it was a good thought.

He made a mental list of the successful concepts, classifying each as a mathematical notation. Taste A, taste B, taste C, and so on, eliminating for the moment the actual concepts so that the pattern, unobscured by meaning, could emerge.
That's it exactly.

There he was, tasting to himself again, encouraging himself. Perhaps this atypical mannerism stemmed from the lingering disorientation of his failed transfer-hosting. He hoped it would not interfere with his performance.

Onward: Hard-Soft-Joy-Dense-Tedium became A-A-B-A-B. He did not bother with the exponents after all; A-A
1
-B-A
2
-B
1
seemed to be superfluous refinement, so far. He could taste the pattern quite well without it.

Now what about the next five concepts? Would they be a repeat of the initial sequence, or a variant, or a continuation of a developing sequence? No time to conjecture; he would have to translate the raw data directly into the format and see. The concepts were Ascent-Brittle-Humor-Direction-Sour. Categories C-A-B-C-D. No repeat of the first five-concept pattern.

Well, there was no reason the sequence should be in fives; that was just for his convenience in organizing. Consider them all together: AABABCABCD.

Suddenly a repeating subsequence leaped out at him: ABC-ABC. Preceded by AAB, followed by D. What sense could be made of that?

It was pointless to struggle with it when so much more data was available. He had Swoon jet him the next ten concepts, and translated them into taste categories with increasing proficiency. Diffuse-A, Fear-B Plunge-C, Sweet-D, Rain-E, Elastic-A, Courage-B, Rotation-C, Pungent-D, Sea-E. And there it was, beautifully, stupidly simple: a concept progression!

Reverifying, he worked it out. A-AB-ABC-ABCD-ABCDE-ABCDE. The next one the twenty-first concept had to be F—a new category. A Sapient Process, or a Number, or something else—anything but a repeat category.

"Give me the concept for Ship Twenty-one," he jetted.

"Nine," Swoon answered promptly.

Victory! The category of Number, new to the progression. "Now feed me the remaining ships, slowly," he jetted.

"Rare," she jetted back, and he translated that to A. "Caution." He rendered that B. As she continued, he hardly perceived the specific concepts, so readily did they become taste-designates. C-D-E-F-G, and then a new sequence in the progression: ABCDEFGH. And another: ABCD—

"Where's the next?" he needled irritably.

"That's it!" Swoon jetted. "Forty ships taken! Have you solved it?" Anxiety was beginning to blur her communication, intruding irrelevant tastes.

"Yes. The next one will be an E concept, followed by—"

"What?" Her jet was pure confusion.

Oops—he had squirted her with his notational symbols. "A concept relating to Fluid Matter, that has not been used before, like—"

"Liquid is correct," the public spray sprayed.

"You've got it!" Swoon jetted jubilantly.

"I just lost it," he responded. "I didn't make that formal guess; another HydrO did, and he got the ship. The others are catching on rapidly."

"Five is correct," the spray announced. "Stupidity is correct. Victory is correct."

"There went F, G, and H," Heem jetted in alarm. "We've got to grab our own ships before the entire next sequence goes!"

"Yes!" Swoon agreed. "Give me a concept!"

"It has to be a new category. Maybe an Abstract Relation, like Strength—"

"Virtue is correct," the public spray came.

"That too; that's category I," Heem jetted. "The next eight will be easy."

"I will settle for the next one," Swoon jetted.

"A Physical Property, but not one that's been used before."

"How about Light, the opposite of Heavy? Heavy has been used, but not Light."

"That should roll it," he agreed.

"If this is wrong—" She squirted with needlesome force into her niche-receptor. There was a pause.

"Light is correct," the public spray sprayed. "Swoon of Sweetswamp has won Ship Forty-six."

Swoon practically melted. "Thank you, Heem, thank you! I will repay you for this! Catch up to me at the target planet—"

But Heem had little faith in such gratitude. "Only one can win the competition," he reminded her.

"The competition is not yet over. Perhaps there will be occasion to cooperate again." She doused him with a jet of intensely erotic suggestion and rolled out of her niche. She was off to collect her key and her ship.

Heem took a moment to reorient. Swoon might not be the cleverest concepts-riddle manipulator, but she certainly had sex appeal.

He was now free to win his own ship. That should be no problem. The next concept should be B—

"Humility is correct," the public spray announced. "Arrival is correct."

They were going rapidly! Forty-eight ships of out sixty-six total. The next would be—

"Rich is correct. Czeep of Czealake has Ship Forty-nine."

He had better figure ahead several ships, so as to be ready when his chance came up. Right now he was guessing correctly, but losing out to others who were responding more quickly. He would try three ships ahead. Rich had been a D concept; E-F-G—he needed a G. G was— he paused, ransacking his memory—G was Intellectual Faculties, like Wisdom and Stupidity. Had these specific concepts been used? Probably. So he had to take something different like Eccentricity. That had an original feel. Eccentricity—his ticket to space!

"Stream is correct." There were now very few wrong guesses; only those who knew they had fathomed the pattern were expressing themselves. The ships were going swiftly. "Six is correct."

Now it was up to G—his turn. Heem started his jet—

And balked. His jet clogged, the fluid dribbling down his skin meaninglessly. What had happened? It wasn't like him to clog in the crisis!

It's a repeat
, he thought suddenly.
A void response!

"Sanity is correct," the public spray came. "Prosperity is correct."

A repeat! Quite possible, for he had hardly assimilated the concepts themselves. He had translated them to letter-tastes automatically, depending on Swoon of Sweetswamp to recall the specifics—and now she was gone. He could not trust his memory on
any
of the repeat concepts!

"Vice is correct. Knyfh is correct."

Two more ships gone—the fifty-fourth and fifty-fifth. Only eleven left—and though he had fathomed the pattern, his memory was suspect. He had perhaps two chances in three of choosing correctly on any single one—but he hardly wanted to stake his freedom on those odds. He wanted to be
certain
. What was he to do now?

"Firm is correct. Maat of Mainstream wins Ship Fifty-six."

The fifty-fifth concept had been Knyfh—evidently the new category J, Cluster Geography. Segment Knyfh had been at the heart of the Milky Way Galaxy defense, during the Second War of Energy. Probably the next J concept could be any of the other Galactic Segments—Qaval, Etamin, LoDo, Weew, even Thousandstar itself. But this was too obvious; a number of contestants would fathom it, and be waiting for J to roll around again, and it would be pure chance for him to get his answer in first. He could not jet his answer in one moment beforetime; an answer out of place was a wrong answer.

"Excitement is correct. Departure is correct. Spicy is correct."

Three more ships gone—and Heem could have taken any of them, had he dared risk a repetition. He still could not risk it! According to his understanding of the pattern, the sixty-sixth ship would represent a completely new concept. While the others were jetting over the second J concept, he should needle in with the K concept.

The problem was that K, sixty-six, was the last ship available to a HydrO host. If he lost that one, he lost everything.

"Exhilaration is incorrect. Seven is incorrect." Two bad guesses. What was required was an E concept, relating to Water, while these related to Emotion and Number—B and F. Other contestants were getting nervous, afraid they would lose out by failing even to try for the remaining ships in time. Well, good, the more fools who washed out, the fewer to interfere with his own guess at the end.

Heem was abruptly tempted to take his chance on this next ship. Had Ocean been used? Lake? Sea?

"Lake is correct," the public spray proclaimed. "Soop of Soulwet has won Ship Sixty."

Six ships to go! He could have won Ship Sixty if he had only jetted Lake. But supposing he had jetted Sea, and it turned out to be a repeat? In fact, he was almost sure now that Sea had been used, back in the first or second E. He had to stick to his decision: a completely new concept-category for Ship Sixty-six. That remained his last and best chance.

"Six is incorrect. Seven is correct."

Someone had forgotten and reused a number—as Heem might have done. The next guesser had quickly rectified the situation, and gotten the ship. The remaining contestants were under pressure, as Heem himself was; they were making stupid mistakes. But that was their problem; he had to be concerned with his own. What was a completely new concept-category?

"Eight is incorrect. Crazy is correct. Success is correct."

There went Ships Sixty-two and Sixty-three. Three ships left—and Heem's mind was blank. Where was his new category? He had to have it now!

"Justice is correct. Potency is incorrect."

Curses! Two ships left—and he could not force his stalled mind to come up with the category. Should he take his roll at the next-to-last, since no one had—

"Etamin is correct. Jool of Jeweluster has Ship Sixty-five."

Now! Now! Or forever lost! Yet he could not—

Idiot! It's Potence!

But Potence was a repeat; he had tasted it used!

No! Use it now!

"Novagleam is incorrect."

Potence. Now!

Confused, Heem yielded. Better to wash out on a bad guess than to wash out without even trying. But even as he jetted, he knew others were doing the same. All through the chamber, needles were being fired.

With despairing certainty he tasted the concluding public spray. A group of others had jetted before he had! One of them was sure to have the answer.

"Frustration is incorrect. Jubilation is incorrect. Spray is incorrect. Thousandstar is incorrect. Ten is incorrect. Sickness is incorrect. Sand is incorrect. Potence is correct. Heem of Highfalls has won the final ship. All others are disqualified."